Dean David Ellwood Commentary: Ask What You Can Do for Public Service

The Harvard Kennedy School Citizen

Why did you come to Harvard Kennedy School? Whatever the specifics, the events of the past months prove that we need your enlightened public leadership like never before.

We are in the midst of a global financial turmoil, where stock markets across the world have fallen precipitously, and western governments are partially nationalizing private banks. Global climate change threatens to transform weather patterns and raise seas dramatically. Terror and development and immigration and health pandemics and commodity and food prices all threaten to overwhelm. Some nations are rising and some are falling. And international institutions seem largely impotent.

Whether we can tackle such huge public problems will not depend on a particular election, a particular piece of legislation, or a particular institution. Instead it will hinge on whether exceptional people of intelligence, insight, and character become public leaders. The future will depend on whether the best and the brightest choose public service.

At this same moment of seemingly intractable challenges, we see rising idealism and a growing commitment to service by people of all ages, but most especially the young. Technological changes - and those who embrace them - are reshaping human networks, politics, and governance. John F. Kennedy’s words of nearly 50 years ago may ring even more true today: the torch is being “passed to a new generation.”

Students here at Harvard Kennedy School are the best of that new generation. Yet, I admit to some concern. In recent years, a larger percentage of our students has chosen not to enter government or civil society but is joining private businesses instead. This need not automatically be worrisome. There are private sector activities, ranging from social entrepreneurship to international development, that are centrally connected to service and solutions. And increasingly, important public problems cross the boundaries between business, government, and civil society.

Nonetheless, I worry that we are not sending enough of you into the heart of public service. For only if our public and civil sectors are as wise and innovative as the private sector can we really hope to craft real cross-sectoral, international solutions.

Meanwhile the generation of talent in government today is largely aging out in many nations. For example, in the United States, the Office of Personnel Management estimates 90 percent of managers will be eligible for retirement within the next ten years. Around the world, talented young people are drawn to the higher salaries and mobility of the private sector. And that is why we are emphasizing public service so strongly this year.

I realize that the heavy debt load many of you carry is a big part of the problem. In these tough economic times, debt can be particularly daunting. As dean, my highest priority has been to increase financial aid, and we have had some success. Aid is up and average debt has fallen in the last four years. I have expanded our loan forgiveness program considerably. I will continue to look for every way I can to reduce the cost of education. And I am particularly committed to creating more public service fellowships in exchange for several years of public service upon graduation.

Still there is much more we can and will do to remove impediments to public service by our graduates. And I ask students to join faculty, administrators, the new Student Public Service Collaborative, the KSSG, and the new HKS Office of Public Service in finding better answers. Let me focus on three:

Pipelines to Public Service - Private sector firms often recruit aggressively in the fall and make lucrative offers almost immediately. Public and civil institutions are far often less formal. Our Office of Career Advancement is making concerted efforts to find alternate pathways to these jobs. We should find even more effective ways of capitalizing on internship and PAE opportunities to build bridges to non-profit and governmental organizations and to expose our students to prospective employers long before they are ready to start searching for jobs and before organizations are ready to start searching for employees.

A Culture of Service - We need to infuse the Kennedy School culture with constant reminders of the calling that attracted each of us to public service in the first place.

We need to recognize, honor, and continue to hear from alumni and practitioners about what inspired them to public service (and how much more satisfying on a personal level long-term careers in public service typically can be). All of this activity and more will be captured in our new “Inspiring Public Service” campaign. Harvard Kennedy School can and should be an incubator for public service - inspiring every student to follow his/her passion to make the world a better place.

Leadership within the HKS Community - Leadership in public service begins here at school. My own focus on public service was inspired in part by the work of the Dean’s Committee on Public Service organized by our students. Students, faculty, and staff can work to ensure service is discussed and encouraged inside and outside of our classrooms. We can also help each other to expand our networks using our own experience and contacts to bring more people into public service directly after graduation, and at all stages of their careers. I call on all members of our community to look for ways to help focus on service.

These are troublesome economic times. I know anxieties about job opportunities will be heightened this year. Public service may seem tougher and riskier than ever (though people working in financial services might want to argue with that). But remember why you chose the Kennedy School in the first place. Start looking for public service jobs earlier. Take the search seriously. And be willing to be flexible and patient. Think about how to build service into your career, both now and in the future.

The world has never needed public leadership more. I ask each of you to once again, “Ask what you can do.”