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The Congressional Fellowship Program Review Committee is an external review committee for the Congressional Fellowship Program.
On September 12, 2004 the Congressional Fellowship Program Review Committee met. The distinguished panel, chaired by political science professor Herbert Asher of Ohio State University, included: Jo Ivey Boufford of New York University’s Wagner School, Jeffrey Katz of National Public Radio, David Lowe of the National Endowment for Democracy, Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution, and Hannah Sistare of the National Commission on the Public Service. As APSA Executive Director Michael Brintnall explained, as part of a segmented strategic planning process, APSA was establishing external review boards to examine each major program area in stages. In addition to stimulating reflection, these efforts would help overcome the general perception that membership associations such as APSA lacked outsider input. He felt that a CFP review in particular would facilitate the Association’s fiduciary oversight, suggest new sources of funding, and offer ideas to strengthen the fellowship. A summary of the recommendations made at that meeting serves as the discussion agenda for the 2005 APSA Congressional Fellowship Program’s Advisory Committee. The meeting is a bit unorthodox as the outside review panel has also been invited to participate. It is hoped that everyone in attendance will benefit from the exchange which should also assist the outside panel in bringing the review to conclusion. It should be stated up front that a number of the recommendations are long term and should guide the administration of the fellowship for years to come. 1. Mission. Objectives of the APSA Congressional Fellowship Program Since its founding in 1953, the American Political Science Association’s Congressional Fellowship Program has expanded in both the diversity of its participants and the objectives of the program. Political scientists and journalists, in the early to mid-stage of their careers, remain the core constituencies. They continue to translate their personal working experience on a congress staff to their larger publics of students in the classroom or consumers of the press. However, the typical fellowship class is more eclectic than it once was, and the mission has changed according. Added to the political scientists and journalists, a typical class of 35 Fellows frequently includes domestic and foreign policy specialists from the U.S. Government, half-a-dozen mid-career Robert Wood Johnson health policy Fellows, a communications policy MCI Fellow, a Native American Hatfield Fellow, an American Sociological Association Fellow, two German Marshall Fund of the United States Fellows (the past 25 years), several Asia Foundation Fellows (the past 20 years), and four senior Fulbright scholar Fellows (the past 5 years) whose home countries range from Jordan to China and Mexico to the Czech Republic. These various career categories are kept in balance so that no single group tends to dominate. Throughout the intensive three-week November orientation the variety of backgrounds becomes an asset in discussions and the Fellows tend to bond as a group. As many of them end up sharing similar policy issues in their legislative assistant portfolios while on the Hill, the Fellows are able to share their experiences and insights with each other in a way no single new congressional staffer could. This is equally true during the bi-weekly Wilson Seminar series which takes place throughout the congressional session. Guest discussants from such congressional support arms as the Congressional Research Service, Congressional Budget Office or Governmental Accountability Office enlarge the Fellows understanding of the legislative process. At the end of the fellowship the participants end up learning a great deal from each other and classmates form the nucleus of the networking which proves of value in their on-going careers. The Canadian-U.S. Parliamentary Exchange has traditionally provided an international character to the fellowship as the week in Ottawa provides the Fellows with a comparative view of a Westminster-model parliament relative to the U.S. model which they present to their Canadian counterparts. The exchange and increased international participation has enlarged the fellowship’s mission to the U.S. role in a global society as seen through the Congress. The impact has been particularly clear for the international Fellows. Not only have they contributed a distinctive flavor to congressional staffs, they begin to draw upon their shortly after their return home. Our two recent Egyptian Fellows are illustrative. One returned to become director of the new Ford Foundation funded American Studies Center at the University of Cairo and also serves as a presidential adviser, The other returned to become Assistant Managing Editor of Cairo’s Al Ahram, the leading Middle East daily. The political scientist Fellows continue to make a singular contribution to the discipline of political science and the scholarly study of the legislative branch. They are also in the forefront of the Association’s civic engagement. Among the lessons of serving on a congressional staff is to discover the sustained symbiotic relationship between Congress and the press. Among the fourteen-thousand-plus professors and students of the American Political Science Association the fellowship alumni are among the most frequently quoted in newspapers or interviewed on television as testament to the bridge-building experience between the worlds of academe and the more applied politics as experienced by the American public. In recent years, the journalists Fellows have increasingly used the fellowship less to become “congressional experts” and more to focus on legislative-governmental action on specific policy areas on which they want to specialize as reporters. As a consequence they are finding it easier to secure jobs before the end of their participation as Fellows. Institutionally, both in terms of augmented personal, committee and auxiliary Congressional Research Service staff, the Congress is far less dependent on salary-free labor than it once was. While Congressional offices still place a premium on the experience, mature judgment, and reliability represented by the Fellows, it has become increasingly difficult for Fellows to divide their time between the two chambers. Most offices feel they have invested too much training in the early months for the Fellow to take that investment off to another office. It remains an ideal for a richer legislative experience, but gaining both House and Senate experience is no longer a realistic expectation for most Fellows. The program retains much of its original mission and objectives but it has adapted to the changing climate on the Hill. One constant remains virtually unchanged -- the APSA Congressional Fellows continues to reap the benefits of the half-a-century relationship with the Congress and for most the experience is pivotal to their on-going careers. And, the reputation and consistently high standard represented by the Fellows insures that the fellowship provides value to congressional personal and committee offices. 2. Fellowship’s Long Term Impact (draft questionnaire for alumni – open-ended to encourage response) Dear Former APSA Congressional Fellows, As we head into our fifty-third year, the fellowship, albeit with some challenges, continues to thrive. We continue to recruit first-rate political scientists, although the trend has been toward younger scholars rather than the early historic sabbatical tenured Associate Professors. There were more than forty journalist applicants this past year, but there too we see a generational change. Fewer candidates receive any financial support from their employer, the age is younger, and many appear to see the fellowship as a transitional launching pad to a more significant position. There has been a significant decrease in Federal Fellows which we are trying to address. Our multi-faceted collaboration with the Fulbright Commission, Board of Foreign Scholarships, State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Exchange and the Council on International Exchange of Scholars has contributed four senior Fulbright scholar Fellows to help fill the gap. For the first time in decades the program is being assessed by an distinguished outside panel with the intention of making a good program better. Ohio State University political science professor, Herbert Asher is serving as chair. The panelists include Jo Ivey Boufford of New York University’s Wagner School, Jeffrey Katz of National Public Radio, David Lowe of the National Endowment for Democracy, Thomas Mann of Brookings Institution, and Hannah Sistare of the National Commission on the Public Service. One of their recommendations was to conduct a survey of former Fellows, as well as the congressional offices in which they served, to determine the value to both sides of this symbiotic relationship. We would very much appreciate your taking the time to address the following open-ended questions to help take us beyond the oft-used anecdotal rationale that the fellowship has represented a pivotal experience in most Fellows’ onward careers. We will pass on the results of this survey as soon as it is completed. What skills did you acquire as a Congressional Fellow which continue to be applicable in your career? What broader substantive knowledge has proven to be the most useful in your current employment setting? Over the years since you were a Fellow have you had occasion to maintain contact with your colleagues in your class, co-workers in your office assignment or other contacts made as a Fellow? In retrospect, what are the highlights of your experience which stand out? How would you have improved the experience? The average Congressional Fellowship class has become more diverse with the addition of more international participants, the Robert Wood Johnson health policy Fellows, a Native American Hatfield Fellow, etc. Do you consider this diversity an asset? As a closing thought, the one new project we have embarked upon is to replicate the very successful Canadian-U.S. Parliamentary Exchange with either Mexico or the European Community. We were close to closure on the latter but ran into a lack of funds – the Community has their own training budget and preferred to pay their own expenses. We were in no position to fund our own return visit to Brussels. Although we are beginning to search for outside funding we are, as ever, dependent upon the generosity of our alumni to help fund this type of outside enrichment. With Hurricane Katrina alone, we recognize that this has been a year which laid heavy contributory demands on everyone, but we would appreciate whatever contribution you can make this year to the Congressional Fellowship Program’s effort to broaden our contact with other parliamentary institutions. If you have any questions about any of this you can reach me by phone (202-483-2512) or email (jbiggs@apsanet.org) Thanks very much for your cooperation. With very warm regards, Jeff Jeffrey R. Biggs, Director
3. Would there be advantages to forming a small Executive Committee within the Advisory Committee with which there could be more sustained contact? Should there be a defined term for members of the Advisory Committee? A small group which was representative of the major facets of the fellowship might make sense, but this would need to include a Member of Congress, senior staffer, or someone very familiar with the Congress; a journalist; a political scientist; and someone familiar with the Executive Branch. A smaller group could arguably meet more frequently over breakfast, lunch or coffee with an emphasis on short, problem-solving, discussions. 4. Examine the legal documents pertaining to the MCI endowment. Would the designation of former Fellow and MCI executive Eugene Eidenberg satisfy MCI’s requirement that “successors and assigns” sit on the Advisory Committee? See No. 11 5. What fund-raising resources are available to the fellowship other than alumni? There have been few serious fund-raising efforts recently. The only recent outside grant to the fellowship was five years ago when Hodding Carter, an old State Department colleague who was then President of the Knight Foundation, initiated a $350,000 grant to fund three additional journalism Fellows a year over a three-year period. Following the 1997 termination of a USIA grant seven years ago, which for years had helped fund the Canadian-U.S. Parliamentary exchange, there were a series of negotiations with the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa and the Canadian Foreign Ministry which resulted in annual $10,000 grants from each to fund each leg of the exchange. Along with the Director of the Canadian Parliamentary Interne Program Canadian businesses have been invited to help host the annual reception for the visiting Interns and to contribute to the exchange. We have made initial contact with the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (including major U.S. affiliates) about possible funding. The one potential, untapped, source of alumni giving would be our international Fellows, particularly twenty years worth of Asia Foundation Fellows. There are, for example, some twenty-five former Korean Fellows who by now have attained positions of real significance. (e.g. one former Fellow was in charge of the Olympic Games in Seoul in 1988). Fund-raising is one area where we are in need of good counsel and help.
6. Fellowship benefits to the Congress. Create a draft e-mail survey for a sample of congressional offices which have hosted Fellows. Depending on the responses, this might be followed by a focus group to get more in-depth insight. Dear Congressional Colleague, Since 1953 the American Political Science Association has provided more than two thousand Congressional Fellows to the personal and committee staffs of the Congress. These Fellows represent a variety of long-term career tracks including political science professors, journalists, domestic and foreign policy specialists from the U.S. Government, Robert Wood Johnson mid-career health policy Fellows, a Native American Hatfield Fellow, and international Fellows sponsored by the Fulbright Commission, German Marshall Fund and Asia Foundation. Over the past five years your office has hosted at least one Congressional Fellow. The program is now in the midst of its first outside review in several decades. Chaired by political science professor Herbert Asher of Ohio State University, the distinguished panel includes: Jo Ivey Boufford of New York University’s Wagner School, Jeffrey Katz of National Public Radio, David Lowe of the National Endowment for Democracy, Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution, and Hannah Sistare of the National Commission on the Public Service. Among their recommendations was to query both the fellowship’s alumni and the congressional offices in which Fellows have served to determine the level of satisfaction of both sides of our endeavors. We regularly survey our fellowship participants as to how we might improve the program. Beyond whatever enrichment opportunities we can provide, it is the hands-on ten-month legislative experience in offices such as yours which is the heart of our program. It seems appropriate then that we query you about your experience with our Congressional Fellows. We would very much appreciate your response to these few open-ended questions: How did your Fellow(s) measure-up against staff you would hire to fill a full-time vacancy? What were the differences? Most Congressional Fellows arrive with prior profession experience. Was this reflected in their level of mature judgment, writing skills, and the speed with which they grasped their responsibilities? Congressional offices expect a high-level of confidentiality and trust from their staff. Did you have any difficulties granting that degree of confidence to a Fellow who would be there for a ten-month period? Was the Fellow a team player? To maximize our Fellows legislative learning experience we provide a number of enrichment opportunities which would require them to occasionally be absent from the office. Did this complicate your office management? There are other fellowships which provide salary-free staff to congressional offices. What other sources have you used and how have our Congressional Fellows measured-up against other programs? How would you change the mechanics of our fellowship to make our Fellows more useful to your staffing needs? Thank you for taking the time to response to these questions. The more specific you can be, the easier it will be for us to make adjustments. We have greatly valued your support to the APSA Congressional Fellowship Program and want to make sure that your satisfaction is equal to the experience for our Fellows. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me by phone (202-483-2512) or e-mail. Best regards, Jeffrey R. Biggs, Director
See revised mission statement No. 1 8. Recruitment and Selection. Create a timeline of the selection processes including information on how the fellowship is advertised, where it is advertised, what types of individuals apply and the possible benefits of a standardized application form. 9. and 10. Competition and Administrative Fees. Assess the stipend provided to political scientists and journalists in terms of the CPI figures. Is an annual $38,000 stipend competitive with other major organizations sponsoring fellowships (e.g. Brookings and the Georgetown Government Affairs Institute)? The APSA Congressional Fellowship is the only local institution providing stipends as we do to political scientists and journalists. The major competitor for the journalist Fellows are specifically university based and intended to be an intellectual refresher. These include the Neiman Fellowship at Harvard and a number of Knight Foundation fellowships also for university assignments at Stanford, Michigan, University of Southern California, Yale, MIT and the University of Maryland. Very prestigious, these fellowships aim at more established mid-career journalists and the stipends reflect this (e.g. Knight at Stanford provides $55,000 plus health care, day care, a travel budget, etc.). Among fellowships focused primarily on the Congress, the American Association for the Advancement of Science targets academic and applied hard science candidates and draws from a distinctly different pool of talent. In addition to the Department of Agriculture Graduate School program, CFP’s two primary “competitors” in terms of providing salary-free staff assistance on the Hill are Brookings and Georgetown’s Government Affairs Institute (GAI) which is a spin-off of the 1970’s Office of Personnel Management and later Brookings programs. There are important distinctions. While both organizations have impressive course offerings available to participants, neither is in the primary business of fellowships. Brookings courts private sector (with a high-priced tuition rate) and executive branch participants who are funded by their sponsoring organizations and receive their salaries during the course of the program. GAI’s revenue stream draws on congressional-focused short courses for USG managers and the fellowship program, made up almost entirely of Department of Defense personnel, is a side-light intended primarily to provide contacts among Members and congressional staff. It is ironic that five years ago the CFP was DOD’s first choice, but the all-or-nothing choice of accepting 30-35 military personnel each year would have too drastically upset the delicate balance of the fellowship’s diversity and GAI became the fall back. Both Brookings and GAI report a serious drop-off in non-military Executive Branch participants which parallels our own experience. The primary basis on which the Congressional Fellowship “competes” with these other salary-free congressionally-focused programs is in the loss of administrative fee revenues (we charge $4,000 per Fellow and GAI currently charges $4,500). Five years ago we had 19 federal employee participants; this year we have 9 ($76,000 versus $36,000 in administrative fee revenue). A starker contrast is that ten years ago the fellowship had 11 DOD-affiliated participants; this year we have none including our traditional intelligence community representatives from the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency which fall under the DOD limitations. Barring a change of mind by the Sec Def, the more important concern is that traditionally stalwart Executive Branch departments such as the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Labor and Health and Human Services and the Food and Drug Administration and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation have dropped off the screen. 11. MCI Endowment Liaison. As the attached message and marginal notation indicate, MCI, albeit somewhat delayed the higher priority issues, is prepared to address our suggestion that they be represented on the Advisory Committee by former Congressional Fellow and MCI executive Gene Eidenberg. Should they agree, this would bring us into compliance with their conditions when they made their significant 1991 endowment to the fellowship. At this point, patience seems to be the order of the day
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