Category: Graduate Course

Public Program Evaluation presents strategies for evaluating the efficacy of public programs, as well as strategies for addressing the challenges of applying program evaluation methods in "real world" policy settings. Topics include evaluation ethics, logic model development, experimental and quasi-experimental methods, outcome measurement, and communicating evaluation results. Learning is applied to a client-sponsored evaluation project.

This course develops skills in policy analysis in two ways. First, it sets out the conceptual foundations for understanding the role of policy analysis in democratic politics. Second, it provides training and experience in policy analysis craft.

An intensive study of policymaking processes involved in the formulation of public policies.

Routinely offered: This course is offered every year. The main goals of this course are (1) to help you deepen your appreciation of the importance of public management in our democratic scheme of governance; (2) to enhance your ability to think analytically about problems of public management; and (3) to enhance your ability to make good …

The tools and techniques used in the economic approach to policy analysis. Emphasis is on applying these methodological tools to evaluating existing public policies and policy alternatives, as well as providing a deeper understanding of how the economy operates.

This course will present the welfare economics underpinnings for evaluating the social benefits and costs of government activities. Issues such as uncertainty, the social discount rate, and welfare weights will be discussed; case studies from the environmental, social policy, and agricultural areas will be studied.

Surveys the political forces that shape poverty, inequality, and related public policies in the United States. Builds on foundational knowledge of the policymaking process to provide graduate students with skills to understand and negotiate social politics in the United States.

Examines how managers in public and not-for-profit agencies can secure and utilize legal authority, human resources, and funds to accomplish organizational goals. Includes strategies for establishing and maintaining effective external relations, and for working through other organizations to accomplish objectives.

This course is designed to provide an overview of comparative cross-national social policy, the effects of the Great Recession on poverty and inequality, and the American system of public policy toward human resources, i.e., social policy, with added emphasis on other nations’ approaches to social welfare policy.