Douglas W. Elmendorf, A.M. ’85, Ph.D. ’89, introduced on Thursday that he’ll step down as dean of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy College of Authorities on the finish of the 2023-24 tutorial yr. Elmendorf, a distinguished economist and public servant, will stay on the College’s school and have interaction in instructing and analysis.

“Being dean of Harvard Kennedy College has been much more enlightening, difficult, and rewarding than I imagined after I accepted the place in June 2015,” he wrote in a message to the Kennedy College neighborhood. “However I made a decision in the course of the summer time that it’s going to quickly be time for the following chapter for the Kennedy College and for me. I plan to step down as dean in June 2024, after which I sit up for enjoying a special position right here — that of a college member — and to having way more time to study and train about financial coverage.”

In a message to the Kennedy College neighborhood, Harvard President Claudine Homosexual famous Elmendorf’s “boundless grace, good humor, and an unwavering dedication to rigorous scholarship for the betterment of society.”

“Drawing on his personal spectacular report of public service,” she wrote, “he has been a champion for principled, efficient public coverage and management within the face of appreciable challenges to these beliefs. Below his steering, HKS has expanded its engagement throughout Harvard and past, serving to researchers and practitioners translate data into coverage and impression.”

Homosexual mentioned she and Provost Alan M. Garber will share data within the weeks forward in regards to the seek for Elmendorf’s successor.

Within the eight years since he was appointed dean, Elmendorf has labored with colleagues to develop and pursue priorities which have remodeled the Kennedy College’s campus and strengthened its efforts to enhance public coverage and management by instructing, analysis, and follow. He has reaffirmed the College’s dedication to principled and efficient public management at a time when elevated inequality, threats to democracy, conflicts between and inside nations, the COVID pandemic, and different forces have heightened international challenges.

“Doug has labored tirelessly to make sure that HKS shall be a drive for simpler public management and public coverage within the U.S. and overseas,” mentioned Garber. “The mission of HKS typically situates it in the course of a few of the most contentious points going through society right now, and Doug has not shied away from this problem. On the identical time, he has labored to increase the educational excellence of HKS, by the disruptions of the pandemic and its aftermath. The College will proceed to profit from the inspiration he has laid for years to come back.”

Elmendorf and his colleagues have renewed the Kennedy College’s school, recruiting high students and practitioners targeted on social coverage, democracy, race and public coverage, public administration and management, know-how and governance, worldwide relations, financial development and improvement, and civil society. Throughout his tenure, roughly 40 new school members have joined HKS, together with recipients of quite a few tutorial awards and former authorities leaders. Working along with the college and workers, Elmendorf has introduced extra emphasis on skilled competencies to the curriculum and expanded field-based studying alternatives for college students.

David Deming, tutorial dean of the Kennedy College and Isabelle and Scott Black Professor of Political Economic system, mentioned, “Doug’s clever stewardship of the College throughout a world pandemic and his extraordinary efforts to construct our school have put the College in a a lot stronger place than earlier than he started as dean. It has been a privilege to work with Doug, and our neighborhood is grateful for his dedication and management.”

Pupil monetary help has been a high precedence throughout Elmendorf’s time as dean, and a cornerstone of the College’s conversations with alumni and supporters. Over the previous 5 years, unrestricted funds going to monetary help have elevated by roughly 50 p.c. The Kennedy College is now launching an bold initiative to considerably broaden monetary help by the point the College celebrates its ninetieth anniversary in 2026.

Elmendorf, who obtained his doctoral and grasp’s levels in economics at Harvard, returned in 2015 to function Kennedy College dean after finishing his time period as director of the U.S. Congressional Price range Workplace. Elmendorf was appointed CBO director by each Democratic and Republican leaders of Congress, and he led the workplace for six years. Throughout that point, the CBO supplied rigorous and goal evaluation of price range and financial points, together with well being care coverage, macroeconomic stabilization, immigration, local weather coverage, and authorities deficits and debt. Along with his management of the CBO, Elmendorf served in a lot of senior posts on the Federal Reserve Board, the President’s Council of Financial Advisors, and the Division of the Treasury earlier than being appointed dean of HKS by then-Harvard President Drew Faust. His in depth expertise within the U.S. authorities knowledgeable his perspective on the talents and data that may serve college students properly after they graduate and go on to pursue lives of public goal. Earlier than transferring to Washington, Elmendorf taught Harvard Faculty college students as an assistant professor of economics.

Throughout Elmendorf’s tenure, the Kennedy College strengthened its dedication to public administration, increasing its analysis and follow footprint on this enviornment in addition to its instructing. For instance, with a $150 million present from Bloomberg Philanthropies in 2021, the College launched the Bloomberg Middle for Cities, which brings collectively experience targeted on cities throughout disciplines to coach leaders from world wide and produce related and well timed analysis. The middle is a College-wide collaboration led and housed at HKS. Earlier this yr, the Kennedy College obtained greater than $15 million to fund an enlargement of the Undertaking on Indigenous Governance and Growth, which goals to know and foster the situations underneath which self-determined social and financial improvement is achieved by Native communities and nations. As well as, the College has recruited extra school members with experience in administration of presidency companies and civil society organizations, and it has established new programs that draw on that experience.

Below Elmendorf’s management, the College developed and applied a complete technique to foster a extra various and inclusive neighborhood. In 2016, he charged a committee of school, workers, and college students to ship suggestions to enhance variety and inclusion at HKS, and in 2018, Elmendorf established the College’s first Workplace of Range, Inclusion & Belonging, appointing a brand new affiliate dean to his management staff. HKS’s variety, fairness, and anti-racism work has focused 5 motion areas: tradition and coaching, neighborhood, instructing, analysis, and outreach. The College neighborhood has devoted appreciable consideration to all of those areas, together with including roughly 10 school members whose instructing and analysis handle race and public coverage.

All through a time of worldwide tumult, Elmendorf affirmed the Kennedy College’s necessary position in tackling and creating options to public challenges, urging college students, school, workers, and alumni to make use of their skills and vitality to advance the widespread good. In a current report on the College’s progress on substantive matters, together with peace and safety, prosperity, fairness, democracy, sustainability, and public administration and management, he additionally reminded the neighborhood of the challenges and alternatives forward. “By combining cutting-edge analysis, the instructing of excellent college students, and direct interplay with practitioners, we have an effect on fixing public issues that no different establishment can match,” he mentioned.

Elmendorf is trying ahead to remaining an energetic member of the Kennedy College neighborhood after stepping down from the deanship. He mentioned, “The laborious and expert work of Harvard Kennedy College’s school, workers, college students, alumni, and associates are serving to individuals throughout this nation and world wide to profit from extra evidence-based public insurance policies, higher administration of public establishments, and extra principled and efficient public management … I’m excited to see what our neighborhood will do sooner or later.”