The Rockefeller Center's Board of Visitors recognizes one Dartmouth alumna/alumnus annually who has demonstrated exemplary public service in her/his personal and/or professional life. The award honors the late Nelson A. Rockefeller '30 for his dedication to service in the public and private sectors. Rockefeller's public life spanned nearly forty years, including 15 years as Governor of New York State and two years as Vice President of the United States. His commitment to service, though, went beyond his political involvement and included participation on various educational and cultural boards through philanthropic support. Read more about the award and past recipients.
On November 6, 2009 the Honorable John Hoeven '79, Governor of North Dakota, received the 2009 Nelson A. Rockefeller Distinguished Service Award. In his remarks the Director of the Rockefeller Center, Andrew Samwick, outlined Governor Hoeven's many accomplishments. Since taking office in 2000, Governor Hoeven has expanded and diversified its economy, adding thousands of new jobs and growing its targeted industry sectors. During the Governor's term, North Dakota's personal income growth has outpaced the national average and the State of North Dakota cut property and income taxes by more than half a billion dollars in the last four years, while continuing to fund priorities like education, health care, law enforcement and other critical areas.
Governor Hoeven chairs the Governor's Biofuels Coalition and serves on the Executive Committee of the National Governor's Association. He earned his bachelor's degree from Dartmouth College in 1979 and a master's degree in business administration from Northwestern University in 1981.
[Photo by Tilman Ditte '10]
Receiving a Rockefeller Center Faculty Research grant, Sienna Craig [shown here], Assistant Professor of Anthropology attended the VIIth Congress of the International Association for the Study of Traditional Asian Medicine (IASTAM) in Bhutan this September 7-11, 2009. She received support toward travel and lodging expenses for participants convening in a large, diverse panel entitled: Cultivating the Wilds: Considering Potency, Protection, and Profit in the Use of Materia Medica in Transnational Asian Medicines. This conference represented an unprecedented opportunity for communication between academics, field scientists, and practitioners concerned with the scholarship and practice traditional Asian medicines. This specific panel in which Professor Craig participated focused on the source materials that literally and figuratively undergird Asian medical systems.
The panel aimed to integrate knowledge, methods, and field experience from a variety of disciplines and professional perspectives to explore the intersection of conservation and development agendas related to Asian materia medica, with a particular focus on the biodiversity of High Asia, and on the production of Tibetan medicine. The panel began with the assumption that the landscape of Asian medical production is undergoing a profound set of changes, from the increasing commoditization of medicinal and aromatic plants and an array of medicinal products derived from these raw materials to the design and implementation of complex regulatory structures related to the sourcing of medicinals and the production of medicines and other ‘natural’ products. Importantly linked to these changes are concerns over what ‘sustainability’ is, means, and does and how natural resources such as materia medica are valued in the intersection between local, regional, and transnational socio-economies. Professor Craig will present a lecture as part of her Rockefeller Center research grant in 2010.
Welcome to Dartmouth! Amazing opportunities await you at the Rockefeller Center: the public policy minor, the Policy Research Shop, distinguished visitors to campus, student led discussion groups, and a broad range of internship, training, and leadership development opportunities. I hope that you make "Rocky" a big part of your Dartmouth experience.
Come to the Rockefeller Center to find a home, mentors, and peers as you get engaged with public policy. The Rockefeller Center has a specially designed First-Year Fellows program for the class of 2013 that begins by taking Public Policy 5 in the winter of 2010. Public Policy 5 is the introductory course in the public policy minor, which allows you to customize your own interdisciplinary plan of study around an important policy area that you define, such as the healthcare, education, the environment, law, poverty,or urban issues. Outside the classroom, you can join a number of weekly discussion groups about law, politics, and leadership; there is even a First-Year Forum just for the newest members of the Dartmouth community. You can also plan a leave-term internship and apply for funding through the Rockefeller Center.
The Rockefeller Center staff and I, along with student leaders from the classes of 2010, 2011, and 2012, look forward to meeting you at the Rockefeller Center's Open House on September 17.
As a first-year student on campus, you might be wondering, "What sorts of opportunities are available just for me?" The Rockefeller Center offers a unique opportunity to engage meaningfully in public policy early in your Dartmouth career. You will have the opportunity to gain both knowledge and practical leadership skills as you participate in this program.
Your first stop is to register for Public Policy 5, “Introduction to Public Policy,” during the winter term. This course is designed as the gateway for students beginning to pursue a minor in public policy and entry into the First-Year Fellows program. You also should complete any social science research methods course. In the spring, you are then eligible to apply to be a First-Year Fellow. If selected, you will spend the summer in Washington, D.C., interning in the public or nonprofit sectors under the mentorship of experienced supervisors, most of whom are Dartmouth alumni. During this internship, you’ll receive feedback from your mentor and from staff who will check in with you periodically.
Before you begin your internship, you will take part in the Center’s Civic Skills Training. This intensive, expense-paid, five-day program is an important advantage that teaches you public speaking, networking, and how to write press releases and policy briefs.Panels with Dartmouth alumni working in Washington also are arranged to provide you with exposure to career paths following Dartmouth, as well as how to get the most out of your time on campus.
Back on campus, you will be asked to reflect on your experience at a debriefing session, both through written summaries and discussions. As early as the fall of your sophomore year, you may be ready to take on even more ambitious projects to develop your leadership potential.
[Lucy Pollard'10] “I’m very much known as the Rocky Kid,” says Lucy Pollard ’10. “I can’t stress enough how much the Rockefeller Center has had an impact on my Dartmouth experience.” Pollard and classmate Jessica Guthrie ’10 have been a part of the Rocky experience since their first days on campus.
[Jessica Guthrie '10] As a First-Year Fellow, Guthrie interned with then Congresswoman (now Senator) Kirsten Gillibrand ’88 (D-NY) after completing the Center’s Civic Skills Training program. “She was my mentor and helped me see public policy firsthand,” Guthrie recalls. “As a freshman in college, being able to work in a congressional office really put me on the path toward public service.”Back on campus, Guthrie got involved with the Women in Leadership group and sharpened her research skills through the Policy Research Shop (PRS).
Pollard says she was drawn to the Center through its First-Year Forum. She attended the discussion group regularly during her freshman year, advancing to a leadership role as a sophomore. Her first project with the PRS, investigating the protection of Vermont’s rivers and shorelines, awoke a passion for policy research. Pollard says the response of state legislators to the students’ work on these projects was empowering. She since has worked on a half-dozen additional projects as a paid PRS intern. “I’m hugely appreciative of everything, from the cocurricular side to the curricular side, that the Center’s afforded me,” she says.
Both Pollard, a history major, and Guthrie, a sociology major, declared public policy their minor and both have been selected as Rockefeller Leadership Fellows their senior year.
“You don’t have to be into government, you don’t have to be into policy to really enjoy the Rockefeller Center. You can be an engineering major or a biology major and still get a lot out of it,” says Guthrie. “Freshmen should take the time to find out if Rocky has something to offer them because I can almost guarantee that there’s going to be something there for every single student, regardless of their interests."
First Rockefeller Center WIBO InternSometimes just one experience can change your definition of success. This was Alicia Modeen's '10 experience as the Rockefeller Center's first Workshop in Business Opportunities (WIBO) intern. Modeen's experience both clarified her own values, and drew a direct line from her experiences in the classroom to her activities with WIBO Bridgeport (Connecticut). It also brought into focus the contrast between her protected environment at Dartmouth, and the economic hardships and sense of achievement experienced by many of the participants in the WIBO program.
As a student in Public Policy 45 Modeen undertook a research project that focused on the urban problem-solving and its relationship to public policy. This experience prepared her for designing a study at WIBO that would evaluate the organization's entrepreneurial training program. As she initiated this evaluation she found that participants were willing to talk with her about their experiences, and how their sense of community was shaped by their participation in WIBO. Modeen's ideas about nonprofits also changed as a result of her WIBO experience. While initially apprehensive about stepping into a somewhat larger non-profit organization than she had thought she would enjoy, her concerns were quickly addressed. She was impressed with the organization's ability to successfully take a hard problem and through organization and prioritization break it down into smaller more manageable pieces. Modeen's parting advice about WIBO is that there is a ‘learning experience waiting for everyone there.'
Modeen is originally from Vernon, Connecticut, and at Dartmouth is a Geography major and a Public Policy minor with a focus in public health. Upon her graduation in June of 2010 she hopes to enroll in a dual degree program offering a Masters of Public Health and Juris Doctor.
WIBO was founded in 1966 as a private non-profit organization that is committed to assisting men and women with the drive to become successful entrepreneurs. The WIBO internship opportunities are funded through a generous gift from Michael C Jackson '62, a former chair of the Rockefeller Center Board of Visitors.
PRS Policy Brief 0809-11 "Participant Outcomes of the Workshop in Business Opportunities (WIBO) Program" by Steven Cheng and Alicia Modeen contains a full report on their experience.
Learn more about WIBO and Rockefeller Center internships.
Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress 2009-2010 Fellow NamedEach year the Rockefeller Center works with the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress [CSPC] in Washington, D.C. to enable one student from Dartmouth to participate in a unique fellowship program. This year Cathy Lian ‘10, has been chosen as the Rockefeller Center's 2009-2010 CSPC Fellow. As a CSPC Fellow Cathy will attend two conferences during the academic year. At these policy workshops, Fellows discuss national issues with scholars and are briefed by senior government officials and nationally recognized public policy experts.
Cathy's interest in the CSPC program is fueled by the belief that there is "no burden of responsibility on any public service role greater than that of the President of the United States. The President provides an integral part of the American identity, representing a tangible connection with which other citizens of the world are able to associate as being American. The sensitive nature of this platform can never be underestimated, and an institution such as the Center for the Study of the Presidency is an invaluable resource to aid executive leadership and promote public awareness of its agenda. The CSP provides critical information to counsel the White House and the Executive branch in order to help strengthen Presidential leadership. The opportunity to work closely with an organization whose main mission is to generate innovative solutions."
Cathy spent her childhood in Texas and grew up as a self-described " confused yet inquisitive Asian-American girl who spoke with a slight southern drawl." Of her time at Dartmouth she writes "One of the best moments of my life was the day I was accepted to Dartmouth College, which my Dimensions host described as a ‘rare jewel' among the Ivies, and I have never been happier anywhere else since. No other school offers the same research opportunities to undergraduate students as Dartmouth has." Cathy is working on a double major in Government, with a focus on international relations, and Economics, with a focus on developing international economics. Her future goals include a degree in public interest law and a career in public service work. Cathy is also an Admissions Office Tour Guide, a member of the Dartmouth Symphony Orchestra, and Community Service Committee chair of Link Up. She completed a Politics and Law Fellowship with Professor Lisa Baldez during her sophomore summer, researching topics in electoral gender quotas.
This unique fellowship requires that each student research, write, and present an original paper on an issue of the modern presidency. Students have online access to the Center's award-winning Presidential Studies Quarterly and are eligible to participate in two essay contests, competing for publication in the annual anthology of the best Center Fellows' Papers. The Center provides professional mentors drawn from the public policy community and government to help the Fellows define their proposals. Mentors also guide their fellows in writing and editing of a paper that is brought to publishing standards during the academic year.
Since its inception, the Center Fellows Program has developed leadership and scholarship skills in more than 1,000 students, providing 3 of the 32 Rhodes Scholars in 2006 as well as numerous Fulbright, Gates, Marshall, and other scholarship and fellowship winners. Alumni of the Fellows Program are Capitol Hill and White House staffers, award winning journalists, CEOs of corporations and non-profit organizations, senior military leaders, and university deans and vice-presidents. To learn more about how you can apply for this program, or the CSPC see the Center's Center for the Study of the Presidency student opportunity page, and the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress homepage.
Sustaining a ChangeRonald Reagan was in the White House when Kathy Fallon Lambert ’90 began her Rockefeller Center–sponsored public affairs internship. Twenty years later, Lambert, now Dartmouth College’s sustainability manager, discussed with us how her participation in the internship shaped her values and approach to the goal of reducing the College’s ecological footprint in ways that also have social benefits.
As a newly minted Rockefeller Center intern for the White House communications agency, Lambert arrived at the old Executive Office Building brimming with enthusiasm for the wide range of activities assigned to her. She quickly learned the value of crafting clear, concise messages as she wrote news summaries and analysis updates on a variety of topics. Perhaps more important, she was constantly exposed to the importance of building consensus, finding common ground when confronted with disparate views and using dissension as a positive force for change. A takeaway of the internship was also a clearer sense of professionalism. Lambert defines this as cultivating mutual respect, learning to be efficient with one’s own time as well as respectful of others’ time, honoring deadlines, and producing quality and accurate work. These habits learned during her internship have been honed through experience and are reflected in her approach to her present position.
In her role as Dartmouth’s sustainability manager, Lambert must surmise what information a decision maker most needs and be prepared to present it quickly and succinctly without cheapening the idea. In that vein, she looks for opportunities to change both practice and policy. When asked how the Rockefeller Center might support and encourage sustainability efforts, she is quick to answer. First, we must continue to cultivate and develop the next generation of leaders who understand environmental issues and will have a role in promoting practice and policy changes. Second, we must continue to work with students to increase their awareness of sustainability issues. Finally, the Rockefeller Center can be a role model in practices, using less energy and implementing internal changes that demonstrate our commitment to sustainability. Learn more about Dartmouth College's Sustainability Initiative.
The winter term began with overflow crowds in public policy classes at both the introductory and seminar levels. PBPL 5: “Introduction to Public Policy,” taught by Professor Ron Shaiko, senior fellow and associate director for curricular and research programs at the Center, enrolled 85 students, including 72 first-year students—both high-water marks for the course.
During the term, the students were exposed to various models of the public policy–making process at the federal level and their applications to real-world policy discussions. In addition to class lectures and discussions, students had the opportunity to discuss the real world of policy making with former member of Congress Dawson Mathis (D-GA). Mathis discussed his time in the House of Representatives as well as his later career as a lobbyist in Washington, D.C. In one of the class assignments, students took on the role of lobbyists for a particular interest group by preparing “one pagers” to be used to convince their senators to support or oppose one or more aspects of the Obama stimulus package as the Senate considered its version of HR 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, in real time.
Later in the term, while working on “amicus briefs” relating to one of the cases currently on the docket of the U.S. Supreme Court, students heard from the former Solicitor General of the United States, Dartmouth alumnus Gregory Garre ’87. Garre discussed with students the role of the Solicitor General’s office in Supreme Court decision making. He also focused on Supreme Court cases arising from the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, as students previously had read Susan Gluck Mezey’s Disabling Interpretations: The Americans with Disabilities Act in Federal Court.
First-year students who successfully complete PBPL 5 and also complete a research methods course in one of the social sciences are eligible to apply for the Rockefeller Center First-Year Fellows program in Washington, D.C., this summer. The Rockefeller Center has been working through the fall and winter to enlist more Dartmouth alumni to serve as internship mentors for the Class of 2012. Assistant Professor of Sociology Matissa Hollister also saw a bumper crop of students in her public policy seminar, PBPL 81.5: “Poverty and Public Policy in the United States.” Normally filled at 16 students, Hollister allowed 19 students to participate in her seminar this winter. In addition to her in-depth analysis of nationwide poverty issues in class, Hollister exposed students to the real-world consequences of, as well as government responses to, poverty. Moving outside the classroom, she arranged field trips to Berlin, N.H., for students to explore the various aspects of rural poverty that exist outside the “Dartmouth bubble.” Students then focused their attention on major research projects that offered comparative assessments of poverty in Appalachia (rural Kentucky) and in the North Country of New Hampshire. This spring, the Center will graduate two dozen public policy minors, tripling the number of minors graduating five years ago. The students in the Class of 2009 are the last class to graduate under the “old” requirements for the minor. Beginning with the Class of 2010, students are required to take the gateway PBPL 5 course, as well as two public-policy core courses, in addition to three courses in a particular policy domain (e.g., environment, health care, education). With the new minor curriculum in place, the Center expects the number of public policy minors to continue to grow each year. Learn more about the Public Policy Minor.
TheirSpace: The Rockefeller Center’s First-Year ForumAmong the Rockefeller Center’s six student discussion groups—AGORA, the Daniel Webster Legal Society, First-Year Forum (FYF), PoliTALK, Rocky VoxMasters, Women in Leadership—only FYF is geared to students in their first year on Dartmouth’s campus. That’s an advantage, say co-leaders Kahlie Dufresne ’09, Eric Durell ’11, and Danielle O’Bannon ’11 [shown here], because first-year students sometimes can be uncomfortable promoting ideas and opinions around upperclassmen in discussion groups.
The three co-leaders invite all first-years to attend the dinner discussion group each Wednesday in the Center’s Morrison Commons. The week’s topic may be local, national, or international in focus and springs either from the coleaders’ brainstorming sessions or from participants’ suggestions. Typically, about 30–35 students respond, but attendance can vary from 15 to 50 depending on what is to be discussed. Rockefeller Center director Andrew Samwick’s address on the economy last fall drew a particularly large crowd.
“That was my favorite discussion that we did; it was fascinating,” says Durell. “He gave a short spiel on the tough economic crisis and then opened up the floor for questions from the freshmen about anything regarding the economy. It was really a good chance for us to have an intimate discussion with someone who knew what he was talking about.”
At another meeting, Molly Shaheen, daughter of Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), talked with the group about the importance of the youth vote. Students this year also have discussed the troubles in the Gaza Strip, the presidential election and current administration, and state amendments concerning same-sex marriages.
“I think it’s really helpful for freshmen to get involved in FYF because not only does it lead them to get more involved with the Rockefeller Center and expose them to other opportunities that the Center provides, it will enable them to voice their opinions and develop stronger arguments,” says O’Bannon.
All three co-leaders note they have watched the first-year students grow in confidence and self-expression through these group discussions. And the meetings provide a place for students whose paths might not otherwise cross to meet and develop friendships.
Dufresne, a government major and public policy minor, says she missed the chance to attend FYF her freshman year, so helping to lead the group this year compensates for that lost opportunity. “The reason that I wanted to do the First-Year Forum over any other discussion group is because I kind of felt lost as a freshman,” she recalls. “I definitely could have used other students to go to for advice on foreign study programs or other things to get involved in on campus, and that’s really what I’ve tried to focus on in the First-Year Forum—to give students an outlet, someone to talk to about things like this.”
“It’s a very low-key, comfortable, welcoming space—a fun way to meet other freshmen,” adds Durell. “It’s a nice way to sit down once a week and reflect on or learn about something that’s relevant and important in your life, be it a large political issue, like the Arab-Israeli conflict, or something like study abroad.” Learn more about the Rockefeller Center's Student Discussion Groups.
The Direct Line by Andrew Samwick, DirectorThe breadth and depth of the current recession are beyond anything we have experienced in recent memory. Policy makers do not have the power to outlaw the business cycle. The best they can do is to plan thoughtfully during the easy times and respond intelligently during the tough times. Unfortunately, we have done neither in response to the current economic challenge. Quite to the contrary, our national economic policy has elevated speed over value in the worst possible way.
As 2007 turned to 2008 and the weakness in the economy started to appear, the mantra in policy circles was that the government needed to do something “timely, targeted, and temporary” to strengthen the economy. To see the problem with this as a rationale for policy, just ask yourself what the government does (or can do) that both meets these three criteria and adds value. It is a very short list, so it is not surprising that this rationale produced a $150 billion stimulus package that was little more than one-time tax rebates. As 2008 turned to 2009 and the economic decline accelerated, a similar rationale was used to justify an $800 billion economic stimulus bill. As this enormous bill was being assembled, the key criterion for including a program was how quickly the money would be spent, not how much value it would add. The result of these policies is to burden future taxpayers with an additional trillion dollars of debt (excluding the sums going to bail out financial institutions) while doing very little to expand their economic opportunities.
A better way to do economic stimulus is to use a time of short-term economic weakness as an opportunity to more efficiently implement our long-term policy agenda. In a recession, both labor and capital are available to the government at lower cost than in an expansion. Now is exactly the time to be making repairs to neglected infrastructure, expanding the capacity for interstate electricity transmission, and doing a host of other capital projects that would enhance our economic productivity in the future. But a long-term policy agenda cannot be formulated in the heat of a crisis. Sadly, it was also not formulated with sufficient clarity during the two-year presidential election campaign that it could be implemented immediately. We can only hope that our next trips through both the election cycle and the business cycle will yield policies that more thoughtfully plan for the future.
For further elaboration, please see The Ripon Society's website The Ripon Forum [Vol. 42, no. 1 (Feb/Mar 08)]
The Unintended Lessons of Revolution: Schoolteachers in the Mexican Countryside, 1940–75In 2008, Tanalís Padilla, assistant professor of history, was awarded a Rockefeller Center faculty research grant to further her study of Mexico’s normales rurales, training schools for teachers from the countryside. Originally conceived of as agents of state consolidation and dispatched to remote corners of the country, rural schoolteachers became some of Mexico’s most radical political actors during the 1960s and 1970s. Padilla’s work explores their alliance with peasants and the way in which they became formal and informal actors, transmitting and often facilitating the resistance, appropriation, melding, and even rejection of the very principles they were charged with imbuing. With support provided by the Rockefeller Center, Padilla was able to return to Mexico in the summer of 2008 to conduct research using an archival collection of documents only recently made available to scholars. These archival materials trace the disintegration of government support for rural education as the population moved from the countryside to the cities.
Her first book, Rural Resistance in the Land of Zapata (Duke University Press, 2008), examined the post-revolutionary agrarian movement in Mexico. Her research sets the stage for her second book, which will be based on a diverse set of sources (she accessed on her trip), including reports from government agents who kept a watchful eye on these schools; curriculum reports, federal educational projects, and school evaluations produced by the Ministry of Public Education; memoirs written by students and teachers of the normales; newspaper reports; and oral histories. Together, these sources bring a diversity of perspectives to her study, ranging from public policy to issues of governability to popular agency and individual self reflection. She examines these sources, blending techniques from intellectual, social, oral, and economic history, and seeks to weave a narrative that draws on these multiple viewpoints to explain some of the complexities of 20th-century post revolutionary Mexican history.
Flickr Co-Founder to Speak at RockyStewart Butterfield, who co-founded the popular photo-sharing website Flickr, will speak on “Flickr, Social Computing, and the New Humanities” on April 15 at the Rockefeller Center. Alongside social media giants Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube, Flickr has produced a seismic shift in the way people use technology in their everyday lives. Newsweek labeled the website “a poster child on how a well-executed Net effort can make big changes in people’s habits.”
Butterfield helped to grow Flickr from the tiny Canadian operation it was five years ago to the worldwide phenomenon it is today. The site draws over 50 million users a month and is the largest repository of publicly available photographs, with more than 3 billion pictures and more than 2.5 million new photos uploaded every day. In 2006, Time magazine named Butterfield and Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake among the top 100 “people who shape our world.” The year before, he made BusinessWeek’s Best Leaders list and MIT’s Technology Review Top 35 Innovators Under 35. Butterfield sold Flickr to Yahoo! in 2005 but continued to manage the operation until leaving last year to pursue new projects. Butterfield will speak Wednesday, April 15, 2009.
Did you know that the Rockefeller Center has a Flickr site?
