Bringing home new perspectives

A group of well-heeled Pennsylvania pals almost got him antique furniture for his Gettysburg home to celebrate his birthday. But President Dwight D. Eisenhower's brother Milton told them Ike would take greater pleasure in something reflecting his belief in a world made safe by people meeting other people.

No sofa was big enough for that.

So instead, the gift became the Eisenhower Fellowships, which were founded in 1953 and call Philadelphia home.

"Eisenhower Fellowships . . . help preserve and enhance the former president's conviction that world peace and progress depend far less on grand policy than on frank and open exchange between individuals," according to the program's literature.

As many as 45 fellows - from government, business and nonprofits - are chosen from abroad each year to visit the United States for about two months of activities tailored to each one's interests. Their stays begin and end with sessions in Philadelphia. In between, they talk to people in their fields, study policy, and visit projects.

In addition, as many as 10 U.S. fellows go overseas for personalized programs. Alumni often help schedule fellows' activities and meet with one another. Once a fellow, always a fellow.

It was a decade ago that the program designated four geographic hubs in the United States, including Philadelphia. Eisenhower officials wanted to see how fellows in those regions would use their experiences to bring about positive change in their communities.

"What the Eisenhower fellows have in common is our passion and belief that together we can play a critical leadership role in shaping the Philadelphia region," says Tine Hansen-Turton, CEO of the National Nursing Centers Consortium.

Programs such as the Eisenhower Fellowships can be an effective tool for teaching young leaders in one part of the world how their counterparts elsewhere turn theory and passion into reality. But they also have their challenges, says Donald F. Kettl, Fox Leadership Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. For example, there's the universal question of funding.

"We're being impacted just like anyone else now because we rely on private contributions," says Susan Kohler, director of public programs for Eisenhower, adding, "We're OK, we're just being careful like everybody else."

And it's fair to ask whether those accepted into such programs would rise to the top anyway, Kettl says.

But even if that's true, the best programs are invaluable, he says. "I'm absolutely convinced that no matter what ideas or ambition one has, getting exposure to different ways of thinking about things and watching how other people put pieces together is just an incredible experience."

Hansen-Turton traveled to Singapore and New Zealand as a 2005 fellow to learn about their public-health systems and how nurse-practitioners extended health care into communities there.

She became a big fan of nurse-practitioners about 15 years ago, while working at the Philadelphia Housing Authority.

"We knew the population we served was not getting good health care," Hansen-Turton says, so the authority partnered with a nonprofit to establish two health-care clinics staffed by nurse-practitioners in public housing, one of them in the Abbottsford development.

"Before there was a health center there, most of the babies born were low birth-weight infants, because most moms had not gotten prenatal care," she recalls. "Once the health center opened that following year, there were 60 births, and they were all healthy babies."

For years, nurse-practitioners in Pennsylvania could not do the work of family physicians because they didn't have the authority to sign forms and perform reviews. As of last year, they do, thanks to legislation Hansen-Turton helped craft.

The lessons she learned, Hansen-Turton says, "enabled me to better position nurse-practitioners and nurse-managed health centers as a focal point in Gov. Rendell's health-care strategy."

Capt. Daniel Castro of the Philadelphia Police Department went to the United Kingdom in 2001 to study law enforcement and community-policing practices. He saw how Scottish police used electronic information kiosks to link citizens with information on licenses or regulations - and to give them a less-intimidating means to sidestep the "no-snitching" culture and report a crime or suspect.

Meanwhile, Scotland Yard authorities wanted to learn about COMPSTAT, the computerized management, data and crime-mapping system Philadelphia uses.

The contacts he made came in handy. After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Castro says, "I knew we [Philadelphia police] didn't have the policies in place to deal with the aftermath of terrorism."

He called an official he had met at Scotland Yard, which for years dealt with Irish Republican Army attacks in London, who sent him a 90-page report on their policies and procedures.

Nicholas Torres, a 2008 Eisenhower fellow and president of the nonprofit social-service agency Congreso de Latinos Unidos, went to South American countries to see how they handle the kinds of problems he sees among his Latino clientele.

At a vocational school in Argentina, for example, he encountered programs that engaged young people in a longer-lasting way than any single program Congreso was offering. It made him look at funding as an opportunity for a smart investment.

"Before, Congreso did a lot of social services and complained to the [school] district" about such problems as the high dropout rate in Philadelphia's Latino community, he says. "Now, it's really about: Can we build schools?"

So he's working with Castro to try to build a vocational school finely tuned to the needs of the city's young people.

Torres, 38, says he's benefited personally, too. "People my age are asking about their lives," he says: What is my purpose in life? Am I doing all I can to achieve my goals?

The fellowship is helping him answer those questions. "I'm doing the same thing," he says, "but differently."

Maitreyi Roy, vice president for programs with the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, split her 2007 Eisenhower travel between Spain and Germany, to see how European cities with eroded industrial bases deal with open space and "greening" issues.

It was a natural extension of her Horticultural Society work, which includes encouraging urban gardening and replanting vacant lots.

Roy was especially impressed with what she saw in the old industrial city of Frankfurt. Picture two large circles of parkland, one within the other, linked by multiple corridors of more greenery. That oasis was always full of walkers, joggers, bicyclists and others enjoying the restful space, she says.

The innovative park flowered, Roy says, because the Germans expected their government to take on the responsibility and there was strong urban and regional planning.

It's a concept she would love to see transplanted here.

"The inspirations from what I soaked in on my travels," she says, "are with me every day."