What to Know
- Former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio will serve as a visiting fellow at the Kennedy School at Harvard this semester, the school said Wednesday.
- De Blasio joins a roster at the elite Institute of Politics that this semester includes the former prime minister of Sweden and former governor of Wyoming.
- DeBlasio's future plans have been an open question since he dropped out of the 10th District congressional race last month, following polls that showed him running a distant seventh.
Former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio will serve as a visiting fellow at the Kennedy School at Harvard this semester, the school said Wednesday.
De Blasio joins a roster at the elite Institute of Politics that this semester includes the former prime minister of Sweden and former governor of Wyoming.
De Blasio, a Democrat who served as mayor from from 2014 to 2021, will take part in “a variety of discussions, events, and programming” at the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School and will teach classes on leadership and public service at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the schools said in separate announcements Wednesday.
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Kim Janey, the former acting mayor of Boston, will also serve as a fellow at the public health school.
“We are thrilled to welcome Mayor de Blasio and Mayor Janey to campus as Menschel Senior Leadership Fellows,” Dean Michelle A. Williams said.
Williams said both officials grappled with public health crises including COVID-19, homelessness and the opioid epidemic.
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“Their insights and their mentorship will be tremendously helpful to students who aspire to public office, as well as to those who are looking to lead in other sectors,” she said.
At the Institute of Politics, de Blasio will be joined by other fellows including former Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven.
Setti Warren, interim director of the institute, said de Blasio’s “decades of experience in local government, federal agencies, national campaigns, and running the largest city in the country will provide invaluable insight to our students and the Harvard community.”
De Blasio, who grew up in Massachusetts and is a die-hard Boston Red Sox fan, was prevented by term limits from seeking a third four-year term as mayor.
De Blasio's future plans have been an open question since he dropped out of the 10th District congressional race last month, following polls that showed him running a distant seventh. (Attorney Dan Goldman, the scion of a billionaire family and House counsel in Donald Trump's first impeachment, won that primary Tuesday night.)
De Blasio had hinted at a run for governor in his waning days in office, but opted out of that race as well before his surprise, and ultimately brief, entry into the congressional contest.
He has since faced questions about whether he intends to use his campaign warchest to pay off significant past debts related to city and federal investigations.
