Corbin said he was ready for this high level of commitment and eager to work with students to tackle the challenges ahead.

“I already find myself being stirred up by their dedication to making a difference in the world,” he said. “I like to be part of things that really get under my skin and make me want to give a much of myself as possible to them.”

In addition to helping fundraising efforts and promoting PBHA within the University, Corbin said he hopes to bridge the gap between the organization’s service and advocacy roles.

“PBHA students are thinking hard about ways to add more advocacy and organizing efforts to their service projects to promote structural change,” he said.

His work organizing the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) in Austin, Texas from 1998 to 2000 shows he understands the important relationship between service and advocating structural changes within communities, Fonseca-Sabune said.

“I think he is going to work really well with students,” said Emily P. Schmitt ’04, the organization’s advocacy programming group officer. “His background as an organizer is a unique thing that he brings to PBHA.”

Teaching Service

In 2001, Corbin left Texas to pursue a master’s in public administration from the Kennedy School.

Since arriving at Harvard, he has worked with students as a teaching fellow in Government 20, “Introduction to Comparative Politics” and other College government courses, receiving the Derek Bok Award for Teaching Excellence. This semester, he is the head TF for Noam Chomsky’s “Politics, Justice, and Social Change,” a course offered jointly between the Kennedy School and MIT.

Though he will likely leave the classroom when he becomes PBHA’s executive director, Corbin said he hopes to connect the service of PBHA to course work.

“Across the nation, people are recognizing that service experiences add real depth to classroom learning,” he said.

PBHA provides the perfect combination of being in an academic environment and working to help the world, he said, adding that he hopes to help Harvard acknowledge and then address this phenomenon.

According to former PBHA vice president Timothy R. Schneider, addressing and defining PBHA’s relationship to the University will be one of the biggest challenges Corbin will have to tackle.

A Long Search

Applicants for the executive director post came from all across Massachusetts and as far away as California—including employees at other Ivy League schools and PBHA’s own alums—Fonseca-Sabune said.