The Columbia Global Centers promote and facilitate the collaborative and impactful engagement of the University’s faculty, students, and alumni with the world, to enhance understanding, address global challenges, and advance knowledge and its exchange. CGC Tunis is Columbia’s ninth Global Center, established after Amman, Beijing, Istanbul, Mumbai, Nairobi, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, and Santiago de Chile. In this sense, Columbia will be one of a handful of American universities in North and West Africa offering a scholarly contribution to a public largely unfamiliar with the U.S. education system and U.S. academia. And it goes both ways: until 2011, only a few Columbia (and North American) scholars showed interest in West and North Africa, which points to gaps that the Center aims to fill. CGC Tunis, therefore, strives to become the bridge to American education for West and North African students and to be the conduit facilitating the exchange of knowledge and expertise between Columbia and the region.
