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State & Hill

Letter from Interim Dean Watkins-Hayes

Dec 19, 2022
Greetings from Ann Arbor! It’s been my great honor–and a lot of fun–to serve as interim dean of the Ford School, an outstanding community dedicated to the public good. This edition of State & Hill focuses on education policy—the research,...
Celeste Watkins-Hayes
State & Hill

Education policy at the Ford School

Dec 19, 2022
Interdisciplinary, rigorous, and committed to real world impact and to mentoring: the Ford School has one of the strongest education policy programs in the country.  How did we get there? S&H asked the scholar at the front of the class, economist...
Photo of Brian Jacob standing at the Annenberg Auditorium podium, delivering remarks at a public event
State & Hill

Dot to dot

Dec 19, 2022
The Education Policy Initiative connects researchers and policymakers—helping make good use of their one-of-a-kind secure data clearinghouse By Daniel Rivkin A recent research project examined the ties between school funding and crime in...
Illustration of a bubble test sheet with bubbles filled in and lines connecting them like a circuitboard
State & Hill

COVID-19 and education: A tough time for all

Dec 19, 2022
Ford School education researchers look for answers By Shaun Manning From early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic fundamentally altered public education in the United States. Many schools introduced remote learning for at least part of the 2020-2021...
Photo of a teacher in a classroom, speaking to a young student who is seated at their desk
State & Hill

Data for good: Expanding college opportunity in Michigan

Dec 19, 2022
By Daniel Rivkin When the state of Michigan issued its COVID-19 stay at home order in March 2020, Youth Policy Lab (YPL) Data and Policy Fellow Ava Attari found herself in the middle of an ambitious state program. The thousands of workers who had...
Futures for Frontliners
State & Hill

An economic eye on equity in higher ed

Dec 19, 2022
As the first chief economist in the U.S. Department of Education, Ford School alumnus Jordan Matsudaira (PhD ’05), seeks to identify and implement policies that best promote student success—academically and financially—in higher education. Ford...
Abstract illustration
State & Hill

Think local: CLOSUP checks in with local government officials

Dec 19, 2022
Democracy in the United States and across the globe has been in decline for years, as documented with rigorous tracking methodologies. Freedom House has tracked declines in civil liberties and political rights in the U.S., for example. And the...
Photo of a stone building with a large "City Hall" sign
State & Hill

Diversity, equity, and inclusion highlights

Dec 19, 2022
The University of Michigan is currently in an interim period between its strategic plans for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), with the next plan set to launch in early fall 2023. The Ford School community did not pause, however, and is hard...
Photo of DeAndré Calvert addressing a room of attendees at the Ford School reunion in 2019
State & Hill

Interns around the world

Dec 19, 2022
Many internships returned to in-person or hybrid modalities this summer, taking Fordies back around the world to work with nonprofits and NGOs, governments and agencies, and consulting firms and businesses—applying the skills and knowledge they’ve...
Internship collage
State & Hill

Ford-Rackham Master’s Award endowed in Michael Barr’s name

Dec 19, 2022
A new graduate fellowship has been endowed in honor of former dean Michael S. Barr, thanks to a generous lead gift from Jim Hudak (MPP ’71), chair of the Ford School Committee. The Ford-Rackham Master's Awards (RMA) are one of the Ford School’s and...
Photo of Michael Barr speaking to the classes of 2022 from a podium on stage at Elbel Field
State & Hill

National recognition for Niggemeier, summer leadership coaching

Dec 19, 2022
In 2021, after an initial pilot test, the Ford School became the first policy school to offer all Master of Public Policy students the opportunity to work with a certified executive leadership coach during their required summer internship. In...
Representatives from the Sanford School of Public Policy, O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Ford School of Public Policy, and the Harris School of Public Policy present at the 6th annual Voinovich Public Innovation Challenge at the 2022 NASPAA conference.
State & Hill

Meet interim dean Celeste Watkins-Hayes

Dec 19, 2022
Distinguished sociologist Celeste Watkins-Hayes works at the intersection of inequality, public policy, and institutions, with a special focus on urban poverty and race, class, and gender studies. She’s particularly interested in the lived...
Headshot of Celeste Watkins-Hayes
State & Hill

Faculty News, fall 2022

Dec 19, 2022
Jenna Bednar published “The Fractured Superpower: Federalism is Remaking U.S. Democracy and Foreign Policy,” in Foreign Affairs. The Coalition for Networked Information, the Association of Research Libraries, and EDUCAUSE awarded Paul Courant the...
Headshots of Brian Jacob, Paula Lantz, Katherine Michelmore, Jeffrey Morenoff, Susan D. Page, Shobita Parthasarathy, Natasha Pilkauskas, Joy Rohde, Joe Schwarz, and Fabiana Silva
State & Hill

Class Notes, fall 2022

Dec 19, 2022
Ron Geason (MPP ’72) began his career as budget director at Carnegie Mellon with JP Crecine, the first director of IPPS. He received a PhD in 1988 in public administration and finance from The Ohio State University. From 2015–2017 he served with...
Photos of babies Oliver, Caleb, Louis, and Elizabeth
State & Hill

Soundbites, fall 2022

Dec 19, 2022
The results of the Russian aggression—starving people, murdering people—from that perspective, we have to help (people) so that they survive. But the cause, the causes are really more important. The cause is the bad political system in Russia....
Headshots of Walesa, Webster, Crockford, and Welch
State & Hill

The Last Word: Peter Vasher, director of career services

Dec 19, 2022
This fall, after a national search, the Ford School selected Peter Vasher as the school’s director of career services. Vasher has been with the school since 2017 and served as associate director of graduate career services for three years. During...
Headshot of Peter Vasher
State & Hill

Discourse: Fordies in the news, fall 2022

Dec 19, 2022
“The line of students registering to vote on Election Day stretched across the University of Michigan campus, with students waiting for over four hours. There was a palpable sense of excitement and urgency around the election on campus. For many...
Headshots of Isabelle Schindler, Jenna Bednar, Jonathan Hanson, Tom Ivacko, Rusty Hills, and Abdul El-Sayed
In the Media

Rabe on sports and kangaroo leather ban

Dec 17, 2022 ESPN
Barry Rabe, ESPN: "This is the first stage of a long process, and this policy has been stuck in that first stage for 50 years, since the early stages of the Richard Nixon presidency. It's difficult to see a path in the near-term, especially when we...
Headshot of Barry Rabe
In the Media

Bednar discusses national reaction to DeSantis strategy

Dec 16, 2022 South Florida Sun Sentinel
Jenna Bednar, South Florida Sun Sentinel: "I just don’t see that as the same kind of rallying cry in Michigan that he might be receiving in Florida. Nobody was really getting excited about that. We are not as COVID-obsessed as some other states,...
Jenna Bednar
In the Media

El-Sayed critiques DeSantis's COVID-19 investigation

Dec 15, 2022 The New Republic
Abdul El-Sayed, The New Republic: "The evidence is clear. Vaccines have saved and continue to save lives. A new study from the Commonwealth Fund and Yale University (one of DeSantis’s two Ivy League alma maters, by the way) showed that two years...
Abdul El-Sayed
In the Media

Ali provides insight on war in Ukraine

Dec 15, 2022 Newsweek
Javed Ali, Newsweek: "Over the past year both the Ukrainians and the Russians have demonstrated an ability to make advances, hold territory, but then withdraw to different locations in order to regroup from losses and consolidate for future...
Headshot of Javed Ali at Weill Hall's 4th floor Whitman Lounge, speaking to someone off camera
News

Seeking inspiring scholar and changemaker—please apply

Dec 15, 2022
The University of Michigan has officially launched its invitation to apply to be the next Joan and Sanford Weill Dean of Public Policy at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. The job description calls for “an experienced and inventive...
Photo of the upper half of the northwest corner of Weill Hall
In the Media

CLOSUP report highlighted

Dec 14, 2022 American City & County
American City & County: Politically driven incidents over the last few years at all levels of government have fundamentally shaken public perception about the health of America’s democracy. Administrators have likewise been impacted. A new study...
Michigan capitol
News

Making the case for public policy education

Dec 14, 2022
In an event on December 5, 2022, Ford School interim dean Celeste Watkins-Hayes told a group of Capitol Hill staffers and other DC professionals that a public policy education can lead to community impact.  “I'm a firm believer in the idea that...
Photo of Hardy Vieux, Maria Cancian, Celeste Watkins-Hayes, and Trevor Brown posed in front of a screen with a slide that says "Public Policy Panel for Prospective Policy Makers"
News

Cavaillé talks voting, inequality with University of Cambridge

Dec 13, 2022
Charlotte Cavaillé, assistant professor of public policy, joined the University of Cambridge via podcast to discuss income and regional inequality, why policymakers should care, and what policy interventions work best to reduce them. "In order to...
Charlotte Cavaille profile photo