Charlie Bruce 0:00
From the Virginia policy review, this is academical. Every episode, we peek under the hood, explore how the machine of public policy works. We ask, how do we define the problem? How do we measure success? Who decides the solution? What are the unintended consequences? We break through the noise of daily news to understand what's really going on. Gary Christensen 0:24 Welcome back to the academical. I'm your host, Gary Christensen. I'm a Master's of Public Policy student at the University of Virginia. And today I had a great conversation with Ben Castleman, who's an expert on Education Policy. He's an associate professor in economics of education. He's also the founder and director of nudge for solutions lab here at UVA. His research focuses on the economics of education, and his work has been published in several prestigious journals, including the Journal of labor economics, the Journal of policy analysis and management in the Journal of Human Resources. He's a senior adviser to former First Lady Michelle Obama's Reach Higher initiative. He's also testified before Congress and presented his work several times at the White House. He graduated from Brown University and completed his doctoral work in education at Harvard University. Pleasure to have you on Ben, first question I had really was if you can tell us how you got into studying education policy, you have a lot of different papers published on the topic. So was this always something you were interested in? Or how did you kind of end up here? Ben Castleman 1:24 Great question. So I did not take a single education course in college. I was an environmental studies major, so I thought I would be going in a different direction. But while I was in college, I had the opportunity to work in a mentoring program at a local high school that got me interested in engaging with youth. And after college, my took six months to through hiked the Appalachian Trail. And while I was on the Appalachian Trail wandering around in the woods, I decided I wanted to give teaching a try. This was in a time where it was easier to become a teacher without training or, or a credential. And so I started as a high school teacher, literally having never taken an education course, no, no experience aside from mentoring, and worked as a teacher and then an administrator in a high poverty district for just under a decade. And I had incredible students very smart, very talented and hardworking, had overcome a lot of obstacles, and did everything they were supposed to. They worked hard in high school, they performed well, they applied to college, they got into college, they even plan to go as of the end of high school and they walked across the graduation stage, I gave them a big hug, we were both really excited about what their futures would hold them after college and did just fine. Too many of them struggled to get to college in the first place because of affordability issues or other challenges. Others made it to college but dropped out pretty quickly thereafter. Not typically, because they couldn't hack it academically. But because finances were tough, they had demands at home. Or they really felt like they didn't fit in to college environments that were very different and less welcoming than the neighborhoods that they'd grown up in. And this point in this made Stark for me, a set of both structural challenges, but also cultural challenges and obstacles that I was really interested in working to adjust for more of a policy level, Gary Christensen 3:27 there are a few things I really want to dive into here. One of them is there was a Washington Post article recently that kind of inspired this whole interview, frankly, of this topic. And it's talked about in the past, like three years. I think it started in 2019 to now or 2018 and talks about how you know, college enrollment rates are down significantly, I think I think it mentions 3 million in the past couple of years below average. Also, the article makes a bunch of really scary claims about how American society is really going to suffer if we don't have enough college educated people. What's kind of going on, in your opinion, and what do you think might be the, you know, possible outcomes? What should we be worried about? Ben Castleman 4:03 So I think there's four factors, three of which are pandemic related. The first is that even before the pandemic, college and university administrators enrollment managers were aware of, and in some cases nervous about demographic shifts that would just lead to smaller, high school cohorts over time, starting really 2025 ish. And by virtue of that lower rates of students, lower shares of students going to college or lower vibe students think three things have happened during the pandemic. The first was right in the heart of the pandemic, when students particularly those from low income backgrounds, were not going to college or delay in college, and that's for a whole host of factors. It could be because they are someone their family was directly affected. healthwise by the pandemic, it could be that they or someone in their family lost employment. And so especially if a student's parents lost employment, the student might felt that they had to work or bring an income. And it could also be that students had to support their families with childcare. So there was a host of very direct pandemic related effects that that likely lead low income students in particular to not go or to delay going. More recently, we have a very unique and strong labor market from the employer, the employee perspective, right wages are going up lots of job openings. And so it may also be the case right now that some people are delaying college or taking time off of college because of the strength of job market opportunities. The third thing that may be going on and this might have been going on at the start of the pandemic, and maybe going on still is that students don't love the idea of remote education. Or they tried it and it wasn't so positive, and they're taking some time off, or they kind of forecast being in classes fully online isn't what I thought college would be. And so they're delayed. I think with those ladder, three explanations to get to then your question of what what is what are the implications of this? I don't think we know yet. Because I think the million dollar question is whether students are delaying college participation, or whether some meaningful share are just not going to go to college or not go to college, at least in the foreseeable future. If that's the case, if it's not delay, right, it's more of a permanent or semi permanent decision not to participate, I think there are potentially important implications, both for those individuals, right, and the kind of job prospects that they would have. I think it will likely be disproportionately students from lower income less educated families who make a permanent or semi permanent decision not to go. And so I think there are very important implications for equity and mobility in our country. And so it may be the case that there's that this has effects on our broader economic productivity and competitiveness. I think it's too early to tell. I would also say if they're, you know, on the silver lining side, there are a growing number of programs and innovate innovative programs that are providing more kind of employer in demand training, data analytics, IT training, web development, but that are doing it as a kind of nonprofit social mission oriented model. And so you might go for six months, to get training in a specific skill that employers are looking for, I think that there will likely be an increasing number of those, it's also possible that one of the positive consequences of this reduction in enrollment at traditional colleges and universities alongside the broader economic disruptions from COVID is that there's, that has that leads to increasing innovation. Gary Christensen 8:19 And the flip side of that is, as people are looking to see if college is worth it, right, the classic like is going to school, what's the ROI on this? And I was gonna also bring up this kind of shift in the labor market where we're seeing, again, like, just like you said, you know, there's in house MBA programs, there's in house training, code, code, training, things like that. Is college still worth it? And when kids are asking that, are they a way off base? I think a lot of people look at that and say, Well, you know, are my parents generations? Like, were you crazy? Of course, gotta go to college. I wonder what that looks like over the next five years? I know, it's hard to predict. But Ben Castleman 8:51 it's very complicated, right? I would say a few broad trends that I think are worth paying attention to. One is that the kind of average wage premium or kind of economic benefit of going to getting a college degree, particularly a bachelor's degree or higher, has only risen over time, and it's risen steadily. So on average, the economic benefit of a college degree tip continues to grow. That's one thing. The other thing is that it's certainly true that for many colleges and universities, costs continue to increase. But that's been happening for the space of decades, right? This is not a That in itself is not a particularly new phenomenon and pre pandemic. We have generally seen steadily increasing rates of post secondary participation and in fact, some evidence of narrowing of gaps equity gaps in post secondary participation, though we still have important improvements to make On gaps in post secondary completion, but I think at a population level in the country, pre pandemic, we have seen rising returns over time to a college degree, economic returns and increasing levels of post secondary participation. Are there sufficient alternatives to the traditional colleges and universities to train all the Tesla engineers, and the Apple engineers, and all the other, you know, sources of important employment that that are demanded across the country? I don't think anywhere close. So I think there are really important innovative models that are that are being developed to provide post secondary training, employer demand or post secondary training. But I think it's still safe to say that the vast majority of people working at medium or high wage jobs are people who have a college degree and or a graduate degree. So in terms of the most, not that it's a guarantee, but in terms of the most reliable path to, to prosperity, economic independence, mobility, a college degree or higher remains still the most common and probably reliable path to that. Sure. Okay. Yeah, one thing to add, that's not to say that we should ignore the affordability challenges that families, particularly those from from lower income families face, I certainly think there's very strong evidence that increasing affordability particularly in the forms of need based grant assistance, leads to higher rates of enrollment and degree attainment among students from low income families. So I think the evidence is behind expanding investments in affordability for families, not just the lowest income, you know, kind of lower middle income as well, my colleague at University of Virginia, Sarah Turner has done really important work on the importance of making college affordable for students who might traditionally fall out of eligible ranges. But, but generally, I think that as a society, we would benefit from increasing investments and making college more affordable. And that actually Gary Christensen 12:25 is a perfect segue to what I think will really the crux of the interview here, because obviously, you know, I'm a policy student, or a lot of our listeners are interested in policy, if you can help us understand better, the intersection of public policy of government and college and getting policy around higher education Ben Castleman 12:42 policy surrounding higher education happens at multiple levels as policy in most domains, right. The federal government certainly plays a very important role in the form of it's primarily or most notably in the form of its financial aid programs. So the federal government invests billions and billions of dollars a year, both in need based grants, but also very importantly, in student loans, there is very understandable concern and anxiety among families around debt accumulation, but also evidence that loans provide an important vehicle through which families can afford college who might not otherwise be able to who can finance college, who might not otherwise be able to do so. And so loans are another way that the federal government expands access to post secondary education. State governments also play an important role both in direct appropriations, financial appropriations to pay for public colleges and universities, in their states, and then, you know, in, in the kind of governance of their state higher education systems. And then that's another level at which policy is set, particularly for public colleges and universities is that within state government, there are there are governing bodies that you know, make system wide investments or or support the development of new programs or new curricula. So it is a multi layered landscape. With again, one of the most notable areas that people are probably most familiar with being public investments in in financial aid programs to make college more affordable and financial, to make up a word that might otherwise be for for lower and kind of middle income families. I Gary Christensen 14:39 wanted to talk about one of your specific pieces that you published about student loans and academic performance in this correlation. And I think you had some pretty counterintuitive results. So I'd love for you to kind of walk us through that and what you think the role of student debt is and more maybe more broader What about this movement that we're seeing? Ben Castleman 14:57 Yeah, so So I think again, soon are important and complex a complicated policy question right what to do about student student loans, do students and have too much debt? Should we continue to have loans be a central part of the post secondary education system, the work that we've done is really, on this side, initial borrowing. And so I think that's a really important distinction, right? Whether it's a student right out of high school, or an adult who decides to come back to college. access to loans, may be an important means through which students can finance post secondary education that they wouldn't otherwise be able to finance, right, because depending on the college, the grants they get from the federal and state government may be from their institution, and their family resources may not be enough to pay the full cost of college. And so loans are a potentially important bridge between the grants and family resources a student can bring to bear and the cost of attendance. I think a whole separate set of questions is around how students manage loan repayments. The work that we did valuated a, an infinite and informational campaign that had the intention of supporting students at a community college to make active and informed decisions about how much to borrow, whether to borrow and how much to borrow to support the cost of their college. And what we see is that in response to this information, students do borrow less. What we also see, though, is that they perform worse academically, and years down the road, they are more likely to default on their loans than students who didn't receive this information. A reasonable hypothesis would be that by virtue of borrowing less students either didn't have the same financial resources and liquidity available to finance the cost of continuing college, or perhaps they had to work more to come up with enough money. And that took away from time on their courses. By virtue of having less financial resources or less time, they didn't do as well academically, and then by not doing as well academically, perhaps they had not as strong job opportunities, or labor market opportunities as they would have that might in turn have left them with fewer financial resources to pay back the loan debt that they did have, which led to higher rates of default. And so you know, the broader higher level takeaway could be from our study that there is, in fact, a positive relationship between student loan borrowing and both academic performance and, and potentially subsequent job opportunities and actually being able to manage one's debt. So I think that this is really important evidence, because I think that the broader public narrative often gets boiled down to student loan debt is bad, when in fact, I think for many students, student loans create the opportunity to pursue post secondary education that might not otherwise exist. And as we were talking about before, post secondary education, typically leads and credentials typically leads to better job opportunities and earnings than would have happened otherwise. I think the really important and nuanced and hard piece of this is that how much to borrow and whether to borrow is a highly personalized decision, which makes it hard to have any, like one size fits all policy prescription, that particularly one that would limit access to student loans. Gary Christensen 18:59 I can't help but think of the flip side there. Which is, you know, I'm a millennial, and there's a lot of millennials that came up right through the great recession took on a ton of debt to get through school. It was rough, right. And a lot of people had a lot of debt. And you always hear these stories of people saying like, I've paid the recommended amount every month, but somehow I owe more than I started with still like it. You know, I haven't touched the principle yet. So I mean, I think there's, there's so much to parse through. And I think the profiles he painted is a really good. Hopefully the listeners latched on to that because it's not the same for everybody. Ben Castleman 19:30 The conceptual question is, what if at least for some of those, since they hadn't had access to student loans, and they hadn't been able to pursue or complete college as a function of that? Would they be better or worse off now in terms of their job opportunities and their economic circumstances? And in my view, it's at best ambiguous, and I think more likely that a lot of those students would have even more limited job opportunities, with much less opportunity for upward mobility. And so in the kind of net net of it all. You know, would they be better off financially? I'm not. I'm not sure that many of them would be. Gary Christensen 20:08 Yeah, thank you so much for adding on to that. I think that was really helpful. So I know you've talked about the rising cost has always happened. And I completely agree, right, we've seen that has the rate at which it's increased of Secondary Education outpaced wage growth, and even inflation over the past 2030 years? Is there? Is there a point where we say, Okay, this is getting this is getting too expensive, too quickly? I'm sure you've seen some of those scary charts where it's like, you know, 100% above inflation. What do you make of that? And, and again, what what do you think? Is the intersection there with public policy? What was the government feel about it? What what can they do about it? Ben Castleman 20:50 Yeah, it's a it's a fantastic question, and not one that I think I at least have a satisfactory answer. I think you're right to observe that costs have been going up at a steady rate, that that outpaces inflation, at least outpaces inflation over the past year, where inflation is picked up quite noticeably. I think that policymakers have struggled to identify ways to reduce the cost of college because I think the drivers of college costs are quite complex. And maybe, you know, some of them are as much a function of kind of market responses to other institutions and the kind of competitive landscape in which colleges find themselves. And so I don't, I don't think there's any easy policy solution to to bring down that cost curve, despite it being, as you noted, Gary, a very perennial, a topic of perennial interest at the local, state and federal level. And, you know, to your question of of will this will occur band on its own at some point, will there be enough movement away from the sector if it becomes just too expensive? I think that I think it's also important for us to keep in mind that when we talk about colleges and universities, it's a very broad and diverse market. Right. So the Harvard's, and the Princeton's and the UVA is, as we also see, every year have increasing demand, and are increasingly competitive, right? Every year, the percent of applicants that get in just seems to go down, there's no way I was very fortunate to go to brown undergraduate, I wouldn't even make the first cut at Brown. Now, I'm certainly where I coming out of high school. And so it's obviously become very competitive. And so harder to imagine what the external pressures are that meaningfully bring cost down at those institutions. There's another set of institutions that particularly given the demographic trends that we described, and the kind of pandemic related challenges that that don't face nearly the same demand and if anything, are, are losing enrollments over time. And so they those institutions may face increasing pressure to reduce costs as a way of trying to sustain enrollments. But I think the really important question that we have to add a really important question we have to ask is, what's the consequence of reduced costs? What are we giving up at those institutions? Are they fewer faculty, fewer academic supports, less state of the art resources? And what is the composition of students attending institutions that are that are reducing costs relative to the composition of students attending the Harvard's in the Princeton's in the Yale's and the concern I have is that the cost cutting is going to happen as at the institutions the broader access institutions that are disproportionately attended by the least privilege and advantaged members of our society. And that that, you know, could only further exacerbate the inequalities that we see in post secondary education. Gary Christensen 24:38 Really good questions that I had not thought of. So I that was a very, very unique and great perspective. Last question more generally, what do you wish our listeners and the public knew more about? Ben Castleman 24:49 I wish the public understood better the important role that student loans can play in making a education affordable for students who might not otherwise be able to afford it. And alongside that, i, i from a policy perspective, and from an institutional practice perspective, I think it's important for us to continue to pursue strategies that support students and families to make as informed and tailor decisions about whether and how much to borrow is possible. The second and related piece is I wish the public understood the the return that society gets on investments to further increase affordability for students from lower and middle income backgrounds, because, you know, increases in the Pell Grant or other forms of need based aid, have gone up modestly over time, but I certainly think the evidence is in favor of broader investments in in affordability that particularly targets students from from lower and kind of lower middle income backgrounds. And so those are, I think, to two important pieces of the policy landscape that that I would call attention to. And I guess the third we haven't talked about, but a lot of the work that we've done in this area reinforces this, you know, so much of our society has moved in the direction of kind of technology enabled assistance and support. I think some of the most impactful strategies to support students to be to get to college to be successful in college, are very, very human centered, intensive college advising programs that that provide individualized ongoing relationships and support to students who might otherwise struggle to get the college or stay in. And I would want, you know, listeners to know how important and how impactful those investments are. Because those are from from federal on down to local institutional policy. Those are programs that that that we certainly could expand to reach many more students than then currently benefit from. Gary Christensen 27:12 All right, well, that's a great great to last bit there. I absolutely love that. Thank you so much for all your unique perspectives. Charlie Bruce 27:20 Thanks for listening. If you have any questions, comments pitches, email us at Virginia policy [email protected] See you next time.
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Charlie Bruce 0:00
Welcome to Academical the podcast that peaks under the hood to tell you how the machine of public policy works. Aidan Doud 0:08 Hello, everybody and welcome back to Academical. My name is Aidan Doud. I'm a first year MPP student, and today we have a really great conversation talking all about the world of political speechwriting, something that I don't know a lot about, that I don't think many people do know the ins and outs of and how that goes into policy work. So today, our guests to talk about this is none other than Mary Kate Cary. Professor Cary is a practitioner senior fellow at UVA Miller Center, and also an adjunct professor in the UVA Department of Politics. She served as a White House speechwriter from 1989 to 1992. For President George HW Bush, then a spokeswoman and Deputy Director of Policy and Communications for then Attorney General Bill Barr. In 2014 she was the creator and executive producer of 41 on 41, a documentary about President George HW Bush, which premiered internationally on CNN, and will soon be available on CNN’s streaming site in January of 2022. She's also a producer of President in Waiting, a documentary about the modern vice presidency that features interviews with all the living vice presidents, which debuted on CNN in December 2020, and she now chairs the advisory board of the Georgia Barbara Bush Foundation. She teaches classes on political speechwriting at UVA, and also provides commentary weekly for Canadian TV and many other news outlets. Welcome Professor Cary, to the podcast. And thank you so much for joining us. Mary Kate Cary 1:30 Thanks for having me, Aidan. Aidan Doud 1:31 You obviously have had a very successful career in political communications and speechwriting for policymakers. But what some may not know is that you started actually, as a UVA student, like many of our listeners. Can you tell us a little bit about your time as a student and how you broke into the world of newswriting and politics? Mary Kate Cary 1:47 Sure, I am a member of the mighty class of 1985, here at UVA, along with many of my classmates have moved back to Charlottesville, a lot of my friends are doing the same thing. So it's totally awesome. And the way I sort of got into it at UVA, I was a Foreign Affairs major and thought I would go into the Foreign Service. And one of the classes I took along the way doesn't exist anymore, at least not that I know of, called news writing 101. And the professor who taught it was a guy named Bill Fishback. And he was the spokesman for the university and a former reporter from the Richmond Times Dispatch. So he taught this class, this was before word processing was on a laptop, you had to go to the Word Processing Center at UVA, which was in the computer science department. So nobody had computers, everybody had typewriters. And they had probably 10 IBM Selectric typewriters on tables. And there were like I said, maybe 10 or 12 people in the class, everybody got your own typewriter, a reporter's notebook and a stack of paper. And Mr. Fishback would start class and say, “Okay, I'm the.. I'm the fire chief today. And there was a fire last night, anybody got any questions for me?” And we would raise our hands. And we would ask questions about the fire. And he would just make stuff up. Halfway through class, he would say, “Time's up, press conference is over, you have 45 minutes to write your story and turn it in.” And there was no textbook, no homework. And at the beginning of the semester, I was like, wow, this is kind of hard. Because you couldn't like now on a, you know, a Word doc, you couldn't cut and paste and move stuff around and see how it looked. And all this, you basically had to write the story in your head. And then you had one chance, and one chance only to type it up, because it wasn't time because it was a typewriter. And so we, as the semester went on, we all got faster and faster doing this. And by the end of the semester, I could write on deadline, pretty darn quick, accurate, you know, fact based reporting, and I just thought this was the funnest class because like I said, no homework, no textbook, you were done when you walked out of the room, didn't have to do anything until the next class. And I said something to a friend of mine, that man, I just got I just love this class, it's the best class at UVA. And my friend said, Oh, well, you know, there's a there's a underground conservative newspaper that was the alternative to the Cavalier Daily, it was called the University Journal at the time. And he said, you know, they're looking for columnists, why don’t you be a columnist at the, at the paper, if you like to write like that. And I said, Oh, no, no I don't really want to have to be a cub reporter first and work my way up to be a columnist, because that's what I thought columnists were were former reporters who then could be columnist, and he goes, oh, no, no reporters are reporters, columnists are columnists. You can be a columnist tomorrow. And I was like, really? So I show up. I become a columnist at the University Journal. I ended up moving to be executive editor. And I'm, you know, writing the unsigned editorials. Then there was a coup at both papers and I ended up switching over to the Cavalier Daily, the conservatives tried to take over the Cavalier Daily for a year. And so I ended up writing for both papers as a columnist. And the thing that it did was it allowed me to graduate from college without, without ever having to worry about anybody asking me for my transcript or my grades, because I had a portfolio of published works. And employers could look at my writing and decide for themselves if they thought I was a good writer. But what was sort of the subliminal point that was made by those news clips was that I could meet a deadline. And that's very valuable to a lot of employers. There's a lot of great writers in the world, but not everybody can meet a deadline. And so that, that's that was worth at least three jobs out of college, were the first thing they asked me for was my.. my clips from my columns. And so as a result, I highly, highly recommend writing for any of the publications here at UVA, because you'll not only hone your writing skills, you’ll show employers, you can meet a deadline. Aidan Doud 6:03 So after then, when you went from college, you said in your next three jobs that that was really useful to you. What were those jobs, and then how did that eventually get you to speechwriting at the White House. Mary Kate Cary 6:12 So the first job out of college was answering phones for a Congressman from New York on Capitol Hill. But he knew I was Irish, and he was on a Foreign Affairs Subcommittee that dealt with all the problems going on in Ireland at the time. So if there was anything that he had to testify on in Ireland, I was allowed to write it. But mostly I was answering phones. And then the second job I had, I answered an ad in the paper, to work at ABC News’ This Week with David Brinkley, who was the guy before George Stephanopoulos. And there was a writers strike while I was there. And I thought, Oh, wow, this is my big break, now I'm going to get my writing job. And instead, I was too junior to be a news writer… because this is only my, you know, I was 22 or something, and so I would build the scripts for the On Air talent, but not write them, I would just, you know, sort the papers. And then the third job, one of my buddies from UVA, who went on to become the Secretary of Labor, actually, he called me and said, hey, I heard about this startup, and you might want to throw your name in. And it's something nobody's ever done before. It's gonna be a political news service. And there was no such thing then, it was before Axios, before Politico, any of that, it was called the Hotline. And basically, what they did was they aggregated all of the news stories on politics, from all the papers across the country. And then we would write little synopses of them. And it's, we started writing at midnight, it was a midnight to noon, graveyard shift, the newspapers would go to the printing presses at midnight and send them to us. So we get the political stories, we'd aggregate them, you know, write up short little write ups about them. So if Al Gore gave a speech, we would say, Oh, the Washington Post said it was brilliant, The New York Times that it was terrible, whatever. And, this was an expensive subscription service. And basically all the networks and all the campaigns in 1988, anybody who's running for president in ‘88, subscribed to this, and this is how they made their money. And eventually the National Journal bought them, but it was a startup at the time, and I was there was a Republican and a Democrat managing editor. And so I would write as well, but the managing editors pick the stories. And, and so those, that's what got me my start in politics, because I covered the primaries. And just as the Bush campaign was getting the nomination and going into the general election, I got hired there and switched over to being on the campaign staff. Aidan Doud 8:48 If I can cut in really quick — so was that when you're working there for that aggregator? Was that a time where you switched from like your columnist experience then to more of a reporter role? Or.. Mary Kate Cary 8:59 Yeah, that was not an opinion, world that I was in, it was all straight reporting. And, you know, compressing down the most salient points of other people's reporting. And, but what it taught me to do was how to take a lot of information quickly and distill it down. And the next job I had, you know, when I got onto the campaign, was writing what was called line of the day, which was a one page sheet that went out to all 50 state chairmen, saying what the Bush campaign had done that day, what the Dukakis campaign had done, and why we were gonna win, and they were gonna lose, and it was to give anybody who might be called on to the nightly news on behalf of the Bush campaign across the country, some sound bites, some facts about what had happened that day, quotes from the Vice President, you know, statistics, whatever, and then sort of soundbite-y material for television. I was more shocked than anybody. He wins the election after being down 17 points, and they say to me, we'd like you to come with us to the White House. And I was shocked. I figured they'd give me some crazy job at the, you know, EPA or something. And instead, they said, come to the White House. And, and I said, but the line of the day is very political. They don't do that at the White House, do they? And they said, no, no, in those days, they didn't, now they do. And they said, we want you to write magazine pieces by George Bush, ghostwrite them. So it'd be like, ‘Why I love country music,’ by George Bush for Country Music Magazine. And I said, but I've never written a magazine article before. And they said, well, are you saying no? Are you saying you don't want the White House job? And I said no no no, I'll take it, I'll take it. I'll figure it out. You know, so. So I start writing magazines at the White House. And about six months into it, the boss comes to me and says, we're gonna switch you to speechwriting now. And same thing I said, but I've never written a speech before in my life. And he says, are, are you saying no? Are you saying no to the promotion? No, no, I'll take it. I'll take it. And he said, you know, you're gonna be fine, don't worry. And I was 24. And I thought, why does this guy think I'm going to be fine. And now, looking back on it, I realize that those jobs I just told you about starting with being a columnist, were fact based, persuasive writing on a deadline. I had to take large amounts of information and distill them down, which is what a speechwriter does as well. I had to write stuff that could get on the nightly news. We're sort of soundbite-y, catchy stuff. And then I had to write in someone else's voice. And it was the same person I was going to be a speechwriter for, so that, that is exactly the job description of a speechwriter. But I was intimidated by the title because I’d never had that title before. But if I had somebody who was 24, who had that string of jobs sitting in front of me, I'd say, oh yeah, you're going to be a great speechwriter, you'll be fine. But at the time, I thought it was just a matter of time before I’d get fired. And, you know, lucky, lucky to be alive. Aidan Doud 12:02 Yeah. That's funny. So then doing that at such a young age, was it difficult then to try to put yourself in the narrative voice of the President of the United States? What was that like? And how, how, what were the challenges of trying to communicate his policy ideas? You know, from your own perspective? Mary Kate Cary 12:19 Yeah. So obviously, you know, George Bush was a much older gentlemen, and here I was this, you know, 24 year old young woman, and you tend to find yourself in situations like that, and you, you just figure it out. And so I started looking to see how the other speechwriters did it. And I started mimicking what worked. And I didn't have any, I didn't know any better, to screw it up with, I just started figuring out, you have to think about how the President or, how whoever you're writing for, how that person speaks, and what words they tend to use. And certainly, if you watch Saturday Night Live, Dana Carvey, you can see an exaggerated version of, of how George Bush spoke when he was President. But you can also do very well by figuring out the way that they think and the way that they structure arguments. President Bush was a very good writer, a better, he would say this himself, he was a better writer than speaker. And so it was easy to find other things he had written. And he was famous for all his note writing, all kinds of things he had done in the past in various positions he's had, and so, so it was easy to find things to get me into that situation where I could mimic his voice as, as best I could. Aidan Doud 13:36 So then, when you were there doing that work? What would, what did your everyday life look like? What were you doing day in, day out as a speechwriter? Mary Kate Cary 13:43 Well, being a speechwriter at that level at the White House is a job for a young person, preferably a single one without kids, which I was, and, and I would say, you know, I would go in, in the morning so that I would be there by the time — the senior staff meeting was at 7am — by the time senior staff broke up at 7:30, quarter of 8, it was smart to be at your desk, because that's when all the assignments would start, you know, coming in. And, and so most of the day was spent, most speechwriting operations are one man per speech. George W. Bush's White House, they liked doing it by committee, which I've never heard of anybody else doing it that way. But those guys sat in a bullpen and interacted with each other. In our day, and in the Reagan day, each speechwriter had their own office where you could sort of focus and not be distracted by everybody else going on. And then, so you'd spend most of the day writing. You wrote pretty much one to two speeches a week unless you had something big like the State of the Union address, which I was never senior enough to get. I was doing a lot of video scripts, a lot of what they call rose garden rubbish. The, the… I don't like that term, but that's what it's called. It was a lot of spelling bee winners, and Turkey pardoning, Girl Scout of the Year awards. President Bush called it ‘life its own self’ after a phrase by Dan Jenkins. And I think those were some of his favorites because he got to interact with real people and not be sitting there addressing a joint session of Congress or some high stakes thing that was obviously very nerve wracking. So, so I got to do the fun stuff. So I thought I had the best job of all and, and so I loved it. And then because I was the only speechwriter who was on the campaign in ‘88, I got put on all of the 1990 midterm campaign speeches when he would go around the country and campaign for all kinds of people. And so that meant I was on Air Force One a lot traveling all over the country, in case there were last minute changes to the speech, they always wanted a speechwriter on every trip. And that was true, not just of the political speeches, anytime the President's traveling, there's a speechwriter with him, just in case. So I got to, I got to see a lot of America. By the end of it, my favorite speech that I got to write was the 50th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, and President Bush was very involved in that speech, because he was 18, when, excuse me, 17 and a half when Pearl Harbor happened. And he tried to try to enlist that day, and was turned away because he wasn't old enough, waited until his 18th birthday and enlisted and did not go to college, instead went and fought in World War II. And so I got to talk to him about that, which at that point was something he never wanted to talk about, so it was a big deal to get him to open up about it. And so I felt like as, as time went on, I got more and more responsibility and got to write some really, you know, eye opening speeches, in terms of historical value. So I was very blessed. Aidan Doud 16:37 Yeah, very cool. So when you were writing speeches that related to like, policy things, as you know, a lot of our audience is policy students or people working in the policy field. How… what was that interaction? Like? How do you like the communication staff, the speechwriting staff, how do they work with those, you know, creating the policy, analyzing the policy, all of that good stuff. Mary Kate Cary 16:57 So, so each each White House is structured differently. So I'm not sure how the Biden administration has theirs structured right now. But I can tell you how ours was, which I think was fairly commonplace at the time, which was… so most of the speechwriters were divided into either domestic or foreign policy writers. I was a domestic policy writer, and the guys who wrote the foreign policy speeches mostly came from either the State Department or Department of Defense. There were five of us at any given time, with Reagan had nine speechwriters at any given time, Obama had 14. So different, different White Houses have different size of speechwriting staffs, and each one of us had a dedicated researcher who provided us with whatever we needed. And on the domestic policy side, there was the Domestic Policy Council, which is the policy office at the White House, and between the researchers and the policy guys, they would get you whatever you needed for the speech. I would get direction from the Director of Communications. If the speech was high level enough, you got called into the Oval Office to talk to the President about what he wanted. But, but most of the time would be the White House Communications Director, we'd have a big meeting, he'd sit down and say, okay, Mary Kate, I'm assigning you the speech at the Grand Tetons National Park, let's say, the President wants to talk about the Clean Air Act amendments, so you need to talk about, you know, environmental policy, you need to talk about what we're going to do in the schools, you know, whatever it is, and so you'd get three or four bullet points that had to be in the speech, and then everything else was up to you to fill 15 or 20 minutes. And so you get a lot of material from the Domestic Policy Council. And then the researchers would come up with all the local color, things like that. If it was a foreign policy address, because occasionally I got asked to write those if there was a, a toast, let's say, at a State Department, I mean, a state dinner a lot of times I would get given the toast instead of the actual policy address. And, and so the toasts even, there's interplay between the White House and State Department where they're giving you exact language that they want. The problem is it's often not.. how should I say this diplomatically? It's, it's often written for the eye, not the ear. How about that? When you read it, and you're like, okay, I know what they're trying to say here. But this is gonna bomb if we say it the way they say it. So there's always these back and forth with state or the National Security Council on how, to how to word things in a way that's, you know, more more speech-like than.. than a white paper. So that's how it all went down. Yeah. Aidan Doud 19:31 Yeah I love that not only in policy, does the bureaucracy come into play, but also in the speechwriting in the community, as well. Mary Kate Cary 19:39 And then it would, uh, one more thing I should tell you is anything that, that the speechwriters wrote, got staffed. That was called the staffing process where, you know, I'd write a draft, it would go to the chief speechwriter, we go back and forth with editing. Okay, now we're both happy with it. Then it would go to the office of the staff secretary. And that office would circulate it to an average of 20 or 22 people, depending on the content of the speech. And if there was a mention in there of the EPA, somebody from EPA had to check that sentence. You know, OMB was very involved, because it usually had numbers in it of how much was going to be spent on whatever policy. So all these people got to weigh in. The Reagan speechwriters were allowed to do what was called reconciliation, where if you had two competing comments, the speechwriter would decide which comment to go with, right, or which correction or whatever. In the Bush administration, the feeling was that the speechwriters were too emotionally attached to our speeches. So we were not allowed to referee. Because of course, your incentive is to say, I'm not making any changes. This thing is brilliant. Why should I change anything? Right? So the chief speechwriter was the one who had to fight it out with everybody. And then the changes got put in, there was a deadline. And if… if anybody was late for the deadline, they had to explain directly to the President, why they were late, which tended to stop people from missing the deadline. And then the last person it would go to was president. And he had the final say, there were no changes after it went to the president, because you never wanted to have what we call the surprise on the way to the podium, where he had approved one speech, and there's a different speech waiting for him at the podium. So no changes after it went to the President. Aidan Doud 21:26 So what's the biggest challenge that you faced, when working for the White House or later after, when you worked for then Attorney General Bill Barr, for his office? What was a big challenge you faced as a public servant? Mary Kate Cary 21:38 So probably the biggest was that I was, for a while I was the only woman. That eventually changed, and, but I was definitely the youngest. And so when I would call other places to do research for a speech or something, say, or if I went in person, and they could see how young I was, I could tell that it was… I was having a hard time being taken seriously. And, and then when I got to the Justice Department, I remember interviewing for the job. And the Deputy Attorney General said, you know what? I am so sorry, I was gonna interview you for the next half an hour, but I've just been called into a meeting. So I'm not going to be able to do that. I only have one question for you. Are you… you look very young to me? Are you setting yourself up for failure here? And I said, no, I don't believe I am. And he said, okay, that's all I need to know. See ya. And I was like… what kind of job interview question is that? Like, who's gonna say yes to that, you know. And so, what started happening was, after we left office, I started freelancing for all kinds of, you know, CEOs and people who had been in the Cabinet who no longer had speechwriters, you know, who knew me through George Bush. And as I, I would deal with, mostly not so much on the cabinet level, because those guys knew me, but the CEOs, I would call the staff and say, hi, I am speechwriter on the upcoming speech, I'd like to make an appointment to see you know, Mr. Jones, and talk to him about speech before I start writing. And they'd say, oh, we don't, we don't do that here. If you could just write the speech and turn it in, that would be great. And I'd be like, um, no, I think I have to talk to him before I can start writing for him so I can get his voice… No, we don't think that's necessary. And, and, of course, it's talking about setting yourself up for failure. So I would agree to this. And then of course, the speech wouldn't go well. And so I started realizing they're doing this because of my age. They don't take me seriously. And so I started realizing that I just have to stick up for myself, nobody else is going to do it. And so when I would say I need to meet with him, and I'd get some pushback, I'd say, listen, I, I don't want this speech to be a disaster, and I'm sure you don't either, so if I can't meet with him, it will be a disaster. And why don't I give you some names of other people who might be willing to write the speech for you under those circumstances, but I can't, I can't do it that way. So thank you so much. But here's somebody else's name. And then they go, oh, okay. You can meet with them. And so I just had to start sticking up for myself saying, no, you don't seem to understand. You can't write a speech for somebody… and this is before YouTube, you know, you couldn't just find it elsewhere. And so, so that was probably the thing that was the biggest obstacle I faced was just sort of client perceptions of somebody who's in their 20s… writing that level of speeches, and like I said, it's just I think part of it too, let me add one more thing, is I used to say a lot that I had fallen into this job. I couldn't believe I got to be a White House speechwriter… how lucky I was. I used lucky a lot. And as I've gotten older, I realized maybe that's something women do and shouldn't, I shouldn't say, yes, of course, I was very blessed to have that opportunity. I'm not saying that. But when you… when you think back on that list of jobs I had, and the job skills that I listened to a few minutes ago, I did put in my 10,000 hours, and I had worked my butt off. And it wasn't, it wasn't that I was unlucky, its that.. you sort of make your own luck. And I had worked hard, and I deserved to be in that job. And it was one of the greatest privileges of my life. And so anyway, but that's, so that's the other thing I would say is I those were the two obstacles, I think, is that I, I didn't, I didn't frame it correctly as having worked hard, and I should have stuck up for myself a little bit more. Aidan Doud 25:48 So like I mentioned earlier, I'm at the Batten School, which is the primary audience of the Academical podcast. We're not just a school of public policy, and policy analysis, but also one of leadership. So what's been the most important leadership lesson you've learned, whether it be from President HW Bush, or just any time in your career? Mary Kate Cary 26:07 So I go back to this documentary that I made about President Bush, and I interviewed two people who were in the film, one was former Defense Secretary, former director of the CIA, Bob Gates. And I said to him, I remember listening to you give a speech where you introduced President Bush, and you said you would walk through fire for George Bush. And I want to know, why did you say that? Why would you walk through fire for him? And he pulled out a letter that President Bush had written him after he left office, and he read this letter out loud. Bob Gates 26:47 Dear Bob, when Barb read your letter, the tears flowed. But she had to get in line, I'd already been there. I hate not finishing. Remember the African runner at the Olympics, who pulled a muscle and entered the stadium to finish 30 minutes after the pack. He said, my country didn't send me here to start, they sent me here to finish. There's a parallel here. The thing that deeply touched me about your letter was this very generous assessment of what I was trying to do, and what I tried to be. I will miss working with you. I would like to feel that somewhere down the road, I could repay you for that loyal support that always came my way. You served out there and at the White House with great distinction, and always with honor and decency. Good luck, in what I hope is your happiest New Year ever. You're a good man Bob Gates… and you have brought this friend of yours nothing but pride in you, and great happiness from a friendship I’ll always treasure. Mary Kate Cary 27:56 And I was like, okay, I can see why you’d go go through fire for George Bush. The next interview I did was Coach K at Duke. And Coach K was a friend of George Bush's also. And I say Coach K. I just interviewed Bob Gates. He said he walked through fire for George Bush. I've heard your players say they would run through a brick wall for you. What is it that makes people want to go through fire or run through brick walls for people who are leading them? What… what is it about leadership that gets that feeling going? And Coach Kay said, well there's three things. The first is the person needs to… the leader needs to know what they're doing. They have to have some level of expertise. They need to convince people that they, they get what they're supposed to do, and they know how to do it. Right. He says the second thing is they have to know how to lead a team, and be part of a team and understand collaboration and all that sort of thing. He says, but there are plenty of people who know what they're doing and know how to be on a team. And nobody will follow them anywhere because they're the biggest jerks in the world. Right? He says, so what is it that is the secret sauce, and that is humility. And he says the best leaders do not ask people to do something that they wouldn't do themselves. And George Bush was always that way because he had had so many jobs on his way to the presidency. He had been in so many staff positions. He understood what it was like to be all these people who were working for him. And so he treated us so well… his loyalty, as they say loyalty goes up as well as down, and so of course he treated the Queen of England well, but he also treated you know, the guys in the kitchen at the White House really well. And there are so many stories that came out in this documentary of people he used to drive to AA meetings, and people who you know, he had a tennis pro he gave him his car, all kinds of stuff like this that happened throughout his life. The… this humble nature that he had, he was not one of these guys, ‘do you know who you're dealing with?’ kind of thing. Just the humility is so key to leadership and was such a factor in his success. You know, whether it was building an unprecedented coalition of countries to go into the first Persian Gulf War, or whether it was, you know, helping people whose parents were dying while they were working at the White House. And it's, it's a remarkable thing about him, and it's what made him so, so beloved. And I think there's leadership lessons in that for everybody. Aidan Doud 30:40 Definitely a lot to think about. Well, thank you, Professor Cary, so much for joining us on the podcast. And for any of those… any undergraduate students listening. This is Professor Mary Kate Cary, who teaches political speechwriting, and democracy out loud in the college, so definitely give her a look on Lou’s List. But thank you so much, Professor Cary, for joining us, and we hope to hear from you again soon. Mary Kate Cary 31:03 Thanks for having me. This was a blast. Charlie Bruce 31:07 That's all for this week. If you have any questions, comments, show ideas, you can pitch us at [email protected]. Until next time! Charlie Bruce 0:01
From Thomas Jefferson's academical Village, this is academical. In our podcast we peek under the hood of the machine of public policy to see how things work. This week host Aiden Dowd interviews trade Ambassador CJ Mahoney on his role in the USMC a trade negotiations. Without further ado, here's our show. Aidan Doud 0:22 Hi, everybody. Thanks for joining us. My name is Aiden Doud. And I'm one of your academical podcast co hosts. I'm a first year MPP student at baton on we're going to be talking about everything international trade policy. So Ambassador Mahoney is the former deputy United States Trade Representative for investment services, labor, environment, Africa and the Western Hemisphere. He then went on to clerk for Justice Kennedy in the Supreme Court and then as worked as an attorney for Williams and Connolly, Williams and Connolly, a firm in DC and as a lecturer at Yale Law, most recently at USTR, he was the lead negotiator for the United States, Mexico, Canada agreement usmca. The deal that the trade deal that replaced NAFTA, and actually passed overwhelmingly in the House of Representatives by a vote of 385 to 41, and the Senate by a vote of 89 to 10. So without further ado, joining me now, Ambassador CJ Mahoney. All right, Ambassador Mahoney. I'm so glad you're here. You're the perfect person to discuss these topics with and I can't thank you enough for joining us on academical. CJ Mahoney 1:25 Well, thanks so much, Aidan. Really glad to be here. Aidan Doud 1:27 Yeah. So tell us a bit about your experiences and USTR. What was it like to serve as the representative of the US government and basically be involved in these high level conversations and trade negotiations. CJ Mahoney 1:38 It was a fantastic experience, I came to the job not having first hand experience with international trade. I was actually, you know, selected for the job kind of Honestly, these opportunities come and come about by by happenstance, I had a mutual friend who was was good friends with Ambassador Lighthizer, we were put in touch after Ambassador Lighthizer was nominated. Bob's view was that it was important to staff USTR with good lawyers. And he was less concerned about the substance. He thought if he hired people who had good negotiating skills and good legal skills, that the substance was something that he could teach, or that could be learned. And hopefully, in my case that that worked out. And I came into USTR without, frankly, without a lot of strong views on these issues, really just wanting to have the opportunity to serve. And it was a very, very active somewhat a turbulent time in, in US trade policy with regard to China, the renegotiation of NAFTA, as well as a number of smaller deals that didn't get as much attention. But I think were very good for the United States opened up market access for for farmers and manufacturers and other businesses in the US. And so I'm, I'm very proud of my service. Aidan Doud 2:57 Yeah. What were some of those smaller trade deals just since, you know, this is a good, you know, good outlet for people that honest and honestly don't hear a lot about these smaller things, because trade policy isn't, you know, such a glamorous sexy topic as many others. CJ Mahoney 3:11 Why? I'm glad you asked that. Because aside from the USMCA and the deal with China, we're certainly the headline accomplishments of the Lighthizer USTR. But there were a number of other deals as well that were that were really pretty significant. We did a deal with Japan, that standing alone would be probably one of the most important trade agreements that the US has done in the last decade. It basically secured for the US most of the agricultural access that we would have if we had a proper free trade agreement with Japan, and also included a first class digital trade agreement that has very high standards and puts the US and Japan on the same page on on digital economy related issues. We did a small deal put important deal with the European Union, where we got the EU to eliminate its tariff on lobsters, which was something was that was really important to to lobster and men in Maine, who had seen a lot of their market in the EU be lost to Canadian lobsterman after Canada did a Free Trade Agreement with the EU. And so it turned out that these fish are these last straw men who fish in the same waters, the Canadians have an advantage because they didn't have to their exports didn't pay a tariff, which was you know something about something in the in the range of mid double digits. So it was a important thing. It was also we actually did reciprocal tariff reductions on our side. But you know, at the end of the day, working with allies, making progress on trade really requires substantive changes. And you know, what we did with Japan, Korea, the EU did result in substantive changes to to the trade trade regime, I think in ways that are good for the United States and confidence building in terms of, of all of those relationships going forward. Aidan Doud 4:54 Yeah, so I noticed that you mentioned specifically the automobile and then digital industries nd then I noticed also, we'll talk about NAFTA and USMC in a minute. But that was a common, like a recurring theme between all these deals that those industries needed some reform, did you like feel that was the case coming into it that, you know, those were sectors to focus on? CJ Mahoney 5:15 I think the auto industry is just absolutely critical for the United States. It's not only an iconic American industry, I think it's one that drives a lot of a lot of economic activity and supports a lot of for something like for every man, every line manufacturing job, there are three or four, I think, you know, some people would say upwards of 10 additional jobs that are created in the supply chain. And so I think it's really important that the US maintain a vibrant auto industry, every trade agreement has certain rules that say that for manufactured goods, a certain percentage of the content have to be manufactured within the region, when we got to a point where Mexico really wasn't assembly platform for auto manufacturers in Europe and Asia, who don't give the United States reciprocal market access. It was an assembly platform for them to be able to get their vehicles into the United States duty free. So I think it was an important thing that we did. And you know, it's a problem now will be an even bigger problem in the future. Because the way that NAFTA is rules were set up NAFTA was an Agreement that was negotiated in the early 1990s. So cars in the early 1990s, were the reference point for those rules. And now his his cars have changed. And especially as we're on the threshold of big advances in New Energy vehicles and autonomous vehicles, it was important that those rules be reformed and adapted, so that they serve the needs to leave the United States. But I think of the entire integrated North American supply chain in the future. So I was very proud of that. I think that that was that was, I think, a really important reform. Aidan Doud 6:47 So what are your thoughts generally on the like early NAFTA, like the original NAFTA in the early 90s? What did you think it did? Well, what did it do wrong? And then what did USMCA change about it that you think was really important? CJ Mahoney 6:58 I think that the differences between USMCA and NAFTA are, you know, every bit as big if not bigger than the difference between a car that was manufactured in, you know, in 1994, and a and a Tesla, both are cars, they both sort of fit in the same category. At its most basic level, what it does is to have mostly duty free trade between the three countries, but every provision of it was upgraded significantly. And, you know, in some of these areas, there were there were things that were done that were that were we started with just I think, very, very different goals, the auto rules of origin being being the most important being the most important one, we wanted to come up with a set of rules that would rebalance the auto trade in North America to encourage more jobs, not only in the region, but specifically in the United States. In addition to having this tighter Rules of Origin and higher regional content requirements, we also had a provision that says that 40% of a car and 45% of a truck have to be made by workers who make at least $16 an hour. And so that's something that's going to encourage more investment in the United States. And again, so he just sort of puts a floor on wage competition, which I think is a reasonable thing to do. I mean, you know, there are some people who say, Well, that's managed trade, and you're, you know, interfering with with the hidden hand. But the but the labor conditions in Mexico generally don't have anything to do with, with with Adam Smith, they really have to do with, you know, a political situation down there that needed reforming. And over the years, that's one of the things that has resulted in wages that are artificially low. So having a mechanism that encourages the discourages competition on something like wages, I think is, I think, is really important. The other thing that we had is a as a sunset provision in the agreement, which, you know, I think, ultimately is going to be something that helps to keep this relationship between Mexico and Canada, the United States strong and refresh, because what it says is that there's a term on the agreement of 16 years, but that every six years, there will be a review to determine whether to extend the agreement out for another 16 years. And so what that means is that you have a you'll have an opportunity to make some of the revisions that frankly, I think I think we should have made to the original NAFTA. Well, before the Trump administration, Aidan Doud 9:12 A lot of progressive lawmakers or interest groups in the United States have said in the past that USMCA did not do enough. What is your response? Do you do you think it did enough? CJ Mahoney 9:22 This is the only trade agreement that received the endorsement of the steelworkers the AFL CIO, Teamsters. You can't turn turn the situation in Mexico around overnight. And you know, there are certain things I mean, Mexico is will remain it remains a sovereign country, it needs to regulate these issues in its own way. Aidan Doud 9:43 What would you say you're most proud of with your time of us and USTR and what were some things you would have done differently as well? CJ Mahoney 9:50 By far the thing I'm most I'm most proud of is USMCA proud not only with the agreement that we're able to strike, but probably even more more so than even the substance of the agreed but I'm really proud proud that we were able to get strong bipartisan support for the agreement in Congress. And, you know, we did that the year before a presidential election in a time that was, you know, otherwise very fraught. I think that the the, the Trump administration deserves credit for USMCA I think it deserves credit for changing the conversation about trade with, with China and forcing the country to recognize that, you know, the relationship that changed was different than it was in certainly after that, in some of the hopes that people had about China, when trying to join the WTO weren't fulfilled, exactly. China has an economy, which is, you know, driven in large part, it's by the state, there's a lot of dynamic capitalism there as well. But it's not, but it's supported by, by state subsidies and, and some barriers to trade, that make it difficult for other countries to, to have as much market access into China, as China has into other countries. And it results in big macro economic distortions. You know, my own preferred policy is one that focuses less on trying to change China and more done trying to make the us more competitive. But I certainly don't want an adversarial relationship with China. But I think, you know, the assumptions that underlay the relationship that we have with China before 2017, were needed to be re evaluated, and we need to have, we need to have a new relationship going forward. That doesn't mean that we need to be in an adversarial relationship, but it doesn't mean that the US needs to, you know, recalibrate the policies that we have, and what we want out of the relationship. Aidan Doud 11:41 Thanks for engaging with all these pretty deep questions. And you know, really substantive things about politics, trade, all of that good stuff that everybody hopefully learned a lot about. I also have a few more interesting fun questions. You know, talk about something different. So what's something about the life and job of a trade representative or a diplomat like yourself that most people don't know? CJ Mahoney 12:03 I think you really, you find yourself really being as much of a mediator as you do a negotiator because there are a lot of just different interests that you have to accommodate, you know, we were thinking about, how's the Congress gonna react to this, how's labor community going to react to it as a business community, and then the foreign country you're you're negotiating with, so it's really about kind of trying to come up with a solution that works for everybody, as opposed to just trying to get your own. Pursue your own your own policy preferences. It's a it is though, it's, it's also a job, that is a lot of fun, in that you work with really, really great people and the people, USTR, the career staff, in particular, were fantastic, I can only hope that everybody has the opportunity to work with work with somebody, and work under somebody like Ambassador Lighthizer, who, you know, for me was just an absolute, you know, inspiration, not only in, you know, in how he conducted himself professionally, but also in his in his personal life and in his, in his personal values and how he treated people. I mean, he's just, you know, there's just, it just doesn't get any better in, in, in my book, and, and those things are, you know, when you're dealing with people in you know, stressful situations where a lot at stake, I think you really, you really learn about somebody's character. And you know, those are those are great experiences to have, even if even if they do take a few years off your life. Aidan Doud 13:21 What would you say is an important leadership lesson that Ambassador Lighthizer somebody on that you've worked with has taught you, CJ Mahoney 13:27 It's really important to listen, a lot of people who are, you know, hard charging, and, you know, get to these positions get to them, because they are confident in expressing their opinion and like to hear them like to hear themselves speak. Yeah, but you really learn a lot more and you can make better decisions, you actually sit back and listen and really kind of sit back and try to figure out, you know, what is it that's really motivating this person? What is their what is their bottom line? Another way to express that is that, you know, empathy, I think it's just, it's just really, really important. If you have the ability to kind of step back and reflect on those things. I think you can make better decisions, I think you can make more progress. And so, you know, that's something that it's hard to do, especially in the heat of the moment. Sometimes, you know, emotion, things can get very, you know, very emotional and temperatures can be raised. But if you can step back and do that, I think you'll I think you'll be more effective and I think that's a really important and perhaps underappreciated quality in a good leader. Aidan Doud 14:20 Many thanks to Ambassador CJ Mahoney for speaking with us about USMCA. If you have any questions, comments or guest suggestions, you can email them to us at Virginia policy. [email protected] See you next time. Transcribed by https://otter.ai Connor Eads
Welcome, everyone. My name is Connor Eads. Gary Christensen This is Gary Christensen Connor Eads And we're both first year MPP students at UVA is Frank Batten School of leadership and public policy. Today we have the distinct pleasure of having the commissioner of the Virginia Department of Elections. Chris Piper here with us today. Thank you for being here with us. So Commissioner Piper holds a BA in Political Science from Virginia Commonwealth University. He began his career in elections and governance ethics as a manager of a large trade association’s federal PAC, before leading the Virginia State Board of Elections campaign finance division. He then served as a political compliance consultant, before he returned to the State Department of Elections to manage the Election Services Division. In 2014, he became the Commonwealth's first executive director of the Virginia conflict of interest and ethics Advisory Council. And today, Commissioner Piper leads the Department of Elections as its Commissioner, it is Virginia's finest hour as it's wrapping up with the general election. So when you came on, as commissioner, you really started with an anomaly over in Newport News with being declared a winner through a drawing. But so with your extensive background with elections, how did you really start your career in public service and servant leadership, and how did you get into elections? Chris Piper I grew up outside of DC, so national politics is local politics. My grandparents really did not like Ronald Reagan. And I'll never forget, watching the election returns and the news on 1984’s election. And my mom said to me, she said, Don't tell your grandparents, but I voted for Reagan. And to me that was like, Wow, this this politics thing, this could tear our family apart. In 1992, when MTV still mostly played music, they did a big, big thing called Rock the Vote, which is obviously still around. I just remember the message that resonated with me in that election was if you don't vote, you don't have a right to complain. And that just sat with me. And so I got out of college, and moved up to DC and got some work as actually just stuffing copiers full of paper in at C span, believe it or not. And one of my first assignments was McCain Feingold, which was the big campaign finance regulation bill I worked on and became fascinated with political action committees, and campaign finance in general. And then as it turned out, what was then just the state board of elections was hiring, for campaign finance, work and and I just came in that way. And then I knew immediately that this is where I was going to make my bread and butter, that elections were just.. I was so passionate about it. And I wouldn't have it any other way. Gary Christensen We often talk about the nationalization of all politics, right, and people keep getting out of touch more and more with their local and state level politics. So if you know, I think a lot of people being out of touch, don't really understand, especially in our generation, kind of the nuances there. So if you could kind of walk us through and flesh out how this election, or generally how elections work between the local level and the state level. You know, what's the level of autonomy that local election officials have and just kind of flesh that out for us so we have a better idea. Chris Piper There is no overarching federal election oversight, the vast majority of states manage elections at the state level, but then they have localities that are managing their local elections. Here in Virginia, the governor appoints the commissioner. So that's that's me. And I work at the will of the governor. So the Department of Elections, which is what I oversee, we're in charge of the uniformity of applicable election laws. Why is that so important? There's 133 localities, counties and cities in Virginia. Why is uniformity important? Well, when you have 133, local general registrar's and electoral board members, they've all got to be doing the same thing the same way, essentially. And so I like to think of our job, to simplify it, it's like McDonald's. Why is McDonald's so successful? McDonald's is successful, because if I go to McDonald's here in Richmond, and get a Big Mac, I expect that Big Mac to taste a certain way. If I drive out to visit you guys in Charlottesville, I'm going to order a Big Mac, and it's gonna taste exactly like the one I had in Richmond, and there shouldn't be any difference. We're all getting the same thing overall. So we want to make sure, our job is to make sure that whether you're voting in Charlottesville or Scott County, or down in Danville, or Northern Virginia, that you're being treated the same, that you have equal access to the ballot as everybody else that's eligible to vote. Gary Christensen There's something you said in that answer that stuck out to me that I had never realized. You mentioned that you were appointed by the governor, who's the Democrat. And, you know, today's climate of hyperpolarization, and distrust. How do you go about instilling that trust, especially nowadays, since last November? Chris Piper I will say that, you know, the relationship between the state and the localities, when it comes to elections, is stronger than it's ever been. And we really work hard to cultivate that partnership. Because we all rely on each other. Elections and policies surrounding elections are political. What I'll tell you is what I know for sure. This governor has allowed me to run this office, completely nonpartisan. And and we work. We work every day to ensure just as I said, I don't care if you're Republican, or Democrat, or you know, independent green, you should have equal access to the ballot, you should have equal access to the polls. And so I would say especially, I mean, throughout the country, this was so disheartening, and so actually heartbreaking about the conversations that are happening out there, we've seen election officials who are just so passionate about their work, that are so concerned about making sure that everybody gets that chance to vote, and then to have physical threats against some of them. You know, it's just, it breaks your heart, because these people don't get in this job, because it's, you're gonna get rich, you're doing this job, because it matters to you and you want, you want to see people vote at the end of the day. Connor Eads And I really want to focus on how valuable that is, your department is safeguarding this process that allows for both parties to have that equal footing to really voice their perspectives and their views. You have to have this uniformity to not compromise that consistency for the voter, because I feel like once you lose that you're opening Pandora's box for a lot of different things. I think that kind of leads up to my question. And so 2020 was a huge year. I think the presidential election was kind of, you know, running side by side with a pandemic. Like you said, it forced a lot of people to pivot with, with the election. And, I feel like a lot of events compromised some people's values in the system. And, you know, with us going right into the election, do you think that there any remnants from last year's election that has compromised voters integrity of our system? Chris Piper We haven't done a good job of explaining how much work goes into putting on elections, but I'll put it to you like this. People who work in emergency management, we don't ask them what they're doing when there's not a hurricane, right? We don't ask them what they're doing when there's not an emergency. Because we know what they're doing? They're preparing for the next emergency. That's what I do. That's what your registrar's are doing. All the time. We're preparing, we're preventing and we're recovering. There's an MIT study, it shows cases of fraud compared to the number of ballots actually cast were like 0.00006% of fraud cases. Fraud that happens, we catch. We catch it because the system is so so set up and designed so that you can't break the law. Or we'll catch you. And I don't want to sit here and say that fraud doesn't happen. Fraud does happen. Just like we have speed limit laws and people still speed, right? People are going to try and buck the system. It's just the way the world works. But we have such a strong system in place to prevent that kind of thing from happening. And certainly 100%, I can guarantee you that there's no such thing as widespread fraud in elections. There are too many people involved. Think about what I just said, you have 58 members of my staff plus some contractors, you have 133 General registrars 499 electoral board members, and then they hire about I think it's 11 or 12,000 now, election officers that work in the polling places during election day and in the lead up to election day. To be able to commit widespread fraud, you're gonna need a lot of work. I don't even think the mafia could pull it off. It's just not possible. Gary Christensen I think a lot of people who haven't worked in government don't realize how incredibly impossible some of these conspiracy theories would be given how many actors have to be involved, and how, as someone who's working, everyone probably knows, it's probably pretty hard to get everyone on the same page just for regular things sometimes, let alone this deep conspiracy to get it all done. Connor Eads We focus on a lot of the challenges, but so what are some of the pivotal things that that the department has changed since since you know, the over the past couple years before COVID? Were there any things that was at least a catalyst for good for the department actions for elections? Moving forward? Chris Piper Yeah, we went from a horse and carriage to a Tesla, just in the last 10 years, we went from 100% of our applications filed for registration filed on paper to 96% of applications are filed online, or electronically in some form or fashion, it used to be that you would go to the DMV and they'd print out an application for you, and you'd have to mail it in or they would send it to us. But now you can do that on the credit card, which you can register to vote on a credit card machine sitting in front of the DMV. Then in 2016, we instituted online absentee ballot requests, so you can request an absentee ballot online now. We have one of the longest early voting cycles in the country, where you can you can vote early for 45 days, up until two days before the elect- the Saturday before the election. So I think the biggest thing that we've been able to do is provide just continuing to provide more access to the ballot for folks. 13 hours, some people can't get there. And you know, on Tuesday, they have jobs, they have lives, and it's hard for them to get that accomplished. Gary Christensen Most of our listeners, as you can imagine, are Virginia residents. A lot of them are UVA students. So if there's any, you know, singular message that you just want to say to our listeners about the upcoming election, what would you say? Chris Piper I really want to talk to college students. I mean, not enough of you come out and vote and really, you know, you guys have an important voice. And you started Connor, the podcast with the Shelly Simon's and Yancey race. We've always been fond of saying, yeah, I’ve administered an election that came down to one vote. This came down to picking a name out of a bowl, because it was a tie vote. So for anybody to say that your vote doesn't matter. Come on. I mean, it does. And the last thing I would say just like in every election, we pay so much attention to the top of the ticket. We had 74% turnout in the presidential election.We may not make 50% this year, we didn't in 2017. And that's so frustrating and sad. And I'll say it because people don't realize how much these House of Delegates races have an impact on your day to day life. Way more impact than the presidency. When the President makes a decision. Yes, we all see it. It's covered in the national news. But your day to day life is way more impacted by the governor's race. But more importantly, even the House of Delegates. You guys don't realize when you're complaining about that pothole that nearly took your tire out, that's your local government. When you're upset that they need to put a light in this intersection because people are getting run over. The President isn't going to come into Charlottesville and say, build a bike lane here. That's gonna happen at your city council. That's what's really, really critical. Connor Eads What are some lessons that you wish you had known when you were getting into your line of work? Is there anything really our listeners who look to getting involved in election policy should know? Chris Piper Ah, think about what you say. Before you say it, the impact of your words are bigger than you know. So be thoughtful about the way you speak. You need to really think through everything you say in a leadership role. Find a job that you're passionate about. I've taken a job for money. It sucked. It wasn’t wasn't worth my time. I was less happy in the job for money than I've ever been in any other job. If you're not passionate about the work you do then it's not going to serve you. Connor Eads So obviously we have this the citizen portal on the Department of Washington's website, if you need to check out other information. Is there anything else other resources that Virginians can be using prior to coming up for November 2? Chris Piper Well, you said it vote.virginia.gov. Check Your Registration Status, know where you can vote. On election day, polls are open at 6am. They close at 7pm. And please, for the love of all that's holy, it probably is going to be a very close race. Now we've ironed out the way we report results. Election Night results are not the official results. The results will not be official until November 15, at 1pm, when the state board will meet to certify the results. That's important to understand because the numbers can and do change. This is still a human process. And that's why we built into the process, a very thorough review of election night results to correct any errors. All of that is open and transparent in public meetings. So just remember, you may go to bed at night and see some results. That doesn't mean that those numbers might not change just a little bit here and there. Connor Eads Commissioner Piper, we appreciate your work and thank you so much for being here. Chris Piper Glad to be here guys. Have a great week. Gary Christensen That was our interview with Commissioner Piper. It was a really interesting interview, I really enjoyed talking with him. He had such good insight. I think generally speaking, most American citizens don't have a really good understanding of everything that goes into elections. And I think what stood out to me is how seriously he takes it, how passionate he is about it. This is his whole career, this is his whole work. He's not taking anything with security or integrity with this lightly, you know, and I think that's something that a lot of people need to hear. Connor Eads Yeah, I know, I think he really brought it home for us and made it apply to really what we see every day. I mean, using the metaphor going from a horse and buggy to a Tesla. I mean, that's a lot to unpack just for where the department is going. I mean, he is talking about maybe going into blockchain for voting. That's exciting stuff. I mean, but even then, with what he spoke with going into fraud, I mean, like, wasn't an MIT study, just really interesting for how flow over threshold fraud actually happens in the Commonwealth? Gary Christensen Yeah, and I think this is what exactly people needed to hear as well, especially after last year, obviously, there's a lot of controversy with the presidential election. He mentioned in the interview, that he believes that election boards and election commissioners don't historically do a good enough job of explaining how elections work to people. He said, we've always been comfortable being in the background in people just trusting that we're doing your job. And now it's been brought to the forefront. And there's a lot more explaining and transparency that's required, so that people can learn to trust the system. But Connor tell us a little bit about the election and what’s going on. Connor Eads So election a tomorrow. So the main thing that you need to be doing is hey, go to vote.elections.virginia.gov forward slash citizen portal, Commissioner Piper spoke about you got to go and check out where your polling places What are the hours of operations. So, you know, the gubernatorial race is really in the finest hour we have McAuliffe and young can really battling it out for the governor's mansion. And really what the polls mean for these past couple months, I mean, you're going from six to eight points in August down to really within the margin of error, you're within two to three points of a difference. And historically, just for Biden's election, he won Virginia by 10 points, double digit. So this is really close. Gary Christensen That is a great point, Biden winning the state by 10 points and then seeing that we basically have a dead even tie as far as the polls go for the governor election is really telling and I think that's why the whole nation is watching here. I mean, for you know, Virginia has always been seen as a bit of a bellwether for the nation. And before the, you know, midterm elections, halfway through Biden's administration, this is going to be the first signal we get of people's attitudes. Connor Eads If you think about it, like what makes us more important, like, oh, Virginia swung blue back in 2019? So you look at Vermont, Maryland, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts, each of these states respectively, have Democrat run legislators, but they have a Republican governor. However, historically, Virginia is a state that is reluctant to elect the same party that's in the president's office, you know, from Wilder, 1989 to Northam in 2017. Over the past three decades, in eight elections, only one governor aligns with the President's party. Coincidentally, that was Terry McAuliffe back in President Obama's second term. The trend really here is that the midterm really holds that pulse check to how the Commonwealth is reacting to the current administration. So it's really interesting to see how this can swing with this trend in a purple state like Virginia and the rest of the country, we'll be watching to see what the reaction is to President Biden's administration like it really is about whether with what you said look at Governor Northam Zola 2017 election during the Trump presidency. Northam won by 8.6 points when Trump's approval ratings were between 45 and 35%. With Pew Research Center, Gallup 538, all having Biden's approval rating between 44 and 43%. As of September that binds approval rating might play a role in this upcoming election. So like we said, go go to the polls tomorrow, Tuesday, November 2. Gary Christensen And for all of our new listeners to the Academical podcast, we'd love to get your feedback. So please send us an email. Let us know what you think. And we would love to hear from you. Connor Eads This is academical. This is Connor Eads. Gary Christensen This is Gary Christensen. Connor Eads We'll see you in the next episode. Charlie
From Thomas Jefferson’s Academical Village and the Virginia Policy Review, this is Academical. I’m Charlie Bruce, the lead producer on the show. Each week, we interview experts on pressing issues of policy and leadership in the public arena. Today, we’re talking to Dean Ian Solomon of the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, the home of VPR. When my team sat down to think who our guest should be on the inaugural episode, everyone said Dean Solomon was the perfect choice. Dean Solomon has done basically everything one can do in the policy arena: from private-sector development to working in the Obama administration. He also loves the theater, horseback riding, and yoga. Our conversation leaned more philosophical than our future episodes, but I think that’s an appropriate overture to the semester ahead. I started off my conversation with Dean Solomon asking about his Deans book club. Without further ado, her’s our show. Charlie How is the Dean's book club going? Dean Solomon So we met a few times. And it's not a regular book club. It's people who wish to join. And it's a book I usually pick books that I either haven't yet read or haven't read carefully. So the most recent one was Ta-Nehisi Coates’s “Between the World and Me,” which is a terrific personal narrative about race, about growing up, about coming of age, about being a parent, but understanding the complexity and the trauma of this country. So we had a good discussion about it. I liked book clubs, because it's an informal way to gather and learn with people, or no one's graded. There's no right or wrong answers. It's about collective communal discovery and understanding together, helps to build community to have conversations about our values and what matters to us. Charlie And what made you pick between the World and Me? Dean Solomon A couple things. I think Coates is just a really beautiful writer, I think his use of language is powerful, and piercing, oftentimes. This in some ways, for many of us, it's the question of our lives and our work. How does this country reconcile itself with its history, its history and the and its continuing legacies of systemic racism. So I think this book does so well, is add some great thoughts and ideas and dialogue and anecdotes, for conversations about how we come to terms with this country's Original Sin or birth defect or continuing malady. Charlie And do you think that Coates is giving us an answer? Or do you think it's more Zen koan, like where the process of writing and reading is attempting to find the answer? Dean Solomon I think he's sharing his reflections on the answer. I'm not sure I think there is the answer. I think there are answers. And we continue to be in the process of evolution understanding, I think oftentimes, the more I think I understand something, the more I understand is left to be understood, the more I realize, I don't yet know. I remain, I try to remain quite humble about how much is left to be understood. Charlie Absolutely. And I'm sure that this is something that's come up for you while you've been co chairing the racial equity task force at UVA. So the racial equity Task Force was initiated to address UVA history of systemic racial inequities. And that is a pretty big task to be put in this position. In the process of being on this task force, what has been challenging? Dean Solomon Everything. Now, we're tackling hard issues. So it's challenging to ask hard questions about why things are the way they are, and not other ways and how we might address things to make them better. And it's challenging because these issues often have a lot of emotional content for people and then people can grow really quite fearful or sad, or shamed, more angry, or threatened, right? So you have a whole range of emotions that are attached to our individual and group identities. And when you start diving into this work, you start stirring this pot of emotions, the stew of emotions and they interact with each other. And even people of goodwill, good faith and good intent. And can often react when they perceive a threat, can react in ways that actually reduce the likelihood of constructive conversation as opposed to promote constructive conversation. You know, there's not there's not a university in the country, I think that has really solved or even gotten anywhere near close to solving some of these fundamental racial inequities that plagued education. Charlie Absolutely. And I'm sure that in this process, you've probably learned about other institutions you've been a part of, and how all of this has been an endemic part of American culture. And that's really challenging. How have you grounded yourself in this process? Dean Solomon Life is challenging. I think I think we all every day have a series of really difficult things we do with our families, with our loved ones, in our relationships. So I see getting up in the morning going to work about how we make this world more fair, more equitable, more just, more hopeful. I don't get as excited to do easy things. Here, I think we have a fundamental challenge to the viability of this democracy, And that's part of why I think this is worth our time, worth our time as a university worth a time as a school of leadership and public policy worth my time personally, as a human being some brother, father, husband, to tackle and see if I can make a positive difference. Charlie Do you think that's given you hope? Dean Solomon I work to remain hopeful. And even when I don't feel hopeful, I think I need to almost pretend to be hopeful. And I say that reflecting on one of my heroes, Nelson Mandela, who would talk about pretending to be brave, when you didn't actually feel it. Because the act of pretending to be brave actually built your bravery. And you don't actually overcome your fear. You work through your fear. And for me, I'm not sure hope and optimism are always natural. I do actively cultivate hopefulness from among myself and myself and with other people. Charlie Yeah, I asked that because I think in processes like this, that can be discouraging, there needs to be a North Star to hold on to, to keep us going through the dark times. Dean Solomon Yeah, and there are lots of North Stars to hold on to. Every student here that I meet and get to talk to, it's it's, it's exhilarating to realize that this person might hold the key to understanding something fundamental about this world. That's amazing, right? That's one of the joys of being in higher ed being an educated being here at the Batten school, the number of people who... you're going to do something valuable, you're going to make a difference. And I might have the opportunity to get a little step along your journey or be part of that process for you. That's a gift. That's a privilege. And it makes me very hopeful. Charlie That's such an incredible amount of faith that you're putting into a lot of 20 somethings, but It's an honor to get it from someone who's had as much amazing lived experience as you had. Dean Solomon It's not inevitable. So that's the challenge. I do have a lot of hope in 26 and 25 year olds. And, and people generally in the human capacity generally/ But I also know that it's not always easy. And I think we are at a moment where there is a greater perceived urgency to the work than I have experienced in a very long time. So I hope that students recognize their potential to be agents in the direction of this country and in the future of this democracy, and act with urgency with that agency. Charlie Absolutely. One, one lesson that you talked about last year, in the interview you had was gray areas, and how when working with different people, you have to embrace the gray areas. And I wanted to hear more about what experience you had that made you learn how to embrace those gray areas. Dean Solomon Yeah, I think by gray areas, I was referring to the idea that nothing is ever black or white. Everything is a shade of gray, and the world is full of nuance. And I remember growing up wanting my heroes to be perfect. So you know, and I've mentioned Nelson Mandela before, right? He writes with great regret about his parenting. And I recall my son was about three or four years old. I was impatient in a rush and was driving him to daycare on my way down to the Senate office where I was working for Senator Obama. And when I was running late, and I was angry and frustrated, I remember shouting back at him. And just was overcome with a sense of shame. What was I modeling to him? How, how bad a father I must be to be able to yell at my kid in the car seat in the backseat, like, what was I doing? And, you know, I could write myself off as a bad parent. Or I could just recognize my fundamental humanity, that you know, none of us are perfect, we do the best we can. We are a complex species and public policies are the same way, right? There are policies that achieve some of their objectives, and then have unintended consequences. Or that achieved part of what we want but have trade offs. And we have to weigh those trade-offs and do the best we can as an imperfect species to try to make life better for others. Charlie So why do you think that public service is such an important and critical part of the Batten mission? Dean Solomon I am a bit of a missionary here that I think we have an obligation and an opportunity to cultivate something really special. Now in my personal life, you may have heard me talk about the concept of Ubuntu which is a South African word, which basically means “I am because you are”, right? It’s about the fundamental interdependence of our humanity, that is at the heart of service. I think that's the foundation of healthy civilizations and societies. Charlie Yeah, the concept of Ubuntu is one that I can feel through the philosophy of our class coursework. How do you want students to be embracing that concept as we're learning as we're going out into the world and becoming public servants? How is that something that you embraced in your leadership roles? Dean Solomon I hope from a student perspective that we cultivate through their classes, through the community we have here, a refined sense of empathy and a hunger and a curiosity to understand other people. So when you go out into the community or you're working on one of your, your policy projects, or whatever it might be, you instinctively ask: how are others doing? Right? What is that person experiencing? But if we can train ourselves and practice and build our muscle memory to be curious about others, I think that will make us all more effective as leaders and as policymakers. Charlie Yeah, it's interesting how what you just said about empathizing and imagining other people's lived experience, links directly with our research methods and data analysis class. Professor Hudson, led us through this study in Mexico where they were paying children to go to school and trying to see what the educational outcomes were. And we were looking at the baseline covariates of the people in the study, which were: did they have running water in their house? Did their house have a dirt floor? Did they have a bathroom? And she made us stop and look at the numbers and say, we can see 20% of houses didn't have a dirt floor, or 30% of houses had running water? Can you imagine the conditions that people are living in and how that might affect how often they go to school or what their educational outcomes are. And I thought that was a really humanizing way of looking at numbers. When we live in a world that can sometimes reduce the nuances and complexities of the lived experiences to a data point. It's really great to be able to look critically at those baseline covariates and think, how are these people living? And how is that impacting the world? And how is our policy impacting them? Dean Solomon Yeah, this is a really powerful example of this process of perspective taking, taking another person's perspective and how that can reduce action on the basis of biases, right. So we've good data that show that people often quite naturally biased against people of other races. But when you have those same people actually practice perspective taking with photographs of people of other races, and imagining their experiences, their backgrounds, trying to understand, you know, what they may have had for breakfast, and how they got there. By fundamentally humanizing that photograph, that seems to then reduce the power of the bias. I think the more we can humanize each other, through empathetic imagination, through our sense of goodwill towards others, I think that should make us better at every interaction we have during the day more effective, better in terms of exercising leadership, in whatever role we may take in an organization or community better as friends and parents, children, citizens, members of the community. Charlie I'm really curious to hear about, in your Batten Hour speech, you talked about your brother, and how his his death was the consequence of a public policy failure. And if you'd like to talk about it, I'd really love to hear more about what what you learned in that process about how to navigate public policy failures. Dean Solomon No, I'm happy to talk about it on my brother, Sheldon Solomon, passed away in 2011 was my big brother, and a person who had many, many challenges and as you said, was the victim by many aspects of public policy and national policy. So he was an adopted Sioux, from the lower tribe of South Dakota. So he, him and his people in his, you know, parents and siblings born on a reservation in South Dakota, that's not their natural land, they were pushed there. So our indigenous peoples policy, our policy toward Native Americans failed the native population here so overwhelmingly. I mean, it's a tragic genocide. There was a program to try to send native kids off the reservation to adoptive families on the east coast. And that's how my parents ended up adopting my older brother. nothing inherently wrong with that although it was against his mother's will. He was actually taken from her at birth. She was an alcoholic, and several of her children were taken from her. He then had, you know, a series of learning disabilities. And schools didn't handle them very well. Those issues, of course, lead to greater challenges with employment and economic sustainability in this country, because we prioritize certain types of skills and abilities over others. That then drove him to seek health care back in South Dakota on the reservation where he was born. Because through the Bureau of Indian Affairs, he could get medical care. But there were no jobs, there were no real supports and services, his addictions were exacerbated, ending up in the criminal legal system, and it was in custody where he ultimately died of a traumatic brain injury. So a life that I think illustrates many policy failures. And what's the takeaway? What's the key lesson? I think it's that, we forget people's humanity, we're too quick to put them in a bucket or put a label on them. And I did the same thing. I thought, he's an alcoholic. Well, no, maybe we think about it a he is a human being suffering from alcoholism, or this kid here is a child who never attached well to their parents and has certain, you know, aggressive behaviors, let's think beyond the categories of right and wrong, good or bad, worthy of being arrested or not and say, what's the whole person? And what might be the challenge they are dealing with? And can we help them deal with that challenge? Charlie Did that experience change your life or the path you were on or make you see things differently? Dean Solomon So certainly was part of my evolution. Again, I'm not sure there's one there. But again, there may be these moments that have Aha, moments of realization. But I think they they, they they weave together each moment is another just kind of, you know, piece of a thread in this broader tapestry of our understanding. And I think it has helped me to orient the priority of healing. Really, it's about how do we just restore what's been broken? I was having a conversation with my sister today, she was really angry about something that had happened to one of our kids, and I said, I hear your anger. What do you really want to happen? You want revenge for that anger? Or do you actually want to try to get something healed? It’s not always easy to have the courage to heal without what some might consider justice others might consider vengeance. Charlie Yeah, so and sometimes we just want to be seen, and our anger and recognized for the pain we're going through. And that's not always granted to us and and that can cause and create more pain down the line. The last question that I wanted to leave us with is, what's a lesson that you would give to your younger self? What's something that you've learned in your policy experience that you wish you knew when you were in your early 20s? Dean Solomon I really spent a lot of time in my 20s agonizing over what I was supposed to be, what path was I supposed to be on? Who am I supposed to be? And I think, as I've aged and as I've tried a variety of different things. I was asked the wrong question. It's not so much what I want to be, it's how do I want to live each day? You know, what were the people I wanted to surround myself with? What was the contributions I wanted to make? How do they want to feel at the end of each day? And I think recognizing that it's not your title. It's how you conduct yourself. That really is what makes the real difference least in my life, has brought me a real measure of greater peace and joy than perhaps I experienced the metrics. Charlie Wow. That's something I needed to hear right now. I'm not sure if anyone else needs to hear this, but our listeners will be happy to hear it. Thank you so much, Dean Solomon for taking the time to talk to me. It's been a pleasure, Dean Solomon Charlie. It's been great to be with you. Charlie … I’m so thankful to have such an insightful Dean of our program who believes in reminding us to be empathetic, to lean into the grey areas. That’s our show for this week. In our next episode, hosts Connor Eads and Gary Christensen will sit down with Commissioner Chris Piper about election integrity and security. Listeners, please like, subscribe, and share on socials. If you have any questions, comments, guest recommendations, slide into our inbox! [email protected]. I’m Charlie Bruce, See you next time. Charlie
From Thomas Jefferson’s Academical Village and the Virginia Policy Review, this is Academical. I’m Charlie Bruce, the lead producer on the show. Each week, we interview experts on pressing issues of policy and leadership in the public arena. Today, we’re talking to Dean Ian Solomon of the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, the home of VPR. When my team sat down to think who our guest should be on the inaugural episode, everyone said Dean Solomon was the perfect choice. Dean Solomon has done basically everything one can do in the policy arena: from private-sector development to working in the Obama administration. He also loves the theater, horseback riding, and yoga. Our conversation leaned more philosophical than our future episodes, but I think that’s an appropriate overture to the semester ahead. I started off my conversation with Dean Solomon asking about his Deans book club. Without further ado, her’s our show. Charlie How is the Dean's book club going? Dean Solomon So we met a few times. And it's not a regular book club. It's people who wish to join. And it's a book I usually pick books that I either haven't yet read or haven't read carefully. So the most recent one was Ta-Nehisi Coates’s “Between the World and Me,” which is a terrific personal narrative about race, about growing up, about coming of age, about being a parent, but understanding the complexity and the trauma of this country. So we had a good discussion about it. I liked book clubs, because it's an informal way to gather and learn with people, or no one's graded. There's no right or wrong answers. It's about collective communal discovery and understanding together, helps to build community to have conversations about our values and what matters to us. Charlie And what made you pick between the World and Me? Dean Solomon A couple things. I think Coates is just a really beautiful writer, I think his use of language is powerful, and piercing, oftentimes. This in some ways, for many of us, it's the question of our lives and our work. How does this country reconcile itself with its history, its history and the and its continuing legacies of systemic racism. So I think this book does so well, is add some great thoughts and ideas and dialogue and anecdotes, for conversations about how we come to terms with this country's Original Sin or birth defect or continuing malady. Charlie And do you think that Coates is giving us an answer? Or do you think it's more Zen koan, like where the process of writing and reading is attempting to find the answer? Dean Solomon I think he's sharing his reflections on the answer. I'm not sure I think there is the answer. I think there are answers. And we continue to be in the process of evolution understanding, I think oftentimes, the more I think I understand something, the more I understand is left to be understood, the more I realize, I don't yet know. I remain, I try to remain quite humble about how much is left to be understood. Charlie Absolutely. And I'm sure that this is something that's come up for you while you've been co chairing the racial equity task force at UVA. So the racial equity Task Force was initiated to address UVA history of systemic racial inequities. And that is a pretty big task to be put in this position. In the process of being on this task force, what has been challenging? Dean Solomon Everything. Now, we're tackling hard issues. So it's challenging to ask hard questions about why things are the way they are, and not other ways and how we might address things to make them better. And it's challenging because these issues often have a lot of emotional content for people and then people can grow really quite fearful or sad, or shamed, more angry, or threatened, right? So you have a whole range of emotions that are attached to our individual and group identities. And when you start diving into this work, you start stirring this pot of emotions, the stew of emotions and they interact with each other. And even people of goodwill, good faith and good intent. And can often react when they perceive a threat, can react in ways that actually reduce the likelihood of constructive conversation as opposed to promote constructive conversation. You know, there's not there's not a university in the country, I think that has really solved or even gotten anywhere near close to solving some of these fundamental racial inequities that plagued education. Charlie Absolutely. And I'm sure that in this process, you've probably learned about other institutions you've been a part of, and how all of this has been an endemic part of American culture. And that's really challenging. How have you grounded yourself in this process? Dean Solomon Life is challenging. I think I think we all every day have a series of really difficult things we do with our families, with our loved ones, in our relationships. So I see getting up in the morning going to work about how we make this world more fair, more equitable, more just ,more hopeful. I don't get as excited to do easy things. Here, I think we have a fundamental challenge to the viability of this democracy, And that's part of why I think this is worth our time, worth our time as a university worth a time as a school of leadership and public policy worth my time personally, as a human being some brother, father, husband, to tackle and see if I can make a positive difference. Charlie Do you think that's given you hope? Dean Solomon I work to remain hopeful. And even when I don't feel hopeful, I think I need to almost pretend to be hopeful. And I say that reflecting on one of my heroes, Nelson Mandela, who would talk about pretending to be brave, when you didn't actually feel it. Because the act of pretending to be brave actually built your bravery. And you don't actually overcome your fear. You work through your fear. And for me, I'm not sure hope and optimism are always natural. I do actively cultivate hopefulness from among myself and myself and with other people. Charlie Yeah, I asked that because I think in processes like this, that can be discouraging, there needs to be a Northstar to hold on to, to keep us going through the dark times. Dean Solomon Yeah, and there are lots of northstars to hold on to. Every student here that I meet and get to talk to, it's it's, it's exhilarating to realize that this person might hold the key to understanding something fundamental about this world. That's amazing, right? That's one of the joys of being in higher ed being an educated being here at the Batten school, the number of people who... you're going to do something valuable, you're going to make a difference. And I might have the opportunity to get a little step along your journey or be part of that process for you. That's a gift. That's a privilege. And it makes me very hopeful. Charlie That's such an incredible amount of faith that you're putting into a lot of 20 somethings, but It's an honor to get it from someone who's had as much amazing lived experience as you had. Dean Solomon It's not inevitable. So that's the challenge. I do have a lot of hope in 26 and 25. And, and people generally in the human capacity generally,But I also know that it's not always easy. And I think we are at a moment where there is a greater perceived urgency to the work than I have experienced in a very long time. So I hope that students recognize their potential to be agents in the direction of this country and in the future of this democracy, and act with urgency with that agency. Charlie Absolutely. One, one lesson that you talked about last year, in the interview you had was gray areas, and how when working with different people, you have to embrace the gray areas. And I wanted to hear more about what experience you had that made you learn how to embrace those gray areas. Dean Solomon Yeah, I think by gray areas, I was referring to the idea that nothing is ever black or white. Everything is a shade of gray, and the world is full of nuance. And I remember growing up wanting my heroes to be perfect. So you know, and I've mentioned Nelson Mandela before, right? He writes with great regret about his parenting. And I recall my son was about three or four years old. I was impatient in a rush and was driving him to daycare on my way down to the Senate office where I was working for Senator Obama. And when I was running late, and I was angry and frustrated, I remember shouting back at him. And just was overcome with a sense of shame. What was I modeling to him? How, how bad a father I must be to be able to yell at my kid in the car seat in the backseat, like, what was I doing? And, you know, I could write myself off as a bad parent. Or I could just recognize my fundamental humanity, that you know, none of us are perfect, we do the best we can. We are a complex species and public policies are the same way, right? There are policies that achieve some of their objectives, and then have unintended consequences. Or that achieved part of what we want but have trade offs. And we have to weigh those trade-offs and do the best we can as an imperfect species to try to make life better for others. Charlie (9:20) So why do you think that public service is such an important and critical part of the Batten mission? Dean Solomon I am a bit of a missionary here that I think we have an obligation and an opportunity to cultivate something really special. Now in my personal life, you may have heard me talk about the concept of Ubuntu which is a South African word, which basically means “I am because you are”, right? It’s about the fundamental interdependence of our humanity, that is at the heart of service. I think that's the foundation of healthy civilizations and societies. Charlie Yeah, the concept of Ubuntu is one that I can feel through the philosophy of our class coursework. How do you want students to be embracing that concept as we're learning as we're going out into the world and becoming public servants? How is that something that you embraced in your leadership roles? Dean Solomon I hope from a student perspective that we cultivate through their classes, through the community we have here, a refined sense of empathy and a hunger and a curiosity to understand other people. So when you go out into the community or you're working on one of your, your policy projects, or whatever it might be, you instinctively ask: how are others doing? Right? What is that person experiencing? But if we can train ourselves and practice and build our muscle memory to be curious about others, I think that will make us all more effective as leaders and as policymakers. Charlie Yeah, it's interesting how what you just said about empathizing and imagining other people's lived experience, links directly with our research methods and data analysis class. Professor Hudson, led us through this study in Mexico where they were paying children to go to school and trying to see what the educational outcomes were. And we were looking at the baseline covariates of the people in the study, which were: did they have running water in their house? Did their house have a dirt floor? Did they have a bathroom? And she made us stop and look at the numbers and say, we can see 20% of houses didn't have a dirt floor, or 30% of houses had running water? Can you imagine the conditions that people are living in and how that might affect how often they go to school or what their educational outcomes are. And I thought that was a really humanizing way of looking at numbers. When we live in a world that can sometimes reduce the nuances and complexities of the lived experiences to a data point. It's really great to be able to look critically at those baseline covariates and think, how are these people living? And how is that impacting the world? And how is our policy impacting them? Dean Solomon Yeah, this is a really powerful example of this process of perspective taking, taking another person's perspective and how that can reduce action on the basis of biases, right. So we've good data that show that people often quite naturally biased against people of other races. But when you have those same people actually practice perspective taking with photographs of people of other races, and imagining their experiences, their backgrounds, trying to understand, you know, what they may have had for breakfast, and how they got there. By fundamentally humanizing that photograph, that seems to then reduce the power of the bias. I think the more we can humanize each other, through empathetic imagination, through our sense of goodwill towards others, I think that should make us better at every interaction we have during the day more effective, better in terms of exercising leadership, in whatever role we may take in an organization or community better as friends and parents, children, citizens, members of the community. Charlie I'm really curious to hear about, in your baton, our speech, you talked about your brother, and how his his death was the consequence of a public policy failure. And if you'd like to talk about it, I'd really love to hear more about what what you learned in that process about how to navigate public policy failures. Dean Solomon No, I'm happy to talk about it on my brother, Sheldon Solomon, passed away in 2011 was my big brother, and a person who had many, many challenges and as you said, was the victim and or just as on the wrong side or been disadvantaged by many aspects of public policy and national policy? Right. So he was an adopted Sioux, from the lower tribe of South Dakota. So he, him and his people in his, you know, parents and siblings born on a reservation in South Dakota, that's not their natural land, they were pushed there. So our indigenous peoples policy, our policy toward Native Americans failed the native population here so overwhelmingly. I mean, it's a tragic genocide. There was a program to try to send native kids off the reservation to adoptive families on the east coast. And that's how my parents ended up adopting my older brother. nothing inherently wrong with that although it was against his mother's will. He was actually taken from her at birth. She was an alcoholic, and several of her children were taken from her. He then had, you know, a series of learning disabilities. And schools didn't handle them very well. Those issues, of course, lead to greater challenges with employment and economic sustainability in this country, because we prioritize certain types of skills and abilities over others. That then drove him to seek health care back in South Dakota on the reservation where he was born. Because through the Bureau of Indian Affairs, he could get medical care. But there were no jobs, there were no real supports and services, his addictions were exacerbated, ending up in the criminal legal system, and it was in custody where he ultimately died of a traumatic brain injury. So a life that I think illustrates many policy failures. And what's the takeaway? What's the key lesson? I think it's that, you know, we forget people's humanity, we're too quick to put them in a bucket or put a label on them. And I did the same thing. I thought, he's an alcoholic. Well, no, maybe we think about it a he is a human being suffering from alcoholism, or this kid here is a child who never attached well to their parents and has certain, you know, aggressive behaviors, let's think beyond the categories of right and wrong, good or bad, worthy of being arrested or not and say, what's the whole person? And what might be the challenge they are dealing with? And can we help them deal with that challenge? Charlie Did that experience change your life or the path you were on or make you see things differently? Dean Solomon So certainly was part of my evolution. Again, I'm not sure there's one there. But again, there may be these moments that have Aha, moments of realization. But I think they they, they they weave together each moment is another just kind of, you know, piece of a thread in this broader tapestry of our understanding. And I think it has helped me to orient the priority of healing. Really, it's about how do we just restore what's been broken? I was having a conversation with my sister today, she was really angry about something that had happened to one of our kids, and I said, I hear your anger. What do you really want to happen? You want revenge for that anger? Or do you actually want to try to get something healed? It’s not always easy to be had the courage to heal without what might some might consider justice others might consider vengeance. Charlie Yeah, so and sometimes we just want to be seen, and our anger and recognized for the pain we're going through. And that's not always granted to us and and that can cause and create more pain down the line. The last question that I wanted to leave us with is, what's a lesson that you would give to your younger self? What's something that you've learned in your policy experience that you wish you knew when you were in your early 20s? Dean Solomon I really spent a lot of time in my 20s agonizing over what I was supposed to be, what path was I supposed to be on? Who am I supposed to be? And I think, as I've aged and as I've tried a variety of different things. I was asked the wrong question. It's not so much what I want to be, it's how do I want to live each day? You know, what were the people I wanted to surround myself with? What was the contributions I wanted to make? How do they want to feel at the end of each day? And I think recognizing that it's not your title. It's how you conduct yourself. That really is what makes the real difference least in my life, has brought me a real measure of greater peace and joy than perhaps I experienced the metrics. Charlie Wow. That's something I needed to hear right now. I'm not sure if anyone else needs to hear this, but our listeners will be happy to hear it. Thank you so much, Dean Solomon for taking the time to talk to me. It's been a pleasure, Dean Solomon Charlie. It's been great to be with you. Charlie … I’m so thankful to have such an insightful Dean of our program who believes in reminding us to be empathetic, to lean into the grey areas. That’s our show for this week. In our next episode, hosts Connor Eads and Gary Christensen will sit down with Commissioner Chris Piper about election integrity and security. Listeners, please like, subscribe, and share on socials. If you have any questions, comments, guest recommendations, slide into our inbox! [email protected]. I’m Charlie Bruce, See you next time. |
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