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"The Direct Line"- Winter 2008
"The Direct Line"- Spring 2007
New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation Presidential primary generates both excitement and learning opportunities for Dartmouth students every four years. As Presidential candidates started arriving in the state this winter, we at the Rockefeller Center were quick to partner with both the College Democrats and the College Republicans to host candidate visits. No matter what their political persuasions, all Dartmouth students share in the unique opportunity to engage with emerging leaders as they come to campus.
Personally and professionally, I enjoy the political season but acknowledge that New Hampshire's privileged status is part of a much larger system that aims to elect the best leader as President. During each election cycle, difficult questions are raised about whether according a small state with less racial and socioeconomic diversity than the nation as a whole such a prominent position serves the ultimate goal well.
In my opinion, the state's small population is in fact an advantage. If the more populous states had the earliest primaries, lesser-known candidates would have a difficult time competing across the whole state, and the election results might well be insurmountable for those who do not win. The issue of diversity is more compelling. If some candidates appeal differentially to different groups, and if New Hampshire's early primary makes its results unduly influential in the nominating process, then its privileged status may not be contributing to the best eventual outcome. Perhaps these concerns have been addressed, however, as contests in Nevada and South Carolina will now be closer in time to the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary.
I confess that bigger issue for me during this primary season is the exceedingly early start to the process and the planned televised debates from New Hampshire in early April 2007. While I have no objection to televising political events, the idea of putting the candidates next to each other so early in the campaign, to trade one-minute sound bites about complex policy issues, seems ill-advised.
One of the most interesting aspects about the New Hampshire primary is how much it depends on retail politics—events in small venues with each of the candidates away from the intense media circus of made-for-television events. I think the process actually helps develop the candidates for the national stage and is the best justification for continuing the state's first-in-the-nation primary role. Putting the candidates on television this soon runs the risk of our selecting the naturally telegenic before letting the process of retail politics do its good work.
There are approximately nine months between these televised debates and the New Hampshire primary and about the same amount of time thereafter before the general election. We would lose very little in waiting until the fall before distorting the campaign to accommodate nationally televised debates. What we would gain is an electorate that is enthusiastic about the political process rather than exasperated by it and candidates that had built their platforms in front of people, not cameras. We would also be advantaged by six months of the media spotlight focused on the people actually governing in Washington.
"The Direct Line"- Winter 2007
Two hundred members of the Class of 2010 flocked to the Center's fall Open House. Greeted by Rockefeller student leaders and staff, they were introduced to the many curricular and co-curricular offerings at the Center. It was a festive and informative event, but most exciting was the positive response of the 2010s to the new First-Year Initiative (FYI). Created and implemented this year to bring students interested in public policy to the Center earlier in their Dartmouth career, the FYI provides the opportunity for them to delve into a comprehensive plan of study and activity. Open House is a tradition at the Center, and it is one of my favorite days each academic year.
Predictably, students ask the question, “Why should I minor in Public Policy?” The answer is three-fold. First, students have the opportunity to study a set of policy outcomes in areas such as law, health, education, the environment, poverty, and urban development, using tools from a range of disciplines. Solutions to any important public policy problem require applying knowledge that evolves from all of the traditional disciplines. This interdisciplinary approach is a critical element of a liberal arts education.
Second, the Public Policy Minor offers relevant and unique core courses. The 2006 midterm elections were rife with examples of politicians losing their jobs due to ethical and communication failures. New this year and next, the Center will offer courses that focus on the role of communication and ethics in determining public policy outcomes. Additionally, the Center's signature course, Introduction to Public Policy Research, continues to place students at the center of public policy discussions by allowing them to interact directly with elected policy makers in New Hampshire and Vermont. Students last year testified on four occasions to legislative groups about the research they conducted in this course and the Center's Policy Research Shop. This research experience is a springboard for the students with aspirations to be involved in public policy after Dartmouth.
Third, because the Center administers the Public Policy Minor, enrolled students benefit from direct access to its many programs, including discussions with distinguished visitors through the Center's student organizations and priority status in the application process for internship funding, the Civic Skills Training program in Washington, DC, and the Rockefeller Leadership Fellows program.
By the end of senior year, students will find that their training and education in the public policy minor and other Rockefeller Center opportunities make them strong contenders for a myriad of positions in the public, non-profit, or corporate sectors.
"The Direct Line"- Fall 2006
For many years, the Rockefeller Center has offered opportunities to Dartmouth students to pursue their interests in public policy on- and off-campus, inside and outside of the classroom. Beginning with the Class of 2010, we seek to better integrate the curricular and co-curricular aspects of the Center's programming and to do so earlier in the student's time at Dartmouth.
The First-Year Initiative begins with “Introduction to Public Policy,” (PBPL 5) in winter term 2007, a new course on the policy making process that serves as the gateway to the Public Policy Minor. Students who do well in the course and also complete any research methods course in a Social Science department will be invited to apply to be a Rockefeller Fellow, which opens the door to additional programs: a summer public policy internship and a special Civic Skills Training immediately preceding the internship. Both the training and the internship take place in Washington, DC and are funded fully or in part, respectively, by the Rockefeller Center.
When these students return to campus to begin their sophomore years, they will be ready to take on a broader and deeper range of pursuits. With the first two courses in the Public Policy Minor behind them, they can sharpen their public policy focus in the Center's Policy Research Shop, beginning with the fall term course, “Introduction to Public Policy Research,” (PBPL 45) and continuing with an independent study or paid research assistantship in the winter or spring terms. They can also further their Public Policy Minors, with core courses on communications and ethics as well as courses on their policy area of interest. Outside the classroom, these students will be better prepared to take advantage of co-curricular activities, including nightly student discussion groups and publications such as the Dartmouth Law Journal, as well as the possibility of additional public policy internships and the Rockefeller Leadership Fellows program in later years.
Those of us who nostalgically remember our undergraduate years often wonder how they could have gone by so quickly. At the Rockefeller Center, we launch the First-Year Initiative to make sure that incoming classes of Dartmouth students with an interest in public policy have the opportunity to become fully immersed in our programs from the moment they arrive. We expect that they, too, will someday remember them fondly—and be proud of how much they accomplished.
"The Direct Line"- Spring 2006
Leadership development is one of the most important elements of student programming at the Rockefeller Center. It informs our choices of speakers for public lectures as well as the design of programs for discussion, training, research, and education. This spring, the Center is pleased to celebrate entrepreneurship and add entrepreneurial leadership to that set of ideas to which students are exposed in their time at Dartmouth. An entrepreneur is someone who organizes, operates, and assumes the risk for a new venture. We expect that all of the students will in their time after college show entrepreneurial leadership, whether in the private, non-profit, or public sectors.
This wonderful new addition to the Center's programming is made possible by a generous gift from the Portman family—William C. Portman 45, T '47 and his children Robert '78, William III T '81, and Virginia Portman Amis. Rob Portman, a former member of Congress and member of the Center's Board of Visitors, is currently the United States Trade Representative.
In 1960, William Portman launched a company with five employees that distributed forklifts from its base of operations in Ohio. Today, that company has over 400 employees in five different divisions operating from multiple facilities in four states. Portman's company grew dramatically by focusing on recruiting and developing extraordinary people, including the development of internationally recognized employee training programs. Over that time, the Portman family has become synonymous with local philanthropy in the Cincinnati area.
The Rockefeller Center is pleased to implement the Portman gift on behalf of Dartmouth with other organizations on campus, including the Tuck School of Business, where three generations from the Portman family have gone. In April, we look forward to welcoming Bernie Marcus, co-founder of The Home Depot, to deliver the inaugural Portman Lecture in the Spirit of Entrepreneurship. The Home Depot was founded in 1978 in Atlanta and has since has revolutionized the home improvement industry and become the world's largest home improvement retailer He is also well known for his philanthropy, particularly to the city of Atlanta and for serving in leadership roles in a number of civic organizations.
As a visionary, entrepreneur, and philanthropist, Marcus will be an inspiration to all those who join us at the Center's Portman Lecture on April 28th celebrating entrepreneurship and support of the civic sector.
"The Direct Line"- Winter 2006
Like many people safely removed from the events, I watched the images of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and wondered how every layer of government could appear to have failed so resoundingly in serving the residents of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Many answers to the question of “What went wrong?” have suggested that an important part of the explanation is, in fact, that we have a layered government—our federalist system in which sovereignty is shared among the national, state, and local levels. As of this writing, a Google search for “Katrina federalism” generates over 250,000 results.
We should not take such charges lightly. Along with the separation of powers among the three branches of government and explicit protections for civil rights, federalism is one of the key elements of our constitutional republic. The presence of a multi-layered government is a strong impediment to abuses of freedom by any one of those layers. If breakdowns like the one we witnessed in September are symptomatic of federalist systems, then the greater centralization—less federalism—needed to protect the welfare of citizens would come at the high price of weaker protection of individual liberties.
I do not believe that federalism is an important explanation for the failures of government in the preparation for and response to Hurricane Katrina. The underlying problem is a bloated government generally disdainful of both entrepreneurship and accountability at every level. In this case, the presence of multiple layers of government compounded the critical lack of communication and coordination that was also present in each separate layer of government.
In February 1962, then-Governor Nelson Rockefeller delivered the Godkin lectures at Harvard on “The Future of Federalism,” which were subsequently published in a book of the same name. He identified three pervasive attitudes that were damaging to the process of government in his era: political aloofness, in which the need to engage in active and aggressive political debate is evaded by a condescension and contempt for political life; an obsession with political labels, which substitute slogan for thought and the false label for the serious goal; and a timidity in the exercise of political leadership, particularly at the state level of government.
He could have been describing equally well the obstacles to effective government today, and until those obstacles are overcome, our society is susceptible to continued breakdown of government in the most critical times. The policy response to Hurricane Katrina should not be less federalism, but better federalism—more reliance on elected rather than appointed officials to make decisions and implement policy and greater citizen participation in the political process. Elections and the people who stand for them matter. They bring with them the accountability and entrepreneurship that are required to provide the solutions to deal better with the challenges we face, both natural and man-made.
"The Direct Line" - Fall 2005
The Rockefeller Center provides opportunities for Dartmouth students to become educated citizens and engage in public policy. During the last year, the Center has extended these opportunities off campus with the advent of five-day Civic Skills Training sessions in Washington, DC, to prepare students to make greater contributions to their unpaid, off-campus internships. At Civic Skills Training, students learn practical skills such as communicating with supervisors, writing concisely, and networking. They also gain experience with media relations, fundraising, and public speaking. These sessions have succeeded with the financial support of the Surdna Foundation and Friends of the Rockefeller Center and with the help of many Dartmouth alumni in the Washington area. These invaluable sessions are now expected to be a permanent program of the Center.
Looking forward to the coming year, Rockefeller's newest opportunities will be on campus, particularly in the academic realm. The Center's Public Policy Minor will sponsor five new courses; up from its usual two (see course listing on page 2). These courses will cover a broad range of topics, including law, journalism, urban politics, and poverty. Most importantly, the Center will add a new course this fall, “Introduction to Public Policy Research” (IPPR), as a cornerstone of the Public Policy Minor. The IPPR course focuses on the theory and practice of conducting research relevant to public policy discussions. Selected students in this course will also have the opportunity to join the Center's Policy Research Shop in the winter and spring terms and work in support of elected policy makers in New Hampshire and Vermont. Student researchers will provide them with timely, objective research on issues confronting the two states. Last year, students conducted research on Medicaid, the No Child Left Behind Act, and a range of environmental and energy issues.
Student-initiated research is an essential component of a liberal arts education. Students must learn to distinguish the truth from a set of competing propositions, and they must take the further step of choosing for themselves what questions to ask, which truths to seek. In the public sector, good research makes good policy. The Center's new course offerings emphasizing research complement its existing programs based on discussion and leadership. I look forward to reporting more on these exciting new programs as they develop.
"The Direct Line" - Spring Term 2005
At Dartmouth, we often remark that our students are “the leaders of tomorrow.” We make this prediction in part because our students arrive as first-years with a broad range of talents, but we also like to think that their time at Dartmouth helps prepare them for leadership roles in their communities, our nation, and the world once they graduate. How does the Dartmouth experience contribute to the development of our students as leaders?
At the core of everything that Dartmouth does well is the liberal arts education. The ability to lead depends critically on a person's capacity to understand his or her environment, to assess the likely consequences of a menu of options, to choose the most promising of those options, and to work in a thoughtful and independent manner to implement that choice. Each of these capacities is cultivated by a liberal arts education.
But leadership requires more than good judgment and hard work. Although we often picture a leader as a single person at the top of a hierarchy, the building blocks of leadership are teamwork and community. A person becomes a leader only by mobilizing and directing the resources of that team and community toward a common goal. Leadership is an applied skill, and students require opportunities to develop and practice this skill. The Rockefeller Center, like many co-curricular institutions on campus, provides several such opportunities.
Many students first encounter the Rockefeller Center through one of our student organizations, which are occasions for discussion and the exchange of ideas on policy topics. Students who show an aptitude and an interest in these organizations may apply to become organization leaders. After some training in facilitation and management, they go on to lead these discussion groups.
Other students are drawn to the Center to acquire funding for unpaid internships in the government or not-for-profit sectors on a leave term from campus. These internships allow them to work as part of a team on a public policy issue. The Center now further supports student internships by offering a five-day Civic Skills Training session in Washington to prepare them. At Civic Skills Training, students learn practical skills such as communicating with supervisors, writing concisely, and networking. They also gain experience with media relations, fundraising, and public speaking.
As students gain more skills in and out of the classroom, other opportunities at the Center may become interesting. The Center now sponsors a Policy Research Shop, in which a group of students each term work under the supervision of Center staff to prepare research reports and briefs on issues confronting the New Hampshire and Vermont state legislatures. The Research Shop allows students to use their analytical skills directly in support of the public policy process. At the end of their time on campus, a select group of seniors participates in the Rockefeller Leadership Fellows program, which considers leadership from a variety of perspectives based on the students' own experiences.
If we are doing our jobs right, then if our students do become leaders of their generations in the years to come, it will be due in some measure to the skills they acquired and the challenges they have addressed while at Dartmouth and the Rockefeller Center.
"The Direct Line" - Winter Term 2005
The election of 1952 was the last time that neither major party had an incumbent President or Vice-President at the top of the ticket. Looking forward to the2008 primary elections, it is very likely that we will find ourselves in that position again. Americans have an interest in making that primary system work—encouraging interesting people to run, allowing them to connect with the voters and constructively distinguish themselves from each other, and expecting them to stay in the race long enough to give everyone the opportunity to help choose their party's nominee. As a nation, we continue to be confronted by several institutional features of our elections that deserve further attention.
First, we struggle with the prominence of money in Presidential campaigns. Even after the McCain-Feingold Act, few would doubt that big money was conspicuous in this campaign. By the time of the 2004 national conventions, each of the two major candidates and their surrogates had more than enough resources to sufficiently disparage the other. The unevenness of campaign resources manifested in two places: the inability of more candidates to sustain themselves in the Democratic primaries beyond the first few contests and the growing gap between the two major parties and the possibility of a third party entering the campaign on a national level.
Second, concerns about the accuracy of the vote counting that were brought to the fore in 2000 have not been adequately addressed in the intervening four years. Some of the concerns pertain to new technologies for voting that do not leave a paper trail. Other concerns refer to voter fraud: eligible voters being removed improperly from the voter registration rolls and ineligible voters being allowed to register and vote. The accuracy of the vote in each precinct is a matter of national importance and warrants attention at all levels of government, particularly if we hope to spread democracy abroad.
Third, and most important, we are losing our national motif. While I was in grade school, the image of America as a melting pot was reinforced at every opportunity. I was taught that America was a nation where honest and hard-working people of every background could not just co-exist but also mutually benefit from an open and tolerant society. I still believe that is true, despite the now common portrayal of America as three islands of blue floating in a sea of red. As a nation, we must find ways to acknowledge our differences but focus on our common interests.
For the typical citizen, addressing these issues might simply be a wish list for 2006 and 2008. For the director and staff of a Public Policy Center, they are the templates for years of research, programming, and deliberation. Laying out the weaknesses in the current system is a first step for thinking about ways to improve it. At the Rockefeller Center, we will look to address these and other critical public policy issues in the upcoming years. We all have a stake in making the electoral process work for all of the people in the country.
"The Direct Line" - Fall Term 2004
Dartmouth enjoys a special view of presidential politics. Last year at this time, candidates for the Democratic nomination were busy campaigning for New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary. The nominations have now been decided, and Dartmouth's home state has become just one of about 18 hotly contested battleground states. In the interim, the Rockefeller Center has been fortunate to have Governor Howard Dean and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind as distinguished guests, interacting with students, faculty, and the community to offer their insights on the electoral process and the campaigns.
The 2004 election is without question the most important in several decades. It is the first presidential election since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. This and every election for decades to come will serve as a referendum on the incumbent president's conduct of the war on terror and the challengers' credentials to do better. It is also the last presidential election we will hold before the Baby Boom generation starts to collect Social Security retirement benefits. Over the next three and a half decades, the size of the elderly population will increase by about two-thirds relative to the size of the working age population, causing the financial burden on future workers to increase substantially. Last year's Medicare prescription drug legislation also created a new benefit for the elderly, the cost of which will be borne primarily by future generations. Young people, in particular, have much at stake in this election.
Unfortunately, the minimal national discussion of these fundamental issues has been drowned out by sensational stories on peripheral issues. The news media are consumed by what happened in Vietnam or the Alabama National Guard over three decades ago—episodes that are far less relevant to the qualifications of the two major candidates than their more recent experiences. The media devote a disproportionate amount of ink and airtime to the “outsourcing” of jobs to developing countries, even though globalization accounts for a small minority of job losses and brings with it many advantages, such as lower prices for consumers and greater efficiencies in production. This is the politics of distraction, and by shifting the public's attention from the essential to the superficial, it does the nation a great disservice.
The antidote to this state of affairs can be found close to home. The liberal arts education that students receive at Dartmouth challenges them to search for truth in a wide range of disciplines and to ask the right questions in any endeavor, including politics. At the Rockefeller Center, students' traditional educational experiences are complemented with opportunities for more intensive discussion, training, and leadership in the policy realm. As I assume the directorship of the Center, I look forward to enhancing its role as a catalyst for public policy research, teaching, and deliberation. Through these activities, the Center aims to contribute to the “more perfect union” to which the founders aspired at the birth of the republic when they established the office of president.
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