My role as School President was fun, complicated and only somewhat satisfying. Fun was where it began. It was fun—just like running races in grade school—to beat some boys.

It was 1981, and beating boys at 200 year-old games was still a thrill. Was there a platform or a set of issues on which any of us ran? I don’t remember one, and I’m not sure if I had one. Service of some kind was simply what was expected of me.

Like the boys I ran against, I imagine, I’d been raised...