While the School has always been dedicated to the teaching and training of leaders in the public sector, under Dean Joseph S. Nye, Jr., this commitment has been reaffirmed and indeed strengthened. Public service and public leadership are considered indivisible. Perhaps the most striking example of this fortified commitment is the establishment in 2000 of the Center for Public Leadership. As its name testifies, the Center is not dedicated to a particular policy area. Rather our interest is in a subject that could be said to cut across all policy areas, and that, it might further be argued, is the sine qua non of political effectiveness.
Leadership is central to the course of public affairs.
The Center for Public Leadership is concrete acknowledgment of the importance of human agency to how governments are run and politics plays out. Although the Center for Public Leadership is still young, we have hit the ground running. Moreover the demand for what we provide is unfailingly high. The Wexner Foundation has made it possible for us to support cutting edge leadership research, to address the strong interest in leadership education, and to provide the Kennedy School with a rich array of players and programs that contribute to the conversation. In fact, more than anything else it is this expanded and enlightened conversation that we are committed to continuing.