Lori Forman: Taking on the K-School

Fresh out of Augustana College, the small, determined 20-year-old felt a bit nervous when she first arrived at the Kennedy School of Government two years ago. The first chapters of "The Education of Lori A. Forman," had been set in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and she was intimidated by the prospect of moving to Harvard.

Tomorrow, Forman will receive a Masters in Public Policy degree and by this time, she has turned the tables. These days K-School officials are probably more intimidated by her.

Since entering the program in the fall of 1979, Forman has openly and frequently criticized the K-School, in many ways helping to draw attention away from the institution's sparkling reputation of growth, and turning eyes to its human failings.

In addition to playing an active role in the Kennedy School Student Association, she has formed committees and spoken out on curriculum revisions and affirmative action. She was largely responsible for the successful drive to put a student representative on the school's admissions committee.

Discussing how she so quickly made the transition from diffidence to leading a crusade to improve the K-School, she says, "the more you know, the more critical you are."

Though she is now playing her game in a new arena, Forman's behavior over the past two years is no different than before. The same energy which led her to take on the Boylston St. big-wigs won her a Truman scholarship, and allowed her to lead the Augustana student government and newspaper, serve on 27 different committees, and earn "pretty good grades." This same driving force propelled her to the position of key aid to the South Dakota speaker of the house by the beginning of her senior year in college. And this year, while several of her classmates were still looking for employment. Forman's political savvy and experience won her a job with the Washington branch of Decision Making Inc., a research firm headed by Richard Wirthlin, President Reagan's chief polister and political strategist.

But Forman feels uncomfortable discussing herself, and would rather focus her energy on causes. She prefaces any remarks about the K-School with the comment, "my experience here was very good, and I would do it again if I had to." She then launches into a long list of complaints.

The major problem Forman sees in the K-School is its "glaring contradictions While it calls itself a professional school, she says, the students are "not treated as professionals. There is a lack of respect for students."

When she was considering government schools she remembers, one of the things she liked most about the K-School was its claim to personal faculty-student relationship. But when she got here. "I saw they didn't walk around chatting like the catalogue said. Lots of students don't even know who Dean (Graham T.) Allison is."

The Kennedy School trains people to work in government, she continues, but "what disappoints me about this school is that there is no discussion about politics." When students, try to change things, "we get explained away," while the administration, she says, discourages speaking out.

Forman, who has spoken out, has earned the distrust of the administration. When the Klitgaard Report--a controversial draft study on Harvard admissions--leaked out last fall, administrators confronted her to see if she was responsible.

But if she is not popular with K-School officials, Forman has won the hearts of students and staff. Everyone who sees her at the K-School takes the time to stop and chat: She take issues, but not herself, seriously. Once, when her contemporaries were furiously studying for finals, she bought a kite and flew it on the K-School lawn.

Forman's big-city experiences have radically differed from her days in South Dakota, "where the big difference between people is whether they belong to the American Lutheran Church or the Lutheran Church of America." But, in some ways she finds Harvard less advanced than Augustana. "Back home, people were thought of as people," she says. When she came here, for instance, she was surprised by the dearth of women and minorities in the classroom. "I was never really concious of being a 'woman' until I got here. I expected a lot from Harvard. I was amazed