Episode 1: Past: The origins of Stanford's public service center
Description
How and why did Stanford's public service center come to be? Hear from a few of the people who were there in the early days: former Executive Directors Catherine Milton and Timothy Stanton, and former Deputy Executive Director of the Haas Center for Public Service Megan Swezey Fogarty, moderated by Senior Program Director for Campus Partnerships and Alumni Relations Peggy Propp.
At the end of the episode, listen to a mini-interview for the #ChoosePublicService campaign with Cardinal Careers Program Manager Jessica Reynoso and former Community Impact Fellow Querida De La Stukes, who talk about pursuing a career in public service after Stanford.
Chapter Markers
00:40 - Introductions for the roundtable discussion
01:34 - Why and how was the Haas Center started?
08:37 - What was the programming and environment like early on?
14:23 - Integrating service learning into course curriculums
22:25 - What did you hope the center would grow into?
25:25 - What was our relationship with the community like and how has it evolved?
28:16 - How were the Principles of Ethical and Effective Service developed?
29:08 - Why should a university have a public service center?
32:26 - What is the Haas Center’s responsibility to our community and beyond?
34:29 - Why is service learning an essential part of a student’s academic experience?
41:50 - #ChoosePublicService Interview: Querida De La Stukes
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Transcript
00;00;00;00 - 00;00;41;12
Narrator
Welcome to Mosaic, a limited series podcast on the past, present, and future of the Haas Center for Public Service at Stanford University, in celebration of our 40th anniversary. Through three episodes, we'll be exploring how the Haas Center started, where it is today, and what the center's plans are for the future, all through the lens of why service learning is an essential component of student life. In episode one, we will hear from some of the people who were there during the early years of Stanford's Public Service Center and helped shape what it is today.
00;00;41;13 - 00;00;52;00
Peggy Propp
Hi everyone. Thanks for joining us in this conversation about the history of the Haas Center. To start, let's each introduce ourselves and what our connection to the Haas Center is.
00;00;52;01 - 00;00;58;10
Catherine Milton
I'm Catherine Milton, and I was the founding director way back and was there for 12 years.
00;00;58;11 - 00;01;08;28
Tim Stanton
My name is Tim Stanton. Catherine brought me in shortly after the center opened, and was there until 1999.
00;01;08;27 - 00;01;24;22
Megan Swezey Fogarty
And I'm Megan Swezey Fogarty, and I was a student in the mid '80s when the Haas Center started. I've also been a staff member at the center, and I'm currently senior associate vice president for community engagement.
00;01;24;23 - 00;01;40;00
Peggy
And I'm Peggy Propp. I was a student here, and I am now the senior director of campus engagement and alumni engagement. So, let's get started. Why and how was the Haas Center started? Catherine?
00;01;41;00 - 00;03;35;00
Catherine
Well, the story goes back actually to Washington, D.C., where I first met Don Kennedy, who was then head of the Food and Drug Administration. And this was in 1979, and I was at the Treasury Department overseeing the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. And Don and I were on the opposite sides of an issue, which was whether to put a warning label for pregnant women to not drink alcohol. And through that, we became friends and collaborators. We worked together. I had spent ten years before that time working in D.C., and this really influenced what happened at the center when I came when we when I came to Stanford. But I had worked on issues such as reforming the police, expanding the role of women. And I learned firsthand the excitement and the power of working in government and nonprofits. And that it was really possible to make a difference. And that was sort of part of my core. And so we, my late husband and I stayed on for another couple of years or a year and a half with the Reagan administration. But then we decided, no, we really want to go out and try to find a way to make fundamental changes outside of D.C. and particularly with young people. We reached out to Don Kennedy, and we got hired to come to Stanford, and I was appointed as Don's special assistant in June 1983 with the job of trying to figure out how to make public service a part of Stanford, how to infuse it so that students would get involved, not only while they were there, but afterwards. And we started very small in a little building called Owen House. I had a small office and I had one assistant, and I worked half time.
00;03;36;00 - 00;03;38;00
Megan
And it was next to the bike shop.
00;03;38;00 - 00;03;40;00
Catherine
And it was next to the bike shop. That was the most famous part about it.
00;03;41;00 - 00;03;42;00
Tim
Centrally located.
00;03;42;00 - 00;04;11;23
Catherine
Exactly. Centrally located. There was a little article in the paper about what we were doing, and Bill Somerville, who then became involved through the years, read the article and he said, ah, this is really good. Stanford's doing something. And so the next thing I knew, we had community members, we had faculty members, and we had students, mostly students coming. And there were like about a hundred students in those early days who said, all right, I want to volunteer. I want to do something. And what we're going to do. I think both Don and I were trying to approach that public service is something you can create your own pathways. And we started a big conference, which was the first time that the law school, business school, and medical school to ever work together. And we put on this conference and we had great speakers. We had John Gardner, we had Walter Haas, we had Peter Bing, people who had started organizations on nuclear proliferation, victims rights, hundreds and hundreds of speakers and lots of opportunities for students to get involved. And I can still remember sitting there, and the opening of the conference and realized, oh, this is special. Something is really happening. I then finished up writing a big report for the faculty Senate. How could we--what do we need to do? I think the title of the report was, "public service needs serious, sustained commitment." And that was in 1984. And as a result of that report and a result of all the activity, the decision was made to set up a public service center. This was before the Haas's were involved. And I should tell you, in that first year, here's what we had already done. We had a new--funding for a new summer public service fellowship program. We had a full time volunteer coordinator. We had a postgraduate fellowship with Berkeley, the John Gardner Fellowship. We had a tutoring program in East Palo Alto that involved lots of students. We had support for Stanford In Government. So all of that happened just like in a year. It was just incredible what we were able to do. So, early on, we set up an advisory committee, and we also had a faculty steering committee that was set up, and I helped to set up Campus Compact, a national organization that was focused on spreading the idea of community service to other parts, other universities in the country. And we had over 100 universities within a year to do that. And we also realized early on that we wanted to make service an integral part of the academic life at Stanford. And we were very fortunate that we found Tim Stanton, who was at Cornell. And we hired him and got him here. And he led that effort, which became an essential part of what we did.
00;06;39;00 - 00;06;43;00
Peggy
Wow. That's terrific. You just answered all three of my first questions, which is terrific.
00;06;43;00 - 00;06;46;00
Catherine
I saw your questions and I wasn't sure how to do it.
00;06;47;00 - 00;06;47;30
Peggy
It's great.
00;06;47;30 - 00;08;37;00
Tim
Let me just add a quick anecdote to fill in some space there because I had graduated from Stanford in 1969, and during the tumult of those years and a lot--like many of my classmates, I was pretty alienated from the university by the time I graduated and did my best to escape the the hands of the alumni association to track me down. And then one day, while I was at Cornell in my mail sales shows up the Stanford Magazine and in the magazine, flipping through the pages, on one side was an ad for condos in Hawaii, and on the other side was a manifesto, written by Don--maybe with Catherine's help, I'm sure--that just blew me away. I was not in the habit of writing university presidents, but I was stimulated to write back at that. And, I congratulated Don, thanked him immensely for the statement, and was kind of the first thing I'd noticed about Stanford that made me proud to be an alum. And then I said, by the way, you can't put all of this burden on the students, as wonderful as that is. What about the faculty? And I talked a little bit in their letter about what we had been trying to do at Cornell. And then I got a letter back in response to that, I think it was written by Catherine, inviting me to stop by if I'm in the Bay Area, which I was shortly after that. And that's how I got into this picture. It was very serendipitous. I wasn't planning to come back to Stanford, but that message and the leadership that Don was exhibiting across the institution, not just for public service, was very exciting.
00;08;37;30 - 00;08;42;00
Peggy
What did the programing look like early on? Megan, why don't we start with you?
00;08;42;30 - 00;13;12;00
Megan
Well, Catherine talked about some of the early programing, but let me just say a little bit more about the environment as a student. So, you know, this is the 1980s when Stanford was really fun and spent a lot of time having fun and all of a sudden the university president started to say, you can make a difference. And then there were people like Catherine and Tim who, you could go and sit at a desk and talk about how you want to make a difference. And there was this just beautiful moment of convergence of existing things on campus but this idea of possibility. And as someone who was a work-study student and couldn't go to Mexico and have even more fun during spring break or, you know, didn't have money to do an unpaid internship, the Haas Center became this heart and soul for me of this campus. And I want to speak a little bit more to that, because I think it's really important as the Haas Center thinks about its future. So, we had a university president who was so committed to this work, as you've heard. But Catherine and Tim were really different people, but they brought these elements of perhaps the more cerebral and grassroots and the more strategic and what our government could do together, which just opened up this unbelievable environment of opportunity. And quickly thereafter. You mentioned some of the programs, but we had Magdalena Fittoria running Ravenswood Tutoring, and quickly we had these PhD students, Anna Waring and Jackie Schmidt-Posner. We had Sue Gray, who would literally sit in one of those little rooms and help people think about what they want to do. Catherine's friend from D.C. Jeannie Hallett came and launched the Gardner Fellowship and then eventually, you know, working with Stanford in Government and eventually Stanford in Washington. And these personalities were all really different. And oftentimes there was tension. Right? I think you all would acknowledge there was tension. And what is public service and how are we going about this? But there was also this incredible diversity. Then, adding to that, Catherine mentioned the National Advisory Board and the Faculty Steering Committee, which was very strategic on her part. We had a university president committed, but we had to get these other folks committed as well. But imagine sitting at a table with John Gardner, with Tom Ford, with Peter Bing, all saying, this is really important for the university to do that. So from the very beginning, those folks were important, the volunteers and alumni leaders of Stanford. And then I also just want to touch on two other pieces of what I think are the secret sauce. One was, you mentioned Bill Somerville already, but we also had Charlie May Knight, who was a superintendent of Ravenswood Schools, which is how the tutoring began. But Charlie May Knight would sit at those National Advisory Board meetings and be pretty darn demanding. So, from a lot of that, and from Tim's work and Katherine's work previously, came these values of listening and of collaboration and how you go about doing that, which I know are central to what the Haas Center is today. And then finally, as class of '86--you mentioned, really you got started in '83, '84. Programs launched in '85. But for me, as someone who was coming in just after those first group of student leaders, I had people that were just, you know, a year older than me who were doing this work. Rhonda Trotter, Pete Spivak, Melissa Orchard, Elizabeth Dumanian, and they were so essential also to telling the president, this is really important. So, I remember they said, we want this to be as valuable as athletics is. And today it is, you know. YSo, yeah, that's really how it was for students. But I also just want to give props to Tim and Catherine because they could have organized this in so many different ways. But this open door, come in and talk to us. What do you want to do? How do you want to make a difference? And then connect this to who you are as a scholar and who you want to be in the world. And that beauty of that process, I just remember so fully and it's inspired my entire career.
00;13;13;00 - 00;13;15;00
Catherine
I want to mention another person, Nazir Ahmad.
00;13;16;00 - 00;13;16;29
Tim
Just thinking of Nazir.
00;13;16;30 - 00;13;17;00
Megan
I was going to talk about him. That's coming.
00;13;17;04 - 00;14;22;59
Catherine
Yeah, there was a meeting early on and I'll never forget it. So he said, all right, we're going to sit around with a bunch of us and we're going to talk about the Haas Center in the future. And I have some questions to ask you. So the first question is, well, what's going to happen when Don Kennedy is gone and Catherine's gone? And I remember thinking to myself, honestly, that's never going to happen. I mean, just like, I was so engaged and it was like, oh my God. So through that meeting realized, okay, there are two things you need at Stanford to survive. You need a big endowment, and you got to figure out how to get a big endowment. And you need space. You need real estate. And so I went to John Gardner and John said, well, you might want to get to know a man by the name of Tom Ford. And that's actually when I use--the first time I use the statement of, I want public service to be as big as athletics. And he looked at me and he wrote a big check and he said, I'll help you. And that was sort of the beginning.
00;14;23;00 - 00;18;16;28
Tim
I mean, I did everything and tried to be a support to Catherine, who was the Pied Piper of public service in those days. But I was focusing on the faculty and what we first called study service connections. And Don became very interested in that. And, one day when we were meeting in his office--I think it was he who said. It might have been Jim Ross, provost. But they said, at Stanford, everything depends on money and funding. They said, you need a fund to draw out the faculty. And so Don made available a small amount of money for me to dole out to faculty members. And we came to call it the bribe fund. And I put out the first request for proposals, RFP, to the faculty. Not every faculty member, I think Jim Ross helped us make a list. But, put that out and, nobody knew the lexicon. I mean, the word service learning was not known at Stanford. And if it was known, it was looked down upon as too squishy and touchy feely. So, I ended up writing a five-page RFP to the faculty where I never once labeled what it was we were looking for, but I described it and hopefully creating pictures in people's minds. And a couple of people came forward and requested funds. One of them was Al Camarillo, who became really key, I think, for the long term development of the Haas Center and chairing the Faculty Steering Committee. Al was in the history department. He'd been a professor of poverty in the United States. He grew up in Compton, Southern California, and was very dedicated to those issues. And at the same time--Megan will well remember this--we got increasing numbers of students wanting to work in homeless issues, and they were working in soup kitchens in Palo Alto, doing all kinds of things. And they started coming in to the office and saying, we're really passionate about the work we're doing, probably more passionate about it than anything else we're doing here. And we pick up the 300 page long Courses and Degrees catalog and there's not a single course that addresses these issues at a policy level, at a historical level and so forth. And so that timing of that was perfect with this fund from Don so that, you know, we let the faculty know there was the money and then we would coach the students. Well, maybe you want to go bang on some faculty doors and ask about this. And I said, why don't you try Camarillo? I didn't know at the time he was very involved with the homeless shelter in Menlo Park. And I just knew he was student friendly and his courses got good reviews. And anyway, a couple of those students did that. Al proposed a course, we funded it, on homelessness. And I haven't seen him now in a few years, but just a few years ago--he's well retired now--he told me he is still teaching that course and he never stopped. And he would make public statements about, teaching that course changed his whole approach to scholarship. And I could go on at length about this, but we were trying to create that kind of change behavior in faculty members who would then invite the students in to think critically about what they were seeing off campus and what they were experiencing and what kind of questions it stimulated in them that they wanted answers to, and that they could then address at a more, broader policy kind of level. And where could they do that?
00;18;17;00 - 00;18;52;30
Catherine
One day, Don and I were with the president of the Rockefeller Foundation, and he said, here's a million dollars. You could have a million dollars. All you have to do is require service at Stanford. And I remember thinking, okay, well, that's sort of interesting. I don't think it's necessarily a good idea. But what we did, and I think Tim was definitely involved in this, we decided--Don said, I'm going to give my Hoover house for a two day conference, and I'm going to have some of the best students there, student body leaders and others. And I'm going to have some of the best thinkers nationally, including some college presidents. And we're going to talk about--
00;18;53;00 - 00;18;59;00
Megan
Nobel Laureates. I mean, we had some of our--wasn't Ken Arrow there? I can't remember, but some very prominent faculty members.
00;19;00;00 - 00;19;32;00
Catherine
We had incredible people there. And we had an open discussion on should we have it required or how should we do it. And it was--we reached consensus by the end. And the consensus was, we're going to--at least for now, we're going to try to integrate it into the courses. And I think that was largely in part because of the work that had been laid. The groundwork had been laid by Tim, that we were able to do that. And I could still remember Smita Singh standing up and saying, that's the way we ought to go. And I was like, okay, that's the way we're going to go. So we turned away $1 million
00;19;32;30 - 00;20;00;00
Megan
And really, there's a through line to Cardinal Service today. Because I think the Haas Center has always thought about how do we help units around campus achieve their goals through the integration of service into the curriculum. And I distinctly remember John Gardner being very quiet at that meeting and at the very end saying, well, what if we just made it so it's very hard to avoid it at Stanford?
00;20;00;30 - 00;20;22;00
Tim
Yeah. The mantra became service across the curriculum. And the idea was instead of du jour requirement, you'd have a de facto situation where the students would run into this wherever they went. And wherever they went, they would be challenged to think about how they might do this.
00;20;23;00 - 00;20;23;00
Peggy
And you called it?
00;20;24;00 - 00;20;38;00
Tim
Well, we came to call it service learning. By then, service learning as a field in a movement was exploding across the country. So it had a lot more legitimacy by then.
00;20;39;00 - 00;22;24;00
Megan
You mentioned that one of the very first programs was the summer fellowships, which is now Cardinal Quarter, and incredible. But I'm struck as I think back on those early projects. So students would come in with an idea, work with staff to develop their idea, hopefully be partnering with someone in the world. But, you know, today I think about Chris Bischoff, who created East Side Prep that still exists all these years from now. And one of my all time favorite Stanford alums, Andy Frisch, who--with a summer fellowship, he wanted to create a camp for young people with various cognitive abilities. And he got a summer fellowship. Well, he's been running Kainos in Redwood City now for 35 years. And those are two of many, many people. I mean, you know this, Peggy, because you see this every day at the Haas Center through your alumni work. The people that got these experiences--and, you know, I touched on the environment, but this feeling that you could be in conversation with Isaac and Maddie Stein or Tom and Susan Ford or Peter and Helen Bing--these incredible, committed philanthropists to the university. But you could be in dialogue with them as a student was incredible. But you could also get this opportunity to develop your idea that would shape your life. And, you know, Andy and Chris are examples of that, but there are dozens of others.
00;22;25;00 - 00;22;32;00
Peggy
What did you hope that the center would grow into, and how does that contrast or is similar to where it is today?
00;22;32;30 - 00;22;49;00
Catherine
I wanted every student who came to Stanford to have the opportunity, regardless of what field they're in and regardless of how much money they have, to do some kind of service experience while they're here, and to be inspired that at some point in their life they have to do something to give back.
00;22;50;15 - 00;23;17;00
Tim
I would say ditto to all that. And then I would add that, to see the proliferation of service learning courses across the curriculum and, in the last years, the development of community-based research opportunities, or what I call partnership research opportunities, and many of the schools and departments, and that there's a staff member at the Haas Center who focuses on this and drives it, which is, to me, just fantastic.
00;23;18;16 - 00;23;46;25
Megan
I mean, I'm maybe speaking from my perspective now, but I think we also all wanted Stanford to be an institution that was valued by the world because we were developing people and contributing, and it was, you know, in a privileged situation to not do that. There was a little bit of an urgency towards building that as part of our institution.
00;23;47;01 - 00;24;32;00
Tim
Megan, I really agree with that. And I remember sitting around--I don't remember when this was--with staff talking about, as a vision, Stanford is known for being the catalyst for Silicon Valley and the engineering development industry here. And I said, what if Stanford also had a reputation for solving the social inequity problems of Silicon Valley? What would that look like? And, you know, that's huge. But maybe that's the vision we should be shooting for. And it's as important as athletics. Maybe more important. And we become known the way Stanford is known for its engineering.
00;24;33;01 - 00;24;58;00
Catherine
And I remember--and I think it was you, Megan, who went through all the early sort of founding documents and came up with a wonderful quote from Jane Stanford which talked about her vision for how it would impact the world. I don't remember the exact language, but I remember you found that, and that gave us sort of a foundation in which to really promote what we were doing.
00;24;59;00 - 00;25;13;00
Megan
Well, I think there's lots of amazing Jane Stanford quotes, but one that just occurred to me is she talked about germinating the soul. And, I think that's a really important piece of what the center was about.
00;25;14;00 - 00;25;16;00
Peggy
And being of greater service.
00;25;17;00 - 00;25;18;00
Megan
Oh, that's the other important one.
00;25;19;00 - 00;25;21;00
Catherine
That was the one I was thinking of.
00;25;25;00 - 00;25;33;00
Peggy
Tim, you have alluded to this, but I wanted you maybe to talk a little bit more about what was our relationship with the community and how has that evolved?
00;25;34;00 - 00;28;15;00
Tim
Going back to those very early years, in fact, the Ravenswood tutoring program is a wonderful example because Charlie May Knight, who Megan mentioned, came over to Owen House one afternoon and described the situation in her schools. And wasn't there something we could do to help out? And we, of course, were very interested. And at that time, Catherine and I were, we need a kind of model service program that would be staff supported. And so, we expressed interest. So she said, why don't you come over to my office and let's talk about this. So at the appointed time, I went over to East Palo Alto and I walked into her office and sat down in the foyer outside her office. And her assistant said, well she's busy, but she'll be with you shortly. Well, I sat there for 45 minutes and I knew exactly what was going on, having worked in the Bronx, in New York City. But, finally she came out and she was very friendly and welcomed me in. And she said, now, before we talk about this possible program, I have to get something off my chest. She said, if another one of your graduate students from your School of education or faculty member sets foot on one of my campuses, I will call the police and have them thrown off. Your people come over to our community, you research our problems, you go back to your campus, you do your publications, you get your promotions. And we're still stuck with the same old problems. So if you're want to have a different approach and help us improve the achievement of kids in our schools, I'm all for it. And we can work something together. And, it's very exciting to me. How many years down the road are we now that that program still goes. And, you talk to students who've been in it, as I did--I was at a wedding in Bangkok in January, and there were two Stanford alums there, both who talked my ears off about the impact of the Haas Center on them as undergraduates. And these two were 15, close to 20 years out. These are not young alums anymore. And they still remember that and they still point it out. And so, the impact--I don't think any of us really thought we'd have that kind of impact on people. But evidently it did. We did. And many people did. And, it's extraordinary.
00;28;16;00 - 00;28;31;00
Peggy
Timmy, your comment made me think about, because we often had our students and faculty going into the community and kind of taking, not giving so much, that we evolved to have the principles of ethical and effective service. And I was thinking maybe Megan could just touch on what those are.
00;28;32;00 - 00;29;08;07
Megan
Yeah. I mean, I think there's a through line to that original concept of enduring relationships and doing no harm. And actually that the service has to be meeting a need doesn't happen in isolation. And I know over 20 years that has developed into the principles of ethical and effective service and how the Haas Center today helps students think about preparation and humility and all of the other pieces that are core to the work.
00;29;08;10 - 00;29;17;00
Peggy
I want to take the last bit of time to think about sort of broader thoughts about service. Why should a university have a public service center?
00;29;18;00 - 00;29;19;00
Catherine
Essential.
00;29;19;30 - 00;29;20;00
Peggy
Why?
00;29;20;30 - 00;29;49;59
Catherine
Because part of the purpose of a university is to turn out people, citizens, who can understand the needs and the ways that we have to get involved to make our country and our communities better. And we have to find ways to inspire them. And to me the best way to be inspired is to do the service directly, have the experience. That is what does it for people.
00;29;50;00 - 00;31;15;00
Tim
Ditto to that. And now I'm reminded of sitting in Don's office. You'll remember this. And he was recounting--or you both were recounting--where the idea for the Public Service Center came from, and he sent you around the country to look at most of our Ivy League cousins on the other coast, and what they were doing was service. And one of the things that was learned from that research was that those institutions had long-term organizations that were the locations for service work at those universities but none of them belonged to the university. They were YMCAs or religious organizations. Cornell had one that I was very familiar with. And Don, I remember him saying so clearly, he said, we have to have a center that is part of the university, and the university is responsible for its budget and its responsible for fighting for its budget. And he said this is critical to the sustainability of the effort to have--because he said, I remember him saying this so clearly, your job is to change Stanford. It's also to get students involved in all these ways we've been talking about. But he said, my vision for this center is it will change the university, and it has.
00;31;16;00 - 00;31;40;00
Catherine
Yeah, yeah. And in fact, I would just add to that is that in the early days we had sort of an understanding that the way the budget would be done--I could still remember Ray McKetty saying this--a third would come from the university general funds, a third would come from endowment, and a third we'd raise every year, because that would keep us, on the cutting edge of doing new things.
00;31;41;20 - 00;32;24;00
Megan
I guess I just want to reflect at this moment we're in right now, in 2025, and why have a public service center, is what you asked? You know, our civil society is at risk. And I think it began in the '80s to consider how the best and the brightest would be leaders in our civil society. And we have to rededicate ourselves to that, because there has never been a more important time. And it didn't matter what career you chose, you know, what sector you worked in. It was the idea of developing the civic-minded alum who would go out and change the world. And we need that now more than ever.
00;32;25;00 - 00;32;38;00
Peggy
I heartily agree. And to follow on to that, Megan, what is our responsibility or what do we hope to do for our community, our neighbors, colleagues, students, the world? Big question.
00;32;39;00 - 00;33;28;200
Megan
Well, our current president, President Levin, talks about being curious. And I think that was an element in the beginning and is a wonderful element today, is be curious about the problems of the world, be curious about the needs of our region, our country, you know, other parts of the world. And consider the pioneering spirit of Stanford. You know, that this university is different from those East Coast peers who've been there a long time. This is still a relatively young place, and it's a place that reinvents itself all the time. And this is part of this of who we are and the fabric of who we want to be.
00;33;29;00 - 00;33;33;09
Peggy
Why is service learning an essential part of a student's academic experience?
00;33;34;04 - 00;35;20;59
Tim
Well, I hope I have answered that, but maybe another way of saying it is, many students--I hope not so many now, but certainly when I was an undergraduate--we had our academic lives and then we had our engagement lives. And for me, it was civil rights and anti-Vietnam War and ultimately draft resistance. And we used to sit around, and I lived with 4 or 5 other guys in a house in what's now called Barren Park off campus. And we would sit around in the evenings talking about our lives as students. And it became clear that for all of us, what we were doing in the streets was much more important to our education than what we were getting in the classroom. And there was just no connection. It felt schizophrenic. And I've talked to many people of my generation, and so many of us had those experiences. And so part of, you know, what my life has been dedicated to and I think is what makes this work so important is to integrate those things. And there's a reason to sit in the classroom and learn theory and research and what the experts have to say, even though that seems to be questioned now. But you need to understand, how is that acting out in the real world? And maybe the real world has something to say to us as academics, you might want to rethink that theory. So, it's that back and forth engagement that is so critical to me to this experience. And, it's an ongoing challenge. It's not like we've solved the problem. I think we're doing better.
00;35;21;00 - 00;36;01;00
Catherine
Yeah, I would agree with everything Tim said. And I would just throw in the perspective of thinking of Stanford in Washington, where the students there have the opportunity to work full time as an intern on an issue that they care about. At the same time, they're writing a paper and attending a class. And I think having talked to students who go through that, they think, oh, this has opened up--I have learned things that I would never have learned another way. And I think that's what part of reasons public service is so needed.
00;36;01;30 - 00;36;46;59
Megan
I guess I would just go back to where I started, with the people. And, you know, Tim and Catherine, it's been great to hear you talk today. You inspired my entire career. But it's wonderful to reflect on this work. But the people of the Haas Center are who has made this program. And when I just think about how you all have given decades of your life to this commitment to this possibility of what this center can be, and I hope all who work there now are inspired by this, because it it really is a place of heart, and a place where possibility unfolds.
00;36;47;19 - 00;38;19;07
Catherine
One of the early experiences I had was to look at what other universities had done, and this came out of a discussion that we had with several grad students--law students and others--who were trying to help us to create, how we wanted to create a program. And one of them said, oh, I was at Harvard. We did this. Another one said, I was at Brown. We did this. So Jim Lyons, who was the wonderful dean of students at that time, had the idea that, you know, it would be great for me to go back, but he wanted to have someone from the institution. It was his number two person, Margaret Ann Fiddler, to go with me. And then we had a student body leader to go, so that the three of us would have the perspective of, you know, what do we need? And I think the most important thing I learned out of that was a conversation with the late Peter Gomes, who was the dean of Harvard's, Memorial Church or whatever it was called. And he said to me, well, you're lucky. You can do it the right way. All you need is a million dollars, and you can build this into the university and make it part of the university and not what has happened here, which is it's separate. You've got to have it integrated. And I remember that so clearly as sort of like, that's what we have to do.
00;38;20;05 - 00;39;27;59
Megan
I have to say an aside, because Catherine always said, you know, there's Dwight Hall at Yale. There's Phillips Brooks House at Harvard. And when I met my husband, who's from Connecticut, one of the first things when I went to meet his family, it was like, you have to take me to Yale so I can see this Dwight Hall, because I was quite sure it was a cathedral on the hill, but it actually is just a hall. But we did use that to build the Haas Center for Public Service. And I also just want to add--one other piece I wanted to add is the importance of the Haas family that, you know, John Gardner introduced Peter Haas, who brought Mimi Haas and was involved. Well, Peter Haas was on the Board of Trustees. And Mimi Haas has been such a through line to what we have done, along with Bill Somerville, who you mentioned. So when we talk about enduring relationships, whether it's with our alumni, with our faculty, with the community, that is what has made the Haas Center possible.
00;39;28;05 - 00;41;12;00
Tim
I agree with all of that. And Mimi also was key to our advancing the faculty initiative because after we got a few things going, we decided we should do weekend institutes and really do intense kind of training with the very best students that we could bring along because they did the training, really. And she was willing to put up funds in addition to the endowment gift that enabled us to do that. And, mentioned Al Camarillo again, became the partner in crime in that effort, helping us think through how to run those things and who to invite. And I remember--the thing I remember best, maybe, of Al's many contributions in that planning was we were putting this three day program together. And al said, are you inviting people to bring their partners and spouses to this meeting? And I said, oh, no, I hadn't thought of that. You know, we want people to work hard. And he said, no, actually, what you want is for people to go back to their rooms in the evening and talk with somebody about what they heard during the day. And to reflect together on that. And he said, also, you need to give them an open afternoon for recreation with other people who were there just to have informal talking and not do everything formally. And that was, wow. I mean, that was so insightful and so important to the success of those meetings. But they wouldn't have happened without Mimi.
00;41;12;25 - 00;41;20;00
Peggy
I want to thank each of the three of you for all you've done for public service at Stanford and for sharing just a piece of that history with us today. Thank you.
00;41;21;00 - 00;41;23;00
Catherine
Thank you, Peggy.
00;41;29;19 - 00;41;49;16
Narrator
For our final portion of the episode, we're highlighting past and current Cardinal Careers postgraduate fellows for our hashtag Choose Public Service campaign, which features alums who have pursued a career in public service. Our Cardinal Careers Program Manager, Jessica Reynoso, will interview a past or current fellow about their career in public service.
00;41;50;00 - 00;42;14;00
Jessica Reynoso
Hi and welcome to this interview for hashtag Choose Public Service. I'm Jessica Reynoso and I'm joined by 2018 Community Impact Fellow Querida De La Stukes. The Community Impact Fellowship places graduating Stanford students into full-time jobs at partnering organizations. Thanks for joining us, Querida. Can you start off by sharing who you are, when you graduated Stanford, and what you're currently doing?
00;42;15;00 - 00;42;30;00
Querida De La Stukes
Yeah, for sure. So hi, I'm Querida. I graduated from Stanford in 2018 and I majored in history. And currently I'm a recent grad again. I just graduated from Columbia University with my master's of science in Social Work, focusing on social policy.
00;42;31;00 - 00;42;34;00
Jessica
What one moment or experience sparked your interest in public service?
00;42;35;00 - 00;43;51;00
Querida
I think that I've always been interested in public service. When I was in high school, I did the International Baccalaureate program, and that had a service component also associated with it. So I've always had some interest in it. And I think especially when I was graduating from Stanford and thinking about, oh, what do I want to do next? And especially thinking about work because you spend more time with your coworkers and working than you do at home, I was like, I want to do something that feels like it's meaningful. So seeing the Cardinal Careers teams' different fellowships seemed like a really great option to be able to do something meaningful. I ended up working at LifeMoves, which is a nonprofit focused on homelessness, and I grew up in Northern Virginia. Going into DC, you see a lot of people experiencing homelessness. So, it felt like it was a good fit because I wanted to contribute to seeing what are these folk stories like, how to support them. And through that experience, I learned a lot about how homelessness is very much caused by different, systems and failures of systems and also systems working the way that they're intended that leaves a lot of people out. So yeah, I think that that made me interested in public service and especially seeing all the different sorts of options of jobs that we can do was also a spark for that passion.
00;43;51;28 - 00;43;57;01
Jessica
Could you share a little bit more about the work that you did at LifeMoves through your Community Impact Fellowship?
00;43;58;00 - 00;45;57;01
Querida
Yes, for sure. So, as I mentioned, LifeMoves is focused on supporting people who are experiencing homelessness in the Bay Area. My position was technically called--I think it was like impact and learning specialist or something. But I was working with the different case managers teaching them how to use the system that LifeMoves has for case management, which is a Salesforce-based system. So it kind of combined my interest in being able to talk to people, show people how to use systems. And then I also developed a passion while I was doing my Community Impact Fellowship. And I think that was also a cool aspect of it, of being like, it was different than what I did for my undergrad major, but very much opened up a new field that I was interested in. So again, choose public service because you never know what doors will open for you. But I ended up learning a lot about and actually making a lot of reports to kind of show how programs are performing and to answer different questions that the different program directors had about how their sites were performing, how they could improve and make better outcomes for our program participants. And I didn't know at the time, but now, having recently completed my masters, I think that that also really sparked kind of my interest in larger systems, like more of a mezzo and macro level, which I think is also a different maybe lens of traditional public service. I think a lot of times when I would tell people like, oh, I want to do public service or even social work more recently, they think it's more like one-on-one, and it can be and I think that's great. But also having those higher levels of impact I think was something that I really found interesting, and that was a really big part of my fellowship that I didn't expect to be able to experience that was really great. I think especially that because I was a fellow, they know that I'm there to continue learning. And so I had a lot of different experiences that I actually just got to kind of see how nonprofits work. And I think that that was also really impactful and an opportunity I really appreciated.
00;45;58;00 - 00;46;03;13
Jessica
What advice do you have for Stanford students who hope to explore public service professionally?
00;46;04;10 - 00;47;13;00
Querida
Yeah, I think just being open to whatever. I think the path for public service is a little bit more self-directed. It's a little bit less like you--I remember going to the career fairs and being like, oh, there's not something that feels like it fits me. I think I had to kind of shape my journey a little bit more. But I think that that intentionality means that I've been able to start forming a career that really fits me and is really meaningful to me. I think also, if you want to explore public service professionally, go to the Cardinal Careers team at the Haas Center. They're so helpful. I used to work on that team. So shout out to them. I think that there's a lot of different ways that they can support in pursuing a public service job. And I think also just say yes to things, kind of jump in. Take those opportunities as they come to you. And yeah, I think just don't be scared. Be ready to do a bunch of different things. I think that's a big thing in public service. Being nonprofit trained is you wear a lot of different hats. But I think that that also means that it's easy to shift in between different jobs and find different issue areas and things that you care about, and just bring that passion for sure.
00;47;13;30 - 00;47;16;00
Jessica
Thank you so much for sharing about your public service journey, Querida.
00;47;16;30 - 00;47;17;30
Querida
Yeah, thank you for having me.
00;47;20;00 - 00;47;47;27
Narrator
Thank you for joining us for this episode exploring the origins of the Haas Center. In episode two, a student panel will be discussing what life is currently like as a Haas Center program participant. For more information about the Haas Center, please visit us at haas.stanford.edu.