By Daniel Feehan, MPP ’13 Three years ago, I watched President Obama’s inauguration from Baghdad while on a deployment with the Army.  Just two days prior, a soldier from my unit had been killed in combat. I was troubled. I could not find the soldier’s name in American media aside from a sterile Defense Department […]

By Alexi White, Opinions Editor, MPP ‘13 “It’s an industry, and it didn’t used to be. It’s huge and its complicated and its corporate.” With deliberate care and conviction in his voice, Jonathan Moore tells a story of HKS then and now. “My time at the IOP was a kick; it was a riot! And […]

By Erum Jilani, MPA ’12 In November 2008, President Obama’s election was celebrated not just in the United States but around the world. Crowds in Berlin cheered in the streets while Kenya declared a national holiday. Obama’s presidential campaign impressed global leaders and people the world over with its rhetoric of open engagement and its […]

 By Sheila Choi, MPA ’12 As I left the Harvard Kennedy School library at 3 AM one morning, I was startled by a rustling sound near the bushes in the courtyard. I slowly approached the moving object and found a rat with her leg stuck in a wooden snap-trap, desperately struggling to get away. As […]

By Irene Shih, Editor-in-Chief, MPP ‘13 In a recent New York Times interview to promote her Broadway show, Sex and the City star and out-actress Cynthia Nixon made the following comments regarding sexual orientation: “I gave a speech recently, an empowerment speech to a gay audience, and it included the line ‘I’ve been straight and […]

By Mike Conway, Business Manager, MPP ‘13 Ever wonder how gender roles in India are changing in light of the country’s transition to more commercialized agriculture? Second year MPP Lorin Fries certainly does. Like many MPP2s, Fries spent part of her winter holiday conducting field research for her Policy Analysis Exercise (PAE); crisscrossing India for […]

By Matt Bieber, Feature Writer, MPP / MDiv ‘13 [Note: a podcast version of this interview is available at thewheatandchaff.com/podcast_abramoff/] Jack Abramoff helped break Congress, and now he’s trying to fix it. In the mid-2000’s, Abramoff was earning $20 million a year selling his clients access to the Republican House leadership. He owned restaurants, flew […]

By Alexi White, Opinions Editor, MPP ‘13 Harvard Kennedy School’s 2012-13 budget is due to the University on March 2, and Associate Dean for Finance, Lara Metcalf, and her team at the Office of Financial Services have been working nights and weekends to ensure the accuracy of every last line. Much of January has been […]

By Nick Wilson I’m not sure why I originally decided to see Boston Ballet’s new production of The Nutcracker at the Boston Opera House. It’s never been a favorite of mine, but perhaps I wanted to be there opening night to experience the unveiling of the much buzzed about new costumes and sets. Lately, I’ve […]

This summer, HKS students are traveling to all corners of the world to work on policymaking, advise nonprofits and conduct research. The ‘Summer Snapshots’ is a portrait of these experiences in which students — in their own words — share their stories, musings and reflections.  To see all the Snapshots, follow this link. Alexandra Raphel is interning […]

By Ben Beachy and Jason Rowe Since the Occupy movement entered the gates of Harvard Yard, too much discussion has focused on the gates themselves, not the responsibility of those of us who study behind them. One of the gates—Dexter Gate—bears the following inscription: “Enter to grow in wisdom.  Depart to better serve thy country […]

By Sujoyini Mandal, Opinions Columnist, MPP ‘13 Will security assurance counter North Korea’s increasingly aggressive stance on nuclear weapons? This was the essential question at two recent Belfer Center events with guest speakers Dr. John Park from the United States Institute for Peace and Professor Sung-Yoon Lee from Tufts University. What is the current concern? […]