The pressure was on as students in the Schar School of Policy and Government’s PUPB 500: Theory and Practice in Public Policy course eagerly awaited their chance to present their policy briefs to a decision-making and intelligence briefing expert, Michael Morell, on Tuesday, April 23, at George Mason University’s Arlington Campus.
Morell, after all, managed the staff that provided those vital daily intelligence briefings to Presidents George W. Bush and Barak Obama. The former acting director of the CIA is now Senior Fellow at the Michael V. Hayden Center for Intelligence, Policy, and International Security at the Schar School.
“As a decision-maker, I have seen over a thousand presentations about a problem and how to solve it,” said Morell. Among those briefings to President Bush: The September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
The presentations were given by four groups made up of four to five graduate students led by assistant professor at the Schar School, Justin Gest. The wide array of topics included social mobility in Washington, D.C., mental healthcare in Virginia, employment patterns of women in Utah, and the relationship of law enforcement and those with mental illnesses.
By inviting Morell to his classroom, Gest exhibited his passionate resolve to improve the knowledge of his students. “If you could draw up the perfect person to advise students on how to brief, it would be professor Morell,” he said. “To have him be available as a faculty member at the Schar School is such an incredible opportunity and advantage.”
How the information is delivered to a decision-maker is key, and to that end Morell gave the classroom a lecture on preparation and execution.
“You want to display all the confidence you can muster,” he said. “If you project confidence, you are going to create confidence in the listener.”
Having a firm grasp on the information is also key, he said.
“In a real policy briefing, people are going to be firing questions at you, and you have to anticipate them,” he said. “When I briefed President Bush and President Obama, I would anticipate their questions and know how to answer them beforehand.”
Morell commended the students on their hard work and said he was very impressed with each presentation.
The students, who might have been initially intimidated at presenting their work to such an experienced expert, were enthusiastic about the opportunity to receive constructive criticism from a professional with such extensive experience in the field.
“[Morell] has been doing this for most of his career and provided us with some really valuable feedback,” said Craig Vanderau, a Master’s in Public Policy student.
“Nowhere else could I get such candid feedback,” said Alexander Naumov, a Government and International Politics major and one of the few undergraduates attending the class. “After one evening with professor Morrell, my briefing skills have been taken to the next level.”
“You rarely get the opportunity to speak to someone who has been in the position that you want to be in,” said Charity Johnson, a Master’s in Public Policy student. “I want to be a public policy analyst. Seeing him and getting his feedback was really interesting, and I felt very fortunate.”