In the classroom, as in City Hall, former Somerville mayor Joe Curtatone models the art of truly engaging your community
“It’s the best job I’ve ever had," says Tisch College Professor of the Practice Joe Curtatone of his time as mayor of Somerville, Mass. "And you can love it for your whole career, your whole life.” Photo: Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life
Who owns the work of running a city? It’s a central question for aspiring city leaders, says former Somerville, Massachusetts, mayor Joe Curtatone, now a professor of the practice at the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life.
In a Monday afternoon session of his fall course The Mayor’s Forum: Leading Cities, which aims to give students a fuller picture of the challenges and opportunities facing cities and towns today, Curtatone suggested local officials shouldn’t be the only ones steering municipalities—community members should share that power and responsibility.
It’s a core theme of public service, and a hallmark of Curtatone’s personal and professional style. Rather than lecture about the week’s topic of how municipal leaders can genuinely engage their constituents, Curtatone modeled it. Roaming the classroom, he asked questions, made jokes and Simpsons’ references, and challenged students to distinguish between truly inviting community members to engage, versus merely presenting chances to participate.
Students jumped in to talk about New York Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani’s recent campaign, pointing to his social media presence, street interviews, multilingual communication, and efforts to energize young voters as examples of deeper outreach.
Hearing Curtatone describe a mentor’s misguided advice never to hold a public forum unless you already knew what people would say, they played devil’s advocate, debating whether inviting citizens into the work of government could create conflict.
“My style of leadership and management is horizontal. I want to have conversations with my team and the community,” said Curtatone, who was Somerville’s longest-serving mayor at 18 years and is now helping the new mayor transition into office, on top of his job as president of the Alliance for Climate Transition.
“I try to take that same approach here with the students—not to lecture them, but to discuss topics with them and share my personal and professional experience.”
What’s Not in the Textbooks
The two-credit, once-weekly course in Barnum Hall covered topics such as community partnerships, crisis management, innovation, and the relationship between local, state, and federal government. Guest speakers throughout the semester included former Arlington Town Manager Adam Chapdelaine, former Somerville planning official George Proakis, and former Maryland governor and Baltimore mayor Martin O’Malley.
But Curtatone made sure to include lessons from his own tenure. During the contentious redevelopment process of what today is the Assembly Row neighborhood and shopping center in North Somerville, he recalled, stepping back and letting residents take the lead was key.
Curtatone, a longtime Tufts partner who worked with the university on the health campaign Shape Up Somerville and received the Presidential Medal from former Tufts President Anthony Monaco in 2022, also threw in a self-deprecating anecdote of running with the Tufts Marathon Team right after a sinus surgery, and ending up in the hospital.
In answer to student questions, he shared firsthand experience of how civic engagement strengthens communities, recalling how he joined local activists in pushing the state to finish extending the MBTA Green Line into Somerville; established a new kind of data-driven, community-engaged neighborhood meeting called SomerStat; led the city to take a public stance on threats to DACA; and saw years of trust-building pay off during the COVID-19 pandemic, when residents supported him in innovating and taking risks.
“My goal was to help students understand the things you don’t always get taught and that you aren’t trained for,” Curtatone said after the class. Promoting civic engagement, for example, is notably missing from textbooks and job descriptions, he said. “It’s one of the many things that fall under the responsibility of a city leader that aren’t in the city charter,” he said.
Listening and Love
Another key to being a good municipal leader: recognizing you can never fully understand every community’s lived experience. Curtatone recalled a friend and fellow local official who took him aside after he made a public statement on the murder of George Floyd, and advised him not to co-opt others’ narratives. “Being a good listener, amplifying people’s voices, is crucial,” said Curtatone, who noted that his own listening skills and sense of humility have grown on the job.
He urged a state of “constructive disequilibrium” where neither citizens nor officials challenge each other’s beliefs and learn from each other, and cited a law of global diplomacy that applies on the local level too: “Never destroy the person on the other side of the table.”
Since Curtatone first took office, times have changed and the job has gotten more challenging. Municipal leaders must do more with fewer resources, and navigate increasingly polarized communities.
“At the end of the day, leadership is a lonely enterprise. It’s important to find ways to ground yourself day to day so in the long term you can survive emotionally and physically,” he said.
But the direct positive impact you can have makes it worthwhile—especially during today’s social and political turmoil, when the efficiency and effectiveness of government are more important than ever. “It’s the best job I’ve ever had,” Curtatone said. “And you can love it for your whole career, your whole life.”
