David Hamburg on Commissions

David Hamburg was the 11 th president of Carnegie Corporation, serving from 1982 to 1997. He is a psychiatrist who has been a professor at Stanford and Harvard Universities as well as president of the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is a DeWitt Wallace Distinguished Scholar at Weill Cornell Medical College and the author of several books, the latest of which is Preventing Genocide: Practical Steps toward Early Detection and Effective Action. Commissions were a hallmark of Hamburg’s years with the Corporation, and he recently shared his opinions on their advantages and drawbacks. 

In considering whether to form a commission, the first question one must ask is: what is the problem? It must be big enough to merit taking this big a step. From a cynical point of view, one might say that a commission is a good way to delay doing something about a problem, or a way of ducking controversy—something to do if an issue is so controversial you want to get it off your back.   But that depends on the controversy. Delay is not such a bad thing with a huge problem.  Read more.