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In Memoriam: Irving B. Harris, 1910-2004

A Word from the Dean: State of the School - My Vision for the Future of the Harris School

Trickle Down Effects: Parents’ Unemployment and Their Children’s School Performance

Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Does Fulfilling an American Dream Cause Economic Displacement?

Foundation Support Helps Develop New Urban Leaders

Making a Difference: Diane Gibson, AM‘96, PhD’99

Making a Difference: Irene Basloe Saraf, AM’95

Community Notes

The Levin Faculty Fellowship: Funding Urban Research

Cash & Carry: Banking and the Poor

Policy in Practice: Students Reflect on Group Internships At Home and Abroad

The 2004 Entering Class

Keep in touch!

Dear Harris School community, alumni, and friends,

It is with great sadness that I note the recent death of Irving B. Harris. (See his obituary in this issue.) As you know, Irving not only provided the financial gift that endowed both the School and the Center for Human Potential and Public Policy, but he provided major funding for scholarships and the inspiration for the highly successful Mentor Program. Irving’s personal interest in the Harris School and its students, his wise guidance, intellect, and unwavering encouragement provided the essential encouragement and motivation to build the School. Irving will be missed by us all, but his passing is an opportunity to redouble our commitment to the vision that he inspired.

With this in mind, I want to share with you some of the many exciting changes that are taking place at the Harris School to assure that we live up to our great potential. The School is now at a critical point in its history. We have become a mature school with talented faculty, students, and alumni. Now it is time to take stock of our future.

The School’s core mission is “to understand and influence public policies by conducting policy-relevant research and preparing talented individuals to become leaders and agents of social change.” This mandate has given us three goals: to train the highest caliber students, to produce high-quality research, and to serve as a liaison between the research community and practitioners who put that knowledge to work.

While we believe that the Harris School offers the best training in analytical and critical skills of any policy school in the nation, we are working hard to improve other aspects of our curriculum. For example, we are adding client-based team projects, or “practica,” that meet the highest pedagogical standards of the University of Chicago.

Besides their commitment to teaching, our faculty members continue to produce relevant, nonpartisan research of the highest quality. This year two full professors, three assistant professors, and two lecturers joined the Harris School. (See Community Notes.) But even with these new additions, our faculty-to-student ratio is not where we need it to be. This year, the faculty has five committees dedicated to searching for additional members.

The School’s goal of serving as a liaison between policy research and policy practice has recently come into greater focus. To achieve this, we are concentrating on several initiatives that both broaden the student experience and provide policy practitioners with opportunities to benefit from the research and training the School conducts. We are expanding the number of lectures that we sponsor, bringing policymakers from around the country and the world to Chicago to discuss a wide variety of policy-related topics. This fall, we have already hosted former Illinois Governor and 9-11 Commission member James R. Thompson and former US Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Henry Cisneros, among others. We have also sponsored the first of what we hope will become a full program of executive training projects. (See Community Notes.)

As you can probably tell from all of the above, the School is growing. It will come as no surprise to anyone who has recently visited the School that neither the quality nor the quantity of space currently available to us is adequate. We have embarked on the planning phase of what we hope will eventually lead to new space for the School. Having new facilities that adequately represent and incorporate the School’s needs, vision, and mission will greatly aid all of our efforts.

Lastly, our relationship with alumni continues to be of central importance to the School. I want to thank all the alumni who participated in the alumni survey, which is part of an overall effort on the part of the School to assess its strengths and remedy its weaknesses. The results from this survey, and those from a survey of all applicants who were accepted to the Harris School, have already proved invaluable in our ongoing attempts to be responsive to the needs of alumni, as well as to refine our curriculum and our programming for students.

I hope that this provides you with a clearer sense of the direction of the School. Future issues of HarrisView will include more about our efforts in these areas and others.

As always, we welcome your feedback.
Susan E. Mayer, Dean