VOICES OF HOPE INTERVIEWS Chris Meyers Asch, US Public Service Academy :: Voices of Hope Productions:: Documentaries * Video Production * NonProfit * News & Events

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>>>>DR. CHRIS MEYERS ASCH | CAMPAIGN FOR A U.S. PUBLIC SERVICE ACADEMY

The United States Public Service Academy is dedicated to creating a corps of passionate and patriotic civilian leaders willing to devote themselves to the pursuit of academic excellence, civic engagement, and leadership through public service. The Academy seeks to develop students who pursue the highest ideals of human character and the American values of freedom, democracy, and equal opportunity; strive for individual excellence yet feel a personal responsibility to achieve the common good; and appreciate their rights and uphold their responsibilities as citizens of the United States.

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VOH: How did you come up with the idea for the U.S. Public Service Academy and what do you envision?
CMA: Both of my parents were public servants. I've been around public service and the military most of my life. I have a lot of respect for the military academy. It struck me that we didn't have a counterpart to military service — a civilian service academy. There are many lessons to learn from Hurricane Katrina. People suffered and it's not supposed to happen in this country. Public institutions matter yet, my generation has grown up with a diminished sense of what public service is—there's a terrible perception. We see the U.S. Public Service Academy as a central institution that would become the flagship for public service and leadership. It would set the model that other schools of public service could follow. It would develop a small cadre of leadership that would spread out to the nonprofit world and state and local government. It will be modeled on the military academies, and will offer four years of tuition-free education in exchange for five years of civilian service following graduation.

VOH: Why is a Public Service Academy needed now?
CMA: We need to build a Public Service Academy for several reasons:
1) First, recent events have inspired a younger generation and imbued many young people with a sense of civic engagement not seen in decades. Unfortunately, many of these students are priced out of public service careers because they rack up so much debt while in school.
2) Second, we face a critical and growing shortage of public servants – as baby boomers retire, we will need more teachers, more cops, more air traffic controllers, more Foreign Service officers, more everything.
3) Finally, we currently have no national undergraduate institution dedicated to developing civilian leaders and meeting our nation’s critical needs. We offer our young people outstanding, federally-funded opportunities to go to college and serve their country in the military, but none to serve as a civilian.

VOH: What is the profile of the student you are targeting?
CMA: A young person who is committed to goals beyond their own ambition. They have a sense of pride and duty for their country and have a sense of obligation to give back. We envision a very structured environment and will look for people who want to develop their leadership impact beyond their own circle of life. We want representation of the entire population and the student body will reflect the individual states.

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In building the sector’s management ranks, much will depend on how quickly and effectively infrastructure-related initiatives can increase their scale.
The Leadership Deficit, Thomas J. Tierney, Bridgespan Group
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VOH: What type of curriculum will Academy students experience?
CMA: The academic experience will be unique. It will be more disciplined and very few institutions offer that. The curriculum will reinforce the mission of leadership development, taking on larger leadership roles. The curriculum will combine a broad-based liberal arts education with an emphasis on service learning and international education. The combination of rigorous academic work with hands-on learning experiences will give students the analytical skills, academic background, and practical experience they need to think critically and flexibly about the challenges of the twenty-first century.

VOH: What jobs would Academy graduates be offered during their five-year service requirement?
CMA: Academy graduates will spend five years serving the nation by working as teachers, park rangers, police officers, border agents, Foreign Service officers, and other critical public service jobs at the local, state, national and even international levels, in both public institutions and non-profit charitable organizations.

VOH: How will students be admitted?
CMA: There will be spots for nearly 1,300 incoming freshmen, allocated by state, following a congressional nomination process similar to that used for admission to the military academies. Nominees would compete against other nominees from their state, thus ensuring that each state will be proportionally represented in the student body.

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"It's about getting people to see public service in a different way, we've grown up in a time when the word 'public' has become synonymous with 'inferior' and 'poor,' and that's got to change. We need to reorient our sense of public service and our sense of what it means to serve this country."
Dr. Chris Meyers Asch, Campaign for a U.S. Public Service Academy
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VOH: What's the projected starting salary range upon graduation?
CMA: It will be competitive with the market. Students are usually priced out of teaching, for instance, because they have to pay back student loans. Here's a chance to have a fully paid college tuition, then graduate and get paid like the typical job. We feel this will be very attractive to students with limited financial means.

VOH: I read in a Washington Post article that a professor at NYU felt Congress wouldn't allocate money to a civil service academy. What do you say to people who have negative comments to make about your idea and proposal?
CMA: That kind of sentiment has been said by many people. There's a diminished sense of public service and what we can do in this country. People don't seem to want to think big anymore. We (society) mock federal bureaucrats and people who dedicate their lives to public service—developing a cynicism about public institutions, but we really need them. That actually inspires us to prove them wrong. We can revolutionize the way we see this country. Why not make it happen?

VOH: How can Voices of Hope Productions and others help support the U.S. Public Service Academy?
CMA: We can build this institution for $.70 per American, per year, for very little money. If you think on a large perspective, this investment will pay much larger dividends in the future. We need seed money, we need volunteer support, we need people— especially young people all across the country to push their representatives and senators. That's the power of this country. It comes from the people—the govern. The govern meet to tell the governors, our elected officials what to do. We need to let people know about this idea so that they can let their representatives know that this is an idea whose time has come.

Find out more about the Campaign for a U.S. Public Service Academy

Read the USPSA proposal

Listen to Chris Meyers Asch's interview on 501c3cast

Read the Bridgeston Group's Leadership Deficit Report

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Read free article on Stanford Social Innovation Review