Word: allisons
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...School grows, Allison necessarily has lost the ability to remain in close touch with everyone who walks through the polished glass doors on Boylston Street, something he seemed able to do in the program's more intimate days. Somewhere along the line, he has acquired a reputation among some as a distant but diligent manager. The K-School has come quite a ways since the summer of 1969, when a small group of "concerned faculty" patiently ironed out the details of a proposal for a public policy program. In that relatively short (in terms of Harvard) timespan, Allison...
...first blush, the image seems hard to erase. Allison apologizes excessively for being 20 minutes late for an appointment. He speaks in steady, measured tones--in a sonorous voice oddly reminiscent of Dan Rather--weighing each word heavily. He likes to order things in sets of three. He uses words like "prioritize" and mouths sentences like, "There's no model--so we're trying to define operationally a strategy for achieving that objective...
...coffee table is stacked with books, his desk is cluttered with papers. You can almost picture Allison slaving away efficiently in a dimly-lit office 90 hours a week, deriving enjoyment from pushing papers and organizing files. There is a touch of the politician in him, as he smoothly introduces strangers and smiles expansively. But when he says he admires "those who run for elective positions, who are out there slugging it out, putting their own skin on the line," the implication is unmistakeable: Graham Allison would never be one of them...
Last week, Allison embarked for the Soviet Union. He had been invited by Russian officials. In the wake of the Olympic boycott and the cooling of the cold war, however, Allison was not about to be injudicious; he called up the State Department to see if his trip was appropriate...
Among K-School administrators, his managerial prowess is almost revered. As Thomas Schelling, professor of Public Policy and a friend of Allison's, says, "He's always working on the hard immediate problems. He spends an awful lot of time doing things most of us wouldn't like to do." Others, like Ira A. Jackson '71, assistant dean of the Kennedy School, bring up his tenacious application to fundraising--one of the less appealing responsibilities of a dean--during the school's high growth stage. And since he assumed the K-School's leadership, he has plunged himself into...