The School was part of a new generation of graduate programs in public affairs that broke away from the traditional political science framework and offered an experimental academic structure that combined theory with practice in an interdisciplinary setting. The members of the first entering class--handpicked by Dean John Gronouski (a former U.S. Postmaster General and Ambassador to Poland), Associate Dean Alexander Clark, and Professor Emmette Redford--included an engineer, a dentist, individuals with varied backgrounds in business and government, and several students with little work experience but a strong interest in public service. Despite the unfinished facilities and experimental nature of the curriculum, the students found themselves immersed in an innovative program that brought the world of government to their doorstep.

For those who can't remember back that far (or who weren't born yet . . . ), the political picture in fall 1970 looked something like this:

• Richard Nixon was in the middle of his first term as president and enjoying a pre-Watergate wave of approval.
• The Great Society initiatives passed under President Johnson were strongly supported by a Democratic Congress.
• The Vietnam War was still the most divisive public issue on the national agenda.
• The ratification movement for the Equal Rights Amendment was beginning its unsuccessful journey around the country.
• In Texas, Preston Smith was governor in an essentially one-party (Democratic) state.
• The state coffers were overflowing with tax revenues from a thriving oil and gas industry, allowing for growth in all areas of state government.

Some of those who attended the School during that period entered the public workforce with what one called "an optimist's attitude toward reform."

"I think one of the hallmarks of our class was the belief in the soundness of the governmental system despite its flaws," said Martha Katz, Class of '76.

Katz, who is Associate Director for Policy, Planning, and Evaluation at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, said that change is a slow but visible process in her line of work.

"Nothing happens overnight in the planning business," she said. "Everything takes time, and it may be months or even years before you see the results of your efforts. Part of the pleasure is in the process, and the rest comes later when you can look back and see that changes have been made and that you had a part in making them happen."

Kenneth Apfel, Class of '78, came to the LBJ School with an undergraduate degree in sociology and a master's degree in rehabilitation counseling. He also had several years of experience working in human services, but within the private sector. "Gradually I came to realize," he says, "that the best way that I could help people, beyond a small institutional capacity, was by helping to provide overall systemic reform."

Today, as Associate Director for Human Resources in the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, Apfel says the critical question is how--in a time of declining resources and diminishing confidence in government--to provide effective, compassionate services for people in need.

"I grew up during the Great Society era, when the role of the federal government was to create programs to make sure that people out of the mainstream received appropriate services," he says. "Now many of those same programs are under attack. I view at least part of my job as ensuring that those with demonstrated effectiveness, the ones that really work, don't get thrown overboard."

Despite cutbacks in government spending and jobs during the 1980s and first half of the 1990s, and despite limits on the number of students admitted to the LBJ School's master's program each year, the applicant pool for the School's master's program has continued to grow. In 1985, the total applicant pool was 284, out of which 113 students entered the next fall. In 1995, there were 525 applicants and an entering class of 109.

This strong interest in the public affairs degree--and presumably in the public service career track--indicates not only that the "practical idealism" that motivated early students is still alive and well, but also that the effort by the LBJ School and its peer institutions to establish a professional identity has been a successful one. What began as an academic experiment 25 years ago is now acknowledged by both public and private sectors as an effective training program for policy analysts, public managers, and those aspiring to appointive and elective government office. The challenge for the LBJ School as it moves into its next quarter century is to equip itself--and its students--to meet the changing needs of government while preserving the strong service orientation that has enabled the public affairs profession to thrive.