Policy Studies: Policy Management + Law and Policy

Policy Studies at Dickinson
Policy Management major • Law and Policy major

Core Faculty
• Susan Feldman (Professor, Philosophy)
• Harry Pohlman (Professor, Political Science), Coordinator, Law and Policy
• Jim Hoefler (Professor, Political Science), Coordinator, Policy Studies and Policy Management
• Mara Donaldson (Professor, Religion)
• Andy Rudalevige (Associate Professor, Political Science)
• Kristin Skrabis (Part-time Assistant Professor, Economics)
• Nicky Tynan (Assistant Professor, Economics)
• Douglas Edlin (Assistant Professor, Political Science)

Contributing Faculty
• Phil Grier (Professor, Philosophy)
• John Ransom (Professor, Political Science)
• Ed Guido (Adjunct Professor; Judge, Cumberland County)
• John Cherry (Adjunct Professor; Judge, Dauphin County)

Student Transitions

• Students taking the Policy Studies Foundations class in spring '03 and before: Use guidelines for the "old" Policy Studies major.

• Students taking the Policy Studies Foundations class in spring '04: May choose to graduate using rules of the "old" Policy Studies major, or they may follow guidelines for the new Policy Management major.

• Students taking the Policy Studies Foundations class in spring '05 and after: Use guidelines for either the new Policy Management major or the new Law and Policy major

Advising for Majors

Policy Management major
Policy Management majors develop and learn to apply complex problem solving skills across a wide variety of institutional contexts (in the public sector, in the private sector, and in international settings). Policy Management majors also take an ethics elective and an internship which must be approved by the student's Policy Studies advisor. Use the color-coded advising sheet below to follow the advised course of study in the major. Adjustments to the sequence suggested here can be, and may have to be made (especially for those studying abroad the Junior year).
Law and Policy major
Law and Policy majors develop and learn to apply complex problem solving skills in areas where law and policy intersect. Majors study the structure (POLSC 248: The Judiciary) and philosophical underpinnings of the legal system (LP/PHILO 255: Philosophy of Law) while also taking two law electives, one policy elective, and a law-related internship which must be approved by the student's Policy Studies advisor. Use the color-coded advising sheet below to follow the advised course of study in the major. Adjustments to the sequence suggested here can be, and may have to be made (especially for those studying abroad the Junior year).

• Policy Management Advising form

Note: this link will open as a .pdf file
and requires Acrobat Reader
• Law and Policy Advising form

Note: this link will open as a .pdf file
and requires Acrobat Reader

Honors guidelines
• Policy Studies and Policy Management
• Law and Policy

General Information
• Policy Studies home page (this page is for students who took the Foundations class in spring '04 and before; it will be retired on July 1, 2006)
• What is Policy Studies?
• Interdisciplinarity
• Advising Handbook Page (Registrar)

WHAT IS POLICY STUDIES? “Complex problem solving” is the concept that serves as the intellectual core of Policy Studies. Policy studies students learn how to distill substantive knowledge drawn from various relevant disciplines in order to fuel both (1) the process of understanding the various dimensions of social, economic, and political problems, and (2) the process of building viable solution sets that are framed by ethical norms.

......

• Some students will be interested in the breadth that is achieved from investigating the management of a wide array of policy problems and solutions that exist in various public, non-profit, private, and comparative contexts. These students will choose the "Policy Management" (PM) major. All students in both majors will be required to operate across disciplinary boundaries. The "Policy Management" major is designed to acclimate students to the processes of complex problem solving that exist in a variety of contexts, including the public, non-profit, and private sectors, as well as in various comparative cross-cultural settings. While "Law and Policy" majors specialize in the intersection of law and policy, "Policy Management" majors will focus on learning more about the various frameworks, orientations, stake holders, and value sets that exist in different policy contexts.

• Some students within the policy studies program will be deeply interested in the law, both as a source of problems and a source of solutions (and the source of problems those solutions will inevitably spawn). These students will choose the "Law and Policy" (LP) major within the Policy Studies program. While the "Law and Policy" major may well help prepare students for graduate study in policy or law, its primary mission is to provide students with a coherent interdisciplinary approach to the topics of law and policy in a liberal arts framework. Law and policy is a natural combination, providing students with a lens to see how a legal regime limits policy choices and how the policy process informs and limits laws.

Both the proposed majors are designed "to prepare students for career and community involvement in a world in which teamwork and multiple perspectives are critical (footnote 1)." And both majors will build on a common foundation that includes developing within students an appreciation for (1) fluid interdisciplinarity, (2) the contingent nature of knowledge, (3) connections to the wider world beyond the college, (4) principle-based models of leadership, (5) the meaningful application of ethics, and (6) the role of stake holder values in problem analysis and decision making processes. These core values will be communicated in the "Foundations" course and echoed through the "Gateway" course (where policy makers from beyond the college are recruited to play a key role), through the Senior Seminar (where students are tasked to do hands-on policy problem solving of their own), and through the required internship (where students learn via the context of practical, hands-on experiences).

Both of the proposed majors will also include more explicit attention to "law" in the common requirements than is the case with the current policy studies major. Expanding the role that law plays in the policy studies program will improve the program, and the overall curriculum, in at least three important ways.

...... • First, enhancing policy studies with more explicit coverage of law helps students interested in policy understand that law -- omnipresent in the working world -- often operates both as a springboard and as a constraint on policy making. For example, city councils react to U.S. Supreme Court decisions in fashioning new policy, while lawyers are regularly charged with figuring out whether the policy preferences of a government or private sector actor can be squared with the law.
• Second, students more interested in law will be forced to confront the policy process in all its breadth and diversity. Rather than looking at the law as a static set of court decisions and statutes, law and policy majors will begin to understand that law, like policy, is really as much a complex and fluid process as it is a set of rigid rules.

• Third, the reformulated policy studies major introduces students interested in the law to systematic and explicit study of ethics as it emerges in policy and legal contexts. This is a crucial part of the education of a future lawyer or policy maker and our program makes it a significant element.

INTERDISCIPLINARITY. One central key to complex problem solving is interdisciplinarity. Policy studies advances interdisciplinarity because it is useful (some might say essential) to span more than one discipline to fully understand -- or consider solutions to -- policy problems of the world around us. Policy studies focuses on the contours of the problem solving process, where sifting and sorting information drawn from various disciplines and diverse perspectives is systematically synthesized into a coherent view of the world so that one can better understand what is wrong, and what might make it better.
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NOTE: We note, with agreement, Dean Weissman's summary report of the interdisciplinarity retreat held at the college (10/14), where discussion focused on: "interdisciplinarity as a key to problem solving in a complex world. Interdisciplinarity adds the element of synthesis to the traditional curricular dimensions of breadth and depth. It helps prepare students for career and community involvement in a world in which teamwork and multiple perspectives are critical.... [I]nterdisciplinarity is very consistent with the College's vision of the liberal arts and sciences 'engaging the world,' a wider world which is not organized into disciplinary categories." Weissman, Neil. "Interdisciplinarity retreat: Summary report." E-mail to faculty. 20 Oct. 2003.)

j hoefler 8.30.04