Starting fall 2020, the Ford School will offer University of Michigan undergraduates a 16-credit minor in public policy.
The minor will have a competitive application process that will go live in April 2020. The school expects to enroll around 25 students in the first year.
The BA minor will make the critical thinking and analytical skills taught at the Ford School available to more Michigan undergraduates.
Minor in public policy students will learn to design and analyze public policies using a range of social science perspectives; think critically, and write and communicate clearly about policy issues; engage on social issues with people from diverse backgrounds and design policy solutions from diverse perspectives; and productively participate in debates about social problems and potential policy solutions.
The minor has been designed, as well, to add diversity of interests, training, and backgrounds to the Ford School community and classes. The ideal student for the Ford School minor will be committed to some other important discipline—engineering, sociology, business, or organizational studies, for example—and seeking to layer their education with perspectives from the lens of public policy.
The Ford School faculty approved the minor earlier this year, and LSA, the College of Engineering, Ross School of Business, School of Information, and School of Public Health have agreed to support our minor for their undergraduate students.
The BA minor in public policy will consist of 16 credits:
- PubPol 201: Systematic Thinking: Problems of the Day (4 credits)
- PubPol 320: Politics and Public Policy (4 credits)
- PubPol 310: Understanding Public Policy Using an Economics Framework (4 credits). (This course is designed for those students who have not taken Econ 101. If a student has taken Econ 101, they can substitute another Ford School elective in place of PubPol 310.)
- 4 credits of elective courses
The application for the BA minor in public policy will be open from April 1–May 15, 2020, and will consist of an online form, resume, transcript, and two short essays (200 words each).
Students with sophomore or junior status at the time of application are eligible to apply, including students who applied for the Ford School’s BA in public policy but were not admitted. All applicants will be notified of the minor admission decision by mid-June, 2020.