David Axelrod Inspires Optimism During Orientation Week

In the middle of Orientation Week, I found myself sitting in the King Harris Family Foundation Forum, watching as the first-year graduate students filled in the tables, benches, and chairs around me. Their voices overlapped as they sought to make connections within their new cohort. It had been almost a year exactly since I sat in their position, nervous about the coming months, but already well on my way to forming the friendships that would help pull me through econ p-sets and code debugging.

The chatter began to settle and Will Gossin was welcomed to the stage to share with these new Harris candidates the opportunities and events available through Harris’s Leadership Program. Then, Gossin welcomed to the stage Distinguished Senior Fellow, founder of the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics, and UChicago alumnus: David Axelrod, AB’76.

As Gossin introduced Mr. Axelrod, citing his background as Senior Advisor to President Barack Obama and host of the podcast The Axe Files, I felt the students around me shifting in their seats to glance at our speaker while he prepared to step on stage. I imagined they felt the way I did during Orientation Week: only just truly coming to terms with the extent of opportunities and connections that await students at Harris.

“I arrived on this campus fifty years ago as a college student,” Axelrod began, “I’m sure that’s shocking to you, as boyish and energetic as I am.”

He then confessed to the freshly matriculated students a few things. Firstly, “I hated it,” he said.

They were turbulent times, he remembered, and Chicago was at the heart of it. The calamitous 1968 Democratic National Convention had just swept through the city four years prior, and Hyde Park was the center of a growing Black political movement to push back against the city’s “prevailing democratic machine.”

His interest in politics and policy drew him to the University of Chicago where he struggled to find “anyone who wanted to have a conversation about anything after the year 1800.”

While the rest of campus focused on the life of the mind, Axelrod was more interested in, as he describes it, the life of the world. This led to his career in journalism, his work on President Obama’s campaign, and, eventually, to founding the Institute of Politics.

The opportunity to work with young people led him back to Hyde Park, as he admitted in his second confession:

“They invited me here today to try and inspire you, but I secretly came because you inspire me,” he told us. “When people say, ‘What gives you hope for the future?’ I always say the same thing: every time I leave that campus, I’m more hopeful.”

Axelrod said students are rightly skeptical, but they are not cynical. They are willing to work to change things for the better.

As I mingled with the incoming cohort after Mr. Axelrod’s talk, the impression his words made on them was evident.

Emily Morgan, MPP’25, noted down one of his comments about what kinds of leaders he has seen throughout his experience working in politics.

“I aspire to be in the group of people who want to do something, not be somebody,” she said, referencing Axelrod’s answer about what kind of leader he found President Obama to be.

“I think that civic leadership is one of those strongholds we have against cynicism and against the threats to democracy and our country. Having the opportunity to learn from someone like David Axelrod is part of what makes Harris special,” Morgan said.

Adedapo Azeez, MPP Class of 2025, found the experience of seeing Axelrod speak in person to be surreal after having heard him share some of the same stories on his podcast. When Axelrod talked about the the Affordable Care Act passing, Azeez found himself considering what it would mean to commit himself to a cause.

“As I get into policy, I need to make sure I am motivated in what I’m doing and have people to support me and give me perspective as I make my decisions,” he said.

Orientation Leader Kathryn Strimbu, MPP Class of 2024, remembers being in the first year’s position last fall, filled with uncertainty and anxiety. She hopes that the orientation staff as well as the first week of programming, including Axelrod’s talk, helps the incoming cohort feel more comfortable and confident as they begin their journey.

Strimbu felt his speech hit at the heart of her approach to the program and leadership as a whole.

“When we say people-centered policy, we don’t mean ourselves,” she said. “I think the world could use a few more people in public service genuinely hoping to serve the public good behind the scenes.”

I felt a similar sense of optimism beginning this academic year, and it was reassuring to know Axelrod saw the same positive future for policy that I did.

His closing words stick with me as I begin the second year of my Harris journey and move forward with my work in policy: “Remember what the skills you’re learning are for and what the ultimate goal of your work is. You have the ability to change the world, and I feel better about the future of the world knowing that you’re going to try."