The Faculties

Yet KSG junior faculty counter that FAS’s ivory tower traditionalism prevents its students and faculty from appreciating either the quality or the rigor of the interdisciplinary work done on JFK Street.

“Folks that are not particularly interested in policy issues or in applying their theoretical work to the real world don’t really understand the kinds of questions we ask and the kinds of methods that we use,” says Assistant Professor of Public Policy Sangeev Khagram.

“It’s a problem of just not understanding what the endeavor is about. You’d say, ‘I’m studying this,’ and they’d say, ‘I don’t really understand.’ There’s a difficulty of communicating what you’re trying to accomplish with people in FAS,” he adds.

KSG faculty say they are held to the same intellectual standards as their peers in FAS.

“We are evaluated on our academic performance in academic journals,” says Assistant Professor of Public Policy Susan C. Eaton. “The Kennedy School makes that very clear to us.”

But Khagram explains that academics’ failure to recognize the quality of KSG faculty’s work—at Harvard and elsewhere—puts KSG professors at a disadvantage in the world of academia.

“[KSG’s interdisciplinary research] goes contrary to the incentive structure in Arts and Sciences, where everything you do from the time you’re hired as a junior faculty member is becoming an expert in some field within that discipline,” he says.

“That’s how you get promoted, how you understand yourself. I could be doing incredibly rigorous work, but it would be interdisciplinary and policy-oriented, so I would not be seen as strong a candidate.”

“We try to be rigorous, but interdisciplinary and practice-oriented. At the Kennedy School, I can publish in journals that can have a real effect on the world,” Khagram adds.

But it is precisely the prevalence of KSG faculty in the media that, some professors say, causes FAS scholars to snip at their counterparts on JFK Street. KSG publishes a 54-page guide with biographies of its experts and their interests specifically for the media.

“The Kennedy School is extremely good about getting into the papers,” Bates says. “If someone gets an op-ed, great, but it’s not a substitute for writing for your colleagues or peers. The attraction of the press to the Kennedy School for sound-bites can grate.”

Cross-Registering Ruffles

The prevalence of these views has created a perception that the government department discourages its students from taking KSG courses, according to Diaz-Rosillo, the head teaching fellow for KSG Professor Roger B. Porter’s cross-listed course on the American presidency.

“It might seem that government is opposed to [its students] taking Kennedy School classes because...they ask a lot of questions before they allow you to cross-register,” Diaz-Rosillo says. “But there are good reasons why. They want to make sure you’re not just taking a Kennedy School course because it sounds cool.”