Alumni Profile: Michael Harvey, MPP’17

"I want to serve others and build better communities. That decision is rooted in the sense that I have something important to contribute.”

Human efforts to leverage community for the collective good aren’t novel, nor is the struggle to improve them. Yet, the drive to build and improve our communities remains strong, as it does for Michael Harvey, MPP’17, whose undergraduate degree in Classics and Philosophy at UChicago burgeoned into a passion for public policy.

Early Greek philosophers probed the nature of human relationships, community, and the ideal citizenry. Aristotle said human beings are ‘political animals’ who naturally create cities or communities. Plato ruminated on the virtues of citizenship and the importance of ‘man in relation to his fellow man.’

“Being a part of a community comes with a certain responsibility—a gravity,” explained Harvey. "How Aristotle and Plato talk about building communities is really foundational for me.”

As a child in Philadelphia, Harvey experienced both the benefits and the challenges of growing up as part of an urban community. A promising high school scholar with financial need, Harvey earned an Odyssey Scholarship to attend the University of Chicago with full financial support. He said, “My background demonstrates that community is important. It has the power—when folks are concerned about one another—to elevate people beyond adverse circumstances.”

Harvey spent his undergraduate years probing the theories of an ideal society from the perspective of the classical Greeks. As his freshman year turned into his senior, he found himself wondering how to connect the theoretical ideas he was learning in class with how people live today, and the inequities that clearly exist. “I was looking to translate theories to a practical context and found that public policy was a way to make that connection to the everyday challenges of communities.”

His search took him around the country, to San Francisco, where he helped to build stakeholder engagement in the tech sector, and Washington, D.C., where he worked in political consulting. In both contexts, Harvey realized that in order to make a deeper impact on communities, he would need to advance his quantitative toolkit. A Master of Public Policy (MPP) at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy became a clear vehicle to drive this goal forward.

“I applied to Harris hoping for another opportunity to be a part of the UChicago intellectual environment, which really shaped my undergraduate education, and because Chicago is so important in terms of community development. Chicago is where many key policy issues are playing out in terms of housing, health care access, education, etc. Having UChicago situated on the South Side means there are important community connections that students can tap into.”

At Harris, Harvey focused on community economic development, access, and inequality. He was involved in Minorities in Public Policy Studies and also participated in Policy Labs, where he gained hands-on experience working through challenges government and nonprofit organizations face.

Harvey also joined the Student Advisory Council of the UChicago Office of Civic Engagement (OCE), facilitating student involvement in civic participation on a regular basis.

Now a full-time staff member with OCE, Harvey works with South Side communities on issues including economic disenfranchisement, education gaps, and access to resources. There, he is able to work on the issues he cares about most.

“OCE has a South Side nonprofit accelerator, providing local nonprofits support on projects, direct funding, or resources. It manages the university’s Community Service Center for student volunteers to engage with local organizations and build capacity. The Neighborhood Schools Program focuses on education opportunities that supplement public school system resources, and gives UChicago students opportunities to engage students from Chicago Public Schools.”

“Having been on the South Side for a decade now, it’s been an incredible opportunity to connect with the communities on a deeper level, learn, and make an impact.”

“Harris has helped me map out how to address issues in communities that are barriers to realizing ideal conditions for society to thrive. I want to serve others and build better communities. That decision is rooted in the sense that I have something important to contribute.”