A $10 million gift from Patricia and Jon Baker Sr. (CAS ’64) established the Baker Center for Leadership and Governance within the McCourt School of Public Policy on Tuesday. A nonpartisan effort, the center will promote research and discussion on policy issues headlined by an annual Baker Forum, where leaders in business, politics and academia will come together to discuss policy.
“By providing an environment to observe and practice intelligent and respectful discourse on important global policy issues, the Baker Center will build upon our historic commitment to bringing insightful dialogue to bear on the most pressing issues of the day,” University President John J. DeGioia wrote in an email to the university.
Baker is the founder, chair and CEO of International Planning Group, a global life insurance broker. He formerly served on the university’s Board of Regents, and in 1991 received the John Carroll Award, the highest honor awarded by the Georgetown University Alumni Association.
“[The idea for the center] was inspired by Frank McCourt’s $100 million gift to create the McCourt School last fall,” Lauren Mullins, director of communications for the McCourt School, wrote in an email.
The McCourt School of Public Policy, founded in September 2013 and funded by this record-breaking $100 million gift by Frank McCourt, Jr. (CAS ’75), replaced the Georgetown Public Policy Institute.
Mark Rom, associate dean for academic affairs at the McCourt School, said that the Bakers have long been in conversation with administrators to figure out a way to contribute to the university. The announcement of the McCourt School offered such an opportunity.
“[The McCourt School] is going to be a hub of intellectual activity regarding public policy on campus, in D.C. and broader. With those doors already opening up, the Bakers were eager to play the substantial role that they could,” Rom said.
Baker praised Georgetown as the ideal recipient of the donation.
“Georgetown is uniquely positioned to leverage its brand, values, principles and successes to transform how policy issues are debated,” Baker said in a press release.
The signature event of the center will be the Baker Forum, which will annually invite prominent academics together with government and business leaders to present research and facilitate discussion on policy issues.
“The Baker Forum is designed to attract an agenda-setting group of experts who will come up with tangible policy solutions, informed by research, to some of our world’s most critical challenges,” McCourt School Dean Edward Montgomery said in a statement.
While the specifics of the leadership of the center and other programming are still being determined, the center will promote research in areas such as human rights, energy, the environment and economic challenges.
“Solving policy problems is really a tremendously creative exercise, and there are different ways to do that that can appeal to a common set of values that can be acceptable to both liberals and conservatives,” Rom said.
The Baker Center will fall under the new Institute of Politics and Public Service at the McCourt School. The Massive Data Institute and the Institute for Politics and Public Service are the two institutes within the McCourt School.
Rom hopes that the addition of the center to the university will further cultivate leadership in public policy.
“There are personal skills associated with leadership, which is deep knowledge of the political process, substantive expertise on particular issues, ability to create coalitions that can arrive at conclusions, so there’s a lot of those kinds of skills that are rare,” Rom said. “That doesn’t mean it can’t be taught and different elements of it can’t be thoughtfully approached through research and training.”
