About
Toward a Flourishing Human Community
Our faculty, students and alumni are addressing the world’s greatest challenges with a focus on human dignity.
Founded in 2014, the Donald R. Keough School of Global Affairs is a vibrant community committed to serving human dignity through research and scholarship, teaching and learning, and policies and practices designed to advance the development of the whole person and of each person in their specific socio-cultural context.
Through our commitment to integral human development, we seek solutions in ways that promote the common good and prioritize the needs of the most vulnerable and marginalized. Our commitment to advancing human dignity requires that we meet fundamental demands with respect to how policies, practices and processes of development, poverty-alleviation, sustainability, peacebuilding and governance are designed, implemented and evaluated. As a policy school that emphasizes integral human development, we seek solutions to today’s challenges by working with policymakers and influencers throughout the world and through our presence in our Washington D.C. Office.
Our faculty and students conduct rigorous research that addresses some of the world’s most pressing, and complex challenges, with an emphasis on sustainability and environmental justice; poverty, inequality and marginalization; democracy, governance, institutions and rights and systems and structures of violence and peace. By building long-term partnerships within the academy, business, government and civil society, the Keough School integrates disciplines and best practices to identify solutions responsive to the interconnected nature of global challenges.
Because contemporary challenges are not bound by the perspective of any one country, language, culture, religion, or discipline, we teach our students to address these issues in a holistic way through a wide array of courses, experiential and cross-cultural learning opportunities and interactions with international scholars, policymakers and cultural leaders.
The Keough School offers academic opportunities at every level — undergraduate, master’s and Ph.D. — and through our nine, globally focused institutes and centers, our students have access to hands-on international research opportunities and research and travel grants, internships and language studies, policy-immersion programs in Washington and to connect with students from throughout the globe. In addition to a major in Global Affairs, we also offer two supplementary majors and five minors.
Our alumni are helping to change the world, becoming leaders at nonprofits, private and public organizations such as Oxfam, The World Bank, United Nations, Catholic Relief Services, the Migration Policy Institute and USAID.
