The Best Lessons I Learned at Heller

Kathy Byers, MSW’71: "My adviser was Gunnar Dybwad. He was just such a wonderful human being. He was warm, accepting, a good listener, and stood up for things that were right. His whole emphasis was on disabilities, and he got me interested in that field where previously I hadn’t been particularly engaged. In my practice, when I was a social worker and administrator, I worked for 10 years for an organization that worked with children with disabilities. I was glad to have his perspective. He was just a wonderful kind of rock to relate to."

Additional submissions:

Nicole Rinier, MBA/MPP’21: "The chance to study with University Professor Anita Hill is the main reason I was drawn to Heller, and has far exceeded my expectations. Professor Hill not only champions social change but embodies a professorship that fosters and energizes that power necessary to influence policy discourse and help shape history. I continue to learn from her great wisdom and intellect, which she imparts with a grace and sense of humor integral to keep moving forward in what can be emotionally taxing and difficult work. I feel incredibly fortunate for her guidance, support, and the way in which she pushes and challenges my research to levels I feel I otherwise never would have reached."

Additional submissions:

James Miller, MBA/MPP’11: "Professor Carlson was the exact educator I was looking for in graduate school. Adept at her craft, proven in her field, Professor Carlson embodied success and strength. Her gravitas and openness made her human, while her hard-hitting questions and quandaries always left students wondering, ‘Have I really thought this through completely?’ My biggest takeaway from our time together was that ‘there is something to be learned in every success, but even more in every failure.’ Luckily, I've been blessed with more successes than failures, but I always take my time to evaluate the situations in their entirety."

Additional submissions:

Abra Pollock, MBA’11: "My favorite was Jon Chilingerian, who taught leadership and organizational behavior. His course opened my mind to how one can build trust and inspire people’s confidence. To this day, I apply lessons from that class in my work as a management consultant for the state of Minnesota, helping stakeholder groups feel respected and designing processes to ensure their voices are heard in policies and programs that affect them. Also, he had a class rule — anyone whose cellphone went off during class had to buy us all champagne. Somebody’s cellphone only went off once during the semester — and it was his. So, yeah, he brought champagne for us on the last day of class!"

Additional submissions:

Gustavo Payan Luna, MA SID’05: "When I think of the Heller School and my experience, I think of Professor Godoy. His curiosity of the world and genuine interest in his students are the two biggest lessons I learned from him. He responded to an email I sent him when I was still a prospective student. Upon my arrival in Heller, he gave me a job opportunity to be an RA for one of his research projects, even when I had zero research experience. Even though econometrics was not my field, he guided me and always cared about me and my trajectory. He always had a word of encouragement and praise, even over a decade after I graduated."

Additional submissions:

Sarah Winawer-Wetzel, MBA’09: "Before I even came to Heller, I heard about Brenda Anderson. When I met with then MBA Program Director Barry Friedman, I expressed concern that I might struggle a bit with accounting, as I hadn’t done much quantitative work in undergrad. ‘Well,’ he said in his Barry way, ‘our accounting professor wins a lot of teaching awards. ...’ Once I got to financial accounting with Brenda, it was pretty clear why. I’m grateful to her not only for her warmth and positive energy, but for restoring my faith that accounting was not some mysterious gibberish, but just another language that I was perfectly capable of learning and mastering."

Additional submissions:

Abla Tsolu, MA SID’08: "David Gil was the first professor who allowed us to develop our own coursework for the semester. He gave us the freedom to think outside the box during every discussion so that everyone around the table had a voice. He even allowed us to grade ourselves at the end of the semester. Our classroom setup was even unconventional — it was a boardroom format!"

Additional submissions:

Allan Borowski, PhD’80: "James H. Schulz is an exceptional human being, someone universally admired and respected. The source of this admiration and respect is his complete integrity, his internationally recognized research and scholarship in the field of gerontology (especially in the economics of aging), and his tremendous investment in mentoring his students. He was a dissertation supervisor extraordinaire who, while having very high expectations of his students, was also completely supportive of them. Those of us blessed to have had him as a dissertation supervisor found in Jim not only the attributes just mentioned but also a lifelong friend."

Emily Pohl, MA SID’11: "Marion Howard’s planning and implementation course was the foundation of my development career. With the skills she taught, I went on to become an M&E technical adviser, where I trained thousands of people around the world in how to plan projects and evaluate if they were successful or not. That one course gave me a career, a love of logic and numbers in the midst of a messy humanitarian crisis, and the ability to train leaders in over 30 countries. Personally, Marion was a mentor and an encourager to me as I navigated the halls of a prestigious academic environment for the first time and then moved into my career."

Additional submissions:

Tapiwa Mupereki, MS’11: "Donald Shepard was really passionate about drilling down his highly quantitative courses: cost-effectiveness and advanced cost-effectiveness. He was quite excellent in relating theory to his work at the World Health Organization and the World Bank as well as his groundbreaking dengue vaccine work around 2010-11. Don perhaps emphasized the seriousness of his classes by coming fully dressed in a jacket and tie 100% of the time! His desire to produce stellar global citizens was evident in the way he selflessly devoted his time, expertise and compassion to us as students, even outside the classroom."

Additional submissions:

Jide Olagunju, MA COEX’06: "Professor Fitzduff ensured a free flow of information beneficial to the academic and career progression of her students. She did not, however, just tell you where to find resources; she followed you there and backed you to the hilt. That is how I became an MIT Mellon Research Scholar, which enabled me to graduate in record time, in the spring of 2006. In class, Mari exposed us to the best. She gave of her best and brought in other faculty from anywhere and everywhere to ensure that the knowledge and the skills we needed to be avant-garde conflict managers and coexistence enablers were available to us, at our fingertips. I have gone on to advise and consult for several governments, corporations and international agencies, such as the World Bank and the United Nations. Mari did what I think a consummate teacher ought to do: She sowed herself in her students. I can only hope that we give her back what I think is the only payback: trigger paradigm shifts in our coexistence work communities, from negative to positive. She herself did it in Northern Ireland. She gave us all the tools we need to do it in the world."

Charles Schottland, First Dean of the Heller School

James A. Lomastro, PhD’76: "Charles Schottland was very helpful to me in terms of my working through the doctoral program on time. He was both supportive and critical. While I had some difficulties in the first semester, with his support I recovered relatively quickly and was able to get back on track and graduated in less than three years. The advice that he often gave us was more encouraging than didactic. He also encouraged us to ‘infiltrate’ into the system — government and corporate — and indicated that even small bureaucrats in the system could make a substantial difference in people’s lives.

I particularly remember graduation. My parents were both working-class, and looking forward to Social Security. It was with trepidation that I introduced them to Charlie, who had been Social Security administrator and on Eisenhower’s staff during World War II. Charlie was gracious, speaking to my father — a veteran — as an equal, both having had to work with refugees after World War II. His acknowledgment of my father’s service as a fellow soldier impressed me. I don't think that was a side that many people saw — his ability to relate to people at their level. Graduation became an occasion not only for celebrating my achievement but also for the affirmation of my father."

Norman Kurtz, Professor Emeritus

Teresa Anderson, PhD’98: "Norman Kurtz is my favorite of the many fine professors who guided my learning. Norman’s book, ‘Statistical Analysis for the Social Sciences,’ is one I still use to teach basic data interpretation. Norman made his topic fun, useful and meaningful. ‘You want to know about scatter?’ he’d say. ‘It’s like cows in a thunderstorm.’ Norm brought the concepts home with a smile so we understood and retained them. He chaired my doctoral committee and held me to a high standard, for which I am very grateful. He helped me through many frustrating moments with more wise comments, such as, ‘Don’t worry, Teresa. Remember, it’s always darkest before it turns completely black.’ A grin always accompanied those ‘Norm-isms.’ I cherish them."

Additional submissions:

Laurie Ansorge Ball, MMHS’83: "Tom introduced me to the world of public management — a career choice of which I was not even aware. After Heller, I spent almost 20 years working in Massachusetts state government (initially, at the Department of Public Welfare, where Tom was deputy commissioner), and I absolutely loved it. In addition, Tom once taught a résumé workshop and said, ‘If Peter Goldmark [then the executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey] can present his résumé on one page, do you think you can?’ I never forgot that!"