Indiana mayors chosen for Harvard ‘First 100 Days’ program
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Numerous cities around Indiana have new mayors taking office this week, but three of them have received a bit of a boost to help them through their first 100 days. Evansville Mayor Stephanie Terry, Bloomington Mayor Kerry Thomson and Gary Mayor Eddie Melton were selected for the New Mayors: First 100 Days program at the Bloomberg Center for Cities at Harvard University.
As part of the program, the mayors joined newly elected leaders from from two dozen other cities in November for a three-day gathering in which they received training “on how to set strategic citywide priorities, build effective city hall organizations, and deliver for residents.”
Jorrit de Jong, director of the Bloomberg center, told Inside INdiana Business the program aims to help mayors engage with specific challenges that they face in their new role.
“We have a very specific pedagogy, a way of learning,” he said. “We’re using cases, and those cases are written about mayors that were in their exact same position but just a few years earlier. So we use the experiences of the mayors that have already served to ask the mayors in this class, ‘How would they diagnose these challenges? What would they do?’ And then of course, we introduce some insights from research, and the larger literature and leadership to help them make sense of those situations.”
Terry, who was inaugurated to Evansville’s top office on Monday, said the undertone of the three-day gathering was the value of building a great team.
“We spent a lot of time digesting that, looking at the different scenarios in terms of organizational structure that the mayor can have its most success [with] in terms of moving forward his or her agenda. Thinking about personal safety and security was also a conversation and being in the public eye, and how do we communicate effectively and engage the community as part of problem solvers, and moving and addressing some of the challenges that we face in our communities.”
Evansville Mayor Stephanie Terry discussed the tone of the gathering and working with her Indiana counterparts in the program.
Thomson, who ran unopposed for the mayor’s office in Bloomington and thus, has been preparing for her new role since the May primary, said the Harvard program helped create a foundation for her.
“Leading at the mayoral level means that you naturally have to navigate ambiguity every single day, not really know the whole picture of what’s coming at you,” she said. “And so the Harvard program really broke things down into the segments of mayoral responsibility, and how to build a great team to help you address all the needs in your city.”
One of the key takeaways for the participants, according to de Jong and all three Indiana mayors, is the network of contacts that they walk away with.
“This is perhaps the most tremendous gift of this program, literally having the cell phone numbers of not not only every colleague that was in the program with me, but many former mayors and former staffers as well, who have navigated some of the most challenging issues that a municipality can face,” said Thomson.
Eddie Melton was in a more unique situation during the November gathering because Chicago Mayor Brandon was also a participant.
“What was very helpful for me was to be able to spend those two or three days with the mayor of Chicago, who we have a lot in common [with], a lot of things that we will have to work on together, such as the Gary/Chicago International Airport, such as gun violence, such as economic development, and I believe we’re off to a good start with building a relationship.”
Gary Mayor Eddie Melton talked about his experience in the program.
Terry is also in a unique position as her predecessor, Lloyd Winnecke, is remaining close by as the new CEO of the Evansville Regional Economic Partnership. She said that is a bonus to the connections she also made through the Harvard program.
“I think it’s just a win win for our community,” Terry said. “I mean, there’s a lot of work that has already started and we want to continue and build on that progress. And so I think it’s going to be a vital resource.”
Indiana and Colorado were the only two states with three mayors participating in the 2023 cohort.
Former Indianapolis Mayor Stephen Goldsmith, a professor of urban policy at the Bloomberg Center for Cities, said he believes it’s the first time three Indiana mayors were selected, and he was impressed with the Hoosier State’s representatives.
“There is no issue of politics among the mayors; most mayors are pragmatists that try to deal with the basics of their cities. I thought it was a very impressive group of three individuals. [With] their questions and their interest in doing things well, lots of follow up questions from the mayors, I was impressed with their professionalism and their commitment.”
Goldsmith said the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the Institute of Politics at Harvard had put on this program in the past, but the financial support from former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg has made it more substantial than it was before.
“There is more infrastructure. There’s more planning. There’s more faculty; the Harvard Business School participates, for example. The curriculum is a little better developed,” said Goldsmith, a former deputy mayor for Bloomberg. “This is much of a week that was pretty intense for the new mayors, and each one filled with classroom materials and discussions and evening dinners and pretty elaborate set of activities.”
For Terry, Thomson and Melton, each said getting the opportunity to meet each other and get a sense of what each other is preparing for was an added benefit.
“I couldn’t be more excited to have now-established relationships with Stephanie Terry and Eddie Melton,” Thomson said. “The network in Indiana will be powerful as we lead forward, and I’m just really grateful to have those two connections.”