The Council on Foreign Relations has added a new member — IU President Michael McRobbie.
Founded in 1921, the Council on Foreign Relations is an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank and publisher specializing in American foreign policy and international affairs.
With more than 4,900 members, the council’s roster features top government officials, including several former U.S. secretaries of state, as well as renowned scholars, business executives, acclaimed journalists, prominent lawyers and distinguished professionals from the nonprofit sector, according to an IU press release.
“I am deeply honored to join such a highly respected and influential institution, whose members for decades have made major contributions to American foreign policy and the engagement more generally of the United States globally,” McRobbie said in a press release. “I am also pleased to serve on the council with several prominent scholars, global statesmen and accomplished alumni of Indiana University.”
This is the second prestigious international recognition for IU and McRobbie in the past month.
In June, McRobbie accepted the prestigious Bicentenary Medal of the University of Warsaw, awarded in recognition of the 40 years of active partnership between IU and one of Poland’s top institutions of higher education, according to a press release.
McRobbie will join several notable Hoosier alumni on the council, including former United States’ Sen. Evan Bayh, former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and former U.S. Rep. Lee Hamilton.
Hamilton, senior advisor to the Center on Representative Government at IU, is one of several current members of the council who are affiliated with IU’s School of Global and International Studies.
Other IU-affiliated members of the council include Fred Cate, IU vice president for research and distinguished professor and C. Ben Dutton Professor of Law at the IU Maurer School of Law; and Scott Shackelford, assistant professor of business law and ethics at the IU Kelley School of Business.
Cate and Shackelford both serve as senior fellows at IU’s Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research. McRobbie’s election brings the number of IU faculty serving on the council to seven, according to a press release.
The Council on Foreign Relations regularly convenes meetings at its headquarters in New York and in Washington, D.C., and other cities, where senior government officials, members of Congress, global leaders and prominent thinkers come together with council members to discuss and debate important international issues, according to a press release.
McRobbie’s invitation to join the council comes after it was announced earlier this year he will receive the 2016 International Citizen of the Year Award, which recognizes those who have made outstanding contributions to the globalization of Indiana, according to a press release.
Leo Smith
