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Tarek Masoud | Otter.ai

Tarek Masoud

Tanya Vidhun25min

Speaker 1

00:00

That. So, I guess, and you've brought this up before, but like, what is your like? How did what's your view of like the What's your impression of the Dean so far as like at the school and impacting pain the first nine months, I will

Speaker 2

00:17

say I have never been more impressed by a human being in my life,

Unknown Speaker

00:20

you're having your own children. Yeah, I

Speaker 2

00:22

am, like, sort of surprised by how impressed I am by this guy. So he kind of maximizes in all these different dimensions. He's a great scholar, like objectively, his scholarship is first rate, and it's very diverse. So I've seen him talk. He can talk to me about things I'm working on, and talk to people who work on things very different from that what I'm working on, and have a very high level conversation with them about their research. So just in terms of quality of mind off the charts. And then there's the dimension of just leadership ability, and I've just found him again. I don't know him that well, but I've just found him to be just a very good listener, a good communicator, and somebody who's very good at creating a sense of community among the faculty. So he's got a good sense of humor. It's clear that he has a high degree of regard for the faculty, as opposed to other deans and other institutions that typically tend to or often tend to see faculty as irritants. That's not where he is at all. And then on another dimension, just as a human being, really, very kind and caring human being almost has a pastoral element to him, you know, I've seen him in, you know, meetings where he'll ask people how their day was or how their weekend was, and he really wants to know. So I'm completely impressed, almost like annoyed, by how complete a human being he is into, you know, and, you know, because, like, I always compare myself to people like, wow, that's, you know, Is he really that much better than me? But I do think it's, it's, it's a great thing for the Kennedy School to have a leader like him at this moment in time, because more seriously, we're facing some really difficult challenges, as you alluded to, with respect to what is the place of a School of Government in an America that believes that government needs to be drowned in a bathtub. And I think he comes to this moment with great wisdom. He's careful in his decision making. He hasn't, you'll notice he hasn't, you know, kind of tried to wade into controversial waters, public statements, and this is something that's very focused on the institution, and how do we strengthen the institution, and how do we show up for our our students and alumni at this time? So I think a lot of us on the faculty are feeling pretty grateful that we have him as a leader right here. I mean, it's a tough test for any new leader to be thrown into the deanship of a school like ours at this particular moment in history, but I believe he's going to pass this test and we're going to come out of this, okay, if not stronger.

Speaker 1

03:37

How do you think he's trying to balance the, you know, the act of, like taking a stand against, you know, the Kennedy School stands for, like, liberal democratic governance, yes. How do you say that without being feeling like you're taking a stand against the Trump administration?

Speaker 2

03:55

You should read his recent statement where I thought he really did an excellent job of re articulating the Kennedy school's values and its commitments without making it political. You know, the fact of the matter is that, you know, look the degree to which the current administration is inhospitable or in opposition to democracy is something that people can debate, okay, right? And so I think it would behoove any institutional leader not to wade into debates that are seen as partisan. But it is also important at this moment to remind everybody what we stand for, and you know, and so I just find that he's been able to do that in a way that doesn't get, that doesn't get read as a salvo in a partisan battle. So you should take, you should take a look at that statement, because it's just very well crafted. It's, you know, it was, I was impressed by how he managed to both declare what we're about without making it, without wading into the dirty river of politics.

Unknown Speaker

05:17

Maybe a model for how Harvard can do it at large.

Speaker 2

05:19

Maybe, I mean, I'll tell you, one of my concerns is that, you know, we're going to be looking for a president, you know, imminently, and then, you know, he'll get sucked up into that instead of serving as the Kennedy school's Dean for the decade that we needed to.

Unknown Speaker

05:34

It's too good for you.

Unknown Speaker

05:37

Not hard to be too good for me. But yeah,

Speaker 3

05:45

well, I guess something we've heard is he's been traveling a lot between like California, where he's from here. Have you heard anything about that? I mean,

Speaker 2

05:53

I know he's been doing a lot of travel. I mean, his family is still in California, so there he had a life there, 25 years out there. So it's, it's, I think his son is still finishing high school, but then once that happens, his his wife will be able to move over here. So I know that he's been going back and forth, which, like, look, honestly, it's not in my nature to be laudatory of anybody. Usually I try to, like, smash idols, not build them up. But like this guy, I just haven't seen anything that makes me anything other than impressed and appreciative of him. So this is a guy who is working constantly. I mean, if I send him an email at 1am I get a response at 115 and, you know, and then, and knowing that he's doing that while also traveling back every weekend, or most weekends, to be back with his family. I mean, the the load that that must involve is is fairly intense. And by the way, that's not the only travel he's doing, right? That's in London. He's in London for the Dean's Council. I traveled with him in the Middle East for almost two weeks. He was in Silicon Valley, which I guess is, you know, not as onerous as traveling through the Middle East, but he traveled to Asia with rahna Minner. So he's really been keeping up a very high tempo of activity, connecting with all of our alumni supporters of the school, thinking about like how we're going to position the Kennedy School, both to deal with this moment, which is definitely a moment of crisis, but also to position us to be able to be relevant in the Future, in a future in which you know, the very nature of work is going to be changed by artificial intelligence, other highly disruptive technologies. And so he's, he's somebody who's trying to deal with a very tumultuous present while steering, helping us steer a course into an uncertain future. Very tough job, but he's, he's the

Speaker 3

08:01

guy that do it. We also heard, I think today, I don't know if he has released it yet, but like a task force, like, was our

Speaker 1

08:09

No, no, he's doing the, like, the RFP, like, asking for proposals from faculty. Yeah, just

Speaker 2

08:15

saw that, yes, yeah. But again, like, speaks to his initiative. And you know, he's constantly thinking about new ways to get faculty engaged, but also that get faculty to have impact outside the walls of the university. But I don't know the details of this. I know they're $20,000 grants, but I can't remember what they're exactly for. Are they for initiatives at the school, or are they for initiatives outside? Because they know he's been involved in two things that the Harvard impact labs and this, and so, yeah, forgive me if I don't have the details on this,

Speaker 1

08:49

yeah. I mean, I think what, from what we know about it, is, like, it is something that is, like, very specifically tailored to the present moment, which just shows, like, the idea that, like the Kennedy School can both respond to and be actively engaging with that, without making it like a political like, you know, like, yeah. Like, these are questions that the Kennedy School should be dealing with, yes, actively responding, yeah. I

Speaker 2

09:11

should. I need to re familiarize myself with that, because I saw it and I was like, oh, I should apply for one of these, but I can't remember the details of it. Yeah, but you know, it's, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a tough time, and what you want is

Unknown Speaker

09:32

leadership that is

Unknown Speaker

09:36

smart,

Speaker 2

09:38

wise and temperate, you know, like, one of the things that I really admire about him is he doesn't he's not easily rattled. He doesn't get, like, excited or work himself up into a state of high Dudgeon or get frazzled by things that the world is throwing at him on the contract you're like this. This guy is cool as a cucumber, and he's still liking his job. He's got a smile on his face, yeah, which I, you know, I don't think a lot of other people in higher education leadership, I don't think that can be said of a lot of other people in higher education leadership

Speaker 1

10:15

right now, he must be like, he must be stressed. He must be rattled, right? Like stressed. I mean,

Speaker 2

10:20

I certainly don't see it. I certainly don't see it. I see somebody who is very focused, who is working intensely, who recognizes the gravity of the moment, but still loves the job, like if you ask him, I wish you could have an interview with him. I asked him, I said, he said, I love this job. You know, he's really, I think he's made, he's made for this moment in some ways.

Speaker 1

10:47

Yeah, it's huge. I guess this is on a lighter note.

Speaker 2

10:53

It must be hard for you guys to write this story, because, you know, typically when you write a story or a profile of somebody, you know, you would have some like, negative things, right? So then even when you get somebody positive, like me, you'd say, like, okay, but like, what other people have said this? But it's evident to me that in your interviews, nobody, like everybody, is very happy that he's our leader at this moment, which is really remarkable,

Speaker 1

11:25

I'm sure. I mean, coming into like, I know that the people, like people at the school, are not just like, get appraised or leader, disagree Exactly, exactly, um, yeah. I mean, kind of sentiment that I've gotten, it's just everyone's like, grateful that it's him right now. And not Yeah,

Speaker 2

11:41

yeah. And not other people who have been in that position, probably, yeah. That's, that's, you know, look, I think you know, I've experienced now, this is my third dean. And I would say one thing that unites all of the deans that we've had at the Kennedy School is that they, at least the deans, in my experience, is that they worked incredibly hard for the school and thought first and foremost about what is best for the school. But of course, people have different personality traits and different intelligences, and it's very clear to me that Jeremy Weinstein has the right personality traits and type of intelligence, temperament, to be the Kennedy School,

Speaker 1

12:25

more on, like the comrade, like the camaraderie, like the really making faculty feel, like involved, like, I don't know if you display, he opened like, he's, there's a faculty lounge, yeah? He has, like, lunches. I mean, I heard there's more faculty meetings. I don't know. Maybe you're not.

Speaker 2

12:41

No, no, there are. There are some more. Yeah, no, that's right. I mean, he's really paid a lot of attention to our community and our culture, and yeah, the faculty lounge is an example of that. The tenor of the faculty meetings is an example of that. The discussions that we've had about our institutional values and our mission at this moment are examples of that. I mean, this is somebody who's really calling a lot of people into the community of the Kennedy School and to the to helping think about what we're going to be in the next 50 years. And I like, we've heard, like

Speaker 1

13:19

even he's just like even he's just, like, getting professors in conversation with each other. Like, receptions after the faculty meeting, every faculty meeting there's receptions and, like, lunches. Yeah, that's true. Just like, I mean, I know that these are, like, maybe it seemed like trivial details, but like, just that's like, really, like, these are tangible facts we can point to. Be like, this

Speaker 2

13:35

guy's like, really trying. He is really building community. Yeah, I think that's right. And you know, part of it is, you know, you know, he came into a Kennedy School where I think there was a real deficit of community, and that is not because of any dysfunctions of any prior administration. It's just the nature of academia right now that you, particularly at a place like the Kennedy School, you have a lot of professors who are leading scholars in their field. They have collaborators outside the university, and they have a lot of invitations to speak outside of the university or to work on problems outside of the university. These are some of the most successful people in their field, so they're going to spend a lot of time away from Harvard, and the result is going to be that the sum is going to maybe be less. The total might be less than the sum of its parts, because we're just not really used to being in a conversation communion with each other, and so it takes active effort to to reverse some of the atomization that would naturally happen in an institution like ours, and he's doing it, and kudos to him for identifying that as a problem to be addressed. It certainly made being here a lot more fun, a lot more joyful. And I think most people on the faculty feel like we are actually now engaged in a common enterprise. Yeah.

Speaker 1

15:11

So I guess, like, more holistically, in terms of, like, how he's dealing with this moment. I think sort of our understanding of it is that, like, it's, it's like, you can't just, like, curl up in a ball and, like, lower your ones completely and be like, I'm not gonna, like, look at the keep looking at the future. Is that kind of your understanding of it like that? He feels like we still need to be, like, taking an active role in thinking about what governments like, we can't just, you know, can't shy away from these questions, because it's like, a dangerous area, right? I guess,

Speaker 2

15:37

right? Oh, for sure, of course. And then, so what does that mean? Concrete. It means we have to think about, what are we going to teach our students right next 30 years? How do we reform our curricula to make sure that we're keeping abreast of the ways in which our world is changing, and particularly the technological changes that I think are going to be very relevant for anybody seeking to have a career in public policy. And then, you know, once we've after having thought about that, we then need to look at our faculty and think about what skills, competencies and research areas are missing in our faculty. And so that's a that's a major undertaking. You know, that would be a major undertaking, even if you didn't have to deal with assaults on academic freedom from the federal government. So, but it's definitely something that we are focused on. And these conversations are absolutely happening. But it doesn't seem

Speaker 1

16:37

like he wants to turn away from those questions just because of the assault and academic freedom, like, turn away from the like, what is it mean for the Kennedy School

Unknown Speaker

16:44

to be in this No, on the contrary, because you can't,

Speaker 1

16:46

right, you know, I mean, even though it's scary and like, yeah,

Speaker 2

16:49

yeah. I mean, you know, I think I understand the point that you're making, yeah, maybe it's not clear. I don't know. No, I think, I think what you're saying is that, because you are, you know, thinking about how you you know, position a school of public policy for the remainder of the 21st Century might somehow bump up against or, or make more difficult the task of dealing with an administration that doesn't but, but I don't think that's the case. On the contrary, I think both goals go together. In other words, one of the critiques that you might hear from folks in Washington about a place like the Kennedy School or about higher education in general is that we are not educating our students. We as Harvard. I'm not talking about the Kennedy School. We are not educating our students to deal with the world as it is. We are filling their heads with abstract theory. We are turning them into activists for a particular niche causes, but we aren't actually turning them into people who will be effective in a 21st Century where you have to deal with a rise in China, where you have to deal with increasing instability abroad, et cetera. You have to deal with a irredentist Russia, et cetera. And I think, a Kennedy School that is thinking very hard about, you know, how do we renovate and refresh our curriculum in order to have in a manner that is squarely focused on the problems of our world, like that's, that's an enterprise that makes the Kennedy School less vulnerable to attack for irrelevant rather than more vulnerable. So I don't see the two things as at odds with each other. On the contrary, see they're kind of in the same

Speaker 1

18:52

group. That makes sense. I guess I'm more thinking about like, is it the Kennedy school's job to say, like, what is like the future of our like, what is the future of our democracy?

Speaker 2

19:03

Individual faculty at Kennedy School to say that it's the job of the Kennedy School to attract to this place the people who have the most important things to say about it. But you know, you know, it's not the it's not the job of the institution to say, like, this is our you know, this is what democracy is or isn't. There's a lot of debate about what democracy is. I think democracy is free and fair elections. Other people say that's a bare minimum. It's so minimal as to be negligible. And democracy needs to be about much more than that, Kennedy school needs to be a place that it plays host to these diverse views and is a place that can convene the conversation about what democracy is, but you shouldn't look to the dean or any institutional administrator or leader as Jeremy is To articulate

Unknown Speaker

20:00

something on which there's likely to be value

Speaker 1

20:03

pluralism. That makes sense. And I think that goes back to what you were saying about him, not wading into political waters, but also being like, this is a big moment

Speaker 2

20:10

for our school. Yeah, yeah. And look, I mean, there are certain things we can say. There are certain things that Kennedy School absolutely does stand for, and that he's articulated extremely well. You know, the fact that we stand for rigor, that we stand for, you know, making decisions based on evidence that we stand for, helping to create societies that are more prosperous and more inclusive of their citizenry. These are all things that I think it is appropriate for. I mean, you know, when we say we are the Kennedy School of Government, okay? Would the word government in our title doesn't just mean any old government, right? Doesn't mean like, hey, whatever kind of government you got, Pol Pot, you know, you know, Khmer Rouge, whatever it is, it's fine with us. No. I mean, there's a particular connotation of government that is accountable, rule based, law abiding, and that's certainly got to be part of the core of the Kennedy School. But one of the things I will say that this the dean is is convening is, you know, instead of articulating his understanding of the values, he is also convening processes where we surface our collective understanding of what is our what are our values? And that's important,

Speaker 3

21:26

yeah, I'm just curious, like, not related to the team, but I know you do a lot of work in Middle Eastern Studies, okay?

Speaker 2

21:33

I mean, most of my work is on Fauci No,

Speaker 3

21:41

yeah. So, so I know, like, with the Trump administration, there's sort of been, like, a tax on that kind of work. So I guess is that, what kind of tax on that kind of work, or just with with the with the, like, the center of Middle Eastern Studies and some

Speaker 2

21:53

professors, had to do with the Trump administration, did it? Like, didn't that happen before,

Speaker 3

21:59

or happened before? But I think, from my understanding, it was like sort of preparing. I don't know what happened. Yeah, what's the question, I guess, has, has that impacted you in any way? Just out of, like, curiosity, not related to the dean

Speaker 2

22:14

or, well, you know, look, I mean, this is not a great time to be working on the Middle East. Or rather, it's not a great time to be working on the Middle East in a way that is public, because obviously this is a highly polarized moment, particularly around Israel Palestine. And no matter what you do say, no matter who you host, there's guaranteed to be somebody who is very upset about that, and so a faculty member like myself knowing that I kind of have to wade into territory that makes a lot of people angry, and I have to do things that will almost certainly result in a lot of people writing angry notes about me to The dean. You do want a university leadership that recognizes the importance of what you do and that you feel has your back as long as you are doing things that are intellectually honest, that do not bring discredit on the university that you know you'll have an administration that will support you, or at least maintain the space for you to do the work that you've chosen to do. And I definitely feel that in this case with the Kennedy School, yeah, that makes sense. I was just wondering, brought it back for you

Speaker 3

23:34

to Yeah, no. I was thinking, if that, yeah, okay, I'm

Speaker 2

23:38

glad. Look, I mean, you know it's, I mean, I know a lot of people at other institutions feel very anxious because they feel like their leaders don't have their back. You know that they they host a speaker, you know, who articulates a strong Zionist perspective, or they are to invite a speaker who articulates a strong anti Zionist perspective. That, you know the result is going to be some angry notes to their institutional leader, and they worry, am I going to lose my job? Am I going to be stripped of my directorship, or this or that? And so knowing that you are led by somebody who values academic freedom and who recognizes sincere effort to convene conversations that bring together multiple sides and then, consequently, will support you in doing that is really a huge relief.

Unknown Speaker

24:32

That's good to hear. Yeah, I don't think

Speaker 1

24:33

we have any other specific questions, but yeah, this is going to

Speaker 2

24:37

be a hard story for you guys to write, because you guys naturally are going to want to, like, you want to expose a Yeah, writing a good story about this guy, yeah, like they're really, I mean, I don't think he's put a foot wrong.

Unknown Speaker

24:54

Yeah. I mean, nine months is not

Speaker 2

24:55

a short time. Like he's had plenty of time to make yes

Unknown Speaker

24:59

and he hasn't Yeah. T.

Unknown Speaker

25:03

Yeah, no, and I think I mean we're really comfortable writing a story.

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