Bill Parent is currently the director of the Center for Civil Society in the UCLA School of Public Affairs. Prior to coming to UCLA 10 years ago, he was at Harvard University’s Kennedy School where he ran the Innovations in American Government program. Twenty years ago, he was executive assistant to then Dean Robert D. Putnam. Before he interviewed Putnam for Zócalo, he sat down for our In The Green Room Q&A.
Q. What do you consider to be the greatest simple pleasure?
A. Reading.
Q. Where would we find you at 10 a.m. on a typical Saturday?
A. Headed for a sail boat.
Q. Who was your childhood hero?
A. Robert F. Kennedy.
Q. If you could live in any other time, when would it be?
A. The turn of the century through the 1920s and 1930s.
Q. Whose talent would you like to have?
A. Taj Mahal’s.
Q. What is your most prized material possession?
A. My small sail boat.
Q. What promise do you make to yourself that you break the most often?
A. That I’m not going to eat snacks late at night.
Q. What should you throw away but haven’t been able to part with?
A. Paper – calendars, old notepads. I haven’t been able to go electronic.
Q. Which teacher or professor changed your life?
A. A teacher in high school, Brother Robertus Duffy.
Q. Who would you choose to write your biography?
A. I’d settle for Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Q. If you could talk only one more journey, where would you go?
A. Back to Ireland.
Q. What do you wish you had the nerve to do?
A. Quit work tomorrow and go on the road.
Q. Who is the one person living or dead you would most like to meet for dinner?
A. Thomas Jefferson.
To read about Parent’s interview with Robert Putnam, click here.
*Photo by Aaron Salcido.