Dear Dean:
by Emily Nielson on November 20, 2008 in Opinion
Why did we come to the Kennedy School? Despite our many differences, a common characteristic among all HKS students is a commitment to public service. President Kennedy’s call asking what we can do to improve our country and the world resonates with us. We choose HKS over business or law school not because it will help us earn more money or better connections, but because we believe it will endow us with the skills to make the world a better place. Add to this the election of President-e;ect Obama and the host of thorny public challenges we now face, and we at HKS become possessed with a sense of both possibility and of urgency.
In the October 29 issue of the Citizen, HKS Dean David T. Ellwood noted the need for the efforts of the best and brightest in remedying the world’s problems. He also pointed out that a decreasing percentage of HKS graduates have been entering the government and non-profit sectors in recent years. If the Kennedy School is not training public sector leaders, who is?
In the interest of fostering increased professional dedication to public service, Ellwood suggested three avenues for action. I would like to offer a fourth: expand applied learning opportunities.
While the Kennedy School administration is tackling financial and professional barriers by soliciting more public service fellowships and resurrecting career advancement, there is still a gap between what we learn in class and the opportunity to practice those skills in service to others. There are few applied learning classes in which students gain academic credit for working with community organizations and few extracurricular activities where applied service is a main focus.
Applied learning is not simply about volunteering; it is about integrating what we learn in the classroom with real-world experience. Combining academic knowledge and skills with field execution requires a cognitive leap that reinforces our theoretical learning. By working on the problems we care about with the people they affect, we are forced to unleash our creativity in developing effective policy solutions.
Applied learning reinvigorates the intention to serve by connecting students with the world outside the ivory tower. It is an opportunity to give back to the community using the specialized skills that we have cultivated here, and it is our responsibility to do so. After all, to whom much is given, much is expected. We owe it to others to put our knowledge and skills toward the public good.
Applied learning engages students on real problems and may even inspire a passion they did not know they had. And it is great professional development to refine skills under the guidance of experienced faculty before heading off to do independent work.
Even Harvard Law School, which churns out corporate attorneys by the hundreds each year, has a robust “clinical” program in which students earn academic credit for the pro bono service they provide in housing, employment, human rights, and child protection, among others. HLS Dean Elena Kagan proclaims, “Each day, students in HLS clinics are changing individual lives and changing the world.” Can we say the same at HKS?
Expansion of applied learning at the Kennedy School could take shape in a few ways. It could be increasing the number of courses like Prof. Linda Bilmes’ “Advanced Applied Budgeting” and Prof. Marshall Ganz’s “Organizing,” in which students apply the skills they learn in class by working with community organizations.
It could be a mini-Policy Analysis Exercise (PAE) for all first year students, not just MPPs, in which students work on small teams with a professor to do policy analysis and problem solving. Or it could be a clinical program, like at the Law School, that connects professors, students, and the community in order to offer services that would otherwise be in short supply.
The Kennedy School needs a comparable opportunity to gain experience, earn credit, develop one’s professional credentials, and, most importantly, enhance our commitment to understanding and solving the complex problems and issues we study in class.
Without an applied learning program, we are missing the opportunity to give back to the community and learn from real-world experience. We came to the Kennedy School with the aspiration to serve the public, whether it be through education, health, security, development, or some other path. By developing applied learning opportunities, we enhance our ability to realize the school’s mission and our own.
This is a call to action to all of us, but especially to Dean Ellwood and the administration, to try learning about problems in ways that will help us solve them. We each answered President Kennedy’s call. Now the Kennedy School must answer this call and empower us to be better leaders and public problem solvers.
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