Interview With New Dean of Students
by Kevin Miller on April 16, 2010 in News
Dean of Students Christopher Fortunato (“Call me Chris”) is no stranger to academia. He graduated from Harvard College with a year in Oxford, and immediately followed up at Harvard Law. A gear shift (and a masters in social work) later, Fortunato returned to academia at Providence College, where he served as Dean of Students before arriving at HKS nine weeks ago. He took a moment from a busy Admitted Students Day to catch up with the Citizen.
What particular challenge are you most looking forward to tackling head on at HKS?
It’s certainly very important to look critically at everything that we do. It’s not because anything is wrong or broken, but sometimes having [a] fresh pair of eyes, and, on a regular basis, making sure that we’re not just “good” at what we do. It would be really easy to rest on that: it’s Harvard, it’s the Harvard Kennedy School…We need to always look very critically, and, on a regular basis, filter through the lens of our mission.
Did you feel a call to service between graduating law school and returning for your masters in social work?
The call to service had been there for a long time. One of the best decisions, even though it was not an easy decision to make, was to leave the practice of law to start this nonprofit [for at-risk youth in Newton]. Certain people looked at me and thought that I was completely insane in terms of income potential, career trajectory…I have absolutely zero regrets. I have nothing but incredibly grateful feelings for the work that I did there.
Was it the mission of the Kennedy School that drew you here?
Mission for me is somewhat everything. I have [done] a lot of important public service work on a direct basis. I’ve worked with students, I’ve worked with at-risk youth. When I gave thought to what I could do that would have more dramatic impact, it was not just what I could do directly but the ability to support and help train other people on a larger scale to be able to tackle some of these issues. That was my primary motivation to be here: that I could do the most good here. It’s also a tremendous amount of fun.
We often talk about getting the right people to “the table,” but it sometimes feels as though all of the students are sitting at the one table together. Have you put thought to open space as a challenge?
There’s…universal agreement that space is difficult here. Some people may see some aspects of that, and maybe this is just putting a positive spin on it, as a strength…[T]he idea of the Forum, not by overcrowding, but by having a somewhat limited social space it forces people somewhat to engage with each other because there is this central congregational space.
We are limited in terms of our open spaces, these ‘third’ spaces where relationships develop, where people are able to engage in these conversations that start as or stay in some ways social engagements but they have academic overtones to them and then people start developing networks.
I don’t think anyone would debate that we need to look at …[increasing] these “third” spaces where people can congregate, not just students but also faculty, visitors and alumni can engage with one another. It’s not just the academic training that you’re getting here, it’s this community that you’re signing on for.
Have there been any moments where you’ve felt caught off-guard at any point in your first weeks at HKS?
I would come home to my wife from [HKS] in the last several weeks and say that I’d just met someone with this unbelievable background, or who started their own company, or who was the executive director of a nonprofit or comes from this particular country and overcame amazing adversity in order to be here and is now planning to bring this unbelievable skill set back to their own country or to the world. And we just kind of sit back and look at each other and think, “Oh my…I get to do this is a job!” I find that to be a great gift.
Changing the Campaign (and reporting?) Game
by Kevin Miller on March 10, 2010 in HKS News, News
On March 2, the JFK, Jr. Forum sharpened its focus on the 2008 presidential campaign with an evening featuring Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, noted journalists and authors of Game Change - Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime.
The discussion, moderated by Boston Globe reporter Susan Milligan and co-sponsored by the IOP and Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy, delved into the method and impetus for crafting an election narrative whose research and writing spanned from 2007 to early 2010.
HKS alum John Heilemann and Spring 2007 Visiting Fellow Mark Halperin cited their urge to answer unanswered questions about the campaigns and the captivating personalities of the candidates as catalysts for writing ‘Game Change.’
“We joke all the time that if you’ve got a presidential campaign where the 7th most interesting candidate is Rudy Giuliani, you know you’ve got a really interesting race on your hands,” said Halperin.
Early introduction of 2008 campaign-nostalgia was the unintended consequence of the more than 300 interviews with 200 campaign insiders, from aides and advisers to candidates and their spouses.
These interviews, many spanning six to seven hours each, created in-depth oral histories. Susan Milligan took Halperin and Heilemann’s choice to leave their sources unnamed head-on, asking whether directly quoted and paraphrased conversations should be believed.
Heilemann placed Game Change in the context of the established convention of ‘deep background’ interviews, utilized by such journalists as Bob Woodward and Richard Ben Cramer.
“It turns out to be essential,” he said. “The only way you’re going to get [the story behind the story] is to give people the protection and the anonymity to get the candor you want …to get past what the public has already seen.”
While the flow of the discussion hit snares when treading into topics that straddle the public and private tensions intrinsic to contemporary political figures, the two authors rooted the discussion in revealing and broadly applicable insights.
“If you’re going to run for president or vice-president, don’t look like Tina Fey. You won’t get that from most academics, but it’s a pretty important [point],” Halperin noted blithely in reference to the lampooning of Palin on NBC’s Saturday Night Live.
As if on cue, Heilemann added, “Two years at the Kennedy School and nobody ever said that to me.”
Halperin and Heilemann’s banter framed the more substantive insights unearthed by their extensive research. The whimsy of their presentation may have come from realizing the informational vacuum in which that both reporters and campaigns operate while in the moment, admitted Heilemann.
“There are moments when you realize, ‘Man, I was covering this campaign with a bag over my head.’ I think [this] is true for a lot of the campaigns…Some of the feedback we get is that they got an insight into their opponents that they didn’t get before reading the book,” he said.
Both Halperin and Heilemann referred to the central role played by candidates’ spouses in their campaigns, from the “gung-ho” attitude of Bill Clinton, to reservations of Michelle Obama and flat-out opposition by Cindy McCain.
Heilemann said that Cindy McCain’s campaign apprehension fueled John McCain’s initial ambivalence to running, which was further hindered by his opposition to being paraded as “the edifice of front-runner-dom [sic].”
According to Heilemann, McCain only regained his vigor for the campaign when his campaign was beginning to totter and the public began writing him off in the summer of 2007.
“McCain prefers to run as this loner, as this outsider, as this guerilla candidate, close to the ground living off the land, that’s where he’s happiest. That’s when he finally finds the actual conviction and fire in his belly to want to win,” he said.
Halperin observed that the main stumbling block and weak link of the Obama campaign was Barack Obama himself.
“[Obama] had real frustrations about going out and campaigning,” said Halperin. “One of the things he felt was that every time he gave a speech, people basically expected it to be a reenactment of [his keynote address] at the 2004 DNC.”
Anecdotes shared by the authors hinted at the deep, interpersonal undercurrents filling in the gaps of a campaign storyline whose focus was blurred by a newsmedia beleaguered with a deficit of attention.
“John McCain picks Sarah Palin, and for 48 hours the press is obsessed with the question of, ‘How did she get on the radar?’… Then 48 hours later you’re on to Sarah Palin’s address to the RNC. Then a few days after that the nation is gripped by the important public policy of what Barack Obama meant by lipstick on a pig, and so you move on to that,” said Halperin.
Therein, implied Halperin, lies the beauty and luxury of reflection preceding reporting.
Both authors expressed their gratitude to the IOP and Shorenstein Center, whose pre- and post-campaign symposia facilitating gathering information from sources closest to the candidates in the same Forum they addressed that evening.
Both Heilemann and Halperin expressed their gratitude to the IOP and Shorenstein Center, which had helped the authors organize panel discussions featuring campaign managers and operatives across the political spectrum both before and after the election – all of which provided good material for their book.
“We should thank the Charles Hotel for all the room service that we ate, because it was a big bill,” he said with a smile.
HKS Students Brief World Bank President
by Kevin Miller on October 30, 2009 in HKS News, News
Photo courtesy of World Bank
World Bank President Bob Zoellick, MPP ’81, in deep discussion with HKS students gathered around a narrow table at the World Bank headquarters, waved away staffers reminding him that the 45- minutes set aside for the meeting had long since expired.
On Oct. 16, ten HKS students pitched their ideas on the global food crisis in front of Zoellick and other World Bank executives in Washington, D.C.
The students were the winners of the 2009 Spring Exercise, a cornerstone of the MPP program. Last year, students wrestled with developing solutions to concerns of food security and world hunger.
Discussion evolved around how Zoellick is retooling the World Bank to delve into redevelopment and attack the issues of hunger and food security in unconventional ways. Zoellick offered thorough analysis and critique of what the students brought.
“[Zoellick] had them stop and think about each individual decision,” said Professor Sheila Burke, who accompanied the students. “And the students did a wonderful job of making their case through the analysis.”
High-spirited evaluation of choices from framing to analytical tools complemented and extended a question-and-answer session. Students were treated to an inside look at where Zoellick is steering the organization whose every move has widespread impact on global policy issues.
Three World Bank Vice Presidents lauded the scope and depth of the briefing. Ke Ji, MPP ’10 recalled one saying, “Oh my gosh, [Pres. Zoellick] was really impressed. If he’s not engaged, he’ll just be polite. If he’s interested, he really drills down.’
Kyoung Lee, MPP ’10 relished in the “unfiltered access” to Zoellick, as the institution over which he presides figured largely in her policy memo.
“It was so wonderful,” said Lee. “He exemplifies the ability to be strategic at 30,000 miles above and then dive right down into the weeds for detail,” said Lee.
World Bank staff had been closely involved with all aspects the 2009 Spring Exercise, from the design of the problem to Vice-Presidents playing the role of Zoellick at HKS to evaluate every briefing team.
“It makes me really understand how fortunate I am to have been able to attend the Kennedy School,” Zac Ginsberg, MPP ’10 said. “As a social-justice-minded individual, I can only aspire to continue to share my ideas with those who are committed to such laudable undertakings as solving global poverty.”
V-Khye Fan, MPP ’10 agreed. “It was really cool to see his focus on the ‘world’ part of the World Bank.”
For Ginsberg, the highlight of the meeting was a Socratic discussion on the magnitude of the policy challenges with which they had tangled.
“Once we finally admitted there wasn’t an easy answer, [it] gave way to the President’s eloquent analysis of the issue at hand,” he said. For some, it was another lesson in the education that often takes place outside the walls of the Kennedy School’s classrooms – that the world’s biggest problems have no straightforward solutions, even to the most experienced and intelligent public servants.
As students and staff alike acknowledged, however, those methods must fit within the current environment of the global community.
“President Zoellick discussed how a plan has to succeed not just in itself, but in a certain atmosphere,” said Fan.
Some participants pointed out that, while the rigors of the Spring Exercise were daunting, the experience helped them as they begin their second year towards the Policy Analysis Exercise (PAE) capstone research project.
“The Spring Exercise defined my PAE,” said Fan. “It tied my background at the Department of Defense with my core courses and set it all into a different context.”
Gingrich Implores Forum for Impartial Action
by Kevin Miller on October 14, 2009 in HKS News, News
Former speaker of House Newt Gingrich, who oversaw deconstruction of a 40-year Democratic congressional majority in 1995, cautioned against the pitfalls of partisanship for American progress over the next generation
Gingrich underscored five primary challenges to continued American prosperity at a ticketed JFK, Jr. Forum event October 8, entitled, “Tripartisan Majority for Real Change.”
According to Gingrich, the fundamental realities facing America are: an explosion in scientific and technological breakthroughs; China and India’s rise as salient global actors; a widespread bureaucracy in disrepair; the need to reconcile differing American cultural values; and a disconnected political system.
“These are so fundamental that they will shape for most of you the nature of your life over the next 40 to 70 years,” said Gingrich.
Gingrich warned of American inability to handle or benefit from impending exponential increase in science and technology. Prioritizing budgets on a yearly basis is antithetical to reaping rewards from increased technological capacity, he stated.
“Our current budget system says: the politicians have ‘this’ amount of money this year, and (now) they’re going to fight over which scraps go where… We ought to take this kind of research off-budget,” said Gingrich.
He contrasted this short-term research and development perspective with those now being considered by China and India, which are investing widely in high-tech infrastructure. Gingrich likened their entrance into periods of modernization to America’s infrastructural revolution between 1896 and 1916.
“If you’re serious about that scale of change, you have to find a way to bring people together and… build general consensus, because you’ll never get that done on a narrowly partisan basis.”
Gingrich conveyed a Chinese proverb attributed to former Communist Party Leader, Deng Xiaoping. A market reformer, Deng opted for viable solutions irrespective of their ideological basis. “It doesn’t matter if the cat is black or white,” recounted Gingrich, “If it catches mice, it’s a good cat.”
Gingrich, a former history professor, is also a prolific author and documentary filmmaker. His most recent film focuses on the role of Pope John Paul II in unraveling the Soviet Union by reaching out to Poland in 1979.
Where politics fall short, cultural forces can prevail. He made the case that cultural conversations, from religion in the public sphere to the housing crisis, are unduly burdened by politics.
“That is a dialogue that is cultural, not political. Because it’s core values at the heart of the system,” he said.
Gingrich held that cultural issues, let alone straightforward ones, are set askew when politicized. In The Plague, Camus warned that a man who says “2 + 2 = 4,” will be killed because the authorities can’t tolerate the truth, said Gingrich.
Tongue-in-cheek, Mr. Gingrich then proposed a guessing game with the audience.
“If you can’t afford to buy a house…does anyone want to suggest a second half of the equation?” asked Gingrich, invoking the specters of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and mortgage-backed securities.
Although the first response (“Get a subprime mortgage!”) missed Gingrich’s target, a syncopated chorus of, “Don’t buy a house,” slowly emerged.
Such divides in America are exacerbated by a political system that Gingrich described as broken and run by interest groups.
“Those that have power don’t particularly want to share it with us,” he said. “… Tripartisan reform will be demanded by virtually every American because they will just get sick of watching the interest groups running over the country.”
After the speech, students asked for advice the former speaker of the House could give the future luminaries of the Republican Party to regain the confidence of the public.
“The American people understand that we had better get a generation of leaders who don’t bicker over normal politics and get wrapped up in ideology,” Gingrich said. “The American people understand the idea that the right cat is the one that catches the mouse. And republicans ought to relax and go catch mice.”
JFK’s Question, Answered
by Kevin Miller on September 16, 2009 in News
“What You Can Do” Forum sheds light on service
By Kevin Miller, MPP’11 News Writer
Familiar and fresh faces gathered on September 2 for an Institute of Politics panel discussion about how to inspire public service. Moderated by Prof. David Gergen, the first Forum event of the school year featured: Wivina Belmonte (MPA ’05), Director of Communications, UNICEF; Raymond Jefferson (MPA ’98), Asst. Secretary for Veterans Employment & Training, DOL; Cody Keenan (MPP ’08), Political Speechwriter; Margita Thompson (MPP ’96), VP External Communications, Health Net Inc.
With the mechanics of orientation over, students still learning the labyrinthine halls of Littauer welcomed the chance to shed light on life at and after the Kennedy School. “I haven’t completely figured out what I want to do after HKS,” said Amy Lin (MPP1). “Hopefully, hearing about the journeys of the panelists will help me discover my own path.” A recurring piece of advice given up by each panelist, though, was to maintain a malleable outlook on future careers. After 15 years working as a journalist for the Canadian Broadcasting Company, Wivina Belmonte saw her chosen profession depart from her earlier expectations. “The change that I wanted to be a part of, I wasn’t going to be able to do so effectively as I might do by joining an organization like UNICEF,” said Belmonte.
Flexibility in career choice and being open to new opportunities was underlined as a helpful outlook, as sometimes expectations of a career differ from the reality. “I got into politics for all the wrong reasons: I thought I was entering into an episode of West Wing,” said Cody Keenan, onetime intern with the late Sen. Kennedy and current speechwriter for President Obama. “You learn quickly that it’s not about point scoring, or ‘winning;’ you realize that this is about people’s lives.”
The ability to affect change across different sectors was displayed by the diverse resumes of the panelists. Ray Jefferson, whose career has spanned the military and the private and public sectors, spoke of focusing on his leadership skill set and not on a sector. “When I looked at how I wanted to live that line of work, I wanted to do it in all sectors. The basics that allow you to succeed in one allow you to succeed in others,” said Jefferson.
Panelists also shared their own personal journeys, which despite being wildly disparate in origin still had a common through line of a commitment to service. This common feature and opportunity to learn from peers was continually referred to as a unique experience at HKS, and one that helped to prepare their further endeavors. “Don’t worry about bidding or if you didn’t get into this class or that class,” Belmonte offered as parting advice. “Spend time with your classmates, you will learn so much from them.” With a smile, she added, “From your professors too, of course.”
The Seat Left Open
by Kevin Miller on September 16, 2009 in News
By Kevin Miller, MPP’11 News Writer
Massachusetts faces the prospect of not being fully represented in the US Senate until a special election in January 2010. In 2004, the Democrat-controlled state legislature stripped the power to appoint an interim senator from then-Governor Mitt Romney should Senator John Kerry have won the presidency.
Prior to his passing, Sen. Ted Kennedy requested that the legislature reinstate this power to the governor, now Democrat Deval Patrick. Accusations of “playing politics” have plagued the proposal since.
The Chairman for the Massachusetts Joint Committee on Election Laws, and MPA ’05, State Senator Tom Kennedy (D – 2nd Plymouth and Bristol) oversaw debate on the proposal on Sept 9.
“I didn’t expect when named chairman of this committee that I’d be in the limelight. I don’t relish this kind of attention, but it’s here, and I am honored to serve in this capacity,” said Kennedy.
Testimony for and against the bill lasted over 5 hours, including that by Sen. John Kerry and potential Republican candidates for the open seat. Professor and former HKS Dean Graham Allison took far less time to decide his position. “In my view, a no-brainer,” said Prof. Allison. “The question is: when the Senate votes on health care, climate change, the budget, and related issues, should the citizens of Massachusetts have one vote - or two? The governor should appoint to the position someone of impeccable standing who will certifiably not be a candidate in the special election in January.”
