david: he grew up in a working-class neighborhood in baltimore. his single mother working nights and weekends to graduate college and go on for a masters and phd, while his public and private education taught him talent is distributed without regard to wealth or zip code. dan porterfield went on to become a national leader in education as senior vice president at georgetown and then as president at franklin and marshall college in pennsylvania, leading the way to make sure talented low-income students got the same opportunities as others. now porterfield is taking on a new challenge is the head of the aspen institute, taking what he has learned in the field of education and applying it to issues ranging from health care

to poverty to national security and, yes, education as well, seeking to make sure we are bringing all of the talented for the benefit of us all. on this week's "bloomberg, big decisions," dan porterfield. welcome. >> thank you. david: you have been described as a leader in ensuring access of high achieving low income students for colleges. take us back to baltimore, maryland. what in the small, young boy of dan porterfield led him to that decision? dan: i grew up in a couple different neighborhoods. one of the neighborhoods, it was my parents, me and my sister, we were pretty much the only white family. then after my parents divorced, we moved about a mile away, very similar neighborhood. there were only white families. it was a fine neighborhood. i didn't know it at the time but it was segregated. eventually integration came to

that neighborhood. a family i believe from africa moved in, a doctor, his wife and two little kids. there were a number of people that really greeted them with great hostility and tried to get them to leave and threw tomatoes on their house or wrote things on the sidewalk. my mom going to night school made friends with this family and went up and brought casserole and said she wanted them to feel welcome. they should belong here. eventually the families that didn't want them there moved out themselves, pretty fast too, within about six months. it became half white and half black and it stabilized that way, integrated and i grew up and really enjoyed playing touch football in the street, little league baseball, basketball around the corner. it was a good neighborhood. and so, for me, i took away a lot of important lessons. one though, there is a lot that people bring to life from all different backgrounds. and if we give people a shot, and opportunity, they will rise

and climb and make society better. i also learned how important it is if you are a person who is born white who has that as a privilege even though she was in foster care, she was born white to grow up poor, but she did have a chance to move forward. taught me how to be a white person. she at the time i was growing up and going to a public school with a single mom and didn't have a lot of advantages, but she taught me in our society with all the different structures and values and codes we have, you will have a chance to rise. when you do, share that with others. david: you said you were in public school. did the children back in that day have equal opportunity of first-rate education in the public school? dan: it was northwood elementary school. we thought it was a good school. it did become integrated in my fifth grade and sixth grade years. interestingly though, for seventh grade i was sent to a school called hamilton. that school went on shifts.

so my mom, a single mom, got a letter saying in august, in another week or two when your son comes to school you will either go in the morning from 8:30 to 12:00, or in the afternoon from 12:00 to 4:00. what is a single mother going to do with a kid, have him around the house all day long? so she scrambled and late august that year took me two different private schools around baltimore city and found the one that would take me and give me a scholarship. i went to st. paul's school in brooklynville. i was behind relative to the students in seventh grade. you hear the term opportunity or achievement gap. it speaks to what lower income students have been able to learn compared to other students. i had to close it pretty fast. i had great teachers, great work. i never forgot really we were in a school system that was so lacking in accountability to working families, that you could

say your child would be at over half a day, and secondly, i never forgot as great as that school in northwood felt relative to students with other backgrounds i had to climb and had a lot of work to do. that helped inform my belief that talent is universally is to be distributed across every community and zip code. the proper role of education is to make sure talent can rise. david: you went on to a jesuit high school. why did you go to that school? dan: i transferred from st. paul school to loyola high school after ninth grade because i wanted to play baseball. st. paul's only had lacrosse. what i learned at school was i had the talent, i had to work hard. david: how much of your realization you could apply yourself to succeed came from your mother? how much from the school and how much from your peers? dan: definitely my mom was the

big example. she went back to school around the age of 30 or 31 to the local college, townsend college, and went to school at night and on the weekend in summers. it took her three or four years to get her ba. she was the first in her family to go to college. it was a big deal. at the same time, my parents left it to me same time, my and my sister to create our own education. they weren't hovering. they didn't know what my homework was. they were supportive had high standards, and it was up to me. that is one of the lessons you get from that upbringing is each of us has a responsibility to create our education. it isn't a gift. you can't buy it. you can't order it on amazon. it is something you create with your actions, your own endeavors. i picked that up from my mom and felt pride for her when she got her masters degree when i was in the ninth grade and she got her doctorate when i was in college. she went on to become one of the foremost historians of women in the american west. she didn't even start her career

until mid 40's or later. she ended up writing four or five books about women. she was a university professor at utah state. if you think about it, this is a kid that spent 14 years in foster care and was a single mom. so what happened? she had access to great education. david: you went on to georgetown. when you were at georgetown, you founded not one but two different programs for washington, d.c. to help children who had ability but didn't have means. you went on to a distinguished academic career, a stint in government, and you ended up going back to georgetown. why did you go back to georgetown and what was your mission while you were there? >> i earned a phd from the city university of new york and literature while also working as first a speech writer and then communications director for the hhs secretary in washington. it was a pleasure to work with her, one of the best public servants i have ever seen. i spent more years with her come idealism with more

about good government and the proper government role than i had when i went in. but i wanted to work hands-on again, and so georgetown invited me and gave me an opportunity to create a role that combined -- it was essentially a title change, but senior vice president for strategy and to be an english professor. i designed and taught my own courses for 14 years while helping lead the university on major strategic initiatives. in the last eight of those years, my wife and i and three children lived in a dormitory. the thing about georgetown as a younger employee or midcareer employee compared to being a student was i saw the jesuit mission in a different way. as a student, i thought the jesuit mission was about being seen and valued as a young person with something to offer. as i came back as a midcareer person, i saw other virtues in jesuit education in the fostering of leadership. one was loyola which was pretty

modern in its formulation of a path forward really believed in what he called the discernment of spirits, which means regular efforts to ask yourself where am i today, where do i want to be going? is moving me? what influences me? i think leaders should always be looking in the mirror and asking themselves that question. am i really following my true calling? how do i understand better what is at work? the jesuits taught me one of the toughest things to deal with is fear. often fear ends up influencing the way we approach decision-making. this idea of finding the discernment of spirits is to liberate one from the feeling of fear. the second thing i learned the second time working at georgetown was jesuits emphasize something called being contemplative in action. by that, they mean they are oriented in producing among students people that want to make a difference in the world.

they want to make change and support the development of culture and civilization, especially through education. while they are looking for people who are women and men of action, for others, they also want to encourage and reflect, to step back and discern things. in leadership that is so important, even more today may much moreere is so coming at every single leader in society, whether they work in a company, management role, or they are a journalist and a multinational organization. everything is coming fast. how do you step back from the pace of it all in order to ask am i doing my best work? the jesuits taught me not to fear that question. david: after georgetown, you got your own school to run. what caused you to accept that? dan: you shouldn't be afraid to change, change fields, change jobs, change direction. ♪

david: after 14 years at georgetown you got your own school to run, franklin and marshall in pennsylvania. take us into that decision. what caused you to accept? dan: the big thing was i wanted to make another difference and i wanted to develop my talents in a way that would allow me to feel i was using whatever gifts i have. we shouldn't be afraid to change, change fields, change jobs, change direction. i would think it is a most fair thing to say i was in georgetown living in that dormitory, i was kind of like the mayor of the campus. my apartment and office was like a crossroads, whether it was a problem and opportunity or thinking another way georgetown could make a difference in d.c. or figuring out how to position the institution for leadership and something important, it was a crossroads.

doing that for a number of years gave me the preparation to be able to be the ceo, lita college, but also gave me the desire for that. i had to not just leave a job but leave a role. david: did you think long and hard about it, or was it easy? dan: i've thought about it. i thought about it pretty hard. the most important thing was it was my wife karen and i, we had to decide what would be right for our children. at which stage of things, so that was the main thing. their own timing in my own readiness. i have a friend who is the deputy secretary of hss -- he said when we were younger, people make the mistake of trying to move to their promotion too fast. you want to make sure you are ready for the role you say you want. i did feel like family wise ready and professionally so why not? dan: once you got that role, you decided to put your own on

franklin and marshall. and going back to the question of high achieving low income students, giving them access to first rate higher education, how long did it take you to come to that conclusion? what brought you to it? dan: so i think i learned it at georgetown, because georgetown developed a full financial aid policy back in the 1970's. i had a loan and grant and my family paid and i worked. i already knew the value of saying to students you pay your fair share, we will support you, get a college education. when i went to franklin and marshall, i had this institution that georgetown would work well there because the school is very rigorous and very much cares about students who want to create and be active learners. that kind of person that wants hard work and wants to give themselves to a great education, that type exists by the millions in lower income and middle income communities in america. they are not recruited enough by top schools but they are there. the intellectual ability and the grit, the spine, the heart and

stamina to make it count. when you fill your student body with students that are invested, everybody benefits. we call it a talent strategy. it wasn't actually framed as a diversity strategy. it was framed as talent. david: as persuasive as that sounds, a lot of concerns about higher education or financial. -- are financial. how do we get money to support the institution? how did your institution react when you said, i have a great idea. let's get as many pell grant students as possible? dan: franklin and marshall is committed to academic excellence. that was key. they are committed to that. so a talent strategy that would allow them to have access to more hungry students serve the core value and mission of the institution. when you go in to a place whether a business or university and say i want to change your core values, it will not work, but the core value was there. it was their value, not my idea, that led to the effort we developed. we tripled our pell grant

population because we tripled our need-based aid. that required us to pull leverage to have financial flexibility. that included issuing or restructuring our debt. it included emphasizing financial aid in our fundraising. some things did not fund at the same level because they were not essential to the schools mission. david: when you say we wouldn't be funding some things as much as we did, there is a lot in that, and there are people who believe in what was being funded. how do you bring an organization around to your point of view where you are changing the direction? dan: planning process that allows stakeholders to weigh in, so your alums, board, faculty, students, parents. to really weigh in is important. there is more legitimacy in tough decisions at least in a people-serving institution if it has been a good, inclusive process. that is number one. the second is it is important to get and document results.

we were able to show in two years those first-generation and pell grant students are outperforming the student body as a whole in some key metrics, including retention rate. and secondly, the grades were the same. now it is the graduation rates, the honors are higher among the moderate income and lower income students, so it is built buy in, document progress and results in be agile enough to make adjustments. nobody can write a plan that predicts everything that will happen. david: it is great to have a vision but you have to get it executed. how do you make sure it is not just the people around you agreeing with you and nodding enthusiastically, but is permeating the entire organization? dan: we did a really serious strategic positioning research project early so that we could hear and share with the whole community how others view and

valued franklin and marshall and how franklin and marshall viewed and valued itself so that everybody could feel they had knowledge that would allow them to represent what the school was about effectively. that invites the whole organizations to become if you will, brand ambassadors. we don't use the word brand info -- we don't use the word brand in higher education but that is really the best positioning of an organization is when all of the people associate with it know what it is about. the second thing, we created a faculty center. the faculty could have a place to go for themselves to work on pedagogical techniques that would be helpful as the demographic of the student body changed. this wasn't the administration telling the faculty how to adjust teaching if there would be more first generated students, it was giving the resources so they can figure it out themselves and that is extremely important. changemakers shouldn't be condescending.

we should be trying to make it open to all, trying to make it open to all and inviting more and open source. david: we talk about high achieving students of low income. what about the ones who aren't achieving? they have great intelligence but not the experience you had in baltimore. dan: the question is how does our country respond to the unevenness and insufficiency in education in rural and suburban communities? the answer is we need to really create a learning ecosystem out of our higher education institutions, regional four-year colleges, private colleges, big flagship institutions and our private schools. i just had the pleasure of being at the miami-dade commencement two days ago. it is one of the most important institutions in our country, graduating 13,000 people a year with associates degrees, then they go to four-year schools. many go right to work, but they all go to something productive.

i think america needs more miami-dades. it doesn't mean every student needs college, but every student needs a way to develop so that they are not essentially feeling that stuck feeling of having a light trapped inside of them. it is in our interest as a country, not just for the one, but for the many, making education the thing we are best at. that will make the quality of our democracy and economy so much better in today's highly competitive global, science-driven, tech-driven, fast-paced economy. david: what is your mission at aspen? what do you want to do there? dan: to me, it means a working democracy, fantastic economy and a sense of opportunity and possibility and optimism. ♪

david: you now run the aspen institute. there was some in the press who raised questions about whether you had left those high achieving low income students

behind. what is your mission? what do you want to do there? dan: i think our mission is to promote a free, just and equitable society, what all that means, and that is a complex vision. to me it means a working democracy, a fantastic economy, and a sense of opportunity and possibility and optimism that it affects the young because it is held by their elders. the aspen institute is a devoutly nonpartisan organization. we are absolutely committed to improving civil discourse as a part of strengthening civil society. david: i don't think anyone could quibble with that as a goal. that is a pretty broad goal. what is the risk of trying to do everything is you end up essentially doing nothing? dan: you have to be strategic about which direction do you move into? for us i would say this is not going to be exhaustive but a few of the high-level things we are focusing on is one, developing midcareer professionals from the

private sector. 15 different programs, highly successful midcareer people. secondly, we focus a lot on what i call the new localism, which is that working in partnership with other organizations on the ground to frame and solve a problem in a way that is not partisan and can be documented. another part of our work, we developed on community college excellence and helping new college presidents to be able to increase graduation rates and increase the employment of their graduates. so the new localism, to me, is about confident, practical problem-solving. important, demonstrable, nonpolitical. david: there tends to be a duality, two poles in the united states. people who say it should be all private sector. it addresses the major issues of our day. another tends to say it is all government. let the government do it. where do you see the line being drawn? dan: i go back to that famous line from president clinton's state of the union in 1994 or

so. the era of big government is over. and i tend to think that the best solutions come from local communities and they involve growing economic and educational opportunity. and so, i tend to think that. and then where there needs to be a safety net is around vulnerable people and their lives. and so while it is important government provide the safety net for families, they also need to stay out of the way of key parental and local decisions, which can include the curriculum in school and how the family talks to the children about risk behavior. one thing the aspen institute is all about is supporting real discourse, real, honest discourse so people can hash out the questions given the particular circumstances they are in. at the end of the day it is not about the writing of a rule, but the building of a good will among all people. that takes discourse, sharing of ideas around problem-solving. looking down the road i think today's young people are going

to expect stronger government work in the area of dealing with climate change because it is a global problem that isn't going to fix itself, and i think they will expect stronger government effort around protecting core basic rights, upholding the rule of law. those to me seem like moments when you need government leadership. i don't think you need government leadership in areas like economic development. i think it is best to remove the regulations and allow the economy to develop based on how the private sector is unfolding. we have to be able to stand together around the face of an open society. aspen stands for that, but even more exciting, in many places around the world, including places where nationalism is on the rise, they stand for those values. i would like to help to make sure the aspen institute stands for excellence, impact, sustainability, coherence in our mission, and high aspirations.

david: thank you so much. dan: great, thank you. ♪

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