March 08, 2024
Katie Savage

As a part of Harris Public Policy's and the Center for Effective Government’s celebration of the 10-year anniversary of the Civic Leadership Academy (CLA), we asked previous fellows how CLA has impacted their work as civic leaders. These are their opinions and perspectives, informed by their own life experiences and worldviews (and do not necessarily reflect the views of Harris).

Katie Savage, CLA'19

In my current role as the Secretary of Information Technology for the State of Maryland, I am part of a diverse cohort of colleagues with a shared mission. My fellow Secretaries and I form Governor Wes Moore's Cabinet. Our role is to direct our individual portfolios across agriculture, education, health, human services, IT, transportation and so much more. We have individual responsibility for our respective agencies; collectively, we are responsible for delivering the Governor's commitment to a safe, competitive and equitable Maryland.  

The University of Chicago's Civic Leadership Academy Fellowship program was a perfect rehearsal for my job as a Cabinet Secretary. While we practiced self-reflection and learned leadership skills, I believe the most important part of the program was learning to look around and be in community. The other Fellows and I came from very different disciplines with different goals, but we all shared a commitment to making the City of Chicago safe, competitive and equitable. 

In CLA, I deepened my knowledge of other public sector disciplines such as public safety, the arts and criminal justice. I also learned how to engage with my peers to have meaningful conversations about their current work and the evolution of their fields. I came to appreciate everyone's personalities, and how the dimensions of their backgrounds and characters drove their work.

This idea of a cohort model is so important. Our jobs as public sector leaders are increasingly interdisciplinary. We can accomplish more for our cities, our states and the country when we can look across and see the intersections between our work. Transportation and economic growth. The environment and juvenile services. Aging and technology. Just as importantly, we can accomplish more when we recognize the other leaders around us as fellow teammates working towards the same goal. 

CLA gave me lessons in theory, applied practices and insights about myself; above all, I learned to see myself as one player on a team stacked with individual strengths. Now wherever my public sector career takes me, I will be able to appreciate my peers' individual goals and remind myself we are working towards a vision for society so much bigger than any one of us. 

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