A recent $1-million gift will allow the Center for Public Interest Careers at Harvard (CPIC) to expand its services.
The center matches undergraduates and recent graduates with paid summer and post-graduate year-long jobs in public service. It runs programs in Boston, New York, Washington, Chicago, and San Francisco, and has placed more than 1,000 students thus far. The gift will allow the center to hire a second student intern and to reactivate a matching program for internships in Los Angeles.
The gift comes from Charlotte Chen Ackert ’76 and her husband, David Ackert, whose previous involvement with CPIC includes planning seminars and social events for the program in New York and supporting internships in public broadcasting in New York.
At the same time as the gift announcement, President Drew Faust and Dean of the College Evelynn Hammonds announced the formation of a University-wide committee on public service, charged with examining, and reporting back on, whether and how Harvard can better encourage undergraduates to consider a career in public service and support those who are interested. The committee includes representatives from the Harvard College Fund; the Office of Career Services; and the graduate schools of government, business, and law, as well as from Faust's office and CPIC itself.
CPIC figured in an article in the November-December 2008 issue of Harvard Magazine describing the College's efforts to get undergraduates to consider life's big questions and their own core values.
Read more about the gift and the committee in the University Gazette or on the CPIC website.
