Institute of Politics Announces Fellows for Spring 2000

The Fellows for Spring 2000 at the Institute of Politics will discuss their personal perspectives on politics in a panel discussion at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 8, in the ARCO Forum of Public Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government.

This semester’s fellows include: Jon Cowan, chief of staff of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development; Tom Fetzer, mayor of Raleigh, N.C. (1993-1999); Sam Fulwood III, Washington-based correspondent for the Los Angeles Times; Pamela Gordon, premier of Bermuda (1997-1998); and Roxanne Qualls, mayor of Cincinnati (1993-1999).

The Institute of Politics, located in the John F. Kennedy School of Government, was founded in 1966 to encourage undergraduate student interest in the dynamics of politics and to increase understanding and cooperation between the academic community and the political world.

About the Fellows

Jon Cowan is the chief of staff of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) – one of the youngest agency chiefs in the Clinton administration. At HUD since 1994, he has also served as senior advisor to Secretary Andrew Cuomo and acting assistant secretary for public affairs. In 1992, Cowan co-founded and co-directed one of the nation’s leading independent youth political action groups, Lead …or Leave, and was widely featured as a generational spokesperson on news shows such as Nightline, The Today Show, CNN and in Time, Newsweek, the Washington Post and the cover of US News & World Report. From 1990-1992, he was press secretary and senior legislative aide to former Congressman Mel Levine (D-CA). Cowan is the co-author of Revolution X, a book on politics for young people, and has written opinion pieces for The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Christian Science Monitor, and The Boston Globe, among others. Cowan received a bachelor of arts degree from Dartmouth College.

Tom Fetzer was elected mayor of Raleigh, N.C. in 1993 – the first Republican elected in that city’s 200-year history. Hailed by the Wall Street Journal as “the most impressive reform victory in the country,” he was elected mayor twice more. Fetzer focused on reducing crime and taxes, while improving city services. His efforts to improve education for the citizens of Raleigh were marked by the establishment of community learning centers in public housing neighborhoods, which brought together educators, parents, and community leaders to provide computer skills, literacy training, and mentoring for children. In 1988, Fetzer was the Republican nominee for Congress. He now serves as the vice president of the John Locke Foundation, a state public policy think tank, where he is also the director of the Center for Local Innovations. He has launched a private, non-profit organization, Private Initiatives in Education, to develop more community learning centers in Raleigh and also to award college scholarships to top students. Fetzer has a bachelor of arts degree in politics from Wake Forest University.

Sam Fulwood III created a national race-relations beat for the Los Angeles Times and contributed to the paper’s 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Reporting for coverage of the Los Angeles riots. Additionally, his reporting on race, politics, and public policy led to his 1996 book, Waking From the Dream: My Life in the Black Middle Class (Anchor Books). Since joining the Los Angeles Times in 1989 as a Washington-based political correspondent, Fulwood has covered Congress, federal agencies, and domestic social issues, as well as the presidential campaigns in 1992 and 1996. In 1985, Fulwood covered apartheid South Africa for the Baltimore Sun. He has reported and edited for The Charlotte Observer and Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Fulwood’s writings appear frequently in Essence, Emerge, Black Enterprise, Black Issues Book Review, as well as on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, PBS’s Washington Week in Review and numerous other Washington-based political talk shows. Currently, he writes a monthly political column for CODE magazine. Fulwood has a bachelor of arts degree in journalism from the University of North Carolina. During the 1993-94 academic year, Fulwood was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University.

Pamela Gordon was first elected to parliament in 1993 and became the first woman elected premier of Bermuda in 1997. Currently she serves as leader of the opposition. Gordon’s political career began in 1989 when she was appointed by the incumbent premier to chair Bermuda’s Youth Advisory Council and as a member of the Tourism Board. She was appointed to the Bermuda Senate in 1990. Two years later she was sworn in as the minister of youth, sport and recreation and then minister of the environment, planning and natural resources. During her tenure as premier, she focused on economic development and increasing Bermuda’s international trade opportunities. In 1998, she hosted and chaired the first meeting of Chief Ministers of the British Dependent Territories in Bermuda. Gordon participated in the World Economic Forum in 1998 and was selected as a member of the Global Leaders for Tomorrow. She is a joint Fellow with the Council of World Women Leaders, where she is a council member. Gordon received a bachelor of arts degree and holds a master of business administration degree from Queens University. She also has an LLD (Hon.) degree from the University of Brunswick. She reads law at the University of London.

Roxanne Qualls, the first popularly elected mayor of Cincinnati, was first elected mayor in 1993 and served three terms until term limits forced her retirement in 1999. During her tenure, she focused on improving the city’s neighborhoods through her “Zero Tolerance Initiative: A Campaign To Take Back Our Neighborhoods.“ The initiative targeted slum landlords, illegal dumping, and trash through a series of administrative and legislative changes. The United States Conference of Mayors recognized it in its Best Practices in U.S. cities. As mayor, Qualls founded the Cincinnati Homeownership Partnership, a federation of over 32 not-for-profit and private sector organizations to improve Cincinnati’s historic low rate of home ownership. Qualls also focused her efforts on maintaining the city as the vital core of the region by redeveloping the city’s riverfront using two new sports facilities as the anchors. Prior to her election to the City Council in 1991, she served as the director of the Cincinnati office of Ohio Citizen Action. In that position she led the successful effort to pass a local air code designed to address local air pollution problems. Qualls began her career as the director of the Northern Kentucky Rape Crisis Center and left that position to become executive director of Women Helping Women. Qualls attended Thomas More College and the University of Cincinnati.