PBHA Alumni Association Fosters Public Service Careers

Following in Ralph Nader's footsteps may be a dubious path to take these days, but that doesn't seem to bother Nick Beilenson '58. He is at the helm of the newly founded alumni association of the Phillips Brooks House Association (PBHA), which is modeled after a program Nader helped start with Princeton alumni called Project 55.

Beilenson and a core group of about a dozen alumni plan to create a network of public service internship and fellowship opportunities for PBHA volunteers and other Harvard students. Their organization, the PBHA Alumni Association (PBHAAA), will host its first event, a panel on careers in non-profits, at the Phillips Brooks House on March 16.

After an inspiring lunch last year with a friend and Princeton alum who mentioned his work with Project 55--an organization that matches undergraduates and recent graduates with work in the public sector--Beilenson decided to follow suit with Harvard alumni.

"Institutionally it's high time PBHA has an alumni association so that students don't do all their good work and then fall off the service wagon," Beilenson says.

To launch his project, Beilenson left a family publishing venture, the Peter Pauper Press, in the hands of his wife and son. Peter Pauper publishes inspirational gift books and guided journals including Notes to Myself, World's Best Limericks and Moment in Time: My Life at the Dawn of a New Millenium.

"They're kind of like expensive greeting cards," Beilenson says.

An example from Peter Pauper's Charming Petites series, Dreams Can Come True, features cheery celestial symbols in primary colors on its front cover. "We do really neat little things," he says.

Before his 18 years in publishing at Peter Pauper, Beilenson--who changed his name a year ago from Roger Nicholas to Nick--worked briefly as a lawyer and then founded Westchester Residential Opportunities, Inc., an affordable housing advocacy group in Westchester County, N.Y.

"I've been out of law school for 40 years exactly and I've had about three and a half careers," he says.

Now, in his latest incarnation, Beilenson works 15 to 20 hours a week organizing the alumni association task force.

"I was almost of retirement age and I wanted to have a career in public service, " Beilenson says. "What I'm doing is an example that you can do really exciting things at any age. Life is long. It's not all or nothing."

Though he himself is not a PBHA alum, the public service umbrella organization was the logical choice to anchor his program.

"I was looking for a place to attach this alumni-driven community service project. And the obvious place was PBHA," Beilenson says.

It helped that through the current PBHA fundraising effort, the Centennial Campaign, PBHA student officers had been in touch with alumni in a more organized fashion than in previous years. Beilenson approached the PBHA student leadership last spring with his idea of mimicking the Princeton program and got an enthusiastic go-ahead.

"They said: why don't you offer alumni the chance to do good works--we're going to be contacting them anyway," Beilenson remembers.

Since then, he has worked with Aalap A. Mahadevia '03, who is a student member of the PBHA Board of Trustees and now a student liasion to the alumni association.

"It's an alumni-led effort," Mahadevia says. "We just want to make sure that the student input is there."

Beilenson says he is happy with the level of student interest so far.

"People at PBHA have been very supportive of our efforts. We've been very careful not to step on students' toes," he says.

But territorial issues are tricky at PBHA in the summer, when students run several summer camps through the Summer Urban Program (SUP) and demand for student volunteers is high. With an increase in public service internship opportunities, some students could consider setting sail for brighter shores than Cambrdige for a summer of service.

PBHA President Trevor S. Cox '01-'02 and others at PBHA say they are not worried, however.

"I think it sort of appeals to a different kind of person. It's great to do political advocacy, but it's different from running a summer camp," Cox says.

Beilenson also downplays potential conflicts between internships through the alumni association and SUP.

"We're all very aware that it's a potentially competitive situation," Beilenson says. "We just have to be sensitive to the needs of PBHA student leadership."

He says he views the organization as a clearinghouse for administrative paperwork and a networking hub. But for now, the alumni association will avoid one task that commonly falls to alums: raising money.

Beilenson says the alumni association will not launch any fundraising efforts in the near future in order to not interfere with the Centennial Campaign.

"Increased alumni organization is a byproduct of the campaign, but the Centennial Campaign is the first priority," Cox says.

David B. Crowley '91, CEO of the Boston non-profit Generations, Inc., an organization that brings together local students and senior citizens, serves on the alumni association task force and says the opportunities PBHAAA provides will fill an important void.

"There's such a strong presence of the corporate world recruiting on campus. There really wasn't a parallel set of opportunities to find out what was out there in the public service world," he says.

Crowley jokes that the PBHA alumni association probably will never be able to wine and dine students like the consulting firm McKinsey can, but that the group will make students aware of service related jobs and opportunities available after graduation.

Even with his optimistic talk of stimulating interest in public service careers, Beilenson emphasizes one other incentive for undergraduates to work in non-profits after graduation: graduate schools love it.

"You can really separate yourself from the pack in terms of admission to Harvard Business School," Beilenson says. "They're basically looking for anybody who's different."

--Staff writer Rachel E. Dry can be reached at dry@fas.harvard.edu.