A LEGACY… AN AMBITION
“Since 1899, understanding people, shaping the world”
The story begins in 1899. A woman, Jeanne Weill, better known under the pseudonym Dick May, created the “Ecole des Hautes Etudes Sociales” [School of Advanced Social Studies] with premises situated rue de la Sorbonne in Paris. The aim of the institution: to train young people, in particular state primary school teachers, in a new science – sociology; to open their minds and lead them to think for themselves rather than applying the precepts of traditional teaching and the press.
This is just after the “Dreyfus Affair”. Both the faculty and the students believed that the “Affair” was first and foremost the sign of a flaw in the academic system. It was time to go beyond the traditional way of educating students. Within HEIP, Sorbonne professors, politicians, leading intellectuals – Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu and Georges Sorel to name but two – began tackling this major project.
It has been a proven success, year after year. The School diversified and became a School of Moral Philosophy, a School of Journalism and even a School of Fine Art.
Distinguished academics, such as Émile Durkheim, who formally established sociology as an autonomous, academic discipline, Anatole France, French writer, who won the Nobel prize for Literature in 1921, Paul Deschanel, President of the French Republic in 1920, were among the faculty members. Léon Bourgeois, like Charles Peguy were regular contributors. Romain Rolland, the famous author of “Jean Christophe” became a director of the Arts Faculty. Gabriel Fauré, Ravel, Debussy was to lead musical evenings.
After the 1914-1918 war, there was a change of direction, the School turned into the School of Advanced International Studies, School of Advanced Political Studies and School of Journalism. Moral Philosophy and Fine Arts disappeared.
Throughout the 20th century, prestigious figures from the worlds of politics and academia headed the Association which oversees the schools. To name but a few from the long list: Albert Lebrun, Paul Painlevé, Maurice Schumann, Léon Duguit, Arthur Fontaine, Henry Jouvenel.
France’s leading figures in politics, social issues or economics lectured at the School.
Today, HEIP, Hautes Etudes Politiques et Internationales has taken up the torch.