According to NPR: “The White House plans to nominate Carolyn Lerner (MI ‘84) to run the Office of Special Counsel, which represents federal whistle-blowers and other victims of discrimination within the government.”

Read the full article.

The TSA Board is developing a 5-year Strategic Plan for the Truman Scholars Association.  The Board wants all Truman Scholars to have the opportunity to provide input before defining the path TSA will take over the next 5 years.  To give your thoughts on where TSA should go from here, please fill out the form below (or visit http://www.trumanscholars.org/blog/strategicplan). The TSA Board will present the full Strategic Plan to the Truman Scholar community at the 2011 National Conference.  We look forward to hearing your ideas!

The current mission of the Truman Scholars Association (TSA) is to build, maintain, and educate a community of Truman Scholars; to foster a lifelong commitment to public service in all its forms through intellectual, personal, and professional development; and to support and promote public service.

We have been working to accomplish these goals through a number of activities, including maintaining a TSA listserve, holding National Conferences, organizing smaller events like In the Running and a Reunion at the 20th Anniversary of TSLW, hosting pre-interview dinners for Truman finalists, etc.

Please answer the following questions to help us tailor TSA's mission and future activities, as part of TSA's current Strategic Plan initiative.

Dear Fellow Truman Scholars,

I would like to thank all of you for the outpouring of good wishes I have received from Truman Scholars since I announced my return to Fort Worth as the 19th President at Texas Wesleyan University. The common thread of the messages I received was that the Truman Scholarship and the Truman Community have changed lives for the better, an experience I shared -- as a 1977 Scholar, Senior Scholar at Truman Scholars Leadership Week, Finalist Selection Committee member, interview panelist, member of the Foundation Board, and Executive Secretary. The Truman Foundation’s profound effect on young people and on public service will continue into the future.  And I am confident we will continue to see new scholars rise in the ranks of distinguished public servants.

Although I will certainly miss the regular interactions I had with Scholars in my role as Executive Secretary, I am very pleased that the Foundation’s Board has asked me to remain involved in a formal way as Foundation Treasurer. In this role I will remain very engaged in setting the future direction of the Foundation, both in terms of financial strength and of the Foundation’s increased involvement with the Truman Scholars Association and the Truman Community.

The Truman Foundation plays a significant role in identifying and preparing young people to become tomorrow’s public service leaders. This work would not be possible without the time and energy so many members of the community contribute on a daily basis to support the Foundation and TSA. I am thankful to have been a part of this work for so many years, and look forward to continuing this involvement in a formal role.  And I look forward to staying in touch with the many Scholars I have been privileged to meet over the years.

Sincerely,

Fred Slabach (MS '77)
Executive Secretary
Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation

Monica Bell (SC '02) co-authored a piece published by The Washington Post entitled, "A Distraction of the Road to a Better Welfare System."

Read the full article.

By Jennifer Lambert (SC '00)

As a recent PhD graduate interested in work involving development, security and the Middle East, Jennifer Lambert (SC ’00) called upon the Truman community to find someone with relevant experience.  She quickly connected with Matthew Mingus (CO ’86), who recently returned from working on governance and development issues in Iraq.

Matthew was a double major in speech communications and public affairs at the University of Denver when he won the Truman Scholarship in 1986.  His desire to work with community development organizations drove his interest in public service.  And after his undergraduate degree, he did work for community-based non-profits in Colorado and Michigan.  Yet his love for learning, influenced by the work of some influential teachers, drove Matthew back to school, where he earned an MPA and PhD in Public Administration.  He is now a professor of governance at Western Michigan University.

Most of Matthew’s research focused on comparative public administration—comparing two or more countries like Canada and the United States.  While he found his research compelling, he continued searching for international consulting opportunities to broaden his knowledge and expertise.  It is this desire that led a rather comfortable and tenured professor in Michigan to apply for the opportunity to serve as a senior governance specialist with an embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Iraq.

By the time the State Department called to interview Matthew, he had talked with several people who had been to Iraq before and served in similar capacities.  So when he was presented with the opportunity, Matthew felt he had a good idea of what he was signing up to do.  Of course, no person’s path to Iraq comes without obstacles, and Matthew’s biggest obstacle was making this work with wife of 19 years and a 15 year old daughter.  While his wife was against the idea at the start, she was much more supportive by his first R&R because she could see how excited he was by the work he was doing in Iraq.  But perhaps Matthew was aided by the speed of events after taking the opportunity.  Within weeks of being hired, Matthew was training for his Iraq adventure just outside DC.  And after just three weeks of training, he was landing at the military side of Baghdad International Airport.

Of course, going to Iraq comes with risks, so his family’s hesitancy is certainly understandable.  While he had some concerns and worries about his own safety, Matthew said he basically let the US military personnel worry about security and focused his attention on learning about a foreign culture and doing his job.  He remarked, rather casually, “You know we have the best trained security personnel in the world in the US armed services.  I wasn’t preoccupied with concern about my safety; I let the people whose job it was to protect my team worry about that.” 

Matthew’s job consisted of working with local governments to teach local officials, in his words, “that democracy means more than just elections.”  Life under a dictator in Iraq meant that nearly all decisions were made by a highly centralized regime in Baghdad, so most members of town councils and provincial governments had little experience in actually making decisions and implementing them.  One of the biggest lessons that Matthew and his colleagues taught Iraqis was how to communicate more democratically to reach a consensus. 

Perhaps his biggest accomplishment was helping the more rural provincial governments, called qadas, surrounding Baghdad work together and advocate for their collective interests.  Matthew says that this is a classic urban politics problem.  When locales live near a large urban center, most of the attention and resources get devoted to that urban center and leave many of the suburban and rural surrounding districts with less clout.  These more rural districts now hold a semiannual conference and have learned to work more closely to get their districts’ concerns and issues addressed.

Overall, Matthew said it was a great experience, it will contribute positively to his research and course content, and it gave him the opportunity to learn about a completely foreign culture.  He had never been in an Arab state before and didn’t have an educational background in anything related to the Middle East.  Matthew characterizes the Iraqi people as “a friendly, open, and extremely hospitable people who have a very hands-on and engaged culture, particularly when in groups, but individuals can be very reserved.”  During meetings, when a new person entered the room, everything often stopped as people greeted and welcomed the new member.  “It made for some long meetings,” Matthew recalled, “but it shows just how warm and hospitable the Iraqi people really are.”

If other Truman Scholars are interested in similar work, Matthew said most of the current opportunities to serve on PRTs are now in Afghanistan.  The key is to talk to people who have done it before, so you can figure out if the opportunity is right for you and how to get connected to the opportunities available.  Most opportunities are available at usajobs.gov (U.S. government) and devnetjobs.org (private contractors and NGOs).

Jennifer Lambert (SC ’00) recently completed her PhD in Political Science (International Relations/Middle East) and is currently teaching at the George Washington University in Washington, DC.

For this interview, Todd Gaziano (WV ‘83), Director of the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation and Commissioner on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, was interviewed by Bill Rivers (DE ‘09).

Gaziano has worked in all three branches of the federal government. He served first as judicial law clerk to the Honorable Edith H. Jones, United States Judge for the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Gaziano later worked in the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department, where he helped provide legal advice to the President, Attorney General, and other Cabinet secretaries.  As Chief Counsel to the House Subcommittee on National Economic Growth, Natural Resources, and Regulatory Affairs, he worked closely with Chairman David McIntosh on government-wide regulatory reform legislation and regulatory agency oversight. A John M. Olin Fellow in Law and Economics, he received his J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School.

As Director of the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation, Gaziano focuses on issues relating to the separation of powers, the role of the courts, civil rights, and Supreme Court jurisprudence, working closely with the Edwin Meese, the 75^th Attorney General of the United States. In addition to these duties, in early 2008 Gaziano was appointed by the House of Representatives to serve for six years on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

Bill Rivers is a recent graduate from the University of Delaware, where he studied International Relations and History. A member of Phi Beta Kappa and a 2010 Simon Fellow, he currently directs marketing and fundraising for Water Is Life-Kenya, (www.kenyawaterislife.com) a Delaware-based non-profit dedicated to developing clean, sustainable water resources in Southern Kenya.

Your family has a unique history with the Truman Foundation, doesn’t it?

I was only the second Truman Scholar from West Virginia University. Several more were selected from WVU in the next five years, including two of my relatives—my first cousin, Anthony Majestro, and my younger brother, Thomas Gaziano. My brother Tom also went on to win a Rhodes Scholarship and now teaches at Harvard Medical School. The Truman Foundation will always have a very special place in our family.

One of the core principles of the Truman Foundation is a commitment to public service. You’ve worked in all three branches of the federal government. What have you learned from that experience?

It’s been incredibly interesting and helpful to have worked in all three branches, especially for someone who studies the separation of powers. Except for three years I spent at a law firm in Houston, my entire career has been either in direct government service or at a think tank focusing on law and public policy.

The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel is the principal defender of the President’s prerogatives vis-à-vis the other branches. It also settles many internal, executive-branch legal disputes, including any legal issues the President wants resolved. It’s a great job because it includes both providing legal advice (including to the President) and serving as an executive-branch court of last resort. Later, when I was a House counsel, that experience was incredibly helpful in conducting executive-branch oversight. In short, defining and defending executive power helps show where its limits lie.

Moreover, both of those jobs have been quite valuable in the work I’m now doing on the Commission on Civil Rights. The Commission is directed to investigate and report on civil rights enforcement policy to Congress and the President. Congress and the President also each appoint half the commissioners, so it’s important to understand the perspectives, prerogatives, and priorities of each branch.

Civil Rights seem to be a long-standing focus of your career. You also grew up in West Virginia. What influence, if any, did your home state have in shaping that focus?

My father was in the first generation born in America of impoverished, Sicilian immigrants. Discrimination against Italian Catholics from 1935-65 in southern West Virginia coalfields was strong. It wasn’t as bad as that against African Americans, but the bias he faced was not subtle. Nevertheless, my grandparents taught my father and his siblings that, no matter what level of societal discrimination or their lack of wealth, they could succeed in America and that it was their destiny to do so.

The civil rights struggles were quite different in that era than today, but I think more people should try to teach a similar lesson to their kids despite the current societal struggles. My father went from the young son of parents who spoke Italian at home to one of the most respected physicians in West Virginia. It’s important for us to teach our children that they are still largely responsible for their own success—regardless of the type of discrimination that still exists.

Where is America on the question of Civil Rights today?

Landmark Civil Rights legislation was enacted in the 1960s which helps guarantee equality of opportunity. Since then, the argument intensified about whether society needed to be more concerned with equality of opportunity or equality of results. Although some think we can pursue both without conflict, a conflict soon emerges with government’s efforts to do both. If the government steps in to try to ensure equality of results among different racial, ethnic, or other groups, it necessarily interferes with the equality of opportunity for all of them. And sometimes public policies that try to address a disparate impact in a particular way not only interfere with the equality of opportunity, but they make the underlying problem worse. The law of unintended consequences is an unforgiving force.

It’s wonderful, however, that it no longer takes courage to condemn open, blatant racism. This wasn’t always the case. Racist statements are immediately condemned these days. Comedians and politicians lose their careers over them. And they should. The public change in attitudes and the rapid increase in interracial dating and marriage shows how much progress we have made.

We’re still trying to live up to the promise of the 14^th Amendment, and we still have a way to go. But there are other threats today to our individual liberty; some of them come from a government that not only interferes with them directly (like screening at airports) but may interfere with our economic opportunities indirectly.

Let’s talk about the courts. In the beginning of the Republic, most of the federal government’s power seemed to be held by the legislative branch. In the 20^th century, that seemed to shift to the executive. Is there now a shift of power underway in the federal government toward the judicial branch?

All three branches of the national government have grown in power and influence over the lives of Americans. The federal courts’ power has grown in proportion to the rest of government, and some of that has been necessary and for the good. The historic desegregation decisions of the 1950s and 1960s are an example. The courts’ persistent enforcement of the 14^th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection was necessary during the ugly period of massive resistance.

But once they began to exercise extraordinary remedies, including some controversial integration decrees, it became attractive for activist groups to urge the use of those same powers for more questionable ends. At about that same time, some legal doctrines that tended to encourage judicial activism, unmoored from the text and original public meaning of the Constitution, were gaining currency. This and the growth of the federal government generally led the courts to assume even more power.

While there’s hardly an issue the federal courts won’t decide now, at least there is a healthy trend back to a more careful interpretation of the Constitution that relies more on the text and its original public meaning.

You’re saying there’s been a trend toward Originialism?

I think so. The issue got an incredible public boost twenty-five years ago with a series of speeches on originalism that then Attorney General Ed Meese gave. Those talks helped launch a debate that re-invigorated that school of thought. The Heritage Foundation just celebrated the anniversary of those talks with a symposium of scholars at the Supreme Court with General Meese and Justice Alito. Today, regardless of legal scholars’ personal positions on textualism or originalism, its hard to deny that they are serious, mainstream approaches to constitutional interpretation.

Just look at the Supreme Court’s use of originalism in the landmark Second Amendment cases of the last five years. In DC vs. Heller, the question was whether the Second Amendment protected only the rights of state militia to keep and bear arms or the right of all Americans, regardless of service in a militia. Both sides engaged in a serious parsing of the text and a discussion of its original public meaning. Regardless of what the justices thought the right historical answer was, none of them were willing to say that the text or its original public meaning was irrelevant.

I’d like to switch gears for a minute and talk about the legal profession, especially as it relates to starry-eyed, newly minted Truman Scholars. There is a popular understanding now that recent college graduates, if unable to find a job, can always apply to law school. The thinking goes that a JD is a great thing to have, even if you never use it.  Is this true?

I don’t recommend law school to everyone regardless of interest, but I do recommend it to a lot of people. Assuming you have sufficient interest in the type of subjects studied in law school, it’s a great interdisciplinary degree. I thought it was a fascinating course of study that combines some of the wisdom of the ages from history, sociology, economics, political science, linguistics, and rhetoric.

Law school is also really good training for the mind. Lawyers are taught to spot issues in a particular way before they try to come up with the right answer. It teaches you to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant facts in prior cases. What differences are immaterial? Why? In hard cases, there is no easy answer. Law school focuses on the hard cases, and that really trains the mind in a manner that is useful in many fields.

It’s also a very versatile degree for other reasons. Besides a lot of specialties in legal practice, it can be helpful in business, government, public policy, the nonprofit world, teaching and more. It allows you to change your career plans.

Lastly, it’s about the easiest doctorate degree to obtain. My four brothers are MDs. They had to work harder and study longer than most of my lawyer friends.

An overwhelming majority of members of Congress, both past and present, have been lawyers. And it makes sense for legislators and members of the judiciary. But a large number of America’s Presidents have been lawyers as well. Does legal training impart executive capability?

It’s certainly not necessary for the Presidency. Ronald Reagan is among the highest-rated presidents in the 20^th Century, and he wasn’t a lawyer. What he did have though was a strong understanding of and appreciation for the Constitution. I think that’s vital for anyone in government. Kennedy is another popular, non-lawyer President from the last 50 years. Carter and Johnson were non-lawyers with questionably legacies. And Nixon and Clinton were lawyers who were both impeached. In my lifetime, there is no obvious correlation between legal training and presidential performance.

Is our American political system, courtesy of our Constitution, exportable?

Certainly there are important lessons and virtues that are exportable. Few countries have the same free speech protection we do. Not even England has as strong protections for speech. I think more countries ought to follow our lead. And that would have a significant impact on the government itself. If citizens are free to harshly criticize their government, they not only enjoy that freedom but it will tend to lead to better and more democratic government.

As a quick aside, it will be interesting to see if the Peoples Republic of China can continue to suppress political freedoms as it allows more economic freedom. People with economic freedom and the information necessary for global market power will want more political freedoms, but soldiers with tanks and guns exercise their own persuasive power.

Speaking of criticizing government: Is the President’s healthcare plan constitutional?

The individual mandate is clearly unconstitutional if we are concerned with the original meaning of Congress’s commerce power. Yet, Congress and the Supreme Court have read the commerce power much more broadly than the framing generation understood it to be. Under current judicial precedents, it’s a much closer call, but I still think the Supreme Court will strike the individual mandate down. There are several reasons, but I’ll mention two simple ones.

The first is that the mandate truly is unprecedented, which means there is no controlling judicial precedent for it—regardless of some claims to the contrary. Congress has never before attempted to require Americans to buy a particular product or service, even when the nation’s existence was at stake. For example, Americans were never required to buy war bonds in World War I or II.

Second, the Supreme Court has always been clear, even when it has approved a very broad exercise of commerce power, that there are some limits.  If Congress can regulate people for not purchasing something because staying out of the market would affect the market (even if that is so), then it can do anything. If the Court were to adopt that theory, it would be adopting a chaos theory of the commerce clause, one without any limits. I don’t think the Court will do that.

It’s the equivalent of requiring Americans to buy a new GM car every year. You wouldn’t even have to drive them. You could keep them all in front of your house. But every year, a family of four would have to buy a new car of a particular brand with particular equipment in order to stimulate the car market and to avoid certain transportation “externalities.”

I explained the constitutional arguments in a lot more detail in a paper I co-authored last December (see http://s3.amazonaws.com/thf_media/2009/pdf/lm_0049.pdf) which I am happy to learn was entered in the Congressional Record during the healthcare debate. (Every think tanker hopes that will happen with their scholarship occasionally.)

Now, if the Supreme Court strikes down the individual mandate, there is a question whether the rest of the legislation fails. The court would have to engage in a severability analysis. That’s an even tougher issue, but I think the sponsors of the Obamacare bill, including Senator Bauchus, made it clear the act couldn’t survive without the individual mandate.

The healthcare debate really seems to have been an issue that helped make the Tea Party a household name. What do you think of the Tea Party?

One encouraging aspect of the rise of the Tea Party is the participants’ hunger for knowledge about the Constitution. Some have wacky ideas about it. Some have rather impressive ideas and knowledge. It’s an important opportunity for all of us to help inform and educate Americans on the Constitution.

I also think the Tea Party movement is going to be part of a long-term trend, especially as concern over the scope and financing of government continues. Whether you believe in large government or think that government’s size should be reduced, the problems in Greece and Ireland suggest that paying for government entitlements anywhere near those that exist now is a very serious problem. And that often raises constitutional issues.

This age may be analogous to the Progressive Era, only with the opposite effect. Many early progressives in the academy thought constitutional doctrines limited the scope of national government to solve problems they thought were pressing. I think the opposite instinct is emerging today. The constitutional doctrines of today may be enabling a leviathan to trample the protections for liberty the framers enshrined in the Constitution.

What do you enjoy most about your job as Director of the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies?

I especially enjoy organizing practice argument sessions for many of the advocates who are going to argue cases before the Supreme Court. In a given Supreme Court term, we might organize a practice “moot court” for about a dozen of the seventy or so cases the Court will decide. These are often some of the most important cases. We try to bring together the best Supreme Court advocates to help those who have never argued before the High Court. It’s always an interesting challenge. And there have been times when our guest advocates have told us they believe our preparation session made the difference in their winning the case.

Bill Rivers (DE ’09) currently directs marketing and fundraising for Water Is Life-Kenya, (www.kenyawaterislife.com) a Delaware-based non-profit dedicated to developing clean, sustainable water resources in Southern Kenya.

Anson Asbury (PA ‘90) has accepted an invitation to serve as the VP for Board Development for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Fulton County (Georgia).  Any Truman Scholars in the metro Atlanta area interested in becoming involved with Boys & Girls Clubs are invited to contact Anson. (His information is available via the Truman Scholars Network: http://www.truman.gov)

Shawn Vogt Sween (MN '99) and his family welcomed their fourth child on September 23.  Calum was born at home in Grand Meadow, Minnesota, weighing 10 pounds, 10 ounces and measuring 22.5 inches long.  “He's a content little guy, for which we're very thankful with #4.”

Monica Bell (SC '02) recently began an Arthur Liman Public Interest Fellowship at the Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia, where she’s focusing on anti-poverty policy advocacy on topics that span Legal Aid's practice areas -- family law, housing, public benefits, and consumer law -- as well as general access to justice issues.

After finishing his clerkship with Chancellor William Chandler ('79 LLM) of the Delaware Court of Chancery, Bryan Townsend (DE ’03) began work as an associate at Morris Nichols Arsht & Tunnell in Wilmington, DE, where he'll focus on administrative law and government affairs.  Bryan has become a member of the Special Olympics Delaware Fundraising Committee and a Big Brother with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Delaware.  He also recently transferred to the Christiana Fire Company from the Rehoboth Beach Volunteer Fire Company.  On Election Day 2010, Bryan served as Delaware's State Organizing Attorney for the Democratic Party's voter protection efforts.

A number of Scholars were awarded prestigious graduate fellowships: Tracy Yang (GA ’10) and Varun Sivarum (CA ’10) were named 2010 Rhodes Scholars; GJ Melendez-Torres (NJ ’10), Nick Wellkamp (KY-09) and Joel Mittleman (PA ‘08) were named 2010 Marshall Scholars; and Chelsea Caveny (MS ‘10) was named a 2010 Mitchell Scholar.

Please submit Class Notes to news@trumanscholars.org.

Ravi Gupta (NY '04), who recently started a charter school, was featured in The Tennessean.

Read the full article.

Truman Scholars Charting a New Course in Education

Part I: The Founders: Building Schools with No Excuses

This piece is the first in a series. See also "Part 2: The Transition: John King’s Journey from Charter to Public Schools"

By Christopher Sopher (VA '10)

Featuring:
Dacia Toll (MD ’93), Co-CEO and President, Achievement First
Seth Andrew (RI ’99), Founder and Superintendent, Democracy Prep Schools
Ravi Gupta (NY, ’04), Fellow, Building Excellent Schools

Over the last few years, charter schools have generated an exceptional amount of interest and activity across the country, spurred by the Department of Education’s Race to the Top initiative and by encouraging results from the most successful charters. Nationwide there are some 1.5 million students attending more than 4,000 charter schools. It is a moment of great potential for leading education reformers who have spent years and sometimes decades developing, opening and running charter schools in some of the country’s lowest-income, lowest-performing districts.

A remarkable number of these leaders are Truman Scholars. I interviewed three Truman Scholars (among many, many more) who are involved in founding and running charter schools. This is their surprisingly connected story.

“A heck of an opportunity”

Dacia Toll had just returned from Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship, and was starting law school at Yale, when the state of Connecticut passed its first charter school legislation in 1996. “It basically says to community leaders and entrepreneurs and others who are concerned about kids, ‘If you think there's a better way to do it and put together a robust plan and team, we'll actually let you run a public school,’” says Toll (MD ’93). “And that's a heck of an opportunity.”

Toll and a group of her fellow Yale Law School students took the offer, and over the intervening 13 years she and her colleagues have transformed that opportunity—first into a charter middle school in New Haven, and then into one of the most respected charter school networks in America.

Toll had not planned a career in education. In college she was involved in journalism and poverty issues, and later spent several summers working for former President Jimmy Carter’s Atlanta Project, an antipoverty program.

“We worked with 18- to 30-year-olds, and we were preparing them for jobs that we would not want for our own kids. Without adequate educational background, it was not possible to access economic opportunity beyond a certain level. I had that experience over and over again ... It seemed like all the issues we were focused on in terms of job opportunities and issues of social equality and civil rights were really just downstream of unequal investments we were making in kids.”

That inequality found names and faces when Toll started a teacher prep program in New Haven Public Schools, while still in law school. “Something that was theoretical, something that I understood on a policy level became very real in my classroom of eight graders at Fair Haven Middle School.”

These experiences led Toll and her peers to found Amistad Academy, a charter middle school that opened in 1999 in one of New Haven’s toughest neighborhoods.

“There were officially I think 32 founders of Amistad. It ranged from the CEO of the local bank to a juvenile court judge to a child psychologist to a teacher, a parent. It was a wonderful mix. In New Haven there's always sensitivity to Yale projects. As a result we worked especially hard to broaden the founding team,” says Toll. “And it worked out really well.”

The founding team visited high-performing schools around the country, including some of the very first charter schools. They designed a “no-excuses” model, relentlessly focused on student achievement and quality teaching. Toll quickly found herself running Amistad.

“To make a long story short, the principal didn't work out, and by November of the first year, I was already starting to function as a principal, and I officially became the principal in the second year of the school. The story is, I loved the job. So I ended up doing that for six years.”

After only a few years in operation, Amistad began showing impressive results: performance gains with some of the most difficult students in the city, higher state test scores, high teacher satisfaction. The school was profiled in a PBS documentary and won a state award in 2006 for having the best middle school performance gains in Connecticut.

In Amistad’s fifth year, Toll’s partner and co-director (and fellow UNC alumnus) Doug McCurry left to found a second school in New Haven and start Achievement First, a charter network that now operates 17 schools serving predominantly low-income students in Connecticut and New York. Toll is co-CEO and president. Amistad’s early success has continued for Achievement First’s other schools.

“When Connecticut went to evaluate the performance gains [for schools across the state] without us in there, they said, we need to include the Achievement First schools. They needed to change the scales on the graph because the scores we so different between our kids and the rest.”

Success follows success...

In 2004, the same year Amistad was featured in a PBS documentary, Seth Andrew (RI ’99) arrived there for a one-year residency as a fellow with Building Excellent Schools, an organization that trains charter school founders and leaders.

After graduating from Brown University in 2000, Andrew followed his future wife to Korea, where he taught in a public school, an experience he says still informs his charter schools’ approach. Upon his return he taught and became an administrator in traditional public schools.

“I got very excited about teaching and about my practice, but really did not like the environment of the traditional school, which seemed stifling and bureaucratic, and my colleagues didn't have the same mission as I did,” says Andrew.

He left and became a fellow at Building Excellent Schools, which in 2005 helped him launch Democracy Prep charter school in central Harlem, one of New York City’s most historically troubled neighborhoods.

“I first tried to start Democracy Prep in Rhode Island almost ten years ago. The educational and political environments weren't supportive of bold reforms at that time,” says Andrew. “When we couldn't do it in Rhode Island we moved to New York, and had a very supportive chancellor and mayor and political environment, which meant that we were able to get Democracy Prep off the ground and open in 2006 in public school space.”

By 2009, Democracy Prep was the top performing school in Harlem. In September of 2010, New York City named it both the top middle school and top charter school in the entire city.

“I ran the school day-to-day as head of school for the first two years, and now we're running five schools in New York and Rhode Island, and that half of it is exciting, hard, challenging, brutal work,” says Andrew. “But it is incredibly rewarding because you get to see your results with kids every single day.”

Democracy Prep schools, like Dacia Toll’s Achievement First schools, follow a “no excuses” model. Andrew says the model has five elements: 1) more school time; 2) the use of data to measure outcomes and needs; 3) rigorous curriculum and high expectations; 4) a culture of respect and enthusiasm (what Andrew calls “the joy factor”); and 5) high-performing teachers. “The single most important thing of successful schools is really great teachers in every classroom,” he says.

Andrew’s experiences and early success have given him confidence in the model and the best practices it suggests for public education. “It's 100 percent clear. It's not something magic. It's a lot of work, but if you look at the highest performing schools around the country ... they all do exactly the same core principles.”

Despite opposition in some circles to these principles and to the charter school movement, Andrew says parents and students in New York have responded positively—so positively that student demand currently far exceeds the supply of charter school spots.

“We had 1,500 families apply last year for about 100 spots. Literally almost every kid who is eligible in District 5 for our program is putting in an application to our school. For New York, there are 40,000 families on the waiting list trying to get into charter schools.”

“I want to do what he’s doing”

In the summer of 2009, while Democracy Prep was busy becoming central Harlem’s best public school, Ravi Gupta (NY ’04) wandered into a panel session at the Truman Scholars Association’s first National Conference in Washington, DC.

“In the meeting there were Trumans who had started charter schools and were involved in education. I saw an incredible guy named Seth Andrew ... and I was blown away by his presentation. I was so floored by his take on charter schools, and by his passion for the cause ... that I said to myself, I want to do what he's doing. I slipped him a note and told him I would be e-mailing him. I sent him an e-mail the next day telling him I wanted to do what he was doing, and he told me to apply for Building Excellent Schools.”

Gupta had just graduated from Yale Law School and was working as an assistant to U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice (DC ‘84), a job he had maintained while in law school, after taking a year off to work for the Obama for America presidential campaign.

“I almost immediately applied and was accepted, but had to defer for a year because I had an obligation to work for Susan Rice. But I knew what I wanted to do. Seth is a warrior. There are few people I've met in life who are as passionate and dedicated and effective as he is. He was a big part of it.”

Gupta is now a fellow with Building Excellent Schools, where he is studying school leadership and preparing to launch a charter school in Nashville, Tennessee.

“My dream in life is to start a school where I grew up in Staten Island, but an opportunity presented itself to build a school in Tennessee because they won Race to the Top ... and I jumped at the chance. I love the people in Tennessee, and I'm loving Nashville.

“We're getting used to the grind of running a school. But for me, that's not too much of an adjustment. I went from campaign world, working seven days a week until 1 a.m., to the UN, where every day there's another crisis to respond to.”

“I hear a lot of people tell me that it's not possible in medium-sized cities, or not possible in that region. But if you look around this country, there are a handful of schools out there defying the odds, and they're doing it all over the place,” says Gupta.

What’s next

Toll, Andrew and Gupta all say they expect the movement to grow in the years ahead.

“There really is a quiet revolution taking place,” says Toll. “Through Race to the Top and other things, we have seen more progress in the last 18 months than we've seen in the previous decade.”

Andrew, for his part, is ready to open more schools.

“We need more high-performing charter schools ... I told the chancellor [of New York City schools Joel Klein] in no uncertain terms, that we will build as many Democracy Pep schools in Harlem as they will provide us buildings,” he said. “We want to serve our community so that there is no lottery and no waiting list. We want to get to the point where supply meets demand, and we have enough spots for everybody who wants one.”

All three founders credit the Truman community with support, ideas and inspiration, and say they hope the connections continue to the next generation of school founders and leaders.

“The Truman community is like wind in your sails, having a whole group who shares your values and commitment,” says Toll.

“There is no better advice than from those who have done it; to sit down individually and talk with the great resources the Truman community has,” says Gupta. “Seth helped me, and I'm ready to [help other] folks who want to get involved.”

Chris Sopher (VA ’10) is a senior in his last semester at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he studies public policy.

Dear Truman Scholars,

It is with mixed emotions that I inform you that I will leave the position of Executive Secretary of the Truman Foundation in the new year.  I have accepted appointment as the 19th President of Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth. You may recall that I served as dean of the law school there prior to joining the Truman Foundation staff. 

Melany and I are very excited about returning to Fort Worth and I am happy to be more directly involved again in higher education administration.  But, I will miss the day-to-day involvement with all of you.

Secretary Albright informed the Foundation Trustees today at the Annual Board meeting.  She recommended to the Board that I be elected Treasurer of the Foundation to continue working on financial issues in a formal capacity.  The Board approved her recommendation and I have accepted this position.

Secretary Albright will announce in the near future a selection process to identify my successor.  In the interim, I will continue to work closely with the Foundation’s wonderful and dedicated staff to make sure we are able to continue our essential mission of identifying and supporting public service leaders.

I look forward to continued involvement with the Truman Scholar community!

Fred Slabach (MS ’77)

Last month (May 27-30, 2010), more than two dozen Scholars traveled to Missouri from around the country to take part in the 2010 Truman Scholars Reunion Weekend & 20th Anniversary Celebration of Truman Scholars Leadership Week.

This Reunion was an opportunity to strengthen the Truman Scholar community, celebrate our paths to public service, and honor the legacy of President Truman.

It was especially heartening for me to see that this event attracted Scholars from the inaugural class of 1977 all the way through the most recent class of 2009. I know this was particularly special for the 2010 Truman Scholars, who had an opportunity to meet those who came before them to answer President Truman’s call to public service.

Before the Reunion, we looked forward to exploring President Truman's legacy as an inspiration for each of us to renew, refresh, and recommit ourselves to public service. It is clear from our conversations among one another during and after the Reunion Weekend that this is certainly the case. As always happens when Truman Scholars get together, we inspire one another to service.

I hope events like this inspire you – whether you attended the Reunion in Missouri, the “Satellite Reunion” in London, another event in recent months, or if you just stay connected through the listserv and social media – to connect or reconnect with the Truman community.

For starters, it has been exciting to hear from many Scholars that they are applying for the Truman Scholars Association Board of Directors, and I hope many more of you will apply before the June 21 deadline. For the many Scholars who will be in Washington, DC this summer, I will join Fred Slabach (MS ’77), Executive Secretary of the Harry. S. Truman Scholarship Foundation, at a Truman Scholar Meet-and-Greet at Old Ebbitt Grill in Washington, DC on June 29, and we hope many of you will attend.

If you can’t be present at an upcoming event, there is much you can do with a few minutes of your time: please update your profile information, subscribe to our online listserve, join a TSA Regional Club, offer to mentor a younger Scholar, or help organize events much like the Reunion Weekend nationally, regionally, and virtually. For more information, please visit www.trumanscholars.org.

It is an exciting time for Truman Scholars, no matter where we live and no matter when we were selected. I hope you will take advantage of all this community has to offer!

Pooja K. Agarwal (MO ’05) is President of the TSA Board of Directors.

Truman Scholars from 1996 to 2009 classes gathered in London on May 22, 2010 to kick off the coming Truman Scholars Reunion Weekend festivities with an overseas “satellite” get-together.  In the days preceding the official Truman Scholars Reunion in conjunction with the 20th anniversary of the Truman Scholars Leadership Week (TSLW) in Missouri, Scholars studying and working throughout the United Kingdom met on the sunniest day London has seen in a while to explore the Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms. 

At the Cabinet War Rooms, an historic underground complex that housed a British government command center throughout WWII, the Churchill Museum’s Director of Learning Simon Thomson discussed Prime Minister Winston Churchill's and President Harry Truman's lives and leadership styles.  As tourists walked by, we sat behind the museum glass in the Chiefs of Staffs’ Conference Room, where Churchill’s military subordinates deliberated their most critical wartime decisions.  

From Westminster, we proceeded to East London’s Old Truman Brewery, formerly the Black Eagle brewery complex and now one of London's hubs of creativity, energy, community and economic development.  Truman Scholars – and honorary Trumans alike – enjoyed soaking up the sun and paying homage to Uncle Harry less formally over lunch and drinks.

The Scholars in attendance included: Brian Babcock-Lumish (MD '01), Terry Babcock-Lumish (PA '96), Alex Dewar (OR '05), Becky McCauley (WV '06), Alex Merkovic-Orenstein (FL '09), Monica Mukerjee (MI '07), Trudy Rebert (PA '06), Andrew Sellers (CO '04), and Miles Taylor (IN '09). Many thanks to Terry (PA '96) and Brian (MD '01) Babcock-Lumish for organizing this fantastic event!

Becky McCauley (WV-06), currently a Ph.D. candidate in Geosciences and Astrobiology at The Pennsylvania State University and conveniently in Coventry for two weeks to conduct research. 

Registration for the upcoming Truman Scholars Reunion Weekend has been extended through May 18, or until capacity is reached, due to a special event.

The historic Harry S. Truman Home National Historic Site in Independence, Missouri, has been closed for renovations for several months. It is due to reopen during the Reunion Weekend, and the National Parks Service has graciously offered to open the home to Truman Scholars prior to the public opening. Because of the significant interest from Scholars in visiting the Truman Home, we are able to extend registration.

Interested Scholars should register as soon as possible - there are fewer than 10 spots remaining.

Almost 45,000 people came to Copenhagen last December to be a part of the United Nations Climate Change negotiations. Among them were more than a few Truman Scholars. Whether as government representatives, researchers at universities, or leaders of advocacy groups, we continued a long history of international Truman public service in the fight to stop climate change.

The two of us came as leaders of the youth-run sustainable development policy organization SustainUS. Jennie co-leads SustainUS's Agents of Change program, which brought more than 25 U.S. youth to participate in the Copenhagen talks, and Kyle chairs the organization and served as our official Head of Delegation in Copenhagen. SustainUS has advocated for a fair and binding science-based climate treaty for several years at the UN meetings. This was not the first UN climate negotiation for either of us, but it was easily the biggest.

While deeply concerned by the outcomes in Copenhagen, we were excited to be a part of the growing international climate movement, represented by the tens of thousands who tried to participate in the talks (we made it in, but many were locked out due to overcapacity in the negotiating halls), and the more than 100,000 who marched outside in Copenhagen’s streets. We were also thrilled to help lead the development of the international youth climate movement, which brought more than 1,500 young people from over 100 countries to participate in the negotiations, and last year secured formal UN recognition as a civil society participant. SustainUS helped to facilitate the training and coordination of some of the estimated 500 U.S. youth who came, including almost 200 inside the meeting and more than 300 in the streets.

We were also thrilled to be a part of the diverse Truman presence in Copenhagen. Paul Bodnar (CA ‘98) and Clare Sierawski (PA ‘04) serve on the State Department’s climate negotiating team. Scott Moore (KY ‘07) came with Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute, and Emily McGlynn (PA ‘08), supported by SustainUS accreditation, attended as part of her work as a winner of the German government’s Transatlantic Renewable Energy Fellowship.

Many other Trumans have lent their talents to the international climate change effort, including some we probably don’t even know about (sorry!). Both Scott and Kelly Greenman (FL ‘08) were SustainUS delegates to the Bali negotiations in 2007, where the path to Copenhagen was agreed on. Michael Gale (WV ‘02), who now serves on SustainUS's Board of Directors, participated in the 2005 Montreal negotiations, essentially helping to start what would later become the international youth climate movement. Before that, Joy Hecht (MA ‘78) co-authored an influential paper in 1998 on the Kyoto Protocol and biodiversity conservation that SustainUS still references in its forest policy work today. And we learned just last month in the Class Notes section of this blog that Tom Burack (NH ‘80), Commissioner for the State of New Hampshire’s Department of Environmental Services, chaired the Climate Change Policy Task Force established by the Governor to develop a Climate Action Plan (CAP) for his state, and now chairs the NH Energy and Climate Collaborative.

Climate change didn’t end in Copenhagen. Neither, we suspect, will Truman Scholars’ efforts toward its solutions – internationally in UN climate negotiations, locally in our communities, and everywhere in between. Humbled by the legacy we’re now a part of, we look forward to seeing new Scholars apply the same passion and ingenuity toward this global struggle that made them Trumans in the first place.

Kyle Gracey (PA ‘05) is Chair of SustainUS and Master's student at the University of Chicago, and Jennifer Hatch (ME ‘09) is Agents of Change Coordinator of SustainUS and a senior at Wellesley College.

The SustainUS Copenhagen delegation - Kyle and Jennie 2nd row, 2nd and 4th from left

Preparing for a State Department meeting - Jennie and Kyle 1st row, far left and far right

Most Americans know that President Truman was faced with the difficult decision about whether or not to use atomic power during World War II.  But what most don’t know is that after the war, Truman asked our veterans to play leadership roles in their communities as civilians.  At the end of World War II, President Truman sent a letter to all honorably discharged WWII veterans with this message:

“To you who answered the call of your country and served in its Armed Forces to bring about the total defeat of the enemy, I extend the heartfelt thanks of a grateful Nation.  As some of the Nation’s finest, you undertook the most severe task one can be called upon to perform.  Because you demonstrated the fortitude, resourcefulness, and calm judgment necessary to carry out that task, we now look to you for leadership and example in further exalting our country in peace.” 

As both a wartime President and a World War I veteran, Truman recognized the need to challenge our nation’s veterans.  

Through my own military experiences, I also saw the need to not only tell our veterans “thank you,” but also “we still need you”. After I returned from service in Iraq as a Navy SEAL, I visited with wounded Marines at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland. Even though their wounds had cut their time in the military short, each Marine expressed an unwavering desire to continue serving his country.  I noticed that many people were offering things to wounded veterans, but I knew it was essential to ask something of them.  After visiting Bethesda, I used my combat pay to start The Mission Continues so that we could challenge our veterans to serve again.

The Mission Continues offers competitive fellowships to engage wounded and disabled veterans who have served since 9/11 in service here at home.  These veterans draw from leadership skills honed on the battlefield to now benefit their communities. A typical Fellowship lasts 14 weeks, during which the Fellow receives a living stipend so he or she can serve full-time at a local charitable organization.  Each Fellow provides a tangible good such as mentoring at-risk children, organizing veterans support groups, or helping the disabled enjoy the outdoors again. 

In addition to our Fellowship program we encourage veterans from all eras and citizens of all backgrounds to complete service projects in their communities.  Last month, we had our largest service campaign to date during National Volunteer Week.  Over a 9-day period, nearly 700 volunteers and supporters participated in 29 projects across the nation, dedicating 2,000 hours of service.  Veterans and citizens served side by side, preparing lunches for homeless veterans, beautifying war memorials, and serving as buddies for the Special Olympics.  

I attended a service project in honor of Lt. Daniel Riordan, who lost his life in Iraq in June 2007.  Nearly 60 volunteers, both veterans and civilians, gathered at the Soldiers Memorial in downtown St. Louis to landscape and beautify the grounds.  Dan’s family was in attendance, but so were many others – most who didn’t know Lt. Riordan but wanted to serve their community while honoring Dan at the same time.  It was incredible to see our nation’s veterans answering the call to service in their communities.

Volunteers and staff have shared similar experiences from the projects they attended throughout the country. Among the stories shared were a third grade student learning to dig a hole from an Army veteran while planting a tree on his school grounds, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans working alongside those who served in Vietnam, and wounded and disabled veterans receiving fitness training.  National Volunteer Week has come and gone, but the idea of continued service has not. 

Much as Truman challenged our veterans to be leaders in their communities, I encourage you to think about our returning veterans and the incredible service they still are able to give to our country.  We should not only tell them “thank you” for their service, but also “we still need you.”

Eric Greitens (MO '95) is Chairman and CEO of The Mission Continues and a Senior Fellow at the Truman School of Public Affairs at the University of Missouri.

On the heels of the recent Truman Scholar meet-and-greets around the country, Scholars have continued to gather. 

On April 1, a group of six Washington, DC-area Truman Scholars met for lunch. Those present ranged from the second year the Scholarship was awarded, 1978, to the second-to-last year, 2009. 

Dan Sichel (MI '81) of the Federal Reserve Board offered a summary of what happened in the United States financial crisis of 2007-2008 from the perspective of the Fed, and led a discussion.

If you are interested in organizing an informal Truman Scholar gathering in your community, and you would like help identifying local area Scholars, please contact Anthony Shop at reunions@trumanscholars.org.

For the second piece in this series, Jeffrey Toobin (NY ’80), noted legal analyst and bestselling author, was interviewed by Anthony Vitarelli (NJ ’04), law clerk to Judge Thomas B. Griffith of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. 

Toobin serves as senior legal analysis for CNN and as a staff writer for The New Yorker, where he has covered legal affairs since 1993. A prolific writer, Toobin has authored numerous acclaimed essays and books. His latest, The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court, earned the 2008 J. Anthony Lukas Prize for Nonfiction from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Toobin graduated from HarvardCollege and Harvard Law School. 

Vitarelli recently graduated from Yale Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of The Yale Law Journal. He will join the Criminal Division of the Justice Department in the fall of 2010. 

Interview with
Jeffrey Toobin (NY ’80), Noted Legal Analyst and Best-selling Author
By Anthony Vitarelli (NJ ’04), Law Clerk
April 12, 2010 

Anthony Vitarelli: Do you view the judicial confirmation process as a one-way ratchet of partisanship, or do you think there is a way that a President—either this President or one in the future—and members of the Senate could make the judicial confirmation process more civil? 

Jeffrey Toobin: I don’t think partisanship is necessarily a bad thing. These are important issues and important disputes. There is aWashington phenomenon that people think disagreement is inherently bad. I don’t buy that at all. 

Sure, if Barack Obama nominated a Republican to be on the Supreme Court, that would eliminate the fight and the partisanship. But one reason we have elections is so the President can put people who are ideologically simpatico on the Supreme Court. Barack Obama, like every other President, plans on doing that. Now, it may be more or less difficult to get this person confirmed, but I certainly don’t think he should back away because there may be some unpleasantness. 

Vitarelli: Let me probe that a little more. It seems that in the last few years—you could trace it back either to Justice Thomas’s confirmation hearings or some would point to the filibuster of Miguel Estrada—that there are some nominations that seem like they would not have been so discordant a few decades ago. Now, for instance, many circuit court nominees are getting a lot more attention than they would have in the past. It seems the rhetoric has continued to ratchet up, especially in light of anonymous holds that can be placed on nominees. 

Toobin: I think it’s true that circuit court nominations have been more closely scrutinized in recent decades. But there have been a lot of Supreme Court nomination fights since the beginning of the Republic, [such as] in 1920. There were Haynsworth and Carswell under Nixon, Robert Bork under Reagan, and then Thomas. 

In fact, the last several nominations have been fairly civil. Yes, I think we have passed the day when—like Justice Stevens—nominees get confirmed 98 to nothing. But, was there ever any real chance that Sonia Sotomayor was not going to be confirmed? I don’t think so. 

Vitarelli: Since you mentioned Justice Stevens, I’m curious what your thoughts are on what has made Justice Stevens effective at garnering majorities in cases like Hamdan and Boumediene? If this President were seeking to replicate that aspect of Justice Stevens's temperament, what would he look for in a nominee's career to date? 

Toobin: One of the myths of Supreme Court confirmations, or Supreme Court appointments, is that there are very good predictive tests of how people will turn out as justices. I mean, look at Justice Stevens. Justice Stevens started out on the bench as kind of a lone eccentric and turned into a tremendous consensus builder. Through the course of all his decades, there were a couple of different kinds of justices that he was. 

Obviously, it would be best not to nominate a reclusive scholar, but it is hard to predict what kind of personality would move the very small electorate that is the Supreme Court, especially when you’re largely talking about only one persuadable target. That’s really guesswork. Any nominee that is nominated in 2010 is likely to serve with many justices whose identities we don’t even know yet. All this talk about the kind of personality you want is really guesswork at best. 

Vitarelli: In terms of the current careers that potential nominees have, the last nine have been sitting judges on circuit courts. How has that fact helped or hurt the Court as an institution? What advice would you give to the President on this point? 

Toobin: I think Obama is right that it is time to end the circuit judge monopoly on the Supreme Court. Historically, the justices have not all come from the appellate court bench. Personally, I don’t think the Supreme Court should be the top step on the civil service ladder for judges – it’s a different job than other kinds of judges. And it’s no coincidence that the court that decided Brown vs. Board of Educationdidn’t have one person on it that had ever been a judge on any court before that. I think judges with legislative, executive, and business experience would be very good. 

Vitarelli: Do you think that the fact that 2010 is an election year will affect which person the President nominates for the Court? 

Toobin: I don’t think so. We operate in a 24-hour, 365-day political and news cycle. So I don’t think 2010 is much more politically incendiary than 2009 was. Democrats and Republicans fight all the time, that’s just the world we live in. And I don’t think it matters much. 

Vitarelli: What do you think the biggest issue facing the federal judiciary as an institution is now? Certainly, the issue of a stalled judicial pay raise has created some concerns, particularly in light of judges like Michael Luttig, David Levi, and Michael McConnell leaving the bench. Do you perceive any other challenges facing the judiciary as an institution right now? 

Toobin: I think it’s terrible that they’re paid so little, but I wouldn’t call it the biggest challenge of all. Most American political issues wind up in court. The issues that divide us politically will be the biggest ones that divide us legally, as well. 

Vitarelli: Shifting gears, I’m curious about your experience working for Lawrence Walsh on the Iran-Contra investigation, the topic of your book Opening Arguments. Did that deter you from being a career lawyer, or did that enhance your interest in becoming a journalist? 

Toobin: My decision to be a journalist was an affirmative decision to embrace journalism, not a negative decision to reject law practice. I loved working for Walsh. I was very privileged to do that, and I learned a lot. 

Vitarelli: How did your experience as an Assistant U.S. Attorney [in the Eastern District of New York] influence the way you cover trials, and criminal prosecutions in particular? 

Toobin: I think it’s a big influence. Trying a case is a very particular skill. You operate within a specific legal and cultural framework, and you have specifically defined goals. Journalists have a different framework and different goals. I think journalists are often frustrated when trials don’t seek to explore the facts of a situation. That’s not what they’re about. Criminal trials are about proving someone’s guilty beyond a reasonable doubt or failing to do that. In addition to helping me understand the specific rules of evidence and all the other kinds of rules that trials operate by, just understanding the mindset of trial lawyers is very important. 

Vitarelli: What advice would you give to young attorneys just graduating from law school now? Do you perceive the legal world as a different world from when you graduated law school? 

Toobin: Of course it is a different place. But, I think law school breeds in people a very narrow sense of what’s possible and what’s successful. You hang around with law students and you think the job with the biggest law firm at the highest starting salary is necessarily the best. Grown-up life doesn’t work that way. People get other sorts of rewards from their work—non-financial rewards. There are ways to make money, if that’s what you’re interested in, that are different and perhaps better than being a lawyer. Being open to a variety of possibilities, including not going to law school at all, is the best thing you can do. 

If you would like to conduct an interview or write a feature for the Truman Scholars Blog, please contact TSA@trumanscholars.org.

At the New York finalist dinner last month, Scholars moved around to each table, swapping places and plates, to get a chance to talk with each finalist and wish them luck. The event embodied the spirit of the late Brooks Burdette (GA ’81), who co-hosted the first finalist dinner more than a decade ago as a means to reconnect Scholars and help finalists to relax before the big day of interviews. At a dinner that wasn’t quite the same without Brooks’ presence, we was remembered with a moving toast, and the continuation of his efforts to strengthen the Truman Scholar community.

The late Brooks Burdette (GA '81)

The Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation requests nominations and applications for positions as Senior Scholars at TSLW 2010.

Senior Scholars are required to attend the entire Truman Scholars Leadership Week (May 24 through May 30, 2010) and make themselves available to the new Trumans in both formal and informal capacities.  Senior Scholars serve as role models for the recently selected Scholars and introduce them to new and different ways of service. Senior Scholars conduct presentations on a variety of topics during TSLW - both personal and professional. Senior Scholars work with a small group of new Trumans on a policy topic with which the Senior Scholar has some expertise, and help the Scholars to understand the complexities of issues and the contributions all political ideologies can offer to the search for solutions.

Senior Scholars should have completed a graduate school program at least one year prior to TSLW (exceptions may be made for students currently in medical residency or finishing PhD programs). Seniors should currently be working in public service and be able to commit to the entire week.  Senior Scholars can come from any discipline - as the best cohort is one that has a mix of disciplines represented.

Nominations and applications should detail the candidate's educational, professional and personal experiences that the candidate feels would be appropriate to share with the Scholars. These materials also should explain why the candidate would be a good Senior Scholar and whether the candidate has any prior experience in either a teaching or counseling environment.

Please email this information to Fred Slabach (fslabach@truman.gov) no later than February 15, 2010. We will consider nominations and applications as they arrive.

The Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation requests nominations and applications for the 2010 Stevens Award.

The Stevens Award was established in 1999 by the Board of Trustees of the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation in honor of the late U.S. District Court Judge, Joseph E. Stevens, Jr.  Judge Stevens was from Kansas City and was the former Chairman of the Foundation Board of Trustees.

The Stevens Award is granted annually to a Truman Scholar attorney who has made significant contributions in the public sector and who has provided extraordinary service to the Foundation.  The Stevens Award is presented in a ceremony at U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. in June.

Nominations and applications should include a brief biographical sketch of the candidate and a letter outlining the candidate's contributions to the public sector and to the Foundation.

All nominations and applications for the Staats Award should be forwarded to Executive Secretary Slabach at fslabach@truman.gov by February 15, 2010.