In this issue, we tell the story of how Ash faculty, staff, & students led the charge in a school-wide campaign to get students to the polls. We also introduce Jennifer Musisi, Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative Mayor in Residence, and Roy and Lila Ash Fellow Ryan Swann MC/MPA 2019. Included are...
Today the Ash Center and SLATE’s Case Program at Harvard Kennedy School announced the release of a groundbreaking package of cases, simulations, and exercises for teaching effective legislative negotiation aimed at U.S. state and federal legislators. These materials were developed as part of the Center’s Project on Legislative Negotiation with support provided by the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation Madison Initiative.
In the United States, nearly 23,000 young people age out of the foster care system every year without having been reunited with their families or placed in permanent homes. Approximately 20 percent of those who leave foster care without a permanent home after turning 18 join the growing ranks of the homeless in cities and towns large and small across the country, according to the National Foster Youth Initiative. Only half will find gainful employment by the time they turn 24.... Read more about Working Wonders for Foster Youth
With camera equipment often in tow, Cecily Tyler MC/MPA 2016 has been a familiar face at the Ash Center since graduating from the Kennedy School three years ago. Tyler, a documentary filmmaker, has worked with scores of students at the Center since starting to teach videographic essay-making skills as part of Ash Center resident faculty affiliate Jorrit de Jong’s Innovation Field Lab course.
Just days after Ryan Swann MC/MPA 2019 and his identical twin brother, Bryan MC/MPA 2019, walked across the stage to accept their diplomas at Prince George’s County Largo High School in Maryland, the brothers enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve and were en route to basic training in Parris Island, South Carolina.
“I come from a large family of veterans and public servants,” says Ryan Swann, recipient of the Ash Center's 2018–19 Roy and Lila Ash Fellowship in Democracy, a scholarship that is awarded to a meritorious mid-career student with a proven dedication to democratic governance and public-sector innovation. “I really felt the need to serve.”
Getting eligible Harvard students to vote in US elections shouldn’t be hard, should it? After all, the University prides itself on being a training ground for emerging leaders, inculcating into successive generations of students the values and importance of civic engagement and democratic governance. But it turns out that many of these same students don’t exercise what is arguably democracy's core right and responsibility while at Harvard: showing up at the polls.
In this issue, we tell the story of how Ash faculty, staff, & students led the charge in a school-wide campaign to get students to the polls. We also introduce Jennifer Musisi, Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative Mayor in Residence, and Roy and Lila Ash Fellow Ryan Swann MC/MPA 2019. Included are...
