I count myself as a very fortunate person to have interacted with President Jimmy Carter in various capacities. Commentators have sometimes focused on Carter’s visits to Baltimore to learn about redevelopment efforts in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood and later his return to help renovate houses as a member of Habitat for Humanity. For me, however, contact with President Carter at an earlier point in my career remains most memorable.

Through the recommendation of my high school friend, David Rubenstein, I was hired to serve on the White House domestic policy staff by Stuart Eizenstat, the president’s senior adviser on domestic policy. I was 27 at the time I was hired. Among the duties assigned to me was monitoring the activities of federal agencies handling a range of public school issues, in particular, busing to achieve desegregation.

One of the states affected by that issue in 1977 was Delaware. I met with then-Sen. Joe Biden to discuss his concerns about federally supported plans to bus children in school districts in his state. At the conclusion of my meeting with Biden, he said he wanted to bring his concerns directly to the attention of President Carter. So, a meeting was arranged. My recollection is that normally, Eizenstat would be the staff member accompanying the president in meetings with senators, but in this instance, I was the designated staff person.

Here’s what happened.

The meeting was held in the Cabinet Room, not the Oval Office. The only participants were me, Sen. Biden and President Carter. The senator explained that he was there to express his and his constituents’ concern about school busing. He then informed the president that he had an informative meeting with “Mr. Schmoke.” At that point, President Carter, without turning his head, flashed his eyes in my direction, giving me a look, which I interpreted like this, “I don’t know you, but I’m not going to let on that I don’t know you since it would be embarrassing to all sitting in this room.” The meeting lasted just a few minutes, with the president vowing to look into the matter further. Once Biden left, I explained to the president that I was a member of Eizenstat’s staff. He nodded and left the room.

That encounter was so memorable for me because of the way that Carter handled what could have been an awkward situation. I appreciated the fact that he didn’t undermine me by saying he had no idea why I was in that meeting. He also didn’t convey to the senator that his prior meeting with me was a waste of his valuable time. The Carter diplomatic touch was on display in that small session. The president’s skills in that respect would be seen on a much larger scale later in his tenure in office. By the way, speculation about what Sen. Biden said in that meeting with Carter emerged during the 2020 Democratic primary debates when Biden was accused of opposing school integration.

Another moment stands out in my mind — when President Carter used his eyes, again, to convey clear messages that did not need spoken support. A meeting was called to address a matter troubling a significant number of people living near the nation’s airports — increasing noise levels of commercial jets. In the meeting, Transportation Secretary Brock Adams made a presentation in which he explained to the president that his department was recommending the airlines’ adoption of technology that reduced plane noise levels. Although I was not called upon, I spoke up and said something along these lines, “Mr. President, given your background as an engineer, you should know that although this technology will indicate a reduction on the meter, the noise level to the human ear will remain the same.” As soon as I made that remark, President Carter gave a withering look toward Secretary Adams. The look conveyed a message of unhappiness and a clear direction to return with a solution that improves the lives of people — not just moving the dial on sound meters.

There was no conversation after the look. The meeting was adjourned.

President Carter did not comment on my role in either the school busing meeting or the airport noise issue. But the way he handled those meetings taught me valuable lessons about leadership. He allowed competing voices to be heard on important policy issues. He then found a way to make decisions without demeaning anyone engaged in the policy debate. There was a civility in his style of decision making, and it let others know that one could disagree without being disagreeable. It is a style that we all could benefit from in these hyper-partisan times.

Kurt L. Schmoke serves as president of the University of Baltimore. He was mayor of Baltimore from 1987-1999 and was the Baltimore City state’s attorney from 1982-1987. Prior to becoming UB’s president, he was dean of the Howard University School of Law from 2003-2012.