Under new leadership, Fels Center finds direction

Nearly three years ago, following the hasty resignation of its director and amidst growing calls for its abolition, the future looked bleak for Penn's Fels Center of Government. Recruitment efforts were failing and, up until this summer, students and faculty alike wondered what role the institution would assume at the University. But as classes began this semester, a few changes were in store for Fels -- including the recent hiring of its new director, Sociology Professor Lawrence Sherman, and a switch in the center's affiliation from the provost's office to the School of Arts and Sciences, which administrators are touting as causes of major improvement. "We want to become the most important sector of domestic issue leadership in the world," Sherman said. "We hope to make this school as valuable to public leadership as the Wharton School is to private leadership." Fels, one of the oldest public management programs in the nation, was founded in 1937 and grants a master's degree in Government Administration. Throughout its history, Fels' administrative affiliation has gone through many changes -- including stints with the Wharton School, the Graduate School of Fine Arts and, until this past June, the Office of the Provost. The school, which has existed in relative obscurity compared to its Ivy League counterparts such as the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School, also suffered significant blows when several key faculty members left its ranks and officials struggled to attract professors from other Penn schools to teach its students. In late 1996, following the resignation of then-director James Spady, an external review board of government school officials from Harvard, Yale and Princeton universities recommended that despite the mounting challenges, Penn should continue the program. Interim Director John Mulhern took the reins thereafter and became responsible for steering Fels in a new direction. Under his leadership, Fels redeveloped several aspects of its curriculum and made the administrative switch from GSFA to the provost's office, an affiliation considered by many more appropriate for a school of government. But officials are saying now that the most positive change has come along since Sherman's arrival at the Fels mansion at 3814 Walnut Street. "We were very enthusiastic about hiring Larry Sherman," University President Judith Rodin said. "We're extremely supportive of his vision and we're going to take a very significant leap in teaching for service or government." Sherman, who assumed his post this past summer, most recently served as chairperson of the Criminology and Criminal Justice Department at the University of Maryland. He says that Fels' new direction -- which focuses on research-based studies rather than the typical history- or tradition-based learning -- is nothing more than a return to its roots. "We're basically just employing Sam Fels' vision: combining research with teaching [and] putting policy into practice," said Sherman, who also serves as an advisor to Philadelphia Police Commissioner John Timoney. Since Sherman took control, the Fels program has placed a focus on new and stronger research initiatives, stronger recruitment efforts -- highlighted by a new submatriculation option offered to Penn undergraduates -- and increased interdisciplinary work. With this vision in place, Fels has focused on attracting students looking toward public service, highlighting Fels' specialty in practical training not normally taught in law schools or at most larger schools of government.