Mark Rom

Associate Professor of Government and Public Policy, Co-director of Undergraduate Studies for the Department of Government, Director of the Master’s in American Government
Age: 56
Hometown: Fayetteville, Ark.
Education: B.A. University of Arkansas, Political Science; M.A. University of Wisconsin, Madison, Political Science; Ph.D. University of Wisconsin, Madison, Political Science
Areas of Research: American social welfare policy (health, welfare, sexuality, sex education)
Time at Georgetown: 22 years
Courses Taught: “U.S. Political Systems,” “Ethics and Values in Public Policy,” “Statistics and Data Visualization”

What do you think the most fascinating question in your field is?
I’m really interested in the politics of student assessment, so I think as professors, we’re administrative officials, and we’re giving out grades to the public, and so are we giving out grades that truly do what grades should do? How do we know that? Are our grades fair, are our grades accurate, do they produce outcomes that we seek? Are our grading systems moral? Three of those are all political questions, because grades are a resource — we’re allocating a resource, how is that resource allocated? Don’t know if that’s the most fascinating question, but it’s the question that has been fascinating me for the last couple years. 

How did you narrow your field of study?  
I have almost entirely taught required courses at Georgetown, and I have a special love for teaching required courses, because the students have to be there. And I know a lot of people don’t like that, but I think of it as okay, they don’t want to be here, but I want to find a way to make them want to be here. And I just dig that. If you’re teaching an elective and everybody already loves the subject, that’s kind of easy. I want to woo them into liking what I care about. 

What is the most memorable encounter you’ve had with a student?
Over 20 years, there’s a million of them. Let me just give you one that deeply touched me. I was the director of the Master’s program here, and on the first day of class, a student who had been rejected by our program (not waitlisted) came to my office and said, “Can I have five minutes of your time?” I said, what’s up? She said, “You rejected me from the program, and I’m here to explain why you should accept me.” I said, “Okay, you’ve got five minutes.” And after five minutes, I said, “You are in.” I accepted her on the spot based on her arguments. And that was about 15 years ago, and I hear from her occasionally: She thrived in the program, she was one of our stars, she’s had a great career in California politics and she thanks me for taking a chance on her — and I just love the fact that she said, “Just give me five minutes.”

If you could teach one course that you haven’t taught before, what would it be?
I just don’t have a good answer to this one. If you’d asked me a year or two ago, I would have said Data Visualization, that’s the thing I really wanted to, but now I’m doing that, so I don’t know what the next big thing is.

Do you think being at a Jesuit school has affected the way you approach education?
I don’t know that it’s affected the way that I approach it. I know that one of the reasons I’ve liked teaching here is the idea of care for the whole person. It’s something I feel strongly about and so it already matches what my interests were as a teacher. I do care for my students; I think most teachers care for their students, it’s probably just different at different kinds of schools.

What’s something you wish students would take away from your courses?
What I really want my students to do in all my courses — I don’t really care what they remember — here’s what I care about: Something about that course has made them then interested in exploring whatever that is over the course of their lifetime. I had a course as an undergraduate — it was a two-credit course in architecture. And whenever I travel, I look at buildings, rather than just having buildings go by me. Something about that course made me think, looking at buildings is interesting. You can learn something about that, and you can understand something about the culture, about the function of the building, the artistic expression of the architecture. I’d love my students to say in the future, “Here’s an article about American politics, that’s something I’d love to check out.”

As a teacher of American government, what is your favorite moment in politics so far?
My favorite moment in politics, experience in the world of politics, I have said I was so thrilled at the election of President Obama, and I really was. It just seemed like such a historic moment for me in a lot of ways — not for me, the country. It really was quite an optimistic moment, so I think that’d probably be one of the most exciting ones.

Interview by David Chardack