K-School Expecting New Dean in the Spring

The revolving door between the Kennedy School and Washington traditionally gets a lot of use in the aftermath of an election year.

This year is no exception, with four professors and administrators accepting top posts in the Bush administration so far.

But the big news at the Kennedy School this spring is not who's leaving--it is who's coming.

President Bok is expected to announce the school's new dean sometime in the next few weeks. The dean, who will take over for lame duck Dean Graham T. Allison '62 in the fall, will likely mark a transition for the Kennedy School from the skyrocketing growth of the Allison years to a period of consolidation at Harvard's youngest professional school.

Kennedy School observers predict that the new dean will come from within the school's ranks, and most say that Academic Dean Albert Carnesale is the odds-on favorite for the job. However, Bok, who will handpick Allison's successor without the aid of a search committee, has been closemouthed about who will get the nod.

Until the new dean is named, long-range planning is mostly on hold, although Allison has said that a full-scale curriculum review is one thing he wants to accomplish before leaving his post in June.

The door to the dean's office is not the only one that is spinning.

With Richard Thornburgh's appointment as attorney general, the Kennedy School's Institute of Politics (IOP) is also in the midst of searching for a new director. British politician Shirley Williams is serving as acting director until a search committee--composed of Kennedy School faculty and outside politicians--makes its recommendations to Allison later this spring.

While the school awaits the departure of old familiar faces, new faces keep coming in.

The Institute of Politics (IOP), as it does each semester, will bring several prominent politicos to Cambridge this spring, including a former U.S. senator and several senior political advisors from the 1988 presidential campaign.

Former Kentucky Governor Martha Layne Collins, former U.S. Senator Dan Evans and Ann F. Lewis, the Democratic National Committee's political director, are among the six IOP fellows who will lead study groups and discussions at Harvard this semester.

The Barone Center of Press and Politics will also be hosting several fellows and guest lecturers this spring, including former president of NBC News Lawrence B. Grossman and journalists Ellen Hume and Nicholas Daniloff.

In addition, the Kennedy School this spring will hold a special series of lectures and public events in honor of what would have been the 72nd birthday of John F. Kennedy '40. The celebration, to be held at the end of May, will focus on Kennedy's call to public service, and will consist of symposia which will examine several of the former president's programs, such as the peace corps and NASA.