Advancing education and service for veterans

We're talking about an education advancement opportunity for veterans, active duty service members, many other public servants as well happening through Harvard, the Harvard Kennedy School. Rob Brzezinski, the veteran and chief of staff of the school, kind enough to join us this morning to talk about it. Thanks so much for being with us. It's great to be with you, Dave. Thanks for having me. What is this American Service Fellowship? Tell us about the program. Yeah, so this is the single largest scholarship program in the history of the Harvard Kennedy School. We're the school at Harvard for government and public policy, and this is our way of thanking and appreciating America's public servants. So what we're offering for those who apply and are selected into the program is to join us for a one-year mid-career master's degree on our campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts essentially free of cost. So Harvard Kennedy School picks up the tab for all tuition and fees and also gives our fellows a stipend to defray the cost of living. And what we're hoping to do with this is attract Some of the best and brightest public servants from every corner of our country. We're now in the second year of the program. The first 50 fellows are on our campus right now. About half of them are military veterans. But what they have in common is that they have a dedication to public service. So all of them, and this is a requirement of the program, have served in one capacity or another for seven or more years, whether in the military or for the federal government or state or local government, and a commitment to serve in the future. Fellows come from all different walks of life. Some of them are former diplomats. Some have held elected office. Some are school teachers, school principals, in law enforcement, development professionals. But we bring them to campus. Allow them to learn from one another, learn from our world-class faculty, get the degree, and then go back out to make the world a better place. It is a wonderful and amazing opportunity for this select group of people who will get to do this. As they go back, what type of candidates, you laid out some of the qualifications, but what specifically sort of training do you see some of them do or are they working on right now that in that kind of maybe mid-career pivot where they just need a few more skills to take their career to the next level. Yeah, you know, each of our students is a little bit different, but you may be a veteran who just got off of active duty and you're committed to a mission-driven career, but you're not exactly sure what that next step is. So you can come here and in our classrooms, you know, hear from some of the top former officials dealing with U.S. national security. You can take... Classes in AI and statistics to build your own skills. But just as importantly, you can be here interacting with other exceptional people, both from the United States and from around the world, who are going off to be leaders in their countries and in their communities. And so through the program, what we're giving people, as much as the tuition, is time to figure out what that next step is, and that's an important part of the process for us. Yeah, I was just gonna say, as you were saying, that the education is vital. The networking opportunity or sharing your ideas and getting that feedback, that might really be the secret ingredient that fuels people in the next journey of their career. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. And we've had graduates who take the time here and then go off to run for public office. We've had dozens of members run for and be seated in Congress over the course of our history, but really at every level, whether they're moving to D.C. to work for the federal government, moving back home to Texas to work at state or local levels, even starting a nonprofit or starting their own business on the basis of Both what they learned at the school and for our veterans, what they may have learned in the military. So we really think that public service can take a number of different paths, and we want to support people on the path that they're on. This is a unique opportunity, a very special opportunity. If someone's watching this and says, yeah, I do want to try to take a shot at this, what are the steps forward? Great. Glad you asked. The first thing to do is to check out the program and apply. So I'll give you the webpage. The address is the letters K-E-N. That's short for Kennedy School, so ken.sc.service, or you can just Google American Service Fellowship. We'll be the first thing that comes up, and you can get all your information there. So the webpage will tell you more. You can apply right online. The application for next fall is live right now. It'll be live through the 1st of December, so there's still some time to apply, and we encourage those that think they may have the background and skills to give us a shot for the fellowship. As well as we have on campus right now, just to a person, they love the experience they've had. Wonderful. Well, we wish everyone good luck who's applying for that, and we thank them for their service that gets them the opportunity. We say the same to you. Thank you for your service, and thank you for your time, Robert Sinskey from the Harvard Kennedy School. Sir, thanks so much. Thank you.