Q What do you remember most about your first days as dean of the Maxwell School?

A I remember being sobered by the responsibility I had taken on. I remember being concerned that I needed to learn a lot in a hurry. I was aware from the start that I am and need to be the dean of the whole School and not just the public administration and public policy parts of the School. I remember being energized and excited about starting a new chapter of my professional life, which I have done periodically over the years. I remember being overwhelmed by the number of people that I needed to get to know in a big hurry!

Q How does it feel to take over for John Palmer, given the length and success of his term as dean?

A I take it as a real challenge to follow John. His tenure was long by University standards. During his 15 years on the job, he built a lot of long-term relationships and trust, which I have to re-establish for myself.

Unlike most leadership changes, in which the former leader has departed, John remains on the faculty [as a University professor]. I view this as a net plus. John has been extraordinarily generous to me with his time and advice. He has made this a very, very smooth transition. I view him as part of the braintrust I can draw on.

Q What were the first three months of being the dean like? Is it possible to accomplish anything beyond basic self-orientation?

A I’ve tried to set a specific tone and establish my own identity. I have tried to be approachable, accessible—to be someone who is engaged and intellectually curious about what is going on within the different parts of the Maxwell School (of which there are many).

Q Do you see your role as dean differing from that of your predecessor?

A Not only do I see it as different, but there is an expectation, evident early in the search process, that there would be a different role for whoever took this job. You have to also take into account that Robert McClure stepped down at the same time as John Palmer. As senior associate dean, Bob was handling, at John’s direction, a good portion of the external relations of the school.

The Dean’s Office will be organized differently on my watch. I will be the public face of the School. I feel it is one of my strengths. I believe I have good people skills and I enjoy interacting with people. But this will mean I cannot be as deeply immersed in some of the internal dimensions of the School. I will be relying on Associate Dean Mike Wasylenko and some reorganized staff arrangements to take up the slack.

Q Is external relations a particular need for the School at this time?

A We are probably only a year or so away from a major capital campaign for the University. Maxwell will be expected to carry its own weight. We’ll need to look for new resources, and we will need the help of alumni, donors, and other friends if we expect to increase the overall endowment, to create more endowed chairs, to provide flexible, unrestricted funds to serve faculty projects and meet student needs.

Q For a school that is already doing so well, how do you make the case for more fund raising?

A If you look at our endowment, compared with that of our major competitors—particularly Harvard’s Kennedy School and the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton—we have less by an order of magnitude. Our endowment is at roughly $60 million, Harvard at about $600 million, and Princeton somewhere in the same vicinity. If you unpack the budgets for the various pieces of Maxwell, you see how narrow the margin is for each of them. We struggle to be competitive on salaries; we occasionally lose people because we can’t match salary offers they may get elsewhere. We have to say no frequently to requests for additional research, because the funds are not there. The greatest revelation I have had since I arrived is appreciating how the School has managed to maintain its number-one ranking against schools that have so much more money.

Q How does the Maxwell School look different to you now than it did in 1972, when you were earning your M.P.A.?

A The obvious answer is that the physical appearance is dramatically different, due to the addition of Eggers Hall. I think Maxwell Hall was already showing its age, even back in the 1970s. Certainly today, the physical appearance is dramatically different. I would compare these facilities favorably with any school of public affairs that I have seen.

The School has broadened and deepened itself intellectually in so many ways. There was no international program to speak of when I was here, beyond the research interests of a few professors. And just the sheer number of research centers—there was not much of that kind of thing 30 years ago, except the Metropolitan Studies Program.

The faculty has grown enormously. I don’t know what the exact faculty size was back in the 1970s, but I doubt if it was much more than half of what it is today. 

Q The Maxwell School must also seem different when you are here as the dean, rather than a student. You’ve returned in a completely different role. What do you learn about the institution returning in that way?

A When you are here as a student—especially when you’re here for one intensive year—your nose is to the grindstone. You’re in a bubble, and you just move through that bubble. You come in July and exit the following June. I don’t think I took much advantage of—nor was I really exposed to—a lot of what was going here, in terms of faculty lectures or other activities. I was in that M.P.A. bubble and doing what I had to.

Since returning, I’ve been less involved in P.A. and  much more involved in other aspects of the School. I find very intriguing the work going on in the research apparatus of the School. I intend to get to as many lectures and visitor presentations as I can. I recognize my obligation to be the dean of the whole school, and this is what I find most appealing about the job.

Q Have you had a chance yet to meet with many alumni?

A I am making inroads. I have attended three major alumni events already—one in New York, one in Washington, and one here in Central New York. Plus, we had an alumni gathering at the International City Managers Association conference in Charlotte, North Carolina. These are very engaging events and people have been very supportive and very welcoming.

Q In these various contacts with alumni, what are you hearing? What are they telling you, either about the School or the job?

A Well, they are mostly wishing me luck! Different people keep tabs on the place to varying degrees. Those who follow things closely do not hesitate to provide me with their views about what needs to be done.

Everyone feels the School is moving. They’ve been impressed with the growth, the building, all that. I haven’t heard a single person say that the place is in bad shape or that it’s moving in the wrong direction.

Q Apart from their varying familiarity with day-to-day details, do they share a common sense of the place and its values?

A It’s easier to discern commonalities among alumni in the professional programs. People who have gone through Maxwell in public administration or international relations feel very strongly that we produce a particular product that’s unique. And they’re very much of the view we ought to continue.

A Maxwell graduate tends to be someone who has a set of applicable skills, knows how to analyze a problem, and then does something about it. Some of the public policy programs with which we compete encourage people to stay a step back—big picture level and theory, less practice. Maxwell has never been afraid of practice, and that’s the reason we are a pipeline for quality civil servants.

Q Do you have any kind of timeline yet? Do you know yet what the next few months or year or two hold?

A John Palmer gave me a good piece of advice when I arrived. He said the decisions he most regretted were the ones he made during the first six months he was on the job. I thought that made really good sense. So, except where necessary, I am trying to defer decisions until I feel I am really on top of the details. I do hope to articulate a long-term vision by the time of next spring’s Advisory Board meeting.

It’s clear that one of the reasons I was hired was my international experience. It seemed to be a desire of the search committee and University leadership that the internationalization of the School continue. But that will not be at the expense of the domestic programs. This is not a zero-sum game.

Q Now that you’ve been here a while, have you developed any feeling about what a dean can and cannot actually accomplish?

A Well, it’s often said that being a dean is very much like trying to herd cats. I continue to be impressed with the rugged individualism of the faculty. But I have to say that it’s all done in a good-spirited way. I haven’t encountered anyone who is being contrary just to be difficult.

I believe you have to lead. You have to have good ideas. You have to be able to convince people of the strength of your ideas. And you have to be able to show them that they will prosper; that, by following the lead I set, their resources will be expanded; that it will be a win-win.

My style of management is to listen a lot and be open to lots of input. I have made a point of going around to meet with people in their offices, rather than having them come to me. I’ve gotten to know the chairs and some of the senior people; I haven’t yet met all of the junior people, but they are my next target.

At each of these meetings, as you can imagine, there’s a big bull’s eye on my chest. I’m getting all sorts of advice, solicited and unsolicited. And that’s fine. I process all that information, and it helps me figure out where I have to put my emphasis. We can’t do everything—I keep saying that to people. But it’s true that we need to make hard decisions about where we spend our money. I can only make those decisions with good information.

Q Is there anything we haven’t discussed that you would want to highlight?

A I would reiterate the challenge of finding additional resources. I don’t think I appreciated it fully until I got here—that such a large majority of the graduates of this School go on to rewarding careers either in public service or academia. Thus, we do not produce large numbers of extremely wealthy alumni. We’ve been very fortunate to find others who are able to make up some of the difference. But that will continue to be a major challenge for us.

During my tenure I hope at least to double the School’s endowment. But to raise another $50-60 million from an alumni body that does not have “deep pockets” will be a very big challenge. We do pretty well in terms of participation—the percentage of our alumni who give—but we can still do better. If all of the alumni out there made even a small contribution, we could raise a lot of money very quickly. I think there are opportunities that we haven’t yet fully tapped.                                     

—Interview by Dana Cooke

• Dean Wallerstein webpage

This article appeared in the Fall 2003 print edition of Maxwell Perspective; © 2003 Maxwell School of Syracuse University. To request a copy, e-mail dlcooke@maxwell.syr.edu.