Editor’s Note: Managing the remarkable growth of the Batten School presents unique challenges and opportunities. Dean Harding recently discussed with Professor of Public Policy Gerry Warburg how the School tackles these challenges. Following are excerpts.
Warburg: How do you teach public policy at a time when voters are so skeptical of government and national institutions?
Harding: At the Batten School, we don’t believe that public policy is the unique preserve of either government or national institutions. We see policy being designed, adopted, and implemented at all levels of society, from the local to the global. Policy is now shaped by nonprofits, for-profits and social entrepreneurs, as well as by government. We expose our students to the full range of policy-oriented careers. We’re training civic leaders with the assumption that they will not necessarily be government officials—but that they can engage in public service and civic leadership from a variety of perches.
What areas of public policy does the Batten School emphasize?
We don’t have pre-determined “tracks” among which students are required to choose. Our goal is to enable our students to master the analytic and leadership skills that can be applied across the board to policy issues, and that can be applied to different issues over the course of their careers. Our MPP students’ final policy projects, conducted for real-world clients, reflect a very broad range of policy issues.
Our individual faculty members do focus their research on specific areas of policy where they have expertise, and we’ve created research groups of faculty who work on education policy and health policy. Other Batten faculty members are conducting research on issues as diverse as energy, economic development, anti-crime policy, and intelligence reform.
What is the balance you seek between leadership and analysis?
We seek to give our students the very specific skills needed to conduct rigorous policy analysis—the ability to assess the costs, benefits, and effectiveness of various policy alternatives. We draw on a broader range of academic disciplines than is common in most policy schools. In addition to political scientists and economists, we have faculty who are historians and social psychologists, and we also draw on scholars of ethics and law. We push our students to go beyond analysis: We impart skills in advocacy, negotiation, coalition building, communications, ethical decision making, crisis management, and strategic planning. We want our students to know how to move from analysis to advocacy, from advocacy to adoption, from adoption to implementation, and then from implementation to assessment.