A message from Dean Douglas Elmendorf.

Dear Members of the Harvard Kennedy School Community,
 
As the academic year draws to a close, I want to recognize five members of the Kennedy School faculty who will be retiring from teaching: David Gergen, Steve Kelman, Jeff Seglin, Michael Walton, and Julie Wilson.

These faculty members have made an enduring, positive difference in the lives of many colleagues, friends, and students—and have made other profound contributions to this country and the world through their research, outreach, and time spent in practice. I cannot possibly do justice to all their contributions, but let me highlight just a few points about each person:

David Gergen has been on our faculty since 1999 and was the director and driving force of our Center for Public Leadership for nearly two decades. He has mentored countless young people committed to lives of service. David has also been a prominent political commentator and was a White House adviser to four U.S. presidents. During his years here, he wrote two New York Times bestsellers; his most recent, Hearts Touched with Fire: How Great Leaders are Made, was published last year.

Steve Kelman is the Albert J. Weatherhead III and Richard W. Weatherhead Professor of Public Management. He has taught and conducted research on improving public management and government performance for more than 40 years. He is also a practitioner, having served as administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy in the 1990s. Among his many publications is Unleashing Change: A Study of Organizational Change in Government.

Jeff Seglin is a senior lecturer in public policy. He is the director of the Kennedy School Communications Program, which he helped to grow and through which he has worked with many students. He is also an expert on ethics and has authored numerous books on ethical decision-making, including The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice. He writes a weekly column on ethics called The Right Thing. 

Michael Walton is a senior lecturer in public policy. He is an expert in economic development and has authored and edited a number of publications on poverty, equity, and development. Before joining the Kennedy School, he worked at the World Bank for 24 years, where he played a central role in the design of poverty reduction strategies process for low-income countries. Earlier in his career, he worked for the Central Planning and Development Office for the Government of Lesotho.

Julie Boatright Wilson is the Harry S. Kahn Senior Lecturer in Social Policy. She has taught at the Kennedy School for four decades, followed Edith Stokey as secretary of the school (later, associate academic dean), and served as director of the Wiener Center and faculty chair of the mid-career program. Her teaching and research have focused on poverty policy, family policy, and child welfare, and she spent three years at the New York State Department of Social Services.

Please join me in congratulating our retiring colleagues, who have given so much to the Kennedy School—as teachers, scholars, and valued members of our community—and to the world. We will be forever grateful for their service.
 
Sincerely,
Doug