SONDHEIM PUBLIC AFFAIRS 150 HONORS SEMINAR

Spring 2010

Mondays and Wednesdays, 1-2:15

Dr. Roy T. Meyers

Professor of Political Science

Director, Sondheim Public Affairs Scholars Program

Office Hours: MW, 11-1, and by appointment

318 Public Policy Building

410-455-2196 (office)

410-381-4755 (home)

meyers@umbc.edu

Delana Gregg

Assistant Director, Sondheim Public Affairs Scholars Program

315 Public Policy Building

410-455-2916 (office) or 443-722-9568 (cell)

delana1@umbc.edu

Office Hours:

M-F 8:30-4:30

Best bet: set up an appointment

Course objectives

This second introductory course for the Sondheim Public Affairs Scholars Program is designed to:

help you develop skills for public policy analysis and advocacy;

allow you to compare the perspectives and methods used in the various social sciences and other disciplines that are related to public affairs; and

deepen your understanding of how public policy affects our society through reflection on service-learning experiences.

During the first half of the semester, you will read extensively, and we will focus on how to define policy problems and identify potential solutions, on the role that social science research can play in these efforts, and on how organizations can implement successful policies. During the second half of the semester, you will carry out group policy analyses, and we will focus on research methods, on how to choose the best policy alternative, and on advocacy for reforms.

Readings and related assignments

We expect that you will carefully read and think about every assigned reading before class. We also will ask you to react to assigned readings in three different formats: brief emails, writing assignments, or wiki group assignments. As you read, also ask yourself: why is the author making this argument?; might any of the article’s contents be wrong?; or, what is the meaning of this unfamiliar word? (the answer is usually in your dictionary). But your reading and thinking should go beyond our prompts to identify questions of interest to you. We encourage you to raise these questions in class for discussion.

Emails should be sent to meyers@umbc.edu so they can be read early on the morning of class. In most cases, you should not write more than 2-3 sentences. Writing assignments should be 2 double-spaced and typed pages with normal fonts and spacing. This length sometimes troubles students because they would like to write much more. However, we believe that the 2-page limit provides a valuable discipline–in part because it resembles the typical attention span of decision-makers, whether they be chief executives or voters. If you cannot succinctly communicate your essential points, your advice will be lost. But we also want your writing to reveal the important complexities that are inherent in most policy problems. Therefore, each assignment should be well-prepared: brainstorm to begin, complete a draft, revise it, proofread and copy edit.

Most of each class will be discussion. We intend that our discussions will honor the model of academic freedom, in which all have the opportunity to express their considered views and the obligation to listen with respect to others’ views. Our experience with freshmen is that many begin by relying very heavily on anecdotes from personal experience. We are not opposed to a limited amount of this–after all, much good thought and writing is grounded in personal knowledge. However, we will insist that all of you progress beyond the personal and the anecdotal to engage fully with systematic social science and policy analysis.

As you did last semester in the English class, we will regularly discuss topical issues that you identify from readings in newspapers and other media sources. For the date when your name is listed in the syllabus following “CE” (for “current event”), distribute one article on a topic that you’d like the class to discuss. (The order in which you will do this was randomly generated, but if you want to switch with another student, feel free.)

There are two final projects. The first is a capstone policy analysis; the second is covered below under service learning. Both are due on the date scheduled for a final exam (though there are no exams in this course).

A capstone is an opportunity to integrate and apply what you have learned during the semester. This policy analysis is the only assignment for which you must read beyond the readings listed below. You should form a group of 2-3 and pick a U.S. domestic policy topic, which must be approved by Meyers. During the second half of the semester, class meetings will periodically review your progress. At semester’s end, you will make a presentation of your analysis to the class, and after revising this analysis based on reactions to your presentation, complete a 7-10 page paper as your final writing assignment.

For the capstone analysis, you should propose a response to the issue or problem you identify. Present your proposal in the form of a memo to someone in real life who has some ability to adopt or implement your proposal. Your memo needs to define the issue, lay out your proposed response, identify major obstacles to the implementation of your solution, and recommend a specific course of action. Provide statistical data to put the issue in context and to support your recommendations. Cite major sources. The length should be seven to ten double-spaced pages.

Much of the previous paragraph is copied from the application for the Truman Scholarship, at: http://www.truman.gov/, which you should consider competing for in your junior year. Meyers has posted on the web some advice on plagiarism, at: http://userpages.umbc.edu/~meyers/plag.htm. Please read through this advice. You may also find helpful the following research hints page, at: http://userpages.umbc.edu/~meyers/reshints.htm.

Service-learning and related assignments

As during the fall, you will volunteer at your site 3-4 hours each week. Throughout the semester, you will reflect on your service experiences as observers at your sites. We will integrate your service experiences into class discussions and take specific time in class to share service experiences. You will participate in one-on-one advising sessions, and keep weekly logs of your observations. You will report back to the group via discussion boards: monthly journals, following the format of “What?” (reporting what is happening, objectively); “So What?” (what did you learn, what difference did the event make?); and “Now What?” (how will you think or act as a result of this experience?), in about 300 words. The goal of the service learning journaling is for you to briefly reflect on what happens at your service site weekly and to participate electronically in your writing community by reading everyone’s posts and responding to at least 2 each time (hopefully more). Your original post will be due each Friday by midnight and the conversation should end by Monday morning. Discussion boards facilitate outside of class “discussion,” so when a question/request is posed to you, be sure to respond.

Each of these discussion boards will build towards your second final assignment, the Service Learning Reflection Project. After choosing a topic of interest concerning your service site, you will gather information through observation and questioning in order to draw conclusions and make recommendations about possible changes needed at your service site. Your personal topic could be related to information/research you feel would benefit your site; policies that could be instituted to improve the function of your site; changes that would allow your site to better accomplish its mission—the purpose of your information gathering should be of specific interest to you and based in the readings for this course and your experiences at the site. After your purpose, questions, and methods are approved, you will collect information all semester during service, keeping field notes as part of your weekly service logs. Near the end of the semester, you will write an essay for the next cohort of Sondheim Scholars about what you learned this semester through this project, and you will present your findings and recommendations during our final exam through poster sessions for your cohort.

Grades

We do not “grade on a curve.” Every student can earn an A for excellence. If you find you are not performing at that level, we encourage you to discuss with us how you could improve.

Final grades will be calculated using the following percentages for each grading category:

Service-learning participation, reflections/journals, and poster session 25%

Class attendance and discussion participation 20%

Email, writing, and wiki assignments 40%

Capstone presentation and final policy analysis 15%

Readings

Three books should be purchased:

Eugene Bardach, 2009. A Practical Guide for Policy Analysis: The Eightfold Path to More Effective Problem Solving, third edition. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press.

Jeffrey R. Henig, 200. Spin Cycle: How Research Is Used in Policy Debates--the Case of Charter Schools. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Olivia Golden, 2009. Reforming Child Welfare. Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute Press.

The other readings are either web pages linked in this syllabus or on Blackboard. The web pages can be reached via the links embedded in this syllabus, at: http://userpages.umbc.edu/%7Emeyers/pub150h.htm.

Class schedule and assignments

1/27 Problem definition; poverty and inequality

Bardach, Introduction and pp. 1-10

Amy Goldstein, 2009. “Missing More than a Meal,” Washington Post, December 12,

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/11/AR2009121102697.html

USDA on measurement of food security: http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/FoodSecurity/measurement.htm

USDA 2008 report on household food security: read through p. 15 http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/ERR83/ERR83b.pdf

Advocates for Children and Youth, 2009. “Improving Food Stamp Use in Maryland,” May, http://www.acy.org/upimages/Improving_Food_Stamp_Use.pdf

Email: For the poverty group web page for last semester, identify the words that come closest to Bardach’s approach to defining a policy problem.  Then use Bardach’s approach to rewrite the problem definition based on your interpretation of the other readings.

2/1 The official poverty numbers

CE: Ramu

Rebecca M. Blank, 2008, “Presidential Address: How to Improve Poverty Measurement in the United States,” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 27: pp. 233-254.

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/poverty.html

http://aspe.hhs.gov/POVERTY/

Email: After reading through Blank's talk, scan through the two web sites for look at the data displays.  Send me the link to the data display that most interests you, and explain very briefly why it interests you.

2/3 Is inequality more important than poverty in the U.S.?

CE: So

Michael Marmot, 2004. The Status Syndrome: How Social Standing Affects Our Health and Longevity. N.Y.: Holt, pp. 61-137.

Writing assignment: Discuss the extent to which the ideas in this reading, and particularly Sen's definition on p. 74 of Marmot, are relevant to your understanding of your service site (from either last semester or this semester).

2/8 Discussion with Under Secretary of Commerce Rebecca Blank

Email: Write two questions you'd like to ask Under Secretary Blank.

2/10 The state of our nation; observation at your service-learning site

Vaclav Havel, “1990 New Year’s Address to the Nation,” at:

http://old.hrad.cz/president/Havel/speeches/1990/0101_uk.html

Robert Coles, 1994. The Call of Service. NY: Houghton Mifflin, pp. 1-30.

Bruce L. Berg, 2001. Qualitative Research Methods for the Social Sciences. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, pp. 156-161, 97-100.

Writing assignment: Havel was a playwright, philosopher, and human rights activist during the years of the Soviet empire.  He became the new President of Czechoslovakia after the success of the “Velvet Revolution.”  This speech is but one of many examples of his tremendous eloquence and moral drive.  Now imagine that you have the opportunity to give a speech to a similarly-attentive audience about the “state of the nation”–in this case, the United States.  Leaving aside any possible concern you might have about poverty and inequality, what is the one thing you would most want to say?  And looking back at your life so far, why do you think you would want to convey this message?

Service-learning discussion board over the weekend

2/15 Policy analysis as the potential source of solutions to problems

CE: Bartock

Bardach, pp. 10-26

Henig, chapters 1-2

Part 6 of the Washington Post’s series on Fixing D.C.’s Schools, at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/metro/interactives/dcschools/

Email:  Do you have any underlying preferences regarding charter schools?  Think about this by speculating whether charter schools might reduce the problems faced by Mr. Willis, or not.

2/17 The challenges of systemic reform

CE: Majid

Washington Post articles on DC Child and Family Services

Golden, chapters 1-3

Email:  On pp. 46-49 Golden describes her systemic diagnosis and prescription for the DC Child and Family Services Agency.  Identify one idea from this section that might apply well to the conditions you observe at your service site.

2/22 Evidence and biased arguments

CE: Mills

Henig, chapters 3-4

Email: Immigration is a policy area that involves much political controversy.  From last semester's web page on this topic, do you see any cited sources which show any of the effects described by Henig?

2/24 Service-learning check in; how social science research can win out

CE: Perez Ferrero

Henig, chapter 5

Golden, chapter 4

Writing assignment: Golden and Henig describe what can be learned by a careful review of research within their areas of specialization.  What general lessons do you take from these chapters?  Focus on one or two ideas.

Service-learning discussion board over the weekend

3/1 Policy tools and a tour-de-force policy analysis

CE: Wojciechowski

Bardach, Appendix B

Philip J. Cook and Jens Ludwig, 2006 “Aiming for Evidence-Based Gun Policy,” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 25: 3, pp. 691-735.

Email: Pick two of the approaches analyzed by Cook and Ludwig, and classify them according to Bardach's tool categorization.  Then briefly suggest another approach that they do not analyze, and classify it as well.

3/3 Evaluative criteria; projections of policy outcomes; choices

Bardach, pp. 26-57 and Appendix A

Email: as a group, draft a problem definition for your capstone analysis, and identify three potential methods of addressing this problem.

3/8 Organizational change as learning and action

CE: Yu

Golden, chapters 5-6

Bardach, Appendix C

Writing assignment: Describe your vision for your service site, and then identify and justify a performance measure that you believe the site should emphasize.

3/10 Accountability, funding, staffing, and leadership

CE: Bambawale

Golden, chapters 7-9

Email: Describe one lesson each that can be drawn from these chapters for the service sites described in achievement gap and co-curricular web pages from last semester.

Spring Break

3/22 Discussion with Olivia Golden about her book and your service sites

Golden, chapter 10

Email: Come prepared to briefly describe your site, to identify a major challenge that it faces, and to discuss ways to address this challenge.  Send me a summary of what you'd like to say.

3/24 Researching your capstone analysis

CE: Rose

Bardach, Parts II and III

Email: Identify a person who is knowledgeable about your capstone topic, and draft several questions you would like to ask this person.

Service-learning discussion board over the weekend (Service-Learning Reflection Project)

3/29 For your capstone analysis, what are you assuming about human “nature”?

CE: Getz

Joseph Henrich, et. al, 2005. “‘Economic Man’ in Cross-Cultural Perspective: Behavioral Experiments in 15 Small-Scale Societies,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 28: December, pp. 795-815.

Writing assignment: The mainstream approach to policy analysis usually assumes that humans rationally focus on their self-interest.  To what extent is this approach useful for your capstone analysis?  Does the ultimatum game research help you think about this issue?

3/31 For your capstone analysis, what concepts about institutions are most useful?

CE: Nevarez

Hugh Heclo, 2006. “Thinking Institutionally,” in R.A.W. Rhodes, et. al., The Oxford Handbook of Political Institutions, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, pp. 731-742.

Robert E. Goodin, 1996. “Institutions and Their Design,” in Goodin, ed., The Theory of Institutional Design, N.Y.: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1-53--but you may choose to read only through p. 20.

Email: Identify an institution that you believe is especially important in your capstone analysis, and describe how you think about this institution.

4/5 Class discussion of very rough first drafts of your capstone analyses

Wiki: 1. Fill in the matrix on your wiki pages with: a problem definition, row and column headings, and the estimated direction of outcome projections for at least some of the cells.  2. List the sources you have referenced to date under the matrix.  (You may use any citation style, as long as you do so consistently and comprehensively.)

4/7 Telling your story to decision-makers, elite and otherwise

CE: Alton

Henig, 7

Deborah Stone. 1997. “Symbols,” from Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making, N.Y.: W. W. Norton, pp. 137-162.

Writing assignment: convert your problem definition into one of Stone's narrative symbols.

4/12 More on projecting outcomes and making tradeoffs

CE: Stott

Henig, chapter 6

Wiki: For class discussion, identify the difficulties you are having with projecting outcomes.

4/14 Service-learning check in; building coalitions

CE: Rehr

Bob Graham, with Chris Hand, 2010. “All for One and One for All: Coalitions for Citizen Success,” from America, the Owner’s Manual, Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, pp. 160-182.

Bardach, Appendix D

Wiki: Make the list that Graham suggests on p. 181.

Service-learning discussion board due over the weekend

4/19 The garbage can model and the politics of timing

CE: Brill

John E. McDonough, 2000. “Agendas and Children’s Health Care,” from Experiencing Politics, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, pp. 237-284.

Wiki: After reading McDonough, describe how the "political stream" idea can be used to predict the political feasibility of the policy alternatives in your capstone analysis.

4/21 No class: group meetings with Meyers 4/21 and 4/22

Come to our meeting with outstanding questions about how to complete your capstone analysis.

4/26 Writing it up

CE: Gennene

Bardach, pp. 57-64

Wiki: final draft of matrix

Writing assignment: in one page, make the best case you can against the preferred option in your capstone analysis.  Seriously.

4/28 Class will attend URCAD

You should talk with presenting students, and think about how you will be doing this in two or three years.

First draft of your Service-Learning Reflection Project due to delana1@umbc.edu (Final version due one week later).

5/3, 5, 10 Capstone presentations

I’d like to make these presentations as similar as possible to a typical “personal briefing”--a more accurate term than “presentation” for what we will do.  I’ll play act your client; students not presenting will play act my staff.  We will all sit.  You can provide handouts, but cannot use PowerPoint.  In other words, it will be informal.  You should make your basic points in 5-7 minutes, max.  Expect some interruptions by me to your planned presentation (these won’t count against your 5-7 minutes).  After you are done, the staff can ask questions.  Expect about 20-25 minutes for each group.  Some additional tips:

• Don’t read from the text of a paper.  Instead, talk from a short list of “talking points”--words or phrases, not complete sentences.  Make eye contact with the client.

• Begin with a summary.  Describe what you have been doing, why you have been doing it, and your basic recommendation or conclusion.

• Break up your presentation into a few sections.

• Be sensitive to the political incentives faced by your client, even if you are in a “non-political” job.

• Provide handouts that supply visual aids and/or critical information.

• Stories can be as convincing as data; jokes sometimes work, but be careful about potentially offensive ones.

• Respond as best you can to interruptions, but then get back to your planned argument.  Respond to questions with brief answers.

• Set a tone of self-confidence.  Respect the client’s authority, but be assertive.

• Conclude with a brief summary, including a statement about your willingness to answer questions or do follow-up work.

5/12 A summary discussion

Henig, 8

Email: From the list below, review the web site of the discipline with which you most closely identify, and one about which you know much less.  Can you identify a possible connection between these disciplines that might help you in the future?

American Sociological Association http://www.asanet.org/

American Anthropological Association http://www.aaanet.org/

American Historical Association http://www.historians.org/

National Women’s Studies Association http://www.nwsa.org/

American Political Science Association http://www.apsanet.org/

American Economic Association http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AEA/

National Association of Social Workers http://www.socialworkers.org/

National Association of African American Studies, and related groups http://www.naaas.org/

American Studies Association http://www.theasa.net/

American Education Research Association http://www.aera.net/

American Association of Geographers http://www.aag.org/

American Psychological Association http://www.apa.org/

5/21 10:30-12:30 Final

Summary service-learning reflection project poster session and capstone paper due