Advocacy of women as leaders
When Victoria Budson was a college sophomore, her parents asked her what she planned to do with her life. “I want to lead social movements,” she told them. Slightly baffled, her father — one of several Harvard graduates in the family — responded, “Well, are you going to go to the Business School or the Law School?” “Back in the ’80s, saying you wanted to have a career in feminism was something of an unknown,” Budson recalled one recent morning from her office in the Taubman Building. Little did Budson or her parents know that her passion for women’s equality would in fact lead her to Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), where she has served as executive director of the Women and Public Policy Program (WAPPP) for the past 15 years. By helping HKS faculty to craft policies and programs to help bring about gender equality in American politics and abroad, Budson has stayed...