Episode 10 – Former LBJ School Dean, Deputy Secretary of State (’09 –’11) on globalization

[0:00:00 Speaker 2] This’ll is Policy on Purpose, a podcast produced by the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. Way take you behind the scenes of policy with the people who help shape it for more. Visit LBJ dot utexas studied You welcome

[0:00:21 Speaker 3] everyone to the podcast policy on purpose. And today I have a very, very special guest. Jim Steinberg and Jim is special in a lot of different ways. Ah, one. He’s special because he was part of the LBJ School and did so much at the school while he was here Very innovative, even though he only had one term here, Um, did a lot of innovative things at the school that we’re still benefiting from another way. That it’s so special for me is he’s the one that actually brought me to the LBJ School And the third, and the reason we really want to talk to Jim today is he is an amazing career for a relatively young man s. So I can say that because he is my junior by many years. But, you know, Jim has he had so much success in the public sector. Ah, you know, he served as the deputy secretary of state under Mr Obama’s administration under Mrs Clinton. Ah, and now he is at the Maxwell School. He served as dean at the Maxwell School Money after his dean ships he’s now serving is the professor of Social science international Affairs in law at the Maxwell School, which is the number one rated public administration school. And he has a lot of experience in think tanks. So when you think about think tanks, public sector on big positions in the federal government, this like a combination of experience that gives you different insights that I really want to probe a little bit today, so welcome. That’s

[0:01:43 Speaker 0] great. It’s wonderful to be back here. I can’t tell you how happy this it makes me to be back and see the LBJ School doing so Aland and be fortunate to have you read attacks.

[0:01:51 Speaker 3] Thank you so much. Thank you. So, Jim, I wanted to really do two things today. One is I really want to talk to you about the role we play and serving an academic institutions that play a role in preparing the next generation of our policy folks. That’s one. And then the other want to talk to you about some of the challenges we face in that role and preparing our students for relationship with China, which has caused a lot of questions and issues in consternation and uncertainty. Eso Let’s start with the 1st 1 You know when, when we’re thinking about the kinds of students who come to our schools, these air students to have a purpose, they want to do a public good. They want to step into the public, uh, a realm. What is it that you’re seeing over the last years that you’ve been in academia, that you think we need to be talking and working with their students to prepare them differently than we prepared them maybe 15 or 20 years ago?

[0:02:43 Speaker 0] It’s a great question. And, you know, I do think it’s an enormously important challenge for all of us to think about how do we prepare people to make a difference? Because there a lot of things have changed about our students over the years that I’ve been teaching. But one thing that hasn’t changed is their motivation to make a difference. That’s been a constant, and it’s I think, what keeps us all going is to see this this very strong, very idealistic sense of the importance of in the ability to make a difference. But I think the challenge has become more difficult in recent years for a variety of reasons. I think the first and perhaps most important, it’s just a multiplicity of actors who are in broadly in the public space. It was possible to think for your 50 years ago, when the LBJ School was founded in a lot of the other schools of public affairs were founded that most of the action was in government, right and mostly the national government. I will set a little bit on the international level, but largely national governments were you know, where things were happening and then, obviously it’s the extent that was involved in issues, domestic issues. It could be state and local governments as well. But today we see that there are a lot more different actors. Their farm or civil society is much more active NGOs and much more active. The private sector is much more active and not only are there more actors involved, but there are the kinds of solutions that we need to deal with contemporary problems means bringing all these actors to the table. So it requires a much more diverse portfolio of skills and understanding for students to be able to navigate that, not to mention the fact that careers have changed. I mean that nobody holds a lifetime job. When I went into government, I’ve come in and out. But there were many people who had a lifetime career in the foreign service lifetime Quran civil service. It’s much rarer today will become even rare over time. So you have, on the one hand, the universe of actors and solutions, much more diverse and multi faceted, and the likely career trajectories for our students also more diverse. And and we have to prepare them not to answer today’s questions right but to answer the questions they’re going to get with 20 years from now. So it requires the ability to have this kind of multi disciplinary, multi dimensional approach and get students to think about what are the skills and perspectives that will serve them across all of these different worlds and universes. What are the kind of the foundational things that they need to know that will serve them whether they’re in the private sector, civil society, AH, local government, a national government and international organization. And what will be the things that will be still relevant 20 or 30 years now, when technology has changed, those problems have changed.

[0:05:17 Speaker 3] This is a very tall order because we sit. The benefits we have is we sit in the middle of some wonderful university’s. Most of their policy schools are part of larger institutions, which we can draw in those disciplines. Yet those disciplines have two big problems. That I see one is they’re very specific and they tend to be more narrow. And the second thing universities often don’t have the administrative structure, the understanding of how to bring all of these together. So that adds another dimension of difficulty for a policy school that says We have to bring these the’s various disciplines together to try to look at getting at an understanding, problems understanding data on and how those problems are defined, and then being creative with solutions that are feasible and feasible across many audiences. So one of the things we’ve been doing here at the LBJ School is really starting to think about what are those skills that are long term skills or basic skills that students congrats those skills over time. And then how do we help students grow coalitions, Which is a very different kind of an educational approach than, like you say, even 20 years ago, where you know, you do a stat class and then you I’m simplifying this, but you do a stair class. A research methodology clears, and then you take, you know, like a survey class and global issues.

[0:06:35 Speaker 0] Yes. So I think the institutional questions air tough. I love all my Children and all the schools that I’ve been at, but one of the advantages that I’ve had at the Maxwell School Deans next will schools. Maxwell is the only public policy school in the country that has all the social sciences within the Maxwell school. So I was not just dean of public affairs and public administration in international affairs, but I was also denied political science and economics, of sociology, of anthropology, geography and, importantly, history on, and so we had a certain advantage in being able to bring thes disciplines to the table. We still had certain degrees of silence, but I think it was a really insight that allowed bridging both across disciplines and across the world of more academic and theoretical work to the world of practice. And I think that that’s something that, even for places like the LBJ School, where the architecture of universities different building these ties to the disciplines is really important to try to think about. How do you expose students to these different ways of thinking about problems? Because each of the disciplines brings a different set of perspectives. They’re useful for the practitioner, right that a practitioner doesn’t just need political science tools, doesn’t just need economic tools, doesn’t just need sociology tools or anthropology shows needs to be able to draw on all of those things. So the first thing I think is for policy students in particular, to get some sense about how to these different disciplines, what do they bring to the table and to incorporate that into our curriculum for policy school students? I think the next thing is to get this blend of knowledge plus practice and feasibility, right, and I and I have worked very hard on this is a teacher to try to think about what is the balance between How much theoretical knowledge do you want? How much do you want to be? Apply it. I’ve always believed that one of the most neglected tools that we don’t study either as academic researchers or teachers is where I call the problem of the second best. The nature of the academy is looking for the optimal solution on boast. Disciplines were looking for the optimal solution, but that means that the initial conditions are very constrained. It’s a laboratory kind of environment. Practitioners don’t have that luxury, the acknowledges in Perfect. As you mentioned, you have to build coalitions their diverse interests. And so building a set of approaches that recognize that we’re satisfy sing in many cases rather than optimizing is a really important skill to try to teach. And how do you both build coalitions? How do you have Ah, clear sense of your objectors, but recognize that you’re not going toe fulfill all of them at once? How do you find rays of accommodating different viewpoints? How do you deal with the imperfections of the real world eyes, a set of skills that I think we need to put more attention to in our curriculum that to really build of into the way we teach.

[0:09:19 Speaker 3] Yeah, I think you’re mentioned the word skills, you know? So some people think this is a bad term, like, oh, skills. You know, we’re making them apprenticeships, and, you know, we’re sacrificing the theoretical big thinking. But if you think about theoretical work, it’s really setting frameworks, you know, thinkers, air, thinking about how do we think about these things in large frames? Then after we get those frameworks, then we can think about how they really play out. So experiential learning is absolutely critical. And it’s been in the LBJ in schools DNA because it was in the beginning, it was the practitioner as well as the theoretician. Ah, and we’re seeing it more and more. And people are looking at public policy schools to be the at bridge off the discoveries and knowledge that took place in the university and taking it outside and also the other way bringing things that people on the outside deed who are really solving problems now not in 20 years from now, and bringing that into the university. So you try to understand your research and how you design your research has some implications to what’s going on now,

[0:10:19 Speaker 0] Absolutely. And give a plug here for one of my funders. That Carnegie Corporation, which for many years has been involved in what they call the bridging the Gap program, which is to recognize that one. There is a gap between the world of the academy and the world of practice, but to that, both worlds would benefit from closer ties. And I’ve been working very closely with another alumnus of the LBJ School friend Gavin, who’s now at Johns Hopkins, sais in a project that’s trying to think about. How do we get the best of both worlds? How do we make our teaching towards our students, who are going to practice more rigorous? It isn’t just a bunch of war stories and kind of, you know, off the top of your head judgments so that they but it is also related to the constraints of real world practice. And I think there is tremendous opportunity there that you if you have a good grounding in strong methods in strong theory that will inform your ability to be a good practitioner. But it can’t be the only thing you have, because you know It’s the great saying that was always attributed to a French diplomat who once was reported to have said Yes, I know it works in practice for Kennett Working theory. Yes, on. Let’s flip that right against our We need both. And I think that the policy schools in particular are uniquely placed to do that because of their ability to tap into and the fact that most of the faculty, even in our public policy schools, often come from disciplines. Right. So they have that grounding, that I have that knowledge about what’s going on in the more academic, the more theoretical world, but also are connected to the applied World both in their teaching on the research. And I think both are important. And we need faculty who not only teach to this end but also have their research focused on taking the kind of rigor that comes from academic work but applying it towards real world

[0:12:05 Speaker 3] problem. I was fortunate enough to we’ve got a several grants from the National Science Foundation as well to try to think about how you take knowledge and the strength of the disciplines in university and put it through a lens of policy or public administration and put it out there. It’s not. It’s not easy. Um, and I think the community in general is struggling with this, But understand this, so at least that’s a good step is that people understand this is something we need to do, and there’s probably lots of different ways to do. There’s not like a way or the way there’s a bunch of ways. So those are things we have to keep thinking about his policy educators and keeping our eye on the ball and also being active like you are, you know, having a having professors who are active in the community stay active in the community so they could bring that knowledge back into the schools. So this gets me into another thing I wanted to talk to you about, because I think one of the difficult things. There’s two things really. One is when you think about global, because you started the global you know degree program. Here I often think about global is very different than international, like you know what you’re thinking, like bilateral unilateral or diplomacy Global is when you think about a problem and their problem. His definite implications for the United States, but for us to handle their problem. We have to play with other people around the world on this problem and teaching students the what you’re saying in the beginning here about, you know, multi disciplines. It even makes it even more difficult because now you’re looking at global players. That might change, given you know what the situation is and working with them so that we can benefit them but also benefit the United States. And I think we’re the jury’s still out and how well we’re doing with that. Do you agree?

[0:13:44 Speaker 0] I do. I mean, I think you know, we started the global studies program here because of the conviction that all of the problems had linkages to the environment beyond the United States were beyond any single country and and we pick global because it wasn’t just a matter between nations, but it was all kinds of networks and connections that were taking place when I taught that the base. Of course, here, when we first started the degree and and the first assignment was come up with a a policy problem which does not have a connection outside the borders of the United States. And of course, there is no such thing. There’s there’s simply even the things that we think of this very local, like education or Seward’s are things like that. All have an international dimension and global dimension, and so understanding those linkages and understanding that that battery is a totally artificial one that boundaries. We hear a lot about walls these days, but boundaries really are highly permeable and were affected in ways that people don’t even think hard enough about. But then, the question is, How do you teach to that? Because the complexity and somehow make it all seem like almost unmanageable, because on the one hand, you have to appreciate the complexity. On the other hand, you have to tease out the strands because you can’t deal with everything people. So it’s like for the mathematically inclined. I always used to say it’s like partial differential equations. You can’t solve all of it, but you have to break it up into these partial elements but not lose sight of the fact that it’s embedded in in a broader context. That means exposing students to these complex systems, thes thes connections and exposing them to the fact that that perceptions of these problems differ from country to country, that there are some similarities on places where we see problems are very similar and some places where we see different approaches and different views.

[0:15:30 Speaker 3] I think this is still our challenge and getting professors who could do that because, you know, as you say, we were a public policy school, it’s great. But we draw on these disciplines and and to be successful in your discipline, sometimes you have to do deep dives. You don’t think more globally. You think more about your specific, you know, approach to things

[0:15:47 Speaker 0] so that you say What are the great strengths here? Which and I think it had a lot of influence of my own thing. He was because of this strong connection that that U. T and the LBJ School has always had to our neighbor to the south and that kind of transboundary, intra messed IQ dimension with so many people like Peter Ward and others were would work on really brought home to me one the fact that for especially for board states and border communities like here, you see it all the time on everything on water, on air, on people on health and second, sort of the ability to think about. How do you build institutions in programs that address this and this strong connection that that UT has the Latin American? That the LBJ School is? Hegel, Latin America, I think, is a model of how to think about and work. These problems

[0:16:33 Speaker 3] I don’t like, usually use the word exploit. But that’s a good word here because we can drive to the border and we have so many alum and presence in Mexico and Latin America, and that’s one of the strategic directions were taking. And there’s so many things to think about in terms of trade and civil systems, etcetera. So and you let America is not all one thing, either, right?

[0:16:53 Speaker 5] So

[0:16:54 Speaker 3] but the one area where I’m really interesting again, your perspective is when we start talking about China because here you have a massive economy, a massive country, and sometimes they’re sort of this love hate relationship, or this is sympathetic versus not so sympathetic approach to China, and you have a communist system, but it’s becoming economically, more and more strong, and so when we’re trying to think about this in terms of helping our students understand this major player in the globe. How do we do the sewer balance so that you know, like when you’re thinking in the State Department, how do you approach? Ah, potential adversary? But at the same time, you really want to make sure the connections there, there so that you understand what they’re doing.

[0:17:41 Speaker 0] That’s a great question, you know, and it’s for me. It’s a very poignant one, because when I was a student and beginning to think about international relations, of course the big challenge was the Soviet Union. So my language of choice back in the day, where’s Russian? And I study Russian and one of these. I remember my first teacher was a regular teacher, but he’d learned his Russian in the Army and had never spent any time the Soviet because, of course, you couldn’t go right. A few Americans studied there, but you’d end up in Moscow state and you were very cabin din, and we have an advantage, Indiana, which I’d at least now that we maybe we’re turning in a different direction, which is there still a tremendous amount of interchange. We have just a gigantic influx of Chinese students and more more of our students who are now studying in China. So that’s the first opportunity that we have is to really, whatever the political issues between us, we can’t cut off the’s avenues of exchange and getting to learn that we may not agree with China. Maybe we will end up in a competition, a rivalry, Reeve or worse. But we need to understand them. And this is a very big problem because a lot of what’s going on, really I think, reflects a deep failure to understand China. Uh, way. I think we understand a lot about Xi Jinping and the Politburo Standing Committee. But we understand that as much as we should about China. So people need to go. They need to study. They need to see. You need to get to know Chinese. Yeah, and it is an advantage, by the way, that we have so many Chinese students in our schools. They’re not, you know, statistically representative sample of the Chinese people. But they are diverse and there are a lot of them. And you know, I have a lot of my classes and it’s It’s really great because whatever the problems of freedom of expression in China and I know there’s a lot of fear about intimidation of Chinese students here that there are Fifth Column. I’m not seeing that. I’m really not seeing that right classroom. My Chinese students are knowledgeable. They have pride in a country their patriotic about the country. But they understand the issues and challenges, and and so that’s the first thing is we really do have to get to know each other. We have to agree with each other, but we do have to get to know each other on the student student and on faculty to faculty exchanges. We need to keep going. We can’t sacrifice our commitment to academic freedom. When we go, we can’t refuse to talk about topics that we want to talk about. I’ve been very fortunate. I go and teach and China a lot on DNA. Nobody’s ever told me what I can or can’t say on Guy say when I think I was just there last week and I had some strong words to say about my concerns about what was going on in the Chinese leadership, so we have to keep those avenues open of understanding, and I think that if we do that one, it gives us a better chance of managing the problems. But to at least if we have difficulties, they will be riel rather than imagined. And and one of the great dangers that we that we face is a danger because of our lack of knowledge and the other side, we tend to fear the worst on and prepare for the worst, and that’s understand. If you don’t really know what’s going on, how else can you behave? But if we have a better understanding, I think that will help. And so we need. It’s a difficult time. Both sides are pressuring the freedom of exchange. There’s a lot coming out of administration that worries me a great deal about this sort of notion that that we can’t remember the president talk loosely about cutting off all students coming from China, which I think would be a terrible tragedy.

[0:20:56 Speaker 3] Well, this gets back to the thing two week of active global, you know, and if we become more and more isolationist and I don’t like to use the term because it’s got a lot of baggage. But if we become more and more withdrawn and more more making, um, countries the other ah, then this understanding this cultural understanding, this understanding of how people work, what they’re thinking, what they’re researching because the other part with the China situation is in addition to the, you know, the university’s think tanks. And, you know, people think, well, they’re tied to the government, so we really can’t work with them. But if we don’t open ourselves up, uh, and we don’t have confidence of the people here, uh, can do a good job there and understand. Then we’re gonna close off a major, ah, potential partner, player, or even influencing what goes on in China. It’s been a challenge.

[0:21:45 Speaker 0] I don’t think we need to be naive about this. I mean,

[0:21:48 Speaker 3] yeah,

[0:21:49 Speaker 0] right. Academics come from China to here. There are constraints. They are not as free again. And to engage in inquiry as we are, uh, here and so. But the alternative just is to say, well, because they have these constraints and they can’t fully speak freely that we should engage in that. I think it’s a terrible mistake. We have to just we have to understand the limits of what’s possible here. It’s different from having an exchange with our friends in Mexico are the UK or whatever. But we still need to have that.

[0:22:17 Speaker 1] And, you know,

[0:22:18 Speaker 0] there’s still an opportunity Teoh here and learn from each other. And I think we need to have confidence in ourselves that we’re not threatened by this. I mean, I know we hear a lot about these Chinese influence campaigns, but to me, honestly, the notion that the China Daily taking out an ad in our newspaper somehow going to threaten our or that we can’t tell the difference I just don’t find persuasive. I think, though it goes back to our earlier discussion about globalism, which is that you do here in some of the critiques, and I don’t want to make this time too political when the president attacks globalism, right and sort of this idea that somehow that’s a bad thing. It’s on a good or bad thing. It’s just a reality, right? We are interdependent, We can’t cut ourselves off from these things. And while there are certainly some zero some features, even in the world of economics, which we think of as the world of fishes competition. We all know that that while there have been cost to globalization, that expensive also made enormous benefits. And so understanding that and understand globalization is a phenomenon which we need toe both understand the risks and dangers, but also the opportunities is really critical. And that interdependence, which was why did that exercise of my first class is basically two rows we can’t insulate ourselves. There is no wall high enough that will allow us to sort of live within ourselves. It was never true of this country. By the right minutes. They we have this sort of image, but it’s a student of American history. You know, we were a country that was founded on Commerce Way, have never been able to extricate ourselves from the affairs of the world, and even less so today.

[0:23:52 Speaker 3] One of the things I wanted to get your opinion as well as I see the policy schools also playing a role in the university of bringing big thinkers into the university around. Not that they have to be a big thinker in physics or astrophysics or, you know, genome project, but people who think big about things and think about the future. You know? You know, as we’re moving down this this road, if I can use the metaphor and we have to we know that we’re gonna have an exit lane, you know, to the future. And we have to make sure we’re ready to get into that exit line. What role do you see? The policy schools plain and bringing some of these large thinkers in. And now, with the objective that they’re gonna be a visiting fellow would be here and do a class, but work for the university in terms of bringing larger kinds of concepts. Think

[0:24:41 Speaker 0] the the perspective that policy schools bring that really is a comparative advantage here is that policy schools think about problems rather than tools. And that’s a different way of organizing inquiry, right, Which is rather than saying, you know, what can we learn about, you know, particle physics, or what can we learn? What questions? What we learned about low carbon energy and so the policy schools could help redefine the agenda of the universities around problems rather than disciplines or methods, and then used to dispose of methods to help address the problems. So by becoming the place that helps the university of and if I were the big questions that that society is grappling with, whether it’s a I or whether it’s the environment and then think about who are the people, irrespective of what discipline they come from, that are thinking creatively and innovatively about it. So I think the advantages less so much in the the who. Ah, and so the what we should be talking about and helping to think about that. And some of the innovative universities are more and more organizing theirselves around big problems rather than traditional departments. And I think the policy schools can really help lead the way and helping the university’s think that way about the inquiry that takes place Our campus

[0:25:57 Speaker 3] when I was at a conference and, you know, you get into a session sometimes and people get you to think about things and and this thought came to me. When you think about public institutions, there’s only really to public institutions that protect the differences of ideas that can sit side by side. So when you say you go to a public library, you can go and you can look at all of the publications and there’s not a judgment of this person’s higher than this. They’re on the same shelf, so to speak. You know what I mean is like idea by idea the same thing that a public university should be as well. And, you know, bring ideas that air difference in, like you said not to fear the fact that somebody’s going to say something that they were. Then it’s all a sudden Oliver knowledge in is gonna go out the window because we’re going to get like swept up by. This is a public university. Yet we’re finding that there’s a little bit more of timidity in this idea of bringing lots of different ideas to a university campus. So what do you see as the danger of that? Or what do you see? Maybe, Maybe that’s a loaded question. Maybe give me your give me your idea about the role of a public university and bringing different ideas together. It’s

[0:27:07 Speaker 0] a big challenge, and we’ve seen this in a lot of universities around campus. For a variety of reasons. I’m very close to a number of people at the Miller Center in Virginia, which has gone through this great controversy about this, in which the question about whether voices from the Trump administration belong not so much to speak on campus. I l Victor, it’s really indisputable that people should come and speak, but whether they belong as members of the academic community. And it’s a tough question, you know, because thes there are a lot of things clear that I strongly disagree with. But I think we can’t afford to run away from them. We have to find a way to engage with, um in ways that are respectful. I mean, I think that’s really the key is to is to keep the door is wide open as we can, but have rules about civility, about the way that it’s conducted. And that issue of civility, which is a great national preoccupation right now, deserves to be in front because the ability to have this discordance and be open to different ideas those dependence ability, I would just say is again, is a historian. Let’s not kid ourselves. Incivility has characterized our politics from the beginning, right? Uh, you know, anybody who studied the Civil War and remembers the kating of Charles? Some there on the floor of the Congress, and that was in the middle of our 1st 100 years. But even going back to the earliest days Onda vitriol and the and the name calling on the real deep animus. So it’s not a new phenomenon here, the problem of sustaining civility in our public life. Ah, and it is. It is hard when people advocate views, which are quite disturbing, but we have to find ways to be civil, and we have to find ways to have it be based on the canons of inquiry, that we all believe it has to be evidence based that has to be based on reasoning and logic. And not just I debated thing that universities are not Op ed pages of newspapers Write anything to beep option op ed newspaper. There is a requirement here that it’s more than just opinion for the academic community who is going to be members of this community. It has to be people who are committed to the basics principles of reasoning, of inquiry, of evidence based analysis, but within that, we just have to make sure that we keep the doors as wide as we can

[0:29:24 Speaker 3] that’s what I see. Our role is as a university. That’s what I see. Our role is in public policy schools, and I see our role is exposing students to that. So they’re practiced and they they start building their muscle of, you know, discretion and understanding here. Ah, where it’s a safe environment to make mistakes. But we have to be able to expose students that things that are difficult to things that are confusing the things that they may not always agree with their uncomfortable with. And if we don’t do that, I think we really do failed.

[0:29:54 Speaker 0] And you talked earlier about the important building coalitions. And I mean, what I always tell my students is that you are never going to find yourself once you leave the campus. If you are. Even if you were in the campus environment in a like minded group there, you’re going to be constantly demon. People have different views, different analysis, and you’re gonna have to find a way to work through that. I mean, everything can’t be a fistfight. It’s You’re gonna have to find ways to work with people who have different perspectives who have different set of interests a different set of priorities. And if you don’t learn how to do that when you’re a student, when when are you going toe

[0:30:27 Speaker 3] right and you need to seek them out. So even if they don’t come across your path, you need to seek them out because that’s the best kind of policies understanding the consequences and the implications for lots of different audiences. So doing that as well. Well, Jim, it has been such a pleasure. This is a very wonderful. There’s a lot of wisdom and what you’re saying, and I do hope that we’re able to work together to succeed in this. It’s a big deal.

[0:30:52 Speaker 0] It’s very important. But I think that, you know, the missions of the schools are very important to me because they are fundamentally about civic engagement and, you know, and that’s what makes our students of special admin. That’s why we enjoy so much engagement because they have this sense of civic responsibility and, you know, we we at the Maxwell School repeat the Athenian oath when we graduate our students about making our city more beautiful than we found it. And so that spirit is what brings I think all of us as teachers to these schools. What brings our students to the schools? And I think we just have to keep true to that mission and adapt it to the world that we live in today.

[0:31:29 Speaker 3] Thank you. And I hope everyone is listening. You know that we’re very, very fortunate in this country to have people like Jim and other educators who are devoted to students and devoting to ensuring that our students get the best education, the best exposure, the best skill sets that they can. So that, like Jim said at the very beginning, not just for when they leave our school immediately, but for their long term career trajectories, wherever that may take him. Thank you again so

[0:31:55 Speaker 0] much. Gemma does it. Same here.

[0:31:57 Speaker 2] Thank you. Thistles. Policy on Purpose, a podcast produced by the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin Way take you behind the scenes of policy with the people who help shape it. To learn more, visit LBJ dot utexas dot edu and follow us on Twitter or Facebook at the LBJ School. Thank you for