From DSG to D.C.

In the year 2024, while most present Duke students will be defending their clients in court, performing heart surgery or sitting behind their CEO nameplates, Adam Katz plans to be doing something even more ambitious.

"To be totally honest, I want to be president of the United States," says Katz, a junior. "Vote Katz 2024!"

But while the pre-meds and future CEOs have their immediate plans spelled out for them, those contemplating politics have more liberty in choosing the path they want to take to Washington. Some will enter law school, others will establish a career in business and there are those still uncertain of their immediate plans yet confident that they want to enter politics in the future.

Following in the footsteps of Duke's best-known alumni politicians--former president Richard Nixon, Law '37, and Senator-elect Elizabeth Dole, Woman's College '58, who went to Harvard Law School--many would-be politicians see law school as the first step to take after graduation. Juniors Alex Niejelow and Avery Reaves and sophomore Mary Ellison Baars, for instance, all hope to run for office and are headed for law school.

"I'd like to move back to Pennsylvania and attend law school in the area," Niejelow says. "I'm hoping to take a year off after law school, then either work for a firm or try to make a little bit of money."

Not everyone decides to take the law school route, however. When graduate student Fernando Lohmann was an undergraduate at the University of Notre Dame, he knew he wanted to be a politician, but he decided to establish his financial security first. After three years of working as a consultant in Brazil, Lohmann came to Duke to get a master's degree in public policy.

"I had to come up with some kind of way to make the transition [from consulting] into a political career, be it a political analyst or an elected official," he says. "And going to graduate school for something related to what I wanted to do seemed like a good decision."

Still, many undergraduates see law school as a good opportunity to break into politics. With his law degree, Niejelow hopes to start out as a prosecutor or an assistant to an elected official. From there, he plans to make his move towards elected office in some capacity, he says.

Thomas Halasz, associate director of the Career Development Center, says planning a political career as a college student is not essential.

"Many people who have decided on a career in politics many years after they graduate had no plans for that career and do quite well," Halasz says. "But in my experience, when you make decisions intentionally, in a planful manner, you're more likely to succeed than if you just leave it to chance, regardless of career."

Michael Munger, chair of the Department of Political Science, says the importance of planning early cannot be underestimated.

"All the people who were successful in politics were pretty sure at an early age," he says. "But those who failed also thought about it early on. It's a necessary but not sufficient condition."

Regardless of their plans after graduation, most undergraduates looking into politics have taken an important first step: becoming highly involved in the community. By taking on dedicated roles in civic or community service organizations, students are getting hands-on experience in leadership--an essential quality for a politician.

"A politician is an authority role in this society," says Alma Blount, director of the Hart Leadership Program, which aims to help students gain leadership experiences. "What I think we need are people who do choose to run for elected office and do choose to govern, who are willing to exercise leadership from their positions."

Niejelow, Katz and Reaves are all Duke Student Government legislators. Reaves is also executive director of College Republicans, while Segall is a member of Duke Democrats. Baars and Reaves were both involved with Blue Devils for Dole.

But since one of the primary motivations for entering politics in the first place is a desire to serve the public, many students also turn to community service activities. Baars is a student representative for the National Board of Parent Teachers Association and a co-coordinator of Project SHARE, which raises money for needy families in Durham. Niejelow is even a Durham police officer.

"If I can make a difference in politics, if I can get elected, pass laws that I want to do, we could really be making hundreds of people, thousands of people, millions of people's lives better," Reaves says. "The thought of that keeps me going--I guess it's kind of cheesy to say."

Of course, most would-be politicians will not deny that involvement in the community can be a means to a political goal. However, they will point out that mainly, they participate in their activities because they want to help out.

"I am not naïve in the fact that these are going to be helpful in the future," Niejelow says. "But on the other side of that, it's primarily a Duke thing. It's the same reason why I worked so hard to become a police officer. By no means did I become a Durham police officer so that people will think, 'Wow, this is going to be great for politics, he really cares about the people.' It was not at all in my mind. I believe I owe it to the area."

Segall says the two purposes often come hand in hand.

"The goal is there in the back of my mind," he says. "But I don't get involved in an organization just because it can help me. Generally, the two sort of work together."

Munger agrees that it is natural for a love for service to coexist with political ambition in students. "They want to try to do good. They want to change things," he says. "They see a political system that doesn't work and they want to do something to change that."

As much as the image of the "system that doesn't work" can inspire some students to enter politics to make a difference, it also creates a prevalent negative perception that leads students to question their plans of holding political office.

"Our overall culture is very disillusioned with politics. It's cynical about politics... and I think with good reason," Blount says. "Let's face it: Our political system needs to be overhauled, everybody knows that. We're in dire need of campaign finance reform."

Niejelow singles out individuals who fail to perform their jobs as public servants well as a reason for this discouraging connotation to politics. "Every November, there are people who get into government who are not good people," he says. "Dutiful public servants who genuinely care about what they do lose office.... Some people like [Democratic senator] Bob Torricelli come in there and preach with this high and mighty attitude, and [there are] other Senate and government officials who live up only to the standards of the media and public expectations, who are literally pricks and are totally self-motivated."

Even elsewhere in the world, politics is seen in the same light.

"People in Brazil have a very high perception that the political world is very corrupt, very bad, something you wouldn't want to relate yourself with especially if you have high values," Lohmann says. "People are skeptical that you can maintain those values if you go into the political world."

A 2001 survey by the Harvard Institute of Politics found that most U.S. undergraduates agree that public service can be an alternative to politics, and in fact prefer volunteerism to politics.

"One reason why young people are so apathetic is because they feel that in Washington nothing gets done," says senior Scott Finkelstein, also a potential politician.

Blount points out that 85 percent of the people in the Harvard survey believed that volunteerism is preferable to political engagement as a way to solve important issues facing their communities.

"Community volunteerism is way up, students are really interested in direct service, but interest in politics, trust in politics, any kind of yearning to be directly involved in politics is way, way down," Blount says. "Students feel disconnected from our system. The majority does not feel that whatever they can do can make a difference in changing the system. That comes through in so many different studies."

Baars believes that students are attracted more to volunteerism because of the direct contact established through it.

"As a person very involved in community service, I believe it has an appeal because one sees the fruits of their labor right away," Baars says. "If you go to a local school and tutor, you have established a relationship and you can see progress. Politics, especially higher politics, almost forces you to lose the individual contact. That is very unappealing to a lot of people."

Blount recognizes the importance of personal contact, but does not believe it can be an alternative to political engagement.

"It's important to have one-on-one contact, but that's not going to change systems and structures," she says. "I'm a policy person, so what I'm interested in is collective action and efforts to change systems and structures. You can't do that if you locate your involvement only at the level of individuals. I think there's a danger there and I'm a little worried about that."

Despite discouraging percentages of political interest, Blount hopes the high trends in community service among students today will translate into political engagement in the future.

Lohmann points out that if everyone washes their hands of political engagement, the negative view of politics will remain and nothing will change.

"I do have a good sense that the political world is no fun and that's there's a lot of bad values going around," he says. "But if everybody with good values and good intentions backs out, then what we are going to have left are the crooks."

For students who are interested in politics, the path to their goal can be challenging. Most still have several years before they can run for any serious office--and only then find out whether they really have what it takes to succeed in government.

Munger points out that not everyone interested in running for political office can be an effective politician.

"If you meet a really excellent politician, you will find that they are personally overwhelming," he says. "Erskine Bowles was a failure [in the Senate race against Dole] not because he was a bad guy, or weak, but rather because as a person he is just a regular guy. For any politician, the important thing is a desire to make contact with people, to talk to them and make those people like him or her. You have to project energy and enthusiasm, and I'm not sure someone can fake that."

But even if the demands for a successful politician are high, Blount believes that the "art of politics" can in fact be learned--and that students at Duke have the opportunity to study it.

"It involves learning about power, self-interest, and how political culture is created," she says. "It involves studying organizing strategies such as how to build one-on-one relationships, then networks, then broad-based coalitions."

She also emphasizes that students learn how to practice politics while in college, through service projects that put what they learn into action. Blount does not believe the conviction that politicians as leaders are "born not made."

"In my nine years of teaching at Duke, I have seen many young people committed to services, civic participation, and politics--usually in that order," she says. "This is a result of the transformative service-learning experience in a community. The key is to bring the experiential side and intellectual side of learning."

Whatever experiences and intellectual paths the students who one day hope to enter the world of politics take to get there, they share a common goal and a common belief in the power of politics to effect change. As much as it needs reform, Niejelow says, the American political system still inspires him.

"To have enough trust to continually vote for someone to help run your life, essentially, it's an amazing thing, an amazing American concept," he says.