CAMBRIDGE, MA – Arthur C. Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and Beth and Ravenel Curry Scholar in Free Enterprise, will join Harvard Kennedy School in July 2019 as a professor of the practice of public leadership. He will jointly serve as a senior fellow at Harvard Business School.
At the Kennedy School, Brooks will teach courses on leadership and management, advise students, and develop initiatives to improve the work of public servants as an affiliate of the Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership. At the Business School, Brooks will teach courses and collaborate with other faculty members on various projects.
“Arthur Brooks is a very successful and highly regarded public leader, and he has also made significant contributions to professional and popular understanding of social entrepreneurship, philanthropy, and economic, political, and cultural developments. His commitment to public service and to excellence in public leadership make him a wonderful addition to the Harvard community, and we are delighted that students, faculty, and others across Harvard will have an opportunity to engage with him and learn from him,” said Harvard Kennedy School Dean Douglas Elmendorf.
Brooks announced in March that he would be stepping down as president of AEI in June of 2019, after a decade in that position. Before joining AEI, Brooks was the Louis A. Bantle Professor of Business and Government Policy at The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs and Martin J. Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University. Prior to his work in academia and public policy, he spent 12 years as a classical musician in the United States and Spain.
At Harvard, Brooks’ courses at both the Kennedy School and Business School will focus on developing leadership practices and policies that encourage entrepreneurship, enhance human happiness, and promote the well-being of those at all levels of society.
“The need for effective and aspirational leadership in government, nonprofit organizations, and businesses has never been greater,” Brooks said. “I’m very excited to return to academia and join the incredible community of students and faculty at Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School, and I am grateful for the opportunity to help prepare the next generation of leaders for the challenges they will face in both the public and private sectors.”
In his new role at the Kennedy School, Brooks will be affiliated with the Center for Public Leadership, where former U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs Wendy Sherman has recently been announced as the new director, succeeding David Gergen, and as a professor of the practice of public leadership.
“Arthur Brooks is an American original," Gergen said. "After touring Europe as a musician, he earned a PhD and an MPhil in policy analysis and taught at Syracuse University until the American Enterprise Institute recruited him as president. In his 10 years there, AEI has grown in size and reputation, becoming the largest and arguably the most respected conservative think tank in the country. Arthur has also developed his own, fresh voice on compassionate leadership, the importance of respectful dialogue, the role of the arts in human behavior, human flourishing, and more. It is wonderful that he will be joining the Kennedy School and our Center for Public Leadership.”
Brooks is a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times, the bestselling author of 11 books on topics ranging from economic opportunity and the morality of free enterprise to human happiness, and host of “The Arthur Brooks Show,” a podcast produced by the Vox Media Podcast Network. His latest book, Love Your Enemies, is due out in March of 2019. He has a PhD and an MPhil in policy analysis from the RAND Graduate School.
Brooks is the third new appointment in the leadership field that Dean Elmendorf has announced this week. In addition to the appointment of Wendy Sherman noted above, he also named Cornell Brooks, former president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), as a professor of the practice of public leadership and social justice. Cornell Brooks will also be affiliated with the Center for Public Leadership, where he will build a new program of collaboration to promote excellence in the practice of social justice. In stepping down from the directorship of the Center for Public Leadership, Gergen will remain on the faculty at the Kennedy School and an active member of the CPL community.
“In making these three appointments,” Dean Elmendorf said, “we are substantially strengthening our faculty so that we may further advance the development of a new generation of public leaders. We are thrilled that all three of these individuals are coming to Harvard Kennedy School and will work with people throughout the School and across Harvard University.”
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