An Interview with Former AFL-CIO President John Sweeney
by Matt Bieber, News Writer on May 26, 2010 in News
You recently stepped down after 14 years at the helm of the AFL-CIO. In your mind, what should the major goals of the labor movement in America be over the next couple of years?
…The labor movement, under the leadership of President Richard Trumka, is preparing to do a lot more mobilization of rank-and-file workers. We probably had our best political program in the history of the AFL-CIO in the 2008 elections, because we were able to mobilize at the grassroots level hundreds of thousands of workers actively involved in campaigns. I think that the mobilization of rank-and-file workers has to be an ongoing practice throughout the whole year, not just be brought together shortly before elections, and that it shouldn’t be just a part of a political program but it also should be part of a legislative program and work on issues.
Last night’s victory [the passage of health care reform legislation] was a credit to rank-and-file workers who supported the President’s health program, and they actively engaged people, both union folks as well as folks who aren’t organized, on this issue and mobilized a great effort in terms of the number of workers that they have visited with.
We have an entity called Working America that was created four years ago. That entity has been able to organize three and a half million workers who live in communities where they have friends who are union members. In canvassing their homes, we have been able to build their support for being part of an organization. With polling and focus groups, we find that their issues are the same issues that are the priorities of organized workers; health care, of course, is one of them.
Jobs is a big concern of workers. People are angry and they don’t think that they have been treated fairly throughout this whole economic crisis, and they want to see more attention paid to issues such as health care and jobs and pension security, as well as education and training. There is tremendous interest in education programs and up-scaling workers for new jobs.
They are hurt by what has occurred, in terms of the outsourcing of jobs, as a result of bad trade policies and also the greed of corporations in looking for the cheapest possible deal in whatever country, the lowest possible wages in those countries. That has resulted in a loss of employment of millions of workers and it has essentially had the greatest impact, or the worst impact, on the middle class.
We see good jobs with good benefits just being abolished. The auto industry is as classic an industry as you could use as an example. But it’s not just the auto industry - it’s the steel workers; it’s the other industrial unions and union workers who have been affected. But that also has an impact in local communities, on public employees; it’s not just private sector. If the revenues for a city or a state are affected by the loss of industry and business, that impacts on public services, so that’s a really big concern.
You mentioned trade policy just a second ago. If you could advise President Obama about trade policy, what would you tell him?
Well, we had raised the trade policy as one of the issues that we were concerned about during the campaign, and the President has been very responsive on the need for reviewing our trade agreements and seeing what changes have to be made. Basically, we have to insist that workers’ rights and environmental protections, or human rights questions, are all part of what has to be addressed in our future trade agreements. We can’t be going for the cheapest possible deal for our trading practices.
We’re not only concerned about the impact it has on workers in our own country, but we’re also concerned about our trading partners - countries like Colombia, where they have a high record of assassinations of folks who are active in their own country on behalf of human rights and the atrocious murders and assassinations that have taken place with lack of enforcement of those who are the culprits in these situations. That’s just one example.
And it’s taxes, not just trade policy - our tax policies that have to be reexamined, and companies can’t be given an advantage for moving work out of the United States into another country with special tax considerations for them. If anything, we should be rewarding the corporations or businesses that can develop new jobs here in the United States.
I don’t know much about this area. How did such tax credits for outsourcing get created in the first place? In whose interest is that kind of policy, and who would be opposed to repealing those kinds of tax credits? In other words, what’s driving tax credits for outsourcing?
What’s driving that behavior is greed. It’s bad economic policy to be rewarding companies who are taking sources of employment out of our own country and sending them off to a country where the basic human rights are violated. Also, it’s not the right thing to reward those companies and those businesses to the detriment of workers here in the United States.
But I’m trying to imagine what argument congressmen or senators would make to sell this kind of policy to the public. How do they go about doing that? How do they go about selling the public on the idea that they’ve given tax credits to companies to move overseas? I would think they’d be just the widest and fattest target for organizations like yours.
They are so vague…about…reducing prices on a product, about it being a better way of production. The lies that are told in all of the publicity on these situations is just so horrible, and we have to do a better job at educating the public at large. We don’t have to educate our members because they are living in the communities that are impacted by these bad trade policies.
Politicians just have to be convinced that this is bad for the country. We have tried to do exactly what you’re saying, in terms of holding politicians accountable on these issues, and we have been very successful. But there’s no question about it; we have to do a better job. I’m confident that more and more workers, and the average person, have become more mindful of how important it is to have good, fair trade agreements. We want to see the best trading agreements that we possibly can see. We realize how important trade is for our country, for the economy of our country. But it has to be fair trade, good trade.
We saw with NAFTA, as an example, the North American Free Trade Agreement, what happens when a country like Mexico has the advantage of a trade agreement. Sure, they’re interested in creating more business for their country, having better employment for their workers. But NAFTA was basically a failure. It lasted, or it was beneficial to Mexico for a couple of years, but those jobs are gone now. They’re not in Mexico. They’re off in Asia or in the developing world, wherever it might be. It is the same old situation that we see with the greed of individual corporations and their desire to get the cheapest possible deal.
You seek to ensure that human rights considerations, labor standards, and environmental concerns are all factored into our trade policy. Are you willing to consider the possibility that even if we were able to include all of those factors in our trade deals, there might still be some industries here in America that wouldn’t be able to compete globally in the long term?
Well, it’s something that has to be watched, and it’s important that trade agreements be enforced. I think that the auto industry, which is a classic example, shows the vision of the autoworkers’ unions, in terms of what they have been able to achieve in their recovery, as far as it might be, of the auto industry, and the opening of…former plants, as well as new plants. I mean, there are some good examples of new industry in the manufacture of parts…that the union and management are working on, not just in Michigan but in other states around the country.
One final question: You talked about organizing, and particularly Working America. As you may know, Marshall Ganz, a professor here, was one of the architects of the Obama organizing effort, and particularly some of the community organizing strategies the campaign used to devolve power down the chain and empower local organizers. I’m curious to know whether the AFL-CIO or other labor organizations are adopting some of the same strategies or looking at the Obama campaign as an example of new and potentially innovative ways to organize?
Sure….I’ve known Marshall going back to those days of the farm workers, and I admire his good work, especially in terms of helping workers organize. I believe that the labor movement has to put more resources into organizing, that we have to educate and train young people in organizing, or convince them that it can be a very satisfying job. There are some changes that are taking place in many individual unions, in terms of…organizing programs.
I think that there has to be a greater focus on young workers. Liz Shuler, the new Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO spoke at one of the study group sessions and outlined our plans for helping young workers organize and involving young workers more, once they become members, in actual union activities. We plan to engage them and seek their thoughts…on how they see the labor movement and what changes they think should be made to address young people’s issues and concerns.
KSSG Passes Resolution to Increase International Student Aid
by Sayce Falk, News Asst. Editor on April 29, 2010 in HKS News, News
As MPP ’10 Jonathan Faull began school in the fall of 2008, there were only a few signs that the largest financial crisis since the Great Depression was about to erupt. Because he hadn’t received a great deal of aid from HKS, Faull had lined up other funding sources, including a private scholarship and a loan through a Kennedy School-associated program known as CitiAssist.
For most students entering the Kennedy School, the timing of the crisis could not have come at a more fortuitous moment – two years of intellectual stimulation within the ivory towers of the world’s most prestigious university as friends and colleagues were laid off in droves. The tuition costs would be high, but at least they were stable. Compared to those faced with unemployment and sudden decisions about how to care for children or pay the bills on a drastically lower budget, the anticipated safety of school was an inviting idea.
But Faull was coming from South Africa – an open economy with a floating currency – and the downturn in the global economy meant that his carefully laid financial plans now lay in ruins. From late August to November of 2008, the rand fell more than 31 percent, from 7.75 to the dollar to more than 10.
“The money we had put aside to come here,” said Anna York, an MPP’10 from Australia who faced a similar situation, “was, in some cases, worth up to a third less than it had been a day before.”
Making matters worse, the financial recession pulled the rug out from under CitiAssist, a six-year old joint venture between Citigroup and HKS. The program allowed Harvard University and Citigroup to jointly underwrite loans to Harvard graduate students; it also allowed international students to obtain a loan without an American co-signer, a key requirement of virtually all other American financial institutions.
After CitiAssist folded, HKS administrators stepped in with a new program run through the Harvard University Employees Credit Union, holding the maximum loanable amount to $10,000 for international students without a co-signer. In its session earlier this month, the KSSG passed a motion urging the HKS administration to double the maximum amount of the loan, to $20,000.
“We want credit union loans to cover at least 30% of [international students’] tuition,” said Dave Baumwoll, MPP ’10 and KSSG President. “We want to enhance the financial options for international students. If you’re here, the Kennedy School should be able to find ways to allow you to stay here.”
“Ideally I would have liked to take up more than double [the 10,000 maximum],” said Faull, “but I’ve had to essentially loan against my parents’ mortgage in South Africa to cover my tuition costs.”
Other graduate schools on campus allow international students to take out loans covering their entire tuition burden, while the current $10,000 limit only covers about 10-15% of HKS’ anticipated annual expense. In addition to the benefits of dollar-denominated debt and generally lower interest rates than private lenders offer, Credit Union loans also qualify as part of HKS’ Loan Repayment Assistance Program, which assists graduates who go into public service by defraying part of the costs of their student loans.
“It is definitely a consideration that HKS students have lower expected incomes than HBS or HLS,” said Stephanie Streletz, Associate Director of Student Financial Services. “The Harvard Credit Union’s loan program is a wonderful addition, but we deem it as gap funding, not a primary resource for students.” Administrators also expressed concerns over the inability of the school to collect on students who default on their loans, as well as the higher likelihood of international student default, given the exchange rates between the U.S. dollar and many developing country currencies.
“We may need to consider taking on additional risk,” said Chris Fortunato, the new Dean of Students, “[but] if we do cover it, where do we pull the funding away from?”
HKS administration is currently discussing the issue of student aid, though administrators refuse to discuss the level or growth of the HKS endowment. A number of current international students received increased financial aid for their second year, though the administration has not said whether that aid came as a result of student government pressure.
Though the short-term crisis has passed, the KSSG’s resolution is part of its effort to institutionalize some of the solutions that students and administrators used last spring. In the meantime, the consequences of the lack of funding linger on. “I am interviewing for some management consulting positions,” said Faull, “which I would have never considered doing before coming to the Kennedy School.”
HKS Hosts Black Policy Conference
by Lena Benson on April 29, 2010 in HKS News, News
April 16th and 17th marked the 6th Annual Black Policy Conference at HKS. This year’s theme was “A Call to Action: Empowering the Individual and Mobilizing the Collective,” and keynote speakers included Angela Glover Blackwell, CEO and founder of PolicyLink and Anthony Williams, former Mayor of Washington, D.C. and HKS Lecturer in Public Management. This year’s conference co-chairs, Rasheba Johnson and Naima Green, both MPP ‘10s, aimed to inspire participants to not only discuss how policies are currently effecting black communities but also to use opportunities provided by this conference to take steps towards developing a strategic plan of action. Such opportunities included a community organizing workshop, a networking reception, and numerous panels to choose from on topics not traditionally featured at HKS or Harvard conferences.
Such panels included “Prisoner Re-entry: Building Bridges Between Ex-Offenders and Their Communities” and “Investing in Human Capital in the South: Strategies to Cultivate Young Black Leaders”. Aly Spencer, MPP ‘11 and co-founder of the HKS Southern Caucus, attended the panel on the South and remarked, “The panel was a good reminder that when we think about the South we aren’t just talking about Atlanta and Charlotte and New Orleans. The panelists emphasized the breadth and depth of the lingering problems in the region and the dramatic surge in leadership that will be needed to address them. I left feeling really challenged to ask what I am doing and what I can do.”
This year, the conference organizers also pushed the entire HKS community to recognize that topics highlighted at the Black Policy Conference are policies that affect us all, not just black students or people working in black communities. E-mails, flyers, and one-on-one conversations leading up to the event encouraged students to consider that leaders should understand the needs of diverse constituent groups, since many polices in the US disproportionately impact communities of color.
“We are extremely pleased with how the conference turned out. It is still a young tradition, but each year the aspirations for it grow and we are very fortunate to have so much support from the administration, our classmates, and alums in putting it together”, said Johnson. Many members of the African and Africa-American Diaspora Collaborative (AADC), Harvard Journal of African-American Public Policy, and The Community Development Project spent months assisting with the conference by sponsoring panels, publicizing the event, and organizing logistics.
The conference was founded in 2004 by Nicole Campbell, MPP ’05, and now serves not only as an opportunity to highlight the impact of numerous policy issues on black communities, but also as a much anticipated annual event that brings together diverse students from graduate and undergraduate institutions all over Boston. Many alumni like Campbell also return to HKS each year specifically for the conference, seeing it as an opportunity to reconnect and give back.
Clean Energy Solutions Speed Haiti’s Recovery
by Ilana Kessler on April 29, 2010 in News
In December 2009, EarthSpark International was a fledgling social enterprise, soon to open its first Clean Energy Store in rural Haiti, with the goal of making electricity available and affordable for all Haitians. A month later, Haiti’s earthquake catapulted EarthSpark and its co-founder, Dan Schnitzer, into prominence. Today, they are major players in planning Haiti’s energy future.
Even before the earthquake, Haiti hardly had energy infrastructure. Electricity was barely available outside the capital, and within the capital, it was only available part of the time. Most Haitians made do with wood fuel and kerosene lighting. As Schnitzer describes the current effort, “This isn’t rebuilding – it’s starting from nothing.” Indeed, as Haiti rebuilds, many Haitians are receiving electricity for the first time.
EarthSpark advocates adopted small-scale, decentralized solar energy production in Haiti rather than building a traditional electric grid. “The first few kilowatt-hours of electricity consumed by families have the biggest impact on quality of life,” explains Schnitzer. “For Haiti, a small solar light or system can improve lives drastically – far more cost-effectively and reliably than a centralized electricity grid plagued by unreliability and high costs.”
EarthSpark is putting this decentralized solar electricity model into practice by building a series of Clean Energy Stores, owned and operated by local entrepreneurs or co-operatives, in small cities across Haiti. Rural Haitians can take out affordable microloans at the stores to pay for small solar lighting systems and other clean energy technologies.
In addition to its goal of bringing lighting and other clean energy products to rural Haiti, EarthSpark intends to create a national clean energy supply chain, with the support of the Clinton Global Initiative and the Haitian government. By adopting the energy micro-lending model pioneered by organizations like SEEDS in Sri Lanka and Faulu in Kenya, EarthSpark hopes to encourage other entrepreneurs to sell clean energy products around the country.
Shifting Plans
Since the earthquake, EarthSpark has briefly set aside its Clean Energy Store model to focus on meeting the immediate need for lighting around Port-au-Prince. EarthSpark is working to raise $300,000, enough to buy 20,000 LED lamps to distribute for free around Port-au-Prince. The need is particularly acute now because kerosene prices have risen where fuel is available at all.
As Schnitzer points out, relying on kerosene in makeshift tent cities is a severe fire hazard. The more LED lamps that EarthSpark can bring to Port-au-Prince, the sooner the displaced people will have access to safe and dependable lighting, which can help to prevent crime, restart small businesses, and provide families with a sense of normalcy.
Looking forward, rather than reconstructing the previous inefficient, low-capacity electrical grid around Port-au-Prince, Schnitzer recommends that Haiti invite Independent Power Producers to develop small-scale solar power units in cities and towns around the country. Under this strategy, rather than large power plants and electric grids run by a utility, private power companies would own and operate solar production facilities in each community.
Small local companies, or non-profit community-run cooperatives, would be in charge of selling and distributing the electricity. If successful, this strategy would provide both electricity and economic opportunity to many more Haitians. But it does mean that private companies must be willing to invest in infrastructure projects, traditionally considered a risky prospect in Haiti.
While implementing a nationwide strategy for Haiti’s energy future is vital for economic development, many Haitians will remain without electricity in the near future. That is why the small-scale model of EarthSpark’s Clean Energy Stores is so important – it can quickly and cheaply bring lighting into poor households. EarthSpark is yet another example of how partnerships across the public, private, and non-profit sectors can generate a profit for businesses while providing a transformative social good.
However, EarthSpark’s model is still unproven to date. The first shipment of solar lighting products was lost in the earthquake, before it reached the Clean Energy Store. Likewise, while EarthSpark has gained high-profile supporters – including Haiti’s ambassador to the U.S. and NGOs like the Clinton Global Initiative – the debate over Haiti’s energy infrastructure is still in its early stages. In order to make a major impact on Haiti’s rebuilding process, Schnitzer will need to use his high-level access to persuade policy-makers to actually adopt his ideas.
The Clean Energy Stores’ community-based energy lending model and Schnitzer’s proposal for decentralized solar power production have applications beyond Haiti. Developing countries, particularly in the tropics, where sun is plentiful, should monitor the progress of clean energy development in Haiti. If EarthSpark’s innovations are successful, they could transform the way developing countries think about delivering energy, and make affordable energy access possible for every citizen.
Time to Create a DNA Testing Law for Prisoners
by Carmen Burbano on April 29, 2010 in HKS News, News
For some people, Marshall Ganz’s Organizing: People, Power, and Change class is the high point of their HKS experience, providing a practical opportunity to answer the HKS call: “ask what you can do.” For others, it is a nightmare of self-doubt and imminent failure with the capacity to consume time like no other class at HKS. For most, it is both.
For one group of HKS students, however, Organizing provided something unexpected: the discovery that in ‘liberal’ Massachusetts, innocent men and women are at risk of imprisonment because they lack statutory access to basic rights.
Matt Bieber, MPP ’11 and President of the HKS Innocence Group, explained: “Massachusetts needs a post-conviction DNA access law. That’s a mouthful, I know. But it’s far from being a dry legal issue – it’s a matter of justice.”
Bieber pointed to the case of Dennis Maher, who in 2003 was freed from a Massachusetts prison after serving 19 years for three rapes he didn’t commit. As Maher wrote in The Patriot Ledger on Jan. 25, “I requested DNA testing for years. The judge in my case blocked DNA testing, and I spent an extra six years in prison waiting for him to retire. Finally, the testing was conducted because the judge had retired and the prosecutor agreed to it. He didn’t have to, since there was no law on the books to make it clear that I had a right to DNA testing.”
47 states have post-conviction DNA access laws, but Massachusetts isn’t one of them. The other outliers are Oklahoma and Alaska. “While these laws vary state to state, the idea is similar everywhere – to use DNA evidence to eliminate as much of the guesswork as possible in criminal proceedings, ” explained Bieber.
Several bills to create a post-conviction DNA access law have come before the Massachusetts State Legislature in recent years, but none of them has been passed. There is no clear philosophical objection: nobody wants to see innocent people in prison. And the chorus of support for a post-conviction DNA access law in Massachusetts is beginning to grow. In 2009, a Boston Bar Association task force – comprised of police, prosecutors, defense attorneys, former judges, and other stakeholders – issued a public call for lawmakers to move on the issue. Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis has chimed in with his support.
There may, however, be financial obstacles to overcome. In order to ensure that post-conviction DNA testing can take place, relevant evidence has to be preserved. This raises some questions: exactly which evidence should be stored? For how long? And should local municipalities pay to preserve evidence, or should it be the state’s responsibility?
“There are some legitimately tricky questions here,” said Bieber. “But this month, a group of legislators, law enforcement officials, and other stakeholders are trying to work out a compromise on these issues. If they’re successful, post-conviction DNA access legislation has a shot at passing this year.”
This is where Marshall Ganz’s Organizing class comes in. Bieber and his team are keeping out of the back-room bargaining on the questions of finance and focusing their efforts instead on the principle that everyone deserves proper access to justice. “Even if the financial issues get resolved,” said Bieber, “Legislators need an added push to get this bill out of committee and onto the floor of the legislature.”
The HKS Innocence Group is mobilizing supporters within the school and across the Harvard campus to act as concerned citizens and to make their views known. So far, the response has been positive.
The organizers’ tactic? To get fellow students to call legislators on the State Judiciary Committee urging them to do everything they can to bring the bill to a vote. 150 calls have been made already, but the Group is aiming for 300 before the end of the semester.
“We are looking for HKS students – U.S. citizens, Massachusetts voters, and foreign nationals – who are prepared to take a few minutes over the next week to make phone calls,” said Bieber. “This is urgent: if we don’t get that bill out of committee in the next few weeks, more people will suffer the same injustice as Dennis Maher.”
HKS Class Sends Students to Haiti, Sierra Leone
by Natalie Black on April 16, 2010 in HKS News, News
Contributing authors: Pedro Henrique Fernandes de Cristo, MPP’11, and Ian Mills, MPA’10
CCJ-201 ‘Criminal Justice in a Global Context’, running for its second year, remains one of the best-kept secrets at HKS. Focusing on criminal justice reform across the world, the class actually sends students all over the world to contribute to projects being undertaken by the HKS Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management. Over this year’s spring break, students conducted fieldwork in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Haiti, Jamaica, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Kenya.
Haiti
Prior to the devastating January earthquake, which killed over 200,000 people and made more than 1 million homeless, Haiti was renowned for its inefficient justice system and severe prison overcrowding, with over 75 percent of inmates still awaiting trial (some for over 5 years). During Spring Break, Natalie Black, MPP’11, visited Port-au-Prince with two classmates to help the United Nations with a rapid, preliminary assessment of how the justice system had been affected by the earthquake.
The devastation is difficult to comprehend: the Ministry of Justice and the Supreme Court are in ruins; many of the key figures in the court system are dead or missing; the police training school currently houses the Parliament because it, too, collapsed; and the main prison is overflowing even as the police try to recapture the nearly 5,000 prisoners that escaped. The team splits its time between the police, prisons, and courts, meeting senior Haitian officials, U.N. teams and local non-governmental organizations (usually in tents) to evaluate the extent of the damage and what this means for justice processes and priorities.
None of the data collected spoke to the extent of the challenge Haiti now faces as much as the personal stories of the Haitians themselves. On a visit to the main prison, a young man who had been arrested for vagrancy admitted he knew he was unlikely to see a judge in the near future as there are still virtually no justice activities in the capital; in a police station in Cité Soleil, a woman told how she had just evaded a fourth kidnapping attempt; and in an internally-displaced person (IDP) camp, an amazing group of female U.N. police officers were working with female Haitian police officers to tackle the rise in rape.
The Post Disaster Needs Assessment compiled by the Haitian government estimates that $350 million will be required over the next three years to restore and modernize the justice system. It will be a long and difficult process, but also one with immense prospects to address long-term underlying issues.
Los Angeles
After the 1991 Rodney King Los Angeles police brutality case and the 1992 riots, even though valid efforts such as the Christopher Commission took place, rampant problems of accountability and oversight were still present at the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) – issues which became evident with the Rafael Perez corruption scandal at Rampart District in 1999. This pattern of misconduct brought about the intervention of the federal government to maintain oversight of the LAPD. The mechanism adopted was a Consent Decree, which established a series of regulations towards policing activities with the aim of improving police service. It was agreed to in 2000 and started in 2001.
Following up on a previous LAPD HKS report spearheaded by Professor Christopher Stone, the goals for the HKS students involved were to find out if the reduction of violent crimes (more than 40 percent), property index crimes (33.5 percent), the improvement in terms of public perception (a drop of 20 percent in citizens perception of crime as a big problem for the city from 2002-2008) and the decrease in categorical use of force (8.1 to 6.2 for each 10,000 arrests from 2004-2008) had continued after the decree ended in mid-2009. The students were also tasked to find out if the changes that took place under the leadership of Chief William J. Bratton (2002-2009) had become institutionalized.
The students found that a high degree of alignment among all levels of the Police Department, the Office of the Inspector General (its civilian oversight body), and the communities were delivering effective changes in the policing production function based on the much greater integration and interaction with local communities, both for service and evaluation. The LAPD’s Broken Window theory approach has been nurtured into the idea of ‘constitutional policing,’ meaning reducing crime without committing crimes and continuously providing results while reframing police relations with the communities. This has resulted in an LAPD where officers now provide an effective and satisfactory law enforcement role.
Sierra Leone
Dostoevsky once commented that “the degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.” The largest, most secure prison in Sierra Leone, Pademba Road, has one part-time doctor, no computerized records and approximately 1,100 inmates, which is four times over-populated – and growing.
During spring break, two students from CCJ-201 explored Pademba Road as part of a data gathering exercise designed to complement an existing United Kingdom Department for International Development project in the field. The students were sent to learn and understand, empirically, what happens to people through the process of arrest, trial, and detention in the criminal justice system – with a view to providing feedback on how data might best be gathered going forward. Moving between prison and court, the students sampled 100 cases and identified the usual problems – capacity constraints, insufficient funding, inadequate training, and inefficiencies in process design. But there was also a degree of local impetus for change in a country reestablishing its democracy after a civil war, despite struggling with enormous poverty challenges. Students on all of the trips gained an appreciation for on-the-ground capacity constraints and the importance for realistic framing of criminal justice interventions. There is a lot to learn from entering prisons, and students in the class highly recommend it to everyone.
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.
Baptist Town One Year Later
by September Hargrove on April 16, 2010 in HKS News, News
Kennedy School Students Committed To Public Service In Mississippi
As public service week wraps up at the Kennedy School, members of the Community Development Project (CDP) are gearing up for another trip to Baptist Town, a historic African American neighborhood in Greenwood, Mississippi. CDP began as a two-year project in 2009, but these student volunteers say that they are now committed to working with the Baptist Town community for as long as there is a need.
A Mississippi Delta community, once famous for notable residents like blues legend Robert Johnson, actor Morgan Freeman, and civil rights leader Arance Williamson, Baptist Town now struggles to shake its reputation of persistent poverty, dilapidated housing, and chronic unemployment. Despite the problems, Baptist Town has a strong, proud community that has collaborated with CDP to make a change.
Guided by the principles of participatory planning and the importance of community empowerment in creating sustainable change, CDP believes that community redevelopment must begin with and be supported by the community. Through its work, CDP has assisted the Baptist Town in developing a united vision for its future. In January 2009, during their first visit to Baptist Town, CDP hosted community visioning workshops which identified that the community wanted more activities for youth, safer and cleaner neighborhood, and improvements to the physical infrastructure, including public spaces. CDP is currently supporting Baptist Town residents towards realizing this vision.
Since the project started, members of CDP have visited Baptist Town over five times to conduct research, provide technical assistance to neighborhood residents, and develop local leadership. Some of CDP’s work has included facilitating community meetings, offering continued support to a fledgling community organization, developing asset maps and infrastructure surveys, and offering continued support to a fledgling community organization by assisting residents with grant-writing and application for 501c(3) status.
CDP, comprised of thirteen members representing the Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard Graduate School of Design, Harvard Law School, and MIT Sloan School of Management, receives significant support from Harvard affiliates. Financial support from the Ash Institute for Democratic Governanceand Innovation, the Center for Public Leadership, KSSG, Taubman Center for State and Local Governance, and the W.E.B. DuBois Institute for African and African-American Research have all helped sustain CDP’s operations in Boston as well as Mississippi. In addition, CDP has worked closely with atalented faculty advisory board comprised of Professors Marshall Ganz, Julie Wilson and William J. Wilson.
“Our work, though far from complete, gives me hope that people in our position of privilege at great institutions can remember that our knowledge is only worth what we use it for,” said graduating CDP member Babak Mostaghimi, (MPP ’10), looking back over his experiences since his first trip down to Baptist Town. “For me, CDP embodies why I came to the Kennedy School – to make a real difference in the world around me.”
In just one year since CDP arrived in Baptist Town, much in the community has already changed for the better. With the support of CDP, the Baptist Town Community Organization (BTCO) was established with the ambitious objective to mobilize and improve their community. BTCO Co-Chair Dash Brown said expresses, “CDP has shown me how to make the impossible possible, and how to repurpose our skills to change what was once a useless skill to a powerful tool.”
Recognizing the important role that youth will have in revitalizing Baptist Town, the BTCO has organized events such as a “Back to School” celebration, and a donation drive is in the process of establishing a community technology center to offer after-school services for community youth. In partnership with CDP, they have already secured five computers and created a strong computer skills curriculum.
While everyone may not have the time to venture down to Baptist Town, students at the Kennedy School can still support the Baptist Town community and the fellow CDP students by attending the upcoming Chili Cook Off later this month and the annual BBQ and Blues Night in the fall semester.
Putting the Kennedy School motto “Ask what you can do” into action, CDP’s commitment to public service has helped the community of Baptist Town to be able to look back over the year and answer their own call of “Look what we can accomplish.”
HKS Students To Spend Summer in Afghanistan
by Carolyn McGourty on April 16, 2010 in HKS News, News
As the United States pursues its strategy to achieve stable governance in Afghanistan, a number of Harvard Kennedy School students will be headed there in the summer to help advance the country in other capacities.
From political rights to drug policy, MPP candidates will spend their break to help improve the complex, war-torn nation.
“I’ve studied Afghanistan extensively this year, and really wanted to see it in person,” said Afreen Akhter, MPP1, who secured an internship with Shuhada, a woman-led NGO based in central Afghanistan. “We’ve been flooded with so many critiques of Afghanistan at Kennedy, however, I don’t feel comfortable supporting any of those positions without having seen it myself.”
Akhter will work on the ground for women’s rights with Shuhada, taking part in community outreach through surveying program participants in several of their field offices. Putting her newly acquired econometrics skills to use, she will try to determine the effectiveness of their initiatives and whether or not they enhance community security.
“If I enjoy working in Afghanistan I’d like to apply to work as a civil servant for the State (Department) upon graduation,” Akhter said.
Akhter will be working in Bamyan, the site of the desecrated Buddha statues infamously destroyed by the Taliban in 2001. Home to the Hazaras, a minority Shiite population in Afghanistan, it is also the country’s only province with a female governor, Habiba Sorabi.
Katy Peters, MPP1, will be working with the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission on a survey of political rights. Though her exact regional assignment and role are still being determined, she said she will most likely be stationed in Kabul.
“First and foremost, I hope to be useful in making fall parliamentary elections free and legitimate,” Peters said. “I think that representative governance will matter a great deal for long-term stability in Afghanistan, and this is an area in which I can contribute to that end.”
Peters said that she too hopes to better understand a country that she has been studying at school.
“This is a country very much in the news and of particular relevance right now,” Peters said. “I’ve heard it discussed by Rory Stewart and Nick Burns, the fellows at the Carr Center and any number of visiting speakers. I want to see first-hand an effort I’ve already spent hours writing about with pseudo-authority.”
Peters, whose core interests are elections, election systems and democratic governance, said she hopes the experience will also help her build requisite skills for future work in these areas. She is interested in possibly turning the AIHRC into a client for her policy analysis exercise when she returns as an MPP2.
Natalie Black, MPP1, will also be headed to Kabul to work for the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime.
Black, who spent her spring break in Haiti assessing aspects of the country’s criminal justice system after it crippled in the devastating quake, will be examining a different facet of crime.
“This is the first time I will work for the UN so I am looking forward to learning more about how it functions and its work with the Afghan government in tackling the drugs trade,” Black said.
The students have applied for fellowship support to fund their summer internships through Kennedy School funding.
Akhter, Peters and Black will travel to Afghanistan via commercial airlines from Dubai to Kabul. Though acknowledging they may be put in harm’s way, the students don’t think security will be a serious concern during their time there.
“Come visit! Seriously,” Akhter said. “Bamyan is really trying to build up a tourism industry.”
German Conference Highlights Global Issues
by Sebastian Litta on March 10, 2010 in HKS News, News
From East German resistance to defense of the arts, the Harvard German conference held from Feb. 19-20 offered a unique chance for students to think about global challenges of the coming decade with new perspectives.
While the conference was originally founded to make use of Harvard’s vast amount of intellectual resources to discuss solutions to German policy challenges, Lukas said he and his fellow organizers strived to make the 2010 conference “relevant not only to Germans studying across the US but to students from all over the world united here at Harvard.”
This combination of global issues and German approaches was visible in a panel organized by Kathrin Bimesdörfer and Joe Aylor, MPP2s, on the lessons of Berlin 1989. They moved beyond just having German politicians recount their role in the peaceful revolution by inviting Kelly Golnoush Niknejad, an Iranian-American journalist whose blog follows current events in Iran.
Vera Lengsfeld, one of the leading figures of the East German resistance, mostly tried to canonize the role of civil society activists in the Fall of the Wall. Charles Maier from Harvard’s history department embedded 1989 in the context of global events. Golnoush Niknejad, meanwhile, focused mainly on Iran. The discussion ended with a somewhat dissatisfying sense that all revolutions are different, but it offered one common lesson: For any peaceful revolution to be successful, it needs support from the outside.
Other panels covered the situation in Afghanistan, the role of innovation, the future of science and research, the design of health care systems, and renewable energy. The German Ambassador to the United States outlined ten priorities on the transatlantic agenda, and the former head of McKinsey Germany discussed various global challenges for the next decade. Claus Kleber, Germany’s Tom Brokaw, gave a vibrant dinner speech on Friday, talking about misunderstandings between Germany and the US. He was thanked with a Harvard tie, which he wore a week later during his daily news broadcast.
Saturday night brought a bit of Berlin club life into Cambridge. A German DJ and fine electronic music turned the Faculty Club into a bizarre version of a Berlin-Mitte underground lounge. And if you considered the time zone difference, ending the party at 1 am was actually 7 am in Berlin, adding to the realism.
Before the party, Kent Nagano, conductor and artistic director of the Bavarian State Opera, and Jürgen Partenheimer, one of Germany’s leading visual artists, discussed the relationship between “the artist and the state,” highlighting the many differences between the state-funded German model and the philanthropic model in the U.S. For Christopher Vorwerk, a German research fellow from Yale, this was the best part of the conference. “It gave an insight on how a global language such as visual art or music is faced with different structures of support not only on both sides of the Atlantic but also in other countries [like] China.”
Maestro Nagano gave an elaborate answer defending the arts, but left it to policymakers to decide how to prioritize arts funding over reducing poverty, improving education or providing health care. For Caroline Blanch, a first-year MPP from Australia, the arts talk was an unexpected feature of the conference. “Even though I’d come to hear about the hard-edged realities of technological and commercial innovation, I thought that Kent Nagano’s eloquent and deeply heartfelt reflections on the arts were the highlight of the day. At the Kennedy School we are so busy trying to solve problems that I think we sometimes forget there are people out there who genuinely live for art for art’s sake.”
Lukas Streiff and his co-organizers are now turning to other tasks, including their PAEs, but Lukas is already thinking ahead: “Hopefully the word will spread that the German Conference features an innovative program and great speakers so that even more of our friends here at Harvard will join us next year.”
