Ellwood Excited to Take Over as Dean

79 JFK AND BEYOND l A month After the announcement that David Ellwood would replace Joseph S. Nye, Jr. as dean of the Kennedy School when Nye steps down in June, one thing is clear: Ellwood is excited to take over and others are excited for him.

I love this place,” he said in April after Harvard President Larry Summers made the announcement in the Forum to a packed crowd of staff, students, faculty, and Ellwood’s family.

Since the announcement, Ellwood has been visible all over the school, sharing his ideas, listening to others, and stressing the theme that will serve as a foundation for his administration: partnership, excellence, and impact.

In May, he met with staff at an informal coffee break to answer questions. In April, at the Dean’s Conference, he met with key alumni leaders. Greg Rosenbaum MPP 1977, incoming chair of the Dean’s Alumni Leadership Council, said the group of alumni came away energized.

“In private discussions with Professor Ellwood, it is easy to see how his enthusiasm for the school will energize the students, faculty, and alumni to build for the future,” Rosenbaum said.

Jeanie Barnett MPA 2002, a former student of Ellwood’s, remembers his energy in the classroom — even when the class started at 8:30 a.m. or met on a Saturday.

“I took his course, ‘Markets and Market Failure,’ an introductory course to microeconomics that met at the ungodly hour of 8:30 a.m. Ellwood’s teaching style made it worthwhile,” she said. “He had a great style for humanizing the ‘dismal science,’ illustrating rather dry concepts by connecting them to real-life headlines and personal anecdotes — especially about the imaginary value of diamonds and how his wife refused to wear one.”

Barnett said his Saturday review sessions showed how much he cared about his students.

“I’ll always marvel the review sessions he held before the mid-term and the final — both on a Saturday morning with coffee and donuts to keep our energy up. Ellwood stood at the chalk board and for nearly 6 hours, with unflagging energy, went over everything he’d done in class, barely stopping for even a bathroom break,” she said. “That he would devote a whole Saturday to the review, and do it himself, rather than passing it off to a CA, and be able to make these abstract concepts understandable to students like myself who’d never taken an econ course and struggled with the material, was, to me, a reflection of his remarkable talents as a teacher. He really gave us ‘our money’s worth.’ And I believe his genuine caring about the quality of his students’ classroom experience is the best thing he brings to his new role as dean.”

Katie Flaster, Ellwood’s assistant, isn’t surprised at the positive response her boss has been getting since the announcement.

“David has been a pleasure to work with. He is thoughtful, hard working, has a great sense of humor, and possesses the rare ability to immediately put people at ease and establish a comfortable and friendly rapport,” she said. “And it is nice having a boss who you can tease about drinking Coke at 8:30 a.m. in the morning.”

Some, like Professor Christopher Jencks, who has authored several papers with Ellwood over the years, said Ellwood’s jump from professor to dean is a mixed blessing.

“The good news about choosing David as the dean is that he loves the Kennedy School, has a vision of where it should go, and has an extraordinary ability to convince people that they should do what it takes to make a vision into reality,” he said. “The bad news is that he is a thoughtful, imaginative, and careful scholar, and I really regret losing him as a collaborator.”

Others are excited about his public service focus, which President Summers noted when he made the announcement of Ellwood’s appointment in April. “The Kennedy School lies at the heart of Harvard’s commitment to public service, and David Ellwood, in many ways, personifies that commitment.”

In fact, Summers said, it was a copy of Ellwood’s book Poor Support, written just a few years after Ellwood earned his PhD in economics from Harvard, that President Clinton carried around when he was first formulating his views on welfare reform. As the New York Times wrote in 1996, “By the 1992 presidential campaign, a wonk none other than Bill Clinton was stealing Ellwood’s lines, promising to ‘make work pay’ and to defend the ‘people who play by the rules.’” Clinton later hired Ellwood to join the administration as an assistant secretary in the Department of Health and Human Services and to help lead Clinton's welfare reform efforts. He served from 1993 to 1995.

Ellwood has been a member of the Harvard community since the early 1970s as a student, teacher, and administrator. He joined the Kennedy School in 1981.

In the fall, he said he will come forward with a more concrete agenda for the school. In the meantime, he said, “I am very excited. Now let’s get on with our good work. And let’s have fun doing it.”

For a more in-depth look at David Ellwood, look for a feature story about him in the upcoming issue of the Bulletin, which comes out in September.