“I've always thought, looking back, if only I’d had a real-world communications course,” said Wade, because whether you’re sitting in a boardroom or standing at a podium or just sending an email to colleagues, communicating effectively “is everybody’s job, every day, and often we don’t even realize we’re doing it. Big things, little things – every day you are the message and you are the messenger.”
Wade’s new course, Communication on the Political and Global Stage, is designed to give MPA students a “look behind the curtain at how effective communication is made” by exposing them to an array of seasoned experts from both political persuasions. After each guest’s lecture, students turn to the task of producing an example of what they’ve just been taught – from a debate prep memo to a six-minute convention speech to a set of jokes.
Wade (who “grew up in a family of public school educators” and has taught a foreign policy seminar in the Brown in Washington program) is well-positioned to teach students a thing or two about communication. His first job out of Brown was as Senator John Kerry’s speechwriter. Over the following two decades, he served as national traveling press secretary for John Kerry for President and national spokesperson and traveling communications chief for Joe Biden’s successful 2008 vice presidential campaign. He is passionate about teaching students how to glean information about a topic from multiple sources, analyze it, and then use it to craft a recommendation.