Robert D. Putnam, The Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy, principal investigator of The Saguaro Seminar, and seminar participant

Robert D. Putnam is the Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy. He has served as chairman of Harvard's Department of Government, Director of the Center for International Affairs, and Dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is also Visiting Professor and Director of the Manchester Graduate Summer Programme in Social Change, University of Manchester in the U.K.

He is author or co-author of seven books and more than thirty scholarly articles published in ten languages, including Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (1993); Double-Edged Diplomacy: International Bargaining and Domestic Politics (1993); Hanging Together: The Seven-Power Summits (1984); Bureaucrats and Politicians in Western Democracies (1981); Comparative Study of Political Elites (1976); and Beliefs of Politicians (1973). Professor Putnam was educated at Swarthmore College, Balliol College, Oxford; and Yale University, and has received honorary degrees from Swarthmore and Stockholm University. He has taught at the University of Michigan and served on the staff of the National Security Council. In 2001-2002 he served as President of the American Political Science Association. He has written numerous books including the best-selling Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (2000), and more recently a collective volume Democracies in Flux: The Evolution of Social Capital in Contemporary Society (2002). In 2003, he completed Better Together describing a dozen promising new examples of social capital-building in communities across America. He is currently undertaking research on the challenges of building community in an increasingly diverse society. Click here to go to Professor Putnam's bio page. Selected articles by Robert Putnam include:

E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the 21st Century. The 2006 Johan Skytte Lecture
THE PROSPEROUS COMMUNITY: Social Capital and Public Life
The Strange Disappearance of Civic America
Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital (subscription only site)
- long excerpt of Bowling Alone article available here.

Recent commentary on Health By Association, International Journal of Epidemiology (7/28/04)

Hear or read interviews with Robert Putnam at the following sites:

Putnam interview with RTE Irish Television (4/27/06)
Putnam interview with BBC World Service (10/05)
Talk of the Nation show on Local Civic Participation (3/30/04)
Putnam explains social capital jargon to OECD Observer (3/17/04)
BBC "The Talk Show" interview of Putnam (12/9/02) (link no longer active)
Liane Hansen NPR interview of Putnam on post 9-11 survey (1/13/02)
Talk of the Nation discussion: “what is communitarianism”? (2/5/01)
Atlantic Unbound interview of Putnam (9/21/00)
Booknotes interview with Robert D. Putnam (9/8/00)
Robert Siegel NPR interview with Putnam about book Bowling Alone (5/31/00)

Comments by Robert D. Putnam on Meetup.com at the Berkman Center's Bits & Bytes conference, December 10, 2004. [Putnam's comments from 33:30 through end, follow Meetup founder Scott Heiferman's presentation for the first 33.5 minutes]:

For more readings on social capital, go to the bibliography page.

Dr. Thomas H. Sander Since its founding in 1995, Sander has been Executive Director of the Saguaro Seminar: Civic Engagement in America, a program of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, that has brought together leading practitioners and thinkers for a multi-year discussion to develop broad-scale, actionable ideas to fortify our nation's civic connectedness. He was the project manager on the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey - the largest survey of social capital to-date (surveying over 30,000 Americans in 41 communities in 2000) - and on two panel surveys on social capital after the September 11 terrorist attacks. He helped managed the research team for Bowling Alone, in addition to providing intensive feedback at every stage of the development of Bowling Alone (2000) and Better Together (2003). Sander was the editor of the Better Together report (2000), describing promising strategies for re-engaging Americans, and has written or collaborated on approximately a dozen articles or books relating to social capital. Sander was also on the editorial board of the Encyclopedia of Community (Sage Reference, 2003). Prior to taking this position, he was Director of the Fund for Social Entrepreneurs at Youth Service America and served as a senior policy advisor on national service for the U.S. Senate’s Labor and Human Resources Committee, where he played a major role in the enactment of the 1993 National Service Trust Act. In addition, he has worked as a management consultant at Bain and Company and assisted Harvard University’s president in negotiating and consummating some of the first debt for education swaps in the world. Sander received his J.D. from Harvard Law School and A.B. from Brown University. email Tom

To access articles written or co-written by Tom click here

Louise Kennedy Converse, Deputy Director for Administration and Chief of Staff to Robert D. Putnam, The Saguaro Seminar. Louise, one of the original staff members who helped form the Saguaro Seminar back in 1995, returns to the Saguaro Seminar after a six - year absence from Sarasota, Florida where she ran a design firm specializing in brand messaging and graphic and web design. While in Sarasota, Louise was civicly engaged in her community. She served on the board of directors for the Manatee Community College; the Selby Public Library, Forum Truth for a Change, and she served twice on the Sarasota Country Arts Council grants panel and advocacy committee. Louise is also on the national finance commiitee of the Hollins Communications Research Institute. Louise is an avid supporter of the arts. She has a BFA, and is a thesis shy from her Masters of Art and Architecture.
email Louise

Annamaria Preisz, Staff Assistant, The Saguaro Seminar. In 2006, Annamaria worked for Freedom House Europe in Budapest, Hungary as an office manager and prior to that was an assistant at various departments at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary, such as the Department of Political Science, Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology and Nationalism Studies. She holds an MA in English and Finnish language and literature.
email Annamaria

Factoid...
We're not experiencing a Springtime of volunteering, but an Indian Summer, propped up by our nation's seniors -- who have been more civic throughout their lives.
For information on how you can increase social capital in your own community go to www.BetterTogether.org [more...]


The final report of the Saguaro Seminar is now available at www.BetterTogether.org