Recently, I had the opportunity to write a guest blog for one of our
nation's most distinguished graduate schools for public sector work:
the Kennedy School of Government. At least, I thought I was writing for
the renowned KSG. Turns out, KSG does not exist anymore…it has been
transformed into HKS, the Harvard Kennedy School.
Visit the
school's website and peruse its literature, and you will notice the
change, which has been implemented during the last couple of years.
School officials have offered a number of explanations for the shift in
nomenclature, including the laughable argument that a change was
necessary to distinguish Harvard's graduate program from "more than
900,000 institutions bearing the Kennedy name, most of them schools,
(typically at the elementary or secondary level)." Apparently, applicants to John F. Kennedy Middle School in Suffolk, VA, had been sending their materials to the wrong place.
Though
school officials may deny it, the upshot of the name change is that the
Kennedy School is distancing itself from "government," which is less
prestigious than "law," "business," and "medicine" – other professional
programs for which Harvard is well-known. With a majority of its
graduates now going into the private sector and non-profit work,
perhaps the school sought to position itself more broadly and appeal to
a new generation of graduate students who were repelled by the idea of
working for gov.
Interestingly, HKS may be behind
the times once again. With a new president looking and starting to make government
"cool" again and hundreds of thousands of applicants flooding the
nation's capital to work for the new administration, survey data shows
that government has been rediscovered as a vital and popular career
choice. We may be entering a new era in which "good enough for government work"
once again becomes a line of high praise, rather than cynical
belittlement. As young people seek out schools that are unashamed of
preparing students for careers in government, HKS may find itself
wishing it had saved its money and remained true to its mission.
Chris Myers, 33, runs the U.S. Public Service Academy.
Write him with comments, questions, or tips at: asch@uspublicserviceacademy.org.
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