GRAD > PUBPOL
Public Policy Courses
PUBPOL 610 Policy and Program Evaluation +
Description:
How do you know if a program, policy, or practice is designed to remedy a social problem, and if it is in fact doing so? This course addresses this question through blending policy design, evaluation theory and research with ’hands on’ experience. It covers essential pieces of the policy and program design and evaluation process including tips for design of different types of programs, identifying values by which to determine goals, objectives, alternatives and outcome measures, working with community partners, ethics of research, articulating a theory of change through logic models, process evaluation, outcome/impact evaluation, measuring program success, and an introduction to cost-benefit analysis. Students will work collectively and individually, cultivating skills critical to the policy design and evaluation process including developing measures, learning principles of the design and analysis of different classes of programs, conducting interviews, observations and surveys, analyzing data, and presenting findings. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
PUBPOL 620 Analytic Methods for Public Policy +
Description:
This course is an introduction to data analytics, with a focus on data acquisition, management, and analysis in public-serving organizations. Successful public policy professionals should be able to deploy data analytics and data science tools and methods to make meaning from data, to identify, propose and evaluate relationships to build explanations about phenomena and organizations associated with the public interest. This course is designed to provide students the skills for assessing the need for data in public-serving organizations, for extracting knowledge and insight from data, and effectively communicating results for policy action and public engagement. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
PUBPOL 651 Social Enterprise and Innovation +
Description:
Social entrepreneurship and policy innovation is a new and fast-growing area of social policy and business scholarship and practice. The goal of social enterprise is to do well financially by creatively solving social issues. Innovation ’ in problem identification, stakeholder engagement, acquisition of funding, production, marketing, evaluation, and other areas ’ is essential to the success of social entrepreneurship. This course will introduce students to social enterprise and innovation through a mix of scholarly and practice reading, engagement with scholars and practitioners and teamwork. Working in a team and on a social issue they care about, students will learn system thinking skills, entrepreneurial mindset, skills, and tools to start up their own social venture or work in a social business. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
PUBPOL 671 Policy Simulation and Decision Modeling +
Description:
This elective course in the Master of Public Policy program provides an introduction to analytic methods for decision-making to improve planning and operations of public service organizations with a particular focus on mission-driven community-based organizations. A deeper understanding of relevant methods will help organizations better measure the impact of their services, and design new ways to provide these services to optimize efficiency, effectiveness and equity. The course will emphasize iterative, inductive, mixed-methods and critical approaches to empirical problem-solving using two broad classes of analytic methods: simulation and optimization. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
PUBPOL 673 Urban Analytics and Data Science +
Description:
This course addresses assembling, managing, visualizing and analyzing data on and about urban phenomena: people, communities, services, infrastructure in built environments. Using material from geographic information systems and geospatial technologies; urban analytics; and information systems policy, it enables students to become data explorers, data analysts, data stewards and data planners, all with the goal of making our urban communities as nurturing and sustainable as possible for the widest diversity of the city’s residents. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
PUBPOL 698 Capstone +
Description:
PUBPOL 698 Capstone is a 6-credit course designed to facilitate completion of the capstone project, the final requirement for the Master of Public Policy degree. Students will develop a research question, create a literature review, develop a research design and data collection instruments, collect relevant data, write a full report with findings, implications and conclusion/recommendations; and present their capstone study during the final presentations at the end of the semester. Depending on student interests and availability of topics and client organizations, students may pursue their capstone projects as solo or small-group endeavors. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
PUBPOL 699 Internship +
Description:
The internship provides an invaluable opportunity to gain substantive experience in the field of public policy, to apply material acquired in the classroom to professional work situations as well as to develop one’s leadership capacities. These internships are intended to provide training for assessing needs for government and nonprofit interventions in the private and public sector, providing support for design of new programs or redesign of existing programs, and rigorous evaluation of existing interventions. More Info
Offered in:- TBA