Special guest speaker George Takei addressed I-House Residents in Davis Hall on February 1, 2016.  I-House President Calvin Sims interviewed the actor, author, and activist, highlighting his achievements on television, his 9.5 million Facebook followers, and awards for human rights advocacy and Japanese-American relations. Takei traced the origin of his current Broadway musical “Allegiance” to a sad time in American history when his family and 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry (the majority American citizens) were forced out of their homes and jobs and incarcerated, “with no due process...

The weekend of February 15, 2019 marked the final “WIL Weekend” for my cohort of Fellows from the 2018-2019 Women’s International Leadership (WIL) Program. I have previously shared my experiences from attending the Fall components of this nine-month-long women’s leadership development program for female Residents at International House, New York. The final WIL weekend was unlike the previous weekends. While the previous components on leadership training and professional development had focused on us Fellows, this weekend focused on the community. The program curated by the WIL Advisory...

Photos, maps, artwork, letters from world leaders…these are just some of the artifacts found in the I-House storage rooms. Viewed together, they tell the story of I-House, of New York City—and of the world, by extension of the Residents who stayed here and the impact they made when they returned to their respective countries. International House was founded in 1924 by Harry Edmonds, an official of the YMCA, with the support of the Dodge family and John D. Rockefeller. In the aftermath of World War I, countries and cultures were looking inward, and International House was created as an...

International House Mourns the Passing of Walter H. Munk, an American scientist-explorer and one of the world’s greatest oceanographers. Munk lived at I-House from 1935-1937, and credits some of his lifelong friendships to the time he spent as a Resident here. To honor him, we are reposting a recap of his visit to I-House in 2017, the year he turned 100 years young.  A Home for Every Generation The I-House Experience – learning and sharing each day with hundreds of bright minds from around the world – is an illuminating time for Residents. It is also...

Not many know that philanthropist Kathryn Wasserman Davis, the namesake of the prestigious Davis Projects for Peace and I-House’s very own Davis Hall, was once a Resident of International House in New York City. A lifelong scholar and adventurer, Davis was born in Philadelphia in 1907, grew up in Washington, D.C., and received her Bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College, before she moved to New York in 1931 to attend Columbia University for her Master’s degree in International Studies. During that time, Davis and her future husband, Shelby Cullom Davis—the U.S. Ambassador to...