Ford School Public Events

Prospective students interested in applying to the BA program (admit term Fall 2010) should plan to attend this information session. The BA Program Faculty Director, John Chamberlin, and the Ford School Admissions Staff will walk students through the application process and give an overview of the program.

'Our Patchwork Nation' is a comprehensive look at who we are as a country and where we are going using Patchwork Nation's 12 community types and examining what they mean for the the nation's Economic,
Political and Cultural future.

Our Patchwork Nation has been called, 'a captivating and at times surprising analysis, both rigorous and accessible' by Kirkus Reviews. The PBS NewsHour's Jim Lehrer, says Our Patchwork Nation is 'a book to keep always at your side and in your mind.' And the Washington Post's E.J. Dionne calls it 'a wonderful book that takes us way beyond red and blue - while also explaining the social, regional and economic roots of our partisan and ideological color wars.'

The world's response to climate change is deeply flawed. The conventional wisdom on how to deal with climate change has failed and it's time to change course. To date, climate policies have been guided by targets and timetables for emissions reduction derived from various academic exercises. Such methods are both oblivious to and in violation of on-the-ground political and technological realities that serve as practical 'boundary conditions' for effective policy making. Until climate policies are designed with respect for these boundary conditions, failure is certain. Using nothing more than arithmetic and logical explanation, Dr. Pielke offers a comprehensive exploration of the problem and suggests a more practical resolution, including investment to create a more carbon-efficient economy and cost-efficient carbon-capture technologies.

From the Publisher:

Vinny DeMarco might be a latter-day Don Quixote except that he tilts his lance at real obstacles to social justice: lobby-locked state legislatures and Congress, stonewalling the public will. And he makes impossible dreams come true. In twenty years of organizing campaigns in Maryland, he has led successful efforts to pass gun control laws (against National Rifle Association opposition), to hike cigarette taxes to prevent youth smoking, and to extend health care to hundreds of thousands of low-income workers. He has also built a unique alliance of mainstream and conservative faith groups, which helped secure rare bipartisan votes in Congress for the enactment in July 2009 of landmark FDA regulation of tobacco manufacture and marketing.