CORRECTION APPENDED

Bill P. Purcell’s life has been defined by his dedication to the youth of America.

It was the focus of his political career in Tennessee, as a Democratic state representative and as mayor of Nashville. [SEE CORRECTION BELOW]

It was the center of his law school extracurricular involvement and legal career, often focusing on cases involving children.

It was how he found his wife, whom he met when he was providing legal assistance to a children’s group home that she ran.

And for the past two months, Purcell has spent his days surrounded by over 6,500 Harvard College students in his latest role as director of the Institute of Politics.

After former IOP Director Jeanne Shaheen stepped down in 2007 to begin her successful campaign for one of New Hampshire’s U.S. Senate seats, the Institute tapped Purcell as her replacement following a year-long search.

Purcell currently lives in Kirkland House—he calls it a “civic-minded House”—and he compares his current position surrounded by young minds to his previous role interacting with his many political constituents.

“At the end of the day, politics is all about people,” he says. “If you believe people are important, you believe politics is important.”

Sitting at a conference table, Purcell reclines in his chair and recounts how a life committed to children and public service has led him to head the IOP.

HEADING SOUTH

William P. Purcell III was raised in Wallingford, Pa., a suburb of Philadelphia. His mother, a native of Louisiana, moved to Philadelphia after getting a job as a speech teacher and women’s debate team coach at Temple University. His father, who was also raised in Wallingford, was a food broker who sold everything from tuna fish to frozen waffles to dog food.

As a young man, Purcell attended public school and played soccer and the trombone. While he knew that neither of these would turn into a career, he was unsure of what he wanted to do in life.

“I would say with a fair amount of certainty that none of the jobs I have had did I foresee, which I think is good news for me and maybe for anyone who is presently in high school and college and doesn’t know what they want to be,” Purcell says.

Purcell studied government at Hamilton College and then moved to his what would become his home state to pursue a law degree at Vanderbilt University.
“At the end of my time at Hamilton, I realized I’d been really cold for many years, and went south,” Purcell says with a chuckle.

He says he hoped a law degree would prepare him for a life of public service, but he found that law schools at that time were more focused on preparing students for jobs at large law firms.

Purcell finally found his niche in the Legal Aid Society, which supports traditionally underrepresented groups in the Nashville area. When he joined the organization, he found that the most help was needed in the program that assisted children in reform schools.

“These were young people that had no one,” says Purcell as he leans on his desk and places his chin on his crossed arms. “If we didn’t help them, there was no one else to help them.”

His involvement with the program instilled in Purcell a lifelong dedication to children’s issues, a passion that would continue throughout his political career.

“I found in that work the most satisfaction and the most meaning within my profession,” Purcell says.

A POLITICAL CRUSADE

After spending time in legal services and as a public defender, Purcell was pressured by his neighbors to run for the Tennessee legislature. But to call Purcell an outsider was an understatement: he’d never even been to the capitol building.

“I don’t know if they thought somehow it would give me an advantage or if I would be more willing to run if I hadn’t seen the capitol,” Purcell says.

Nevertheless, Purcell jumped into what proved to be a difficult race for the House of Representatives, since he lacked support from any major Nashville groups. The race even took a physical toll on Purcell—his weight dropped to 135 pounds by Election Day. But Purcell says he enjoyed campaigning because he had the opportunity to meet fellow Nashville residents and see the optimism they had for change.

Despite his difficulties, Purcell won the election and joined the legislature in 1986. During the five terms Purcell spent at the state capital, he continued to focus on children’s issues and was elected chairman of the Select Committee on Children and Health.

In 1990, with the Tennessee Democratic Party mired in scandal—the secretary of state had committed suicide and the previous majority leader had been elected while serving a prison sentence—Purcell barely won the position of House majority leader.

After implementing reforms for 10 years, Purcell says he felt that he had done all he wanted to do with the state government and decided not to run for a sixth term.

According to Purcell, his time in local politics convinced him that the most change could be effected at the local level, especially on children’s issues.

After spending two years as the director of Vanderbilt’s Institute of Public Policy Studies, Purcell says he decided to run for mayor of Nashville as a “conclusion” to the crusade he had begun years before in Vanderbilt’s Legal Aid Society to improve the lives of children.

“In the ’80s if you asked me if I would have ran for mayor I would have said, and did tell people, ‘No,’” Purcell says, leaning on the table as he had done earlier while discussing the beginning of his interest in child welfare.

In 1998, Purcell was elected Nashville’s mayor—a job he says was “very satisfying.” When he ran for a second term in 2003, voters overwhelmingly showed their support for their northern mayor—he was reelected with nearly 85 percent of the vote.

While Purcell worked to increase school funding, improve the Nashville economy, and provide more affordable housing during his two terms as mayor, his friends joked that he ran for less noble reasons.

As a proud owner of a 1931 Chevy fire truck that has been in his family since the 1950s, Purcell would have had access to the entire fleet of fire trucks in Nashville.

“That’s why some people thought I wanted to be mayor; so I could have more fire trucks,” says Purcell, who first learned how to drive behind the wheel of the fire truck.

Purcell, always one to recognize when he has made his mark, says he “became convinced eight years was the right number of years” and decided not to seek reelection for a third term.

THE AMBASSADOR

Purcell moved back north to serve as an IOP fellow in the fall of 2007.

Purcell led a study group examining 21st-century American cities and what it takes to make them successful.

“You spend a large part of your life doing certain work, but there is something incredibly rewarding to get to talk about it with such a really unique group of students,” Purcell says about his time leading undergraduate discussions.

According to Seth Packrone ’10, one of Purcell’s student liaisons then, Purcell was always down-to-earth during the study groups.

“The amazing thing about Bill was that he was the same in front of a group of people as he was in private,” wrote Packrone, who is currently studying abroad, in an e-mailed statement. “He was always the funniest, wittiest person in the room and the most thoughtful in his comments.”

Never leaving behind his passion for children and government, Purcell guest-taught Packrone’s PBHA- and IOP-sponsored CIVICS class on U.S. Government for junior high students in Allston.

“The children were captivated, and he was a natural,” Packrone said. “At then end of the year, the one lesson the kids really remembered was the one about executives. They also remembered that Bill Purcell, the former mayor of Nashville, had taught the class.”

At the end of the semester, Purcell left Cambridge to return to Nashville, but his time outside the Harvard bubble did not last long.

Following Shaheen’s resignation, former Iowa Representative Jim Leach served as interim director while the IOP searched for a permanent successor.

After in-depth interviews with IOP students, the IOP advisory board, and the Kennedy School, Purcell was selected as the IOP’s new director.

“From the time I first heard that Bill was being considered for the director spot, I knew he would be perfect,” Packrone said. “He is a great ambassador for Harvard, and the IOP is lucky to have him.”

Elizabeth Tang ’11, also one of Purcell’s liaisons last fall, added, “He’s so dedicated to education. It makes so much sense for him to be the director of the IOP.”

Purcell took office on Sept. 1, and says he has spent his first few months establishing relationships with faculty and becoming acclimated to the new position.

However, Purcell says his focus will soon shift back to the students.

As director, he says he plans on expanding career counseling services, internship programs, and international opportunities.

“The basic organizational feature of this Institute remains our central commitment to work with the undergraduates at Harvard College to provide them the opportunity to understand public service and political life as well, or better, as anyone else in the world,” Purcell says.

—Staff writer Lauren D. Kiel can be reached lkiel@fas.harvard.edu.

CORRECTION

The Nov. 7 story, "For Purcell, a Career of Focusing on Youth," stated that IOP Director Bill P. Purcell was a state senator in Tennessee. In fact, he was a state representative.