The Citizen

Bryan Stevenson speaks about the power of hope in the face of hopelessness “The United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the world. From 300,000 in 1972, it has crossed 2.3 million citizens today,” said Harvard alumnus Bryan Stevenson at the Edwin L. Godkin Lecture on Tuesday, December 4. “The number of women […]

The woman in this painting was supposed to be Black. Drawing this piece was one of the most emotionally damaging experiences of my life. I live in Jeju Island, South Korea. Before coming to live in the island, I was in China where I met a Black girl, with whom I became very close friends […]

Advice for the modern HKS student Thank you for sending us your questions! Gagan Vaseer, The Citizen’s advice columnist, answers your questions with some lighthearted advice. Question 1: Gagan, I like this guy in my program. We always have great conversation when we see each other, and he always says we should get coffee but […]

Thank you for sending us your questions! Gagan Vaseer, The Citizen’s advice columnist, answers your questions with some lighthearted advice. Question 1: Gagan, I know you’re from India. I have heard that they keep elephants as pets there. Is it true? Dear Student – You’re clearly a globally minded thought partner. It’s inquisitive questions that […]

How a literature class is enriching my HKS experience One of my best friends in college was an English major. Today, he’s a public radio reporter in Phoenix. In the middle of the Kavanaugh confirmation, he posted on Facebook: “Thankful I studied poetry in college. To this day, it helps me understand the world better […]

This is the third episode of our audio interview series. In this episode, Kai speaks to former UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon.  Mr. Ban speaks on his take on climate adaptation, Paris Agreement, the plight of Myanmar, and the human right abuses in North Korea as well as his personal experience working as a civil servant during […]

HKS has become home to most of us, but let us not forget our actual families In early October, I received a text from my mom in Thailand: “Ong won’t be with us much longer.” Ong was my cousin. She was in her early-40s, a breast-cancer survivor. The cancer was back and had spread through […]

Continuing with our audio interview series, Kai Dittmann interviewed Sigmar Gabriel who is a member of the German Bundestag. Currently, he serves as a John F. Kennedy Memorial Policy Fellow at CES. In this short interview, he talks about the German state election and Angela Merkel’s potential step down from her party. Gabriel has held several leading posts […]

A record two Harvard Kennedy School crews raced in the 54th Head of the Charles Regatta on Saturday Oct. 20, competing against 54 other club eights, and 35 other club fours from across the country, and the globe. This year’s HKS Club Four captained by Andrew Swab HKS ’19 beat several teams in its race […]

We ought to be as principled in our writing as we are in our teaching and our learning. Todd Rogers, Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), runs an experiment for students in Science of Behavior Change. Groups are asked to write an online script enticing as many people as possible to […]

Kai Dittmann interviewed President Juan Manuel Santos, former president of the Republic of Colombia and Nobel peace prize winner, for the Citizen. He talks to Kai about the Adaptive Leadership course with Heifetz, peace agreement, Venezuelan refugee crisis, and economic prosperity in Colombia. Santos has served as president of the Republic of Colombia from 2010 […]

Robert Reynolds is an MPP ‘15 and one of the founders of Behavioral Insights Student Group (BISG). Robert returned to the Kennedy School earlier in September to talk about his exciting new initiative with BISG students: Vote Tripling. By applying behavioral science to social networks, and empowering under-represented Americans to contribute to their cause, Vote […]