April 2003

The Washington Policy Seminar is upon us, and Fellows from around the country are gathering in Washington, DC, for an intense encounter with policy issues and processes, interaction with key players in education and other policy fields on the federal scene, renewal of acquaintances, and expansion of their professional networks. Of course, there will be room as well for sight-seeing, shopping, entertainment, and cultural excursions.

Viewed from a more distant perch, one is aware of the WPS taking place within a larger context, one filled with tumult and routine, the novel and familiar, and comfort and uncertainty. Baseball is back, the NCAA finals are nigh, NBA and NHL playoffs are still ahead. Schools are entering the final stages of instruction before state assessments, Advanced Placement examinations, and end-of-year grades, not to mention struggling with next year's class schedules and book and supply orders. The Supreme Court is hearing oral argument, most recently on affirmative action in higher education with Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger. After months of diplomatic maneuvering and steady deployment of battle forces, there is war in Iraq.

But most of all there is spring! We welcome its soft warmth, pleasing fragrances, pastel blooms, and clear skies. Shed those heavy coats; let winter's clutch slip off. At its most enjoyably innocent, spring heralds all life's promise of birth and growth, of beauty and hope. It's the ideal subject for poetic idealization, right? Just think of Marcia Master's "April" in which she shouts, "It's lemonade, it's lemonade, it's April!" And Bai Juyi's evocation in "Spring Sleep" of spring beauty at start of day in a bedroom where the "pillow's low, the quilt is warm, the body smooth and peaceful."

But spring is more complex, more interesting, more like life than just lemonade and the break of day. In "A Prayer for Spring," Robert Frost reminds us not only to enjoy the moment but also to admire the deep sanctity of all existence. William Wordsworth, in "Daffodils," makes spring a thing of distant beauty fondly recalled when much of life's vigor is drained. And Edna St. Vincent Millay, knowing that winter finally must follow, rages in her "April" at the false promise of spring: "It is not enough that yearly, down this hill, April comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers."

It is the complexity of spring, as in all seasons, that inspires poets. And from that same complexity arise the greatest inspirations to leadership. In the complexity of human events, it's the leader who sees opportunity, makes it meaningful to others, and helps them act on it.

However one feels about war in Iraq, the circumstances surrounding this event have offered a powerful demonstration of the art of leadership, as the President and his chief aides have sought to give our policies clear purpose and to rally citizens to that cause. Other national figures abroad have waged their own leadership campaigns to bring a different meaning to these events and to persuade their people and their international peers of their views.

How have they done this? What does their behavior have to say to us?

One way to interpret such leadership is from a framework of three complementary perspectives that inform much of the work of the EPFP. The perspectives are transformational leadership, as originally framed by James MacGregor Burns, the use of power in political contexts to move a populace to a higher plane of public values; strategic leadership, the National Defense University's combination of vision and collaboration on a grand scale to achieve significant results in situations of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity; and adaptive leadership, based largely on a psychoanalytic perspective in the work of Ron Heifetz, in which the leader's challenge is to engage the people who are most directly concerned with complex public problems not only in solving the problems, but first in defining the problems.

IEL has been privileged to have worked with Dr. Marshall Sashkin at The George Washington University on transformational leadership. We have recently signed a Memorandum of Agreement with the Industrial College of the Armed Forces at the National Defense University to be able to provide their Executive Assessment and Development Program-a battery of nine instruments specifically designed for the development of strategic leadership-to EPFP™ fellows. And we are negotiating now with a highly-regarded national consulting firm to develop materials and training modules on adaptive leadership for EPFP.

These materials will give EPFP™ the tools-tools not available to any other program in our field-to assist Fellows in developing the range of transformational, strategic, and adaptive capacities needed for the complex public policy problems of today and tomorrow.

While IEL adds to the content of its leadership program base, we are also reaching out. We are working in new sites where local leaders and organizations appreciate the value that EPFP™ can bring to their communities and states. South Carolina, under a partnership led by the SC Education Oversight Committee, is the newest site to join the EPFP™ family. They will begin recruiting fellows this spring for an exciting new program to launch in the fall. IEL is also meeting with interested parties in several other states, and we will be bringing additional new sites on line in the coming months and years.

Finally, we will be working hard to revitalize our alumni network, soon to encompass more than 5500 program graduates. The Institute and EPFP™ are no longer young; we move into solid middle age next year with the celebration our 40th year! There is much from our past and a great deal in our future to celebrate, and we plan to include as many alumni and current fellows in the celebration as we can. We want to build on that festive momentum to add more and more far-reaching alumni activities at many of our EPFP™ sites. I hope many of you who read this message will be on the alert for our further messages about the 40th anniversary celebrations and for ways to continue to stay involved with EPFP™ and IEL.

Sincerely,

Hunter N. Moorman
Director, Education Policy Fellowship Program