Turning Research Into Action: The Legend of Judy Feder

In this episode, Senior Podcast Editor Sneha Choudhary (MPP ‘24) interviews Judith Feder, Georgetown Professor of Public Policy, former Dean of the Georgetown McCourt School, and nationally recognized health policy expert, to discuss Judy’s illustrious career, her experiences in the Senate and the Clinton Administration, and the backstory of how the Georgetown McCourt School became what it is today.

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AUDIO TRANSCRIPT:

SNEHA CHOUDHARY:  Hey everybody, welcome back to the Georgetown Public Policy Review Podcast. I’m your host, Sneha Choudhary, and today I have the good fortune of interviewing Judy Feder, Georgetown Professor of Public Policy and the former Dean of the Georgetown McCourt School. Judy has been a leading expert on health policy for the last few decades, and throughout the course of her career, she has worked in research, Congress, and the White House before becoming the dean of the Georgetown McCourt School.

On a more personal note, Judy is also the reason that I decided to come to Georgetown for graduate school. As a prospective student, I sat in on one of her classes when it was still virtual and even through the zoom format, her warmth, brightness, and just her love for her students absolutely jumped through the screen.

I then was able to take her class this last fall and got to experience her teaching firsthand. Judy is so full of wisdom, life lessons, and not to mention she is one of the funniest people I’ve ever met. So, I think you all will really enjoy this conversation and get a lot out of it. Without further ado, let’s get started.

CHOUDHARY: Hi, Professor. 

JUDY FEDER: Great to see you, Sneha. 

CHOUDHARY: So good to see you. I haven’t, I don’t think I’ve seen you in person since last semester. 

FEDER: Well, that’s too long. 

CHOUDHARY: It is too long. 

FEDER: That’s too long. It shouldn’t be like that. 

CHOUDHARY: I know. Well, we’re sitting here in your beautiful office. 

FEDER: Thank you. 

CHOUDHARY: Which I noted I’ve never been to before, but it’s the corner office of McCourt.

FEDER: In a tower, so it’s got…

CHOUDHARY: A little hallway and everything. Well, thank you for coming on today. You are, are you familiar with the phrase OG? 

CHOUDHARY: So it means original gangster, but you are the OG of McCourt. You are the person who started this school who has been here through all of it – so we’ll get into your career later on – I wanted to start asking about your early days. So I wanted to frame the question this way, what radicalized you at a young age that made you think, I need to be in policy and I need to be in politics? 

FEDER: I was raised with a very politically interested father, so my father was old, born in 1902, so, he was an old father, I was 3rd or 4th, and in retrospect, I thought, gee, why wasn’t he a communist? So he wasn’t, he wasn’t that, but he was a lefty, progressive guy, and to give you an example, when Castro led the revolution in Cuba, my father was over the moon.

And politics was my way of relating to him, and, and if you take that to the time at which I became an adult, it was the 60s. 

And I graduated from college, and I’m class of 68. And I was not really radical by the standards of the day. But, civil rights was a big deal and I was active in civil rights.

I was just drawn to progressive political engagement throughout my life. Every time I had a choice to make about what to study. I used to want to be an economist. I liked my economics classes. But I loved politics. 

CHOUDHARY: Well, knowing that fact about you actually explains so much about your personality. So, you mentioned graduating in 68. So, did you go for your PhD right afterwards? Okay, so you started Harvard in 1968.

FEDER: Student takeover time. 

CHOUDHARY: Oh. 

FEDER: But I  was not really a part of that, but you can get the flavor of the time. Yes. 

CHOUDHARY: Were there many women at all in your class? I know from that time I’ve heard stories, and this could be totally false, but that there’s only one day a semester when women were allowed to speak in class. Is that true? 

FEDER: No. I am past that time. And there were plenty of women. And in undergrad, I had women faculty. I don’t, can’t remember having that so much – oh, yes I did. Even in grad school. But you are right to think that the times were different from now. I don’t remember experiencing it so much while in school.

But I know that then going on into professional, it was an area of sensitivity. And I think what’s most interesting about your question, given what’s going on today, I was at the time that women were benefiting from affirmative action. So it was a time that I think that I got positions,   fellowships, or even a job, and it continued, because they needed a woman.

And it never bothered me. I always felt that I was qualified. But it was that kind of shifting that was my period. So it does not mean that there was no sexism in my professional life, but that is different from the period when women were clearly secondary. 

CHOUDHARY: That’s really interesting. So when you allude to some of your professional life, I know you had told us this anecdote.

I think that when you were working for the Senator, that he said your voice was too shrill, or someone gave you that feedback. Can you share that story? 

FEDER: Yeah. So, it was Claude Pepper, whom they called the Senator, even though at that time he was a member of the House. I think even now I would say he was very old, and since he died on my watch, that counts as old.

That’s pretty good evidence. And when I had been chosen as the staff director of a commission that he was to be the chair of. But he was already nearing death, but it was not known. But when I went to see him, and spoke to him, the staff said that the pitch of my voice – she was also a woman.

CHOUDHARY: Oh my gosh. 

FEDER: But she said the pitch of my voice was in a range that he couldn’t hear.

It’s not a great way to build a relationship. 

CHOUDHARY: Exactly, but you persisted in that role. 

FEDER: Well, he died. And then Senator Rockefeller became chair. And my only challenge, which was only partially related to my being female, is that Senator Rockefeller was 6’7 I think, maybe even. Taller than that. I’ve forgotten how tall he is.

CHOUDHARY: Wow. 

FEDER: And as you would know when you’re staffing, you often are whispering in someone’s ear. And I said to his leg director, who was my boss, how can I whisper in his ear? And he’s just, it’s just too far. So there was a challenge. Yes. But not the same as the other. 

CHOUDHARY: That’s actually so true, because you’re also a petite woman.

I don’t know. How would you word it? Inequity? It even exists sometimes in height where it’s, you’re left out of the conversation because you’re not at speaking level. 

FEDER: Yes, well, it’s, I have experienced it. They were, they were,   fellow research fellows and when I was a dissertation fellow at Brookings and they, both the woman and the guy were tall.

And I can remember standing in the lunch line and having conversations, and I’m like this, you know, looking up. Obviously you can’t see me on the radio, but it’s like that. So, it, but, and that does not create equity. 

CHOUDHARY: No, not at all. Well that persists. There’s no, there’s no affirmative action for being short. 

FEDER: Although, have you ever had it happen to you that someone says, well let me sit down so I, Yes.

And I, that to me is terrible. I don’t like that either. 

CHOUDHARY: That’s where it comes down to wearing heels. Heels are a big plus. Always a plus. 

FEDER: Yeah, big plus. 

CHOUDHARY: So tell me a little bit more about, you have led the charge on health policy your entire career. I guess toplines, maybe just helping walk the listener through you finishing your PhD, you did research work, like you mentioned you were at Brookings, you were at other research institutions, went on to the Senate, then you were in the Clinton administration. Can you kind of draw the thread of what your progression was through there? 

FEDER: I, as you said, I began as a researcher. My dissertation was about the politics of Medicare hospital payments, so that’s how I got into health policy. It wasn’t any particular training, it was doing my dissertation.

That led me into research in health policy, which I enjoyed, but I always had a hankering for the political agenda. But I had kids, and my kids are separated by 10 years, but I still had a young kid and we had a pretty convenient life. My husband and I both had pretty much nine to five good jobs, so we were reluctant to take a leap, but when this commission job came along, it was perfect because it was time limited.

And it was a commission that was established in law on universal coverage for health and long term care. And that was my, my specialty. I knew both. So I jumped into that. And, it was hard on family life. And it was hard in general, because I had to kind of shine in a new world. 

But I did and I loved it. And so that foray into the active, I used to say, I took, put research into action, right?  And so that, I loved it and it only lasted really about two years. And then I came back to Georgetown where I was research faculty and continued what I was doing, but I really had the bug.

And so when the presidential race was developing, a couple years later, I lent myself, which is what one did, to the Clinton campaign. And there were lots of Democratic rivals at that time. So I lucked out, I picked the guy, nobody, everybody thought Bush was going to win. So, it was a long shot for Clinton. So that’s when I got involved in the campaign. And then having been involved in the campaign, that led to my position in the Clinton administration. 

CHOUDHARY: So I have a few questions stemming from that. The first one being, you mentioned being a mom to a young child while you were working in the House, what did that look like for you? And do you, I know I don’t have kids, but I’ve heard extensively a lot of people talking about mom guilt, and how do you have those conversations with your kid? I mean I know later on, he helped you when you ran for office, right? So clearly he wasn’t too scarred.

FEDER: That’s right, he hasn’t been scarred. Yes. That is correct. That’s correct. He wasn’t, which is very relieving for me. I said that earlier that my husband and I had two 9 to 5s. My husband was in foreign policy, I was in domestic policy, he was at the CIA. We were both doing interesting things, but we could come home.

And so, I mentioned that because it was a challenge for me and my husband, cause he didn’t like it. And I also jump in all the way and so I really was not available and that was hard on him,   on them. And so I would say that it is challenging because I really was, I couldn’t be there for him.

And I will tell you a story. When, when I got, what they say, get the call, and I got the call from then Governor Clinton shortly after his election to come run the health part of his transition. And I was, as you can imagine, thrilled, and left the next day for Little Rock. Because it moved back to Washington, but for a couple of weeks that’s where we were.

My husband at the same time had a business trip to Russia, then the Soviet Union. And Lester immediately developed asthma. Wow, it was 12.  I think everybody thinks that there are psychological causes for that. He really had asthma. He was not messing around. But he then in this transition period was in and out of the hospital while they were trying to get his asthma under control and we didn’t have cell phones in those days but he was, he was calling me periodically and sometimes, well he needed his mommy, right?

He needed his mom. He was 12 so not a baby but, but on one occasion he said call, call and I went back to him, and he said “Mom I spilled my water on the tray.” Call the nurse? 

So I don’t want to sound hard hearted or anything, but as you say, he’s grown up fine. It’s just, it’s really quite hard and depending upon how you work it out with your spouse, it can be more or less hard and it took us a while to work it out. 

CHOUDHARY: Yeah, so did your parents help out? Were they like in the area?

FEDER: No, my parents weren’t relevant. There wasn’t help out. Remember he’s 12. But earlier working there were always issues with child care, I used it and for my older son too, I used the extended day at school. When you’re the last when your kid is shooting hoops all by himself right, that’s lousy, so it’s hard.

It’s hard, but they’ve both grown up, I would say, quite well, and  in the current day, that was harder then, I think, than it is now, but now, I mean, it’s a little bit easier to say, I gotta go home, but as you would know from your experience, if you are not there, you are not there.

This is, it’s not about the rules, it’s whatever, you just, you miss the action, so that, if you have that kind of job, stuff. 

CHOUDHARY: Yeah, that’s so true. I mean I was definitely the last kid at aftercare many times. So I understand. I understand. 

FEDER: And you grew up okay too. 

CHOUDHARY: And I grew up okay. And I remember thinking at the time like, oh my gosh, this is the end of the world, my mom doesn’t love me. And then 10 minutes later, she’s like making me dinner or feeding me in the car. And I’m like, oh, actually everything’s fine. My mom does love me. 

FEDER: Well, angry, angry is okay. 

CHOUDHARY: Yes, exactly.

FEDER: Lester at that time. He was the same age as Chelsea, Chelsea Clinton, and he said, he, I don’t remember on what occasion, but he did ask, Mom, why don’t you ask the Clintons? How do they do it? Yes, isn’t that sweet? I said, the Clintons have a lot of help. I didn’t say it, I thought. 

CHOUDHARY: That’s amazing. I mean, also what you said about if you’re not there, and we’ve had Rohini on the podcast. We talked about this in class when she came to speak to all of us.   How about like, yes, you need to have boundaries, you need to have space, but also being the one that’s there after hours that’s able to pick up the ask, that definitely makes a huge difference on how people view you in this, in this industry.

FEDER: No question. And, and, and you had expressed earlier some interest in how my career went forward, being the one who says I’ll do it. You know, being there to actually be on top of what you, what’s needed is how you advance. Yeah. And if you can’t be there, it’s hard. 

CHOUDHARY: So let’s transition a little bit. Let’s talk about the McCourt School and formerly the Georgetown Institute of Politics, right? 

FEDER: No, Georgetown Public Policy Institute. Georgetown Public Policy Institute. GPPI. 

CHOUDHARY: G P P I. So, Well, how did that come about? Well, how did that start? How did you come to the helm of leading it? How long were you at Georgetown before that and why here, you know, there’s so many schools in DC. But why did you choose this is where you wanted to be? 

FEDER: I’m gonna start with that one. So I came to Georgetown from the Urban Institute. I was research faculty in the med school, and the reason I moved with two colleagues from the Urban Institute, we were on what’s called soft money, where you have to raise the money for your salary, that’s how a lot of research is done. And the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is the largest funder of health policy research alongside the government and, they already had something at Georgetown and somebody was leaving and it made it possible for us to take the money that he had as a salary and use it as some kind of cushion for us.

Not as good as at the Urban Institute, not as safe, but we really mostly didn’t need it because the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded us here. So I was already here. Long answer, but you got the gist.  And the program existed. I came in 84, the, from the Urban Institute.

It may have been started as GPPI, the Georgetown Public Policy Program. And it was started by Colin Campbell, who was a professor in the government department, who very wisely, got permission to create a tenure base, a tenure home, it’s typically called, in this public policy venture. Otherwise, we’d be still in the government department, and they wouldn’t want to let us go.

So, he created that, and he was ready to move on to the students who were coming. It was small, but it was… They were getting MPPs, to them it was school. It was just small. And when he left, it was after I’d been in government, I’d come back.  I thought, It would be cool to take that on and because I liked being in charge by then, and I thought that it was really much more established than it was.

It was really, it was pretty fledgling, at that time. And so I took it over, I became, I negotiated as much as I could on salary and then I said I wanted my title to be Dean, and my title was Dean but the provost at the time said, what are you dean of? Because they switched provosts. But my friends were really impressed and it worked out, it worked out fine.

So that was in – I became Dean in 2000, no in 99, January of 99, and then my job was to kind of build it up. 

CHOUDHARY: Yeah, that’s so interesting. So, what did classes look like back then? Like, it was much smaller, obviously, so. 

FEDER: It was small. The challenge, and we did pretty well at it.

The challenge was with a relatively small student body, and we had a faculty of, I think I was either the eighth or ninth person on the faculty, so we were tiny. 

CHOUDHARY: Wow.

FEDER: The problem, the challenge was to give students enough electives, I mean, we could handle the core. And Colin and colleagues at the time, a few of whom were still with us. We  developed a curriculum that is still our curriculum.  But to get the electives was a challenge. And the classes were smaller. We’ve had a very big period, as you know, with Covid. We had a huge period, we’re going back down a little bit, but much bigger than we were.

And then our faculty is, I don’t know, about four times the size. 

CHOUDHARY: It’s funny that you say that because the Georgetown classrooms are so small so you can tell they were intended for less students. 

FEDER: They look all so many of them as if they were intended for high school students. 

CHOUDHARY:Yes, yes, like thinking about our processes class, there were like 30 of us jammed in that tiny room.

FEDER: Jammed in that room with those little teeny desks. It’s true, it’s true. Which is a reason to be very excited about the new building. It’s going to be fabulous. 

CHOUDHARY: A plug for the new building. 

FEDER: A plug for the new building. 

CHOUDHARY: So you were teaching then as well, right? 

FEDER: No, no. I taught once, maybe once or twice with a colleague from our research operation.

I was research faculty. So I didn’t really start regular teaching when I started from 84. I started teaching before I became dean. I started teaching in, I think, 96. And while I was Dean I taught a course, a course a year, a course a semester, maybe a course a semester. I can’t entirely remember. I’d have to think a little harder.  And then to teach, once I stepped down as dean, what we’re now calling, thank heaven, the politics of policymaking. 

CHOUDHARY: When I saw that this semester, so for context for the listeners. When I took your class, the Public Policy Processes, you were telling us that you were on a campaign to change the name of the class, and I got an email at the beginning of this semester that the name had been changed.

You go, Judy, that’s a win for you.

FEDER: Took me way too long, but I did it. 

CHOUDHARY: So what is your philosophy on education? Something that I have found so admirable about your classes, and I don’t even know if you maybe do this consciously, but… I feel like you challenge every student to their personal best. So sometimes I – it’ll almost be frustrating to me sometimes, I’ll be like, that was a damn good paper, but Judy knows I could have done better on it.

So she’s not giving me that full A plus that I think I deserve, because she knows I could have worked a little bit harder. But at the same time, I’ve noticed, for example, when we did debates in the class, there’s obviously some students that aren’t going to want to speak publicly. So you give options like, okay, well you only have to, ask a few questions during the debate, and then for other people who you know love to speak like, okay well, then you should go up there and let me challenge you.

How did you develop that philosophy of teaching students based on where they are in their education experience? And is that something that took time after you kind of observed the students or is it just natural with your personality? 

FEDER: I think it comes more naturally. I would not, characterize anything I have as so broad as an educational philosophy.

I think my job is to help students think and be able to apply their thinking orally and in writing, to be able to articulate a point of view. Then, it is also to help them, professionally there are skills. And so it is to make an argument. That’s broadly, I think. In health policy, I’m teaching some aspects of health, the way that the economics work, I would say. Or the way the policies work. That’s substance. The rest is about, the bigger one is, how to think. So even in health, I’m giving them a framework for thinking that they can then apply. I think what you are very nicely – I’m glad it worked for you – appreciating, is that, in order to enable somebody to do that, that’s the best of communications between two people, and it is to challenge while being supportive, so I think it comes naturally.

And gets better over time. For sure. Gets better over time. I had a professor when I was in grad school, who, you wouldn’t, you wouldn’t show up unprepared. You’d be embarrassing yourself. You had respect for him. And he would call on you and I remember when he called on you, you were, sometimes you were allowed to say, I’d really, I’d rather pass.

And I remember trying that one time and he came back and said, “well, what troubles you about the question?” Yeah, exactly. So, I have gotten much better. I have gotten much better about, which you will notice that, somebody at one point said to me, I can’t twitch in your class because I can call on you cold.

And if you’re not comfortable, I can move on. But I’m much better at that than I was. That was hard when I started because it felt like a confrontation. And I, I don’t think it feels like that anymore. I want it to be an invitation, not a confrontation.

CHOUDHARY:  Yeah, I mean, I think that’s actually kind of what people worry about when they come to a school like Georgetown.

Like, is it going to be too academically challenging? Have you seen the movie Legally Blonde? 

FEDER: Yes! 

CHOUDHARY: You know, in the first class of the movie, she gets cold called and she’s freaking out. And I remember watching that before coming here and being like, let me do my readings just in case that happens.

But I think, you know, you do it in such a masterful way where we would always say in the class, like, we will share whatever we have to say and then you would, you would repeat it back to us in a different way to make sure you were understanding us. And I think that’s part of, you know, the balance of the challenging but also supporting.

Like, so I’m hearing this from you. Have you considered this other viewpoint? 

FEDER: Thank you. If I did it that well. 

CHOUDHARY: So over time have you noticed any changes in the student body’s political beliefs and leanings? I assume it’s always been relatively  liberal. Is that true? 

FEDER: It’s always been liberal.

There’s a concern expressed, I’ve only had it once, I think, expressed by students that that is a problem, and I usually have at least one conservative in class and the last couple semesters, I’m not sure that I have. And I have had expressed, that’s what I said just once, I have had expressed, it made me sad, that a student who said that she didn’t feel comfortable speaking her, she said, moderate point of view, which made me sad.

And I followed her. She said I did successfully assist her in class, because she was lying low because she didn’t think she’d be well received. And she said she ultimately had a very successful time here that she got perfectly comfortable. So I don’t think there’s a change. And I don’t – you would know better than I, whether there’s a hostile environment for students with more conservative points of view, but I’ve not encountered it much. 

CHOUDHARY: Yeah, I don’t, that’s a good question. I think there’s a lot of loud voices. So I think especially for a student like the one you described who might be a moderate. She can definitely voice her opinion, but I know that there are definitely some other loud voices that are immediately gonna snap back at her.

I think that’s just a function of being in a school like Georgetown where people are so passionate and are so smart and knowledgeable about their views. 

FEDER: She, she had also had, she said she’d had an unhappy undergraduate experience where the pushback was so strong as to make her uncomfortable, which again, made me sad.

But I think, but one hopes that, and I try in my classroom, although, and I’ve gotten mixed comments on that. I’ve been criticized for being too strong with my point of view, as you know, I never hide my point of view, but I try to be respectful of others. 

CHOUDHARY: Yeah, yeah. The McCourt program is evidence based at the end of the day, and I think that just speaks volumes about what the evidence proves and, you know, our class was a little bit different because it was more discussion based, but I think when I explain this program to other people, I always start with saying this is an evidence-based program.

So it’s not just a bunch of like liberals running around wild saying whatever they want. There is fact, there’s a reason we have three semesters of statistics and two semesters of econ because we are, we are saying, okay, what does the evidence show and how is that proven? 

FEDER: And I would like to think that even in a class about the politics of policymaking, where you do get into discussions of values that the substance is, is evidence based or is skill based, that you’re not being asked to express a particular point of view. You’re just being asked to articulate it and back it up. 

CHOUDHARY: Exactly. Exactly. So, I think we can move into the rapid fire questions now. This is, this is like something I’m trying out new, but I thought this would be fun.

So rapid fire questions. What is your favorite book? 

FEDER: I’m not being rapid fire. You know, I have to, I read endlessly. And so I have to look at my library, which is on my phone. I’m going to give you, not my favorite book ever, but my favorite current books. 

CHOUDHARY: At the moment, that’s fine.

FEDER: Favorite current books. Bandit Queens. Okay. Parini Shroff. And, Small Mercies. Dennis Lehane.

CHOUDHARY: Okay. I’ve never heard of those. I’ll look into ’em. 

FEDER: I love historical fiction. The Indian one may be current, and is marvelously feminist and serious, but, great sense of humor, so I recommend it.

And The Small Mercies is South Boston, when they started busing. And it is a very powerful book about, really about racism, but also a great feminist bent. 

CHOUDHARY: Love that, love that. Okay, what is your favorite spot on Georgetown campus? Could be for anything, whether it’s just like, you need a moment to yourself, or you’re on a walk.

FEDER: I love seeing the river. I think the views over the river are just spectacular. I used to have an office that was up river sun when we were in the car barn. I saw upriver, the most amazing sunsets you can imagine. 

CHOUDHARY: That sounds magical. Okay, if you weren’t in policy, politics, research, academia, what career would you pursue instead?

FEDER: I thought about this, but this is a toughie. And it’s hard for me to imagine, and tongue in cheek, I thought about matchmaking and travel planning. 

CHOUDHARY: But I love that. I mean, I can see you as a matchmaker. That makes sense. What are three words you would use to describe yourself when you started your career?

FEDER: I was uncertain. But I was ambitious and I was hardworking. 

CHOUDHARY: Okay, and then what are three words that you would use to describe yourself now? 

FEDER: I am, for the confident one, I am much more confident. I am much more confident and I like to lead. And I didn’t say it about the first one, but I am always very social and collaborative in my work activities.

CHOUDHARY: I wouldn’t use a better three words that I could describe you with. My last closing question, and this is the question that I ask everybody who comes on the podcast. What is one thing you know now that you wish you knew in the beginning of your career?

FEDER: If I knew at the beginning that I’d get where I wanted to be. So if I’d known you can do this, that would have made it easier. 

CHOUDHARY: That’s a really beautiful philosophy. I know you said you didn’t have a philosophy. I want that to be mine. That you’ll make it. Everything will work out.

FEDER: Exactly. You’ll make it. In fact, we’ve had conversations almost exactly like that. 

CHOUDHARY: Yeah, yeah. 

Well, thank you so much. 

FEDER: Such a treat. 

CHOUDHARY: Judy, you are such a gem. It is so special for us to have this conversation.