THECITIZEN THE OFFICIAL STUDENT NEWSPAPER AT HARVARD KENNEDY SCHOOL VOL. 18 NO. 6 | DECEMBER 10, 2012 Loans restricted for international students By Saurabh Agarwal, MPA ’14, signer. Three years ago, the loan limit Correspondent was $10,000 per year which was later increased and is currently at $15,000 per We don’t often realize the effect that our year. individual actions can have on future Considering that the financial burden generations. It is said that “with great of being an international student at Students layer themselves in mud from the Dead Sea on a spring power comes great responsibility.” HKS amounts to $70,000 per year, the break trek in Israel. This year, treks are scheduled to go to Korea, Japan, Ireland, Palestine and Colombia, among other destinations. Studying at the Harvard Kennedy HUECU student loan is an important School (HKS) is one such power and support/aid for international students privilege. As students and future alumni who would otherwise be unable to of HKS, we owe responsible behav- afford an education at HKS. This is espe- Student-led treks create a buzz ior not only to society at large but also cially relevant during this period of eco- to future HKS students. A part of this nomic slowdown when all scholarships ent, with students already proposing By The Citizen Staff responsibility involves honoring our have dried up. 10 treks* that are scheduled to head commitments as alumni. The student body at Harvard Kennedy out in the spring-summer of 2013. An important commitment some of THE PROBLEM Based on a rough School believes in creating opportuni- In this article, we provide the cur- us make as students at HKS is that of estimate from the Student Financial Ser- ties for active engagement and knowl- rent logistical details of these treks repaying student loans from the Har- vices at HKS, around 16 percent of inter- edge sharing. Nowhere is this more as students chart out their summer vard University Employee Credit Union national students have defaulted on their evident than in the passion and zeal programs. (HUECU) after graduation. HKS has with which students plan and propose a tie-up with HUECU to issue loans treks every year. This year is no differ- Continued on page 4 Continued on page 2 to international students without a co- Occupy Wall Street: Reflections and the way ahead OPINION What Broadwell- Interview with Richard Parker movement. The unresolved question is whether it will return in a new moment Petraeus tells us By Balakrishnan Madhavan, MPA’14, as a durable movement. Member of Progressive Caucus I think that its utility was to elevate about HKS the issue of income and wealth distri- What follows is an interview with Rich- bution to the center of the debate about By Alexi White, MPP ’13 ard Parker, a lecturer in public policy and national politics. The way any move- Correspondent senior fellow at the Shorenstein Center. ment works, what happens when it gets A former economic advisor to Greek absorbed into the electoral process is it At HKS, prestige is the currency Prime Minister George Papandreou is reduced and, in many cases, actually Interview with that matters most. Fame can get Richard Parker. (2009-2011), Parker has worked as both sterilized. What we don’t know yet is you access to the inner circle, but a journalist and a philanthropist. His full what will result in terms of concrete pol- beware the fall from grace. It’s on biography can be found on the Harvard icies because, so far, nothing really has. about its strategy for addressing the ine- your way down that the knives Kennedy School Web site. The issue in part is because there are quality that it was pointing to. come out. a sufficient number of voters supporting In a sense it served one useful role, This is the principal lesson to be Q: A year since the “Occupy” move- Republican Congressional candidates which movements do, which is to draw learned from our school’s complex ment took hold, what has the influence such that there isn’t even the possibility public attention sufficiently to an issue history with Paula Broadwell, the been? of using tax rates as a way to redistrib- [such that] public and political elites I think right now Occupy looks to most ute highly-concentrated income. In fact, Continued on page 10 Continued on page 3 people like a moment rather than a Occupy itself was not intellectually clear STUDENTS GET A LET ME GUILT YOU INTO HAVING CHILDREN IN THE WINTER BREAK TO-DO’S IN TASTE OF HUNGER GOING TO CLASS US IS AN ACT OF HEROISM BOSTON AND CAMBRIDGE By The Citizen Staff By Brenda Ritson By Amélie de Montchalin By Anthony Barrows PAGE 2 PAGE 7 PAGE 9 PAGE 13 NEWS 1–6 | OPINIONS 7–11 | CULTURE 12–16 2 THECITIZEN | Monday, December 10, 2012 CITIZENNEWS Students get a taste of hunger By The Citizen Staff the high-income group had access to a full spread with vegetables and chicken. In a world where 2.5 billion people live The reality of the simulation was quite in poverty, conversation at the Harvard unnerving and made many uncomfort- Kennedy School (HKS) of Government able. on the issues of hunger and deprivation “I felt that the learning moments seems lacking. A recent simulation event were really the situations where people organized by the Student Public Service felt uncomfortable and then we came Collaborative (SPSC) as the culmination together to process it,” Beth Pollack, of a month-long food collection drive MPP ‘13 said. attempted to change this. SPSC’s annual Of course, with HKS students being Hunger Banquet was held on Tuesday their benevolent selves, there was con- Nov. 27, 2012. The event, which aims to siderable voluntary redistribution change the way participants think about amongst participants so that no one left hunger and poverty, was attended by the table hungry. more than two dozen students. Sadly, this is not true in the real world. The event was broken into two parts. Nearly 85 percent of the world’s popula- The first segment featured Carrie Clark, Students who drew a ‘poor’ ticket sat on the floor for a sparse dinner while those given ‘rich’ tickets had a full meal at a fancy dining table. tion does not share in the bounty of our who is the Manager of Corporate Rela- The Hunger Banquet, sponsored by SPSC, was intended to show inequalities worldwide. planet. But the common understanding tions at the Greater Boston Food Bank. that no one chooses the circumstances She spoke about food insecurity in the the low-income group which forms half larly women and children. into which they are born has at least Greater Boston Area. of the world’s population with a per But the simulation went a step further opened up the conversation among stu- The key point, she stressed, is that capita income of $986 per year. in replicating reality by having separate dents of public policy to do something hunger is not just about access to food, The participants were then read nar- food menus for each group. Participants about it. Pollack notes, “I am grate- but access to good quality nutritious ratives that characterized each of these in the low-income group had access only ful that there is a space in the Kennedy food. Even in the US, there is a substan- groups. Each narrative reinforced how to rice, with male participants having School to reflect on inequality and pov- tial proportion of the population, partic- inequitably the world’s resources are dis- the first claim; participants in the mid- erty in an interactive way.” ularly children, who do not have access tributed and how basic necessities like dle-income group were slightly better to nutritious and wholesome meals. It food are a privilege for many, particu- off with rice and beans; and the few in was encouraging to note that the Greater Boston Food Bank is doing meaningful work in improving access to good food for these families, primarily through in- HKS funding 1/5 of the School of Public Health kind and cash donations. The second segment of the evening Continued from page 1 ing students. This money could have featured the actual simulation based on been utilized by the administration student loan in the past few years. This the Oxfam America Hunger Banquet® to provide more loan/scholarship DID YOU KNOW? is a high percentage considering less model. opportunities to current students. than one percent of American students “At this interactive event, the place This is also the reason why the loan 16 percent of international default on their loans. Due to such that you sit, and consequently the food has been capped at $15,000 since the students at HKS default on their high default rates, the HKS admin- that you get to eat, are determined by a HKS administration cannot afford to istration is required to pay money education loans. luck of draw; a reflection of how some of take the risk of increasing this loan to HUECU on behalf of the default- us are born into relative prosperity and limit. A handful of other graduate others into poverty,” said Marvin Kang, schools at Harvard MPP ’14 and SPSC Co-Director. “Host- provide loans for stu- WHAT CAN WE DO? There are ing the Hunger Banquet during the “Share this article with HKS Alumni dents to cover the entire two main actions that we should Thanksgiving season enhances the sali- and ask them to share it with their cost of attendance.