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.”
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.
What’s Next?
by Lena Benson on March 10, 2010 in HKS News, News
Despite unemployment rates and the current hiring climate, graduating HKS students have much to be optimistic about as they begin their job quest.
Many two-year degree students entered the Kennedy School in 2008 expecting to be courted by numerous employers after they graduate. But they are now experiencing a rude awakening as they watch their friends and even parents search for jobs following layoffs.
Despite the change in domestic and international employment markets in the last two years, not all hope is lost, though, especially at HKS. Although it looked like last year’s HKS graduating class had much to be concerned about getting jobs, data from a post-graduation survey conducted by The Office of Career Advancement (OCA) found that these students secured employment at almost exactly the same rate as graduates in past years. Of the 86% of students who completed the survey, 50% were settled (meaning had a job, were continuing their education, or were taking time off) by graduation and 90% were settled by October.
What was different, however, was where jobs were found. More students entered the public sector as federal job opportunities increased and private sector jobs like international development consulting and non-federal public finance became scarce. “What we are seeing is that an HKS degree is resilient in a down economy because of all the diverse skills you acquire during your time here,” said Mary Beaulieu, Interim Director of OCA.
But even with news this promising, who has the time to search for a job between SYPA and PAE work? It’s a matter of individual initiative, really. Actually the Kennedy School is full of promising job search resources once you really find time to devote to it. Some students begin by brushing up on their interview skills, meeting with a career coach, and revising their resume – all of which are services provided at OCA. Next, many continue their quest by tapping into old networks like their previous employers, their undergraduate institution, or their summer internship.
Others look to HKS faculty, alumni, the research centers, and fellow students (especially Mid-Careers) for leads and insight. MPP ‘10 Brendan Rivage-Seul recently received an offer to join the U.S. Foreign Service at the State Department after graduation. “As I was going through the selection process I found JACK to be an incredibly useful tool for helping me prepare for the written and oral exams. I also spoke with two HKS alumni who had gone through the process and Professor Nick Burns generously met with me on multiple occasions to talk about the exams and the realities of the life in the Foreign Service.”
But most students are still on the lookout out for that next step. Beaulieu tells students not to let anxiety ruin the final months of school. Over 250 new jobs are posted in JACK (Jobs and Careers at the Kennedy School) each month and the OCA estimates that over 100 more employers will come to HKS between now and May. By setting up a “Job Search Agent,” jobs posted on JACK that fit your criteria are immediately emailed to you. But the task of finding a job can be a bit harder for those not looking in Boston, New York, and Washington, D.C., where the majorities of these jobs are found. “I am specifically dedicated to going back to Philadelphia to serve my hometown,” says MPP ‘10 Chris Arlene, “I decided to find a PAE client in Philadelphia in hopes of turning the process into a vehicle for my job search. I’m also planning on tapping my established network back home.”
Read This if You Want to Earn $10,000 More
by Michael Zakaras, News Asst. Editor on February 25, 2010 in HKS News, News
Think about the whole benefits package, not just the salary. Develop a personal scale weighing the value of each component. Kill off a bad offer as soon as possible. These were some of the tips Professor Brian Mandell had on negotiation compensation.
Mandell, who teaches a highly popular negotiation course at HKS, illustrated strategies that could help prevent a job taker’s version of buyer’s remorse in a seminar organized by the Office of Career Advancement on Feb. 17.
The seminar was a mix of more general advice about job interviews and specific suggestions about how to maneuver through the dreaded salary conversation. While he acknowledged that job interviews are largely spontaneous, Mandell also said that a certain level of “self-scripting” is important for developing an “anticipatory stance.” Such a stance is key for walking away with compensation to be happy about.
Part of being anticipatory is being prepared to answer the kinds of statements or questions you’ll frequently hear. Such “squeezing” tactics might include: “It’s a very tough economy now,” “I’m sorry, but this is company policy ” or, “By the way, do you have an MBA or JD?” Each is a subtle – or not so subtle – way of telling you that you need to lower your expectations.
According to Mandell, the ability to respond properly to such questions can make up to a $10,000 dollar difference in salary offer between two otherwise identical candidates. “You have the power in the interview to shape their expectations just as they shape yours,” he said.
Mandell began the seminar by reminding listeners about the importance of the first few minutes after you sit down for the interview. “You’re largely getting the job in the first 3-5 minutes or you’re not,” he said. “It’s like the starting pistol at the Olympics.”
How exactly are employers evaluating you in those early moments? Mandell walked through his “6 Cs” – Credibility, Competence, Collaboration potential, Commitment, Congruence, and Confidence. These form what he believes are the basis of what will become your salary.
Credibility is essentially whether there is a clear connection between your narrative, your CV, and the job you are applying for. If you’re applying for a “stretch position” – like in a sector you’ve never worked in before – your credibility will appear a bit thinner. Competence, meanwhile, is about coming across as articulate, focused, and engaged. Mandell was careful to distinguish between being smart and signaling competence. “People want to know, ‘Can I trust your judgment’?” he said. “Do not assume that graduating from this 375-year old institution is a substitute for competence.”
Collaboration potential and commitment are largely self-explanatory, while congruence refers to whether or not there’s a gap between your verbal and non-verbal communication. Looking and sounding committed, in other words, is as important as the level of commitment displayed in your CV and cover letter. Mandell referred to Confidence as the “sniff test” about one’s “ability to be able to persevere under conditions of turbulence and uncertainty.”
Then Mandell got into the nitty-gritty of compensation negotiation. He began by reminding students that compensation is about more than just salary, but rather the full package of salary and benefits such as health care, vacation, bonuses, training opportunities, etc. When considering an offer, he stressed the importance of taking these factors into consideration – perhaps even of developing a 100-point scale to weigh the value of each component. For some, a strong health care package might be nearly as important as the salary figure itself, and many companies are more willing to budge in these areas than on salary.
When should salary come up in the interview? Some employers might try to discuss it early on, but Mandell said discussing compensation later in the interview, gives you a better chance to present your value proposition to the company.
If you feel confident and want to bring up the topic of compensation yourself, Mandell recommended setting an anchor at 20 percent higher than you want. Meanwhile, if they bring it up first, Mandell stressed the importance of quickly “de-anchoring” a bad offer. Otherwise, the longer a figure is on the table, the more likely it is to solidify. “It’s like drying cement,” he said.
What do you say if you don’t feel comfortable with an offer? If only a few thousand short, you can use the “yes, but” tactic. If the offer seems way off the mark, you can politely say, “This doesn’t sound reasonable given my value proposition,” or “Frankly I’m a bit surprised” and give two or three reasons why you think the offer is unreasonable.
Finally, for anyone feeling overwhelmed or flustered, there’s the ultimate get-out-of-jail card: “Excuse me, can you direct me to the bathroom?” Taking a couple of minutes to gather your thoughts and come back in prepared is perfectly acceptable and much smarter than agreeing to something you wish you hadn’t.
Among the participants was Wade Barnes, MPP’11, who found the scenarios Mandell played through to be especially beneficial. “Professor Mandell did a good job demonstrating how employees preserve their leverage during compensation negotiations – and that the amount of leverage you control is dictated by the strength of your performance at the negotiating table” said Barnes.
Stacking Up the HKS Library Renovations: Mixed Reviews
by Sayce Falk, News Asst. Editor on February 25, 2010 in HKS News, News
HKS students returned to school this January to find fewer shelves and more study rooms in the library, which just completed phase one of its renovations. Though the renovations have been welcomed by most as an improvement, many pointed out that more could have been done. “I appreciate the space, but I don’t know if it’s a better set-up with the tables that they currently have [in the extension area]. I’ve also heard that some people are interested in having a no-keyboard zone,” said September Hargrove, MPP ’11.
The planning for the renovations began nearly a year ago as a result of HKS ’09 graduates’ complaints about the space available. Since then, the school administration, the Kennedy School Student Government (KSSG), and the librarian staff have continued to work together on a new library design that would better meet student needs.
The library managed to finish phase one of its renovations in time for the first week of classes to begin, but in order to do so, it was forced to close a week earlier than originally anticipated. That closure eliminated the school’s primary study space throughout the second week of finals, a controversial move that many students did not understand.
“The architect said we have to start it that week,” said Imran Alimohammed, vice president of student services for KSSG, “which was also difficult for the library staff, because they were not ready. But it was out of our hands; it was the architect’s decision.” The renovations included the creation of four new group study rooms, capable of accommodating up to eight students, which are open from 7 a.m. to 1 a.m. and feature sign-up sheets next to the door. The left two of the four also feature large flat-screen televisions with a converter cable that allows students to display their PC laptop screens to the rest of the group; a converter cable for Apple computers is available for check- out from the circulation desk, but is not compatible with new laptops that have a Mini Displayport.
“I like the new study rooms,” said Gregory Foo, MPP ’11. “You can book them, which makes them easier to use when you need them.” For now, the rooms are open to all, but Alimohammed said that KSSG plans to work with the library to institute a three-person minimum for room usage in the future. “We’re going to institute a minimum three-person policy for the study rooms because people are using it as their personal offices. Once you get above two people, it’s very difficult to find space in this school, so we wanted to give larger groups priority there,” said Alimohammed.
The focus of the renovation was on the library extension, which opens an hour earlier, at 7, and closes two hours later, at 1 a.m., than the rest of the library. However, the design of the extension has been criticized for its inefficient use of space and an oddly shaped wall-hugging bench. The result has not satisfied students who expected the new area to focus on high student densities much as the rear of the main library does.
“In terms of a face lift, I think HKS did a good job restructuring the library. However, we still face similar problems as last year. We need a larger and quiet study area,” said Zeke Geh, MPP ’11. “The expansion of seating and work areas almost make it a library where I would choose to study,” said Jesse Wald, MPA ’10. Some of those concerns are already being addressed – Alimohammed said that phase two of the renovation, which is currently underway, will bring in new and additional furniture.
“The administration wanted to get something done as quickly as possible even though not everything was ready,” he said, and as a result, plastic chairs and tables were brought in from other places in the school to provide temporary space for work.
As work in the library enters additional phases, KSSG and school administrators continue to discuss other issues – possibly including stricter limits on what drink containers are allowable in the library in order to limit spillage. Student and school leaders are also working on other initiatives to provide students televisions in Taubman Rotunda, for example, and a discussion about the low lighting in the forum in the evenings.
“If students have other concerns, they should definitely bring them up with their student representatives,” said Alimohammed. “We really do want to help.”
State of the School
by Michael Zakaras, News Asst. Editor on February 16, 2010 in HKS News, News
At a dedicated forum event on Tuesday, February 4, Dean Ellwood delivered the inaugural HKS State of the School Address. The address outlined the Administration’s perspective on multiple topics, including the school’s financial endowment, diversity of faculty, working space at HKS, and admissions. However, despite initial excitement among the student body when the address was scheduled, attendance remained low and the closing Q&A session (barring pre-submitted student questions) was relatively quiet.
KSSG President Dave Baumwoll, MPP’10 had lobbied for a Dean’s State of the School Address as part of his campaign platform, and fittingly, he made the introductory remarks and moderated the questions. After his opening remarks, which concentrated on the desire to serve among HKS students, Baumwoll spoke to the Citizen. “We hope to set a new standard for student/administrator interaction, and elevate students to a level of stakeholder in the Kennedy School and its future,” Baumwoll explained. “This event was meant to establish a tradition that gives us, the students, the chance to continue that relationship.”
The Dean’s address emphasized the collective commitment to public service that characterizes the HKS student body. In addition to describing the school’s wider mission, the Dean also explained his position on a number of specific topics. Of particular interest was a summary of the HKS financial situation in comparison to the other Harvard schools, and a breakdown of how HKS finances function. The Dean used these figures as a platform to describe his own priorities for HKS funds, telling students that working space, crucial as it might be, remains of secondary importance to pro- viding financial aid.
Jesse Wald, MPA’10 noted the importance of the speech: “I found the address hugely useful in understanding how strategic decisions are made in the administration – I’m just sorry not to have found out this information before.” Colin Taylor, MPP’10 also appreciated the Dean’s candor, but noted that attendance was low: “It was a frank conversation about the school’s financial and space constraints, but it would have been nice to see more students at the event.”
- David Ring, MPP’10
More Opportunities for Women Students at HKS
by Lena Benson on November 14, 2009 in HKS News, News
HKS students are witnessing an increase in the number of gender-related opportunities this year.
The Women and Gender Caucus was launched this fall by four MPP’10s: Molly Byrne, Carl Allen, Joni Angel, and Liz Terry. The Caucus was formed to engage both male and female students on gender issues as they relate to policy making, and to promote the presence of women speakers and fellows at HKS.
They have been working to ensure that female perspectives are represented on the faculty and in the curriculum. A flurry of female-led study groups have also been offered. They include Gina Ganz’s “Organizing for Power,” Peggy Noonan’s “Creativity in Journalism, in Politics, and in Life,” Stephanie Cutter’s “Eye of the Storm,”Kim Gandy’s “Winning Across Progressive Movements,” and Swanee Hunt’s “The Advocate’s Craft.”
“HKS seems to have a burgeoning support network for women,” said Jeannine Torres, MPA ’11. “Unfortunately, I have been unable to participate in a lot of them because of my schedule, but I appreciate their presence. It’s nice to know that I have the support if I need it.”
In addition, the HKS Women and Public Policy Program (WAPPP) has been continuing weekly seminars on topics ranging from salary negotiation to microfinance to The Oval Office Program, a selective one-of-a-kind yearlong series designed to encourage female students to run for public office and to prepare them for the various challenges of running a campaign.
Still, many students expressed concern that most of these programs either conflicted with required classes or failed to provide adequate social opportunities where they could regularly meet and learn from the career paths and life experiences of their female colleagues.
To address this deficit, some informal groups arose. Several African and African American female students created an email listserve to disseminate articles of interest. They also took a break from graduate school stress during monthly “Black Women’s Dinners” where they discussed issues that impacted them and provided academic and personal support to each other.
Some students also took advantage of summer internship opportunities working with women leaders. When Yordanos Eyoel, an MPP2 from Florida, was asked why she opted to take a summer internship in South Africa through the Council of Women World Leaders Program, she responded, “I felt that with my training at HKS, I didn’t have exposure to a lot of women leaders, and such an internship would afford me the opportunity to network with female professionals as well as equip me with skills to be an effective leader in male dominated spheres.”
But is this enough? Some voiced concerns that much of the positive changes may not roll over into next year. The burden should not be left on the female students to develop their own projects and community, they said, pointing out the need for more administrative support.
Allison Shapira, a Mid-Career MPA from Massachusetts, said she was optimistic that students’ initiatives will make these changes lasting. “These efforts should come from the ground up. It’s our leadership challenge as female students to create the kind of environment we want to see. We take responsibility for our own development, and the Kennedy School provides the opportunity.”
Only time will tell if this year’s opportunities will be as prevalent in the future, especially when students only have one or two years at HKS and take much of the institutional memory of their organizing efforts with them when they leave.
Nevertheless, this past month and a half have shown us that now is a good time to be a female student at HKS, and if these efforts do yield results, next year will be an even better time.
Endowment Hardships and the Power of Nice
by Jeb Breiding on November 14, 2009 in HKS News, News
Harvard recently reported that the value of its endowment declined by $11 billion, or 27 percent of the total. This is the equivalent of 35 years’ worth of tuition from the combined 20,230 undergraduate and graduate students. For the University, this represents the most severe financial setback in its 373 year history and will undoubtedly have serious consequences. The ambitious Allston Science Complex, scheduled for completion in 2011 at a cost $1.2 billion, has been put on hold. Capital spending overall has been cut by half.
For those colleges most dependent on endowment funding, like Arts and Sciences, cost cutting is already underway and is likely to be painful. The college is facing a budget deficit of $220 million and is taking measures to cut 20 percent of all costs. These cuts have manifested themselves in a variety of ways – thermostats have been lowered during the winter months from 72 to 68 degrees, free coffee is no longer available at the University’s Barker Center, courses have been cut, and class sizes are getting larger.
With salaries constituting approximately 50 percent of operating expenses, Harvard’s personnel-heavy budget leaves little room for less painful cuts, a problem which has few solutions. President Drew Faust announced recently that 1,600 employees have taken early retirement and that 275 others have been laid off. For those who remain, no bonuses will be paid for 2009 and salary increases for 2010 are unexpected.
Harvard has not been alone in suffering losses – the average university endowment fell 18 percent last year. But with an estimated $26 billion in total funding and stellar financial performance over the longer term, Harvard has the largest university endowment in the world. During the last ten years, including last year’s hiccup, Harvard’s endowment earned an impressive annual return of 8.9 percent, compared to 3.2% for its peers, a report compiled by Willshire Associates found.
The magnitude of the loss since last fall is nevertheless a severe jolt and has provoked a debate about the importance of accountability, the sensibility of expansion plans, and the need to reassess fund-raising efforts.
The decisions that led to the endowment’s loss were largely made during the tenure of former Harvard President Larry Summers, now a leading economic advisor to President Obama. During Summers’ stewardship, the endowment took on more leverage, increased its exposure to risky assets – accepting higher so-called ‘Value at Risk’ – and substantially reduced the liquidity of the portfolio. Summers also broke with Harvard’s longstanding policy of saving more when performance was good, in order to provide for ‘rainy day money’ when performance was bad.
There were also mishaps. A report by Bloomberg revealed that at one point, the endowment took a $923 million loss on a failed derivative bet that interest rates would rise. Bloomberg’s report suggested that the endowment may not have understood what it was investing in; Footnote 4 in Harvard’s latest fiscal report reveals that 64 percent of the endowment’s assets are held in Level 3 types of investments. These tend to be more obscure assets like private equity, hedge funds, and real estate whose ‘prices or valuation require inputs that are both significant to the fair value measurement and unobservable.’
Over the last ten years, Harvard’s expansion plans have grown at least as fast as it has outpaced the ability of its endowment to fund them. A total of 6.2 million square feet of campus was added from 2000 to 2008, the equivalent of about 140 football fields. Though many reasons have been given for such a plan, it also probably helped that during this eight year period, Harvard had four presidents, each of whom wished to make their mark.
Harvard’s endowment is not a single massive account, but a conglomeration of 11,600 separate funds, established over many years, and with a wide variety of purposes and restrictions. Yet Harvard centralizesits investment management of those collective gifts and donations despite their separate legal and fiscal status, which enables it to fund operating budgets at colleges that are heavy on costs, but light on recurring revenues. For example, the College of Arts and Sciences and the Graduate School of Design depend on the endowment to pay 55 and 48 percent of their budgets respectively, while HBS and HKS only draw 25 and 28 percent.
Though the aggregation, centralized management, and need-based distribution of funds worked well under normal circumstances, the drop in the endowment’s size and the restrictions on how some funds can be used has only increased the difficulty of managing the endowment over the past year.
Endowment funding has become a critical measure of a school’s vitality and stature. It enables a school to make long term investments, attract the best faculty, offer state of the art infrastructure, and attract the most desirable employers. Fundraising inevitably determines the relative bargaining strength among Harvard colleges, and can often spur internal competition.
Endowments have permanently transformed the operating model of universities. Harvard’s endowment in 1985 was $2.5 billion, and the portion of operating costs funded by it was a tiny fraction of what they are today.
The good news is that a new era of large donations to nonprofit institutions seems to be approaching. The Center on Wealth and Philanthropy estimates that up to $27.4 trillion will be donated over the next 40 years, and as the University’s premier public service school, HKS should stand to benefit from some of those funds.
The Kennedy School has the potential to be a preferred donor destination given our focus on “doing good” rather than just “making money.” But the HKS endowment is only $800 million, compared to $2 billion for the Business School and $11 billion for the College of Arts and Sciences. That is why many believe it is time for HKS to seize this opportunity to narrow this gap, and that we should put our brightest minds together to help make this happen.
In doing so, HKS should not lose sight of the fact that it has something else in its favor which engenders charity that its cousin across the Charles doesn’t have: ‘the Power of Nice.’
Director of Carr Center Selected for British Parliament
by Joel Kenrick on October 30, 2009 in HKS News, News
Professor Rory Stewart, who was appointed Director of the Harvard Carr Center for Human Rights only last year, looks certain to become a Member of Parliament (MP) in the United Kingdom after an expenses scandal claimed the scalps of leading politicians in the British Parliament.
On October 25, Stewart was selected as the Conservative candidate in the Penrith and Borders constituency in northern England. The seat has been held by the Conservative party since it was created in 1950, and is considered one of the safest Conservative seats in the country.
The current MP, David Maclean, announced in June he would be standing down for health reasons after it was revealed that he used taxpayer money to renovate his home, which he then sold tax-free.
A former Iraqi provincial governor, best-selling author and leading authority on military intervention, Stewart said before the election that he was deeply “conflicted” about the prospect of leaving the Kennedy School and a job he has “really begun to enjoy more and more” after such a short period.
“I took the job [of Director] assuming there was no chance of going into Parliament for at least six years,” Stewart said. “I wasn’t even a member of the Conservative Party at the time.”
But last year, dozens of Members of Parliament announced they would be standing down due to an expenses scandal. David Cameron, the leader of the British Conservative Party, publicly called on ‘ordinary’ members of the public to apply to become candidates for the party at the 2010 election.
Rory Stewart was one of those to answer the call and was quickly added to the ‘A’ list of candidates that local parties were asked to choose from when drawing up a short-list to replace retiring MPs.
While his family is from Scotland, Rory Stewart was born in Hong Kong and brought up in Malaysia. On his return to Britain, he was educated at Eton boarding school and was an army officer before studying at Balliol College, Oxford. While studying, he worked as a summer tutor to Prince William and Prince Harry.
After leaving Oxford, Stewart was fast-tracked through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, where he was posted to Indonesia and Montenegro. Yet in 2000, at the age of only 27, he gave up his promising career and spent 20 months walking 6,000 miles across Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, India, and Nepal, staying in over 500 villages along the way.
On his return, he wrote about his experiences in The Places in Between, a New York Times bestseller, before travelling by taxi to Baghdad in 2003, only months after the invasion. Within a month, he was acting Governor of Maysan, a southern Iraqi province.
After serving as a Carr Center fellow in 2005, he founded the Turquoise Mountain Foundation, a charity he still runs, which aims to conserve the old city in Kabul and revive traditional artisan skills in Afghanistan.
Professor Stewart’s practical experiences have proved valuable in teaching his popular course, War, States and Interventions, a course aimed at policy makers and practitioners in post-conflict states.
“The course is valuable in that it presents the complexity of the situation on the ground,” said Colonel Debra Sinnott, a National Security Fellow. “He is honest about there being no set answers and leads us through the hard questions to ask.” In the early weeks of the course, Stewart cantered through hundreds of years of enlightenment theory and readings from war poets, classic novels, and colonial essayists.
“He will spend half an hour on the rhetorical basis of speech patterns and assign readings about forest management in ancient Prussia,” said Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Donahoe, also a National Security Fellow. “Initially, you question why, but he is a very gifted individual with an ability to bring these readings back and use it as a very effective prism.”
Stewart has played down his current influence, though he is known to have advised leading American officials on future policy in Afghanistan. ‘The most I can do is to lay out some of the issues if a politician is looking for a way of explaining them. That’s why I enjoy spending time with [Senator] Kerry and [former] Senator George] McGovern. I try to produce stories they can relate to in their own speeches.”
Stewart admitted he can sometimes “be restless and impatient” but has argued that his experiences as a soldier, civil servant, charity worker, teacher and writer are ideal training for a politician.
“I realized as a civil servant the limits to policy influence. At least in Britain, if the main interest is in influencing policy, then you need to be in Parliament.”
Park Cleanup Caps A Week of Public Service Celebration
by JonGlassman on October 30, 2009 in HKS News, News
The Student Public Service Collaborative (SPSC) held its annual Fall Day of Service (FDS) on Oct. 22, asking HKS students, faculty, and staff to leave the ivory tower for a few hours and get their hands dirty maintaining a number of Boston parks.
About 50 members of the HKS community participated in FDS, including Dean Ellwood and about 15 other staff and faculty members. The participants split themselves between Smith Park and Union Joyce Park in nearby Brighton, MA, where they helped collect trash, clean up fallen branches and leaves, and spread mulch.
The event coincided with the end of Public Service Week, a university-wide initiative spearheaded by Harvard President Drew Faust. While many students saw FDS as the culmination of Public Service Week, SPSC and the administration were eager to point out that volunteer community service is just one of many ways in which HKS students are already involved in public service.
“One thing that’s wonderful is that this week we’ve been able to illustrate the variety of ways that people contribute to doing public service and enhancing the public good,” said HKS Dean David Ellwood.
In addition to the FDS parks clean-up, some of the week’s events at HKS included a Hauser Center event featuring George Soros and Michael Sandel and Forum events with Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, David Axelrod, and present and former leaders of the Carr center. The Office of Career Advancement (OCA) also sponsored a weeklong “Demystifying DC” event series, all highlighting various forms of public service.
In response to student comments that the Public Service Week events at HKS seem no different than any other week’s events, Dean Ellwood said, “if you tell me that’s a typical week at the Kennedy School, that makes me thrilled. We’re all here because we want to make the world a better place, and we can and should be living that every day.”
Some students questioned the wisdom of designating a Public Service Week, pointing out they are already dedicated to public service at HKS. Sarah Wald, chief of staff and senior advisor to Dean Ellwood, said in response, “Public service is not something in isolation that we want to do just one week per year, but it’s important to sometimes take a step back and explicitly point it out and celebrate it.”
The one-year-old SPSC worked hard to celebrate public service at HKS. During the summer, SPSC co-directors Pamela Chan, MPA ’10 and David Baumwoll, MPP ’10 chose the parks clean-up for FDS in order to address the SPSC mission to “integrate public service into the culture of HKS, offer a continuum of service opportunities, and support the pursuit of careers in public service.”
According to Chan, FDS is “a community building event to bring together people who normally don’t get to interact. We came up with the idea for park services because it was something that could be done in one day and that everyone can participate in and that would allow for active interaction [among students].”
Chan added, “The city spends a lot of money trying to deal with falling leaves every year. They were so enthusiastic to have a group of people willing to come out and spend a day to rake up the leaves
and help do some park maintenance. It is a public service that’s helpful for the Boston community, but it’s also helpful for our community as we get to know each other better.”
The administration reached beyond the student body to encourage involvement from the greater HKS community, offering paid time off to HKS staff, continuing a policy started during SPSC’s Spring Day of Service (SDS) event last year.
According to Zara Snapp, MPP ’10 last year’s co-organizer for SDS, “there was a very strong representation of administration and staff. It gave us an opportunity to shed our institutional roles and just hang out and spend time together.”
