Captains and Kings: The K-School's International Graduates

In the Philippines, Delfin Go and Richard Fernandez were at opposite ends of a sharply divided political spectrum. Go, a member of President Ferdinand Marcos's Management Staff, researched economic issues and policy alternatives for government ministers. Fernandez, a union organizer and development specialist, was held for several months in a military detention center without charges in 1976. At the Kennedy School of Government, where they are part of a growing group of foreign students. Go and Fernandez air their divergent views over coffee. While they two remain ideological foes, the contact the School provides has made them personal friends.

A stepped-up recruiting effort on the part of K-School officials in recent years has brought the number of foreign students at the school to more than 100. Many are graduate students and public servants seeking masters in public policy or public administration. In addition, about 50 mid-career officials from developing nations are enrolled in the Mason Program. Drawn from 42 countries, most of the students already hold or will attain key positions of leadership in their native countries.

Several internationalists at the school--citing both the resources Harvard can provide foreign students and the insight these students can offer their American colleagues--have been largely responsible for the increased recruiting effort. William E. Trueheart, director of the Master of Public Administration (MPA) program, recalls that contacts with foreign students when he was a graduate student at Harvard had a significant impact on his education. "The diversity that students from other countries bring is critical and leaves a mark on your academic experience. You build lasting friendships and more importantly, gain a very different perspective."

The case of Fernandez and Go suggests that foreign students can have an important effect on each other as well As Fernandez puts it. "We came here to study, not to quarrel. The school provides an informal forum for some sincere discussion of our views. While we will remain on different sides, we get along very well."

Another Filipino, who asked to remain anonymous, says he and his countrymen at the school--even those with opposing political views--have a lot in common. "After all, we are all foreigners in a strange country. It's just natural we should seek each other out," he says.

While the K-School has only recently stepped up its efforts abroad--adding new Third World recruiting teams--it has a long list of illustrious foreign alumni. Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau graduated from the school in 1948; Singapore's Premier Lee Kuan Yew was a fellow at the Institute of Politics in 1968 and 1970; and Mexico's President-elect Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado received an MPA in 1965.

Equally impressive are the graduates from the Mason Program, which is administered jointly by the K-School and the Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID). Established in 1957 as an effort to train third world officials in economic development, the program has expanded to include public servants in fields as diverse as health and rural development.

John W. Thomas, a fellow at the HIID and former director of the program, says the venture has a knack for selecting "winners." "If we go about it properly, we catch people at a point where they are about to focus and specialize. Invariably, it seems, they go back home and become key officials. But the talent must be there to begin with."

An exceptional number of Mason alumni are national bank presidents and ministers of state. Harris Mule, for example, was a very junior official in Kenya when he came to Harvard. Today he is the country's secretary of finance.

Some Mason graduate have had turbulent careers. Belai Abai, former minister of land reform in Ethiopia, was jailed when President Haile Selassie was overthrown in the mid-1970s. Abai's services were so valuable, however, that the new government sent a car and driver to take him from prison to his office every day. A. M. A. Mulith became minister of finance in Bangladesh after last month's coup. Sergio Bitar lost his job as minister of mines in Chile when the government of Salvadore Allende was toppled in 1973.

The current class of foreign students at the school includes a former foreign minister of Nigeria, the director of EgyptAir and a commander in the Malaysian navy. The Mason Program has several dozen students who may soon become important government functionaries in their native countries.

Like their American counterparts, foreign students at the school must take a core curriculum of courses. In the two-year MPP program, this includes offerings in advanced statistical analysis, economics, public management and public policy making.

Mason followers are given more leeway. Although they must take half of their eight courses at the school or in a pre-chosen "home" department, the remaining four chosen are left open to electives. As program direction Nancy Pyle explains, "All of these people have already had experience and are pretty good at what they do. As it is, a whole year away from their careers is a long time; we must have a totally flexible program."

Although some students and administrators laud the benefits of a Harvard education for a foreigner, others are more skeptical of the program's educational value. Thomas believes the University gives foreign students the confidence to deal at more senior levels of policy-making when they return home, and points to the example of Abai; he "took the toughest economics courses Harvard has to offer. Though he didn't do exceptionally well, he passed and left here feeling he could handle pretty much anything."

Other faculty members agree that foreign students get a better understanding of theory in their field of specialization and learn tools they will apply at home.

And almost all of those affiliated with the school speak of the symbolic significance of a Harvard diploma. "Third World governments have an enormous respect for Harvard," Pyle says. "Just the name alone gives great prestige to an alum."

But some students criticize the value of the school's curriculum--which focuses on primarily American case studies. Fernandez, who sent a memo about the curriculum to faculty members, points to several problems with using American cases. Most, he says, assume a very stable environment and a working constitution which are often lacking in the developing world. "They don't teach you to react in a catch-as-catch-can world," he adds.

Also, Fernandez believes that looking at problems from an American perspective often reverses the vantage point most foreigners naturally have. Citing the study of energy policy, he says, "For a Third Worlder from an oil producing country, the goals of U. S. energy policy are contrary to his own country's. It's like looking at things from the other side of the barrel."

The K-School is trying to change its curriculum to include more foreign cases. Several new internationally oriented offerings have already born introduced. "Public Management in Developing Countries," for example, uses a large majority of non-American cases.

Fernandez and others contend a Harvard degree is primarily valuable as a credential for those who wish to go into "the establishment" in their home country.

"The problem is that 90 percent of the political talent in many developing nations is outside of the establishment and will never play an leadership role unless a government changes, or more specifically, is overthrown. So then you have to ask yourself, does this Harvard educations really have any pure educational value? The answer for some I'm afraid is no".

But others do not share Fernander pessimism "Truthfully, says one student the number of practical things we learn is not tremendous. But you gain a different perspective on yourself on your country on life by coming to the Kenedy School And that alone is pretty good".