When Emma Renzi Wise (BA ’19) got hooked on learning about environmental policy at the Ford School, she never imagined working for the New York City Department of Sanitation. But nearly six years after leaving Ann Arbor, Wise is the community...
You can’t get good government without good oversight.” That quote from U.S. Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) is a touchstone for the work of Ben Eikey (MPP ’19) and that of the Levin Center for Oversight and Democracy, where he serves as a manager for the...
Sociologist Jessica Gillooly (PhD ’20) has used her deep knowledge of call taking and dispatching, along with some compelling new theoretical ideas, to become one of the leading experts on this issue. Her expertise is helping inform and shape the...
Rick Scott’s (MPA ’12) journey into public service was inspired by the events of September 11, 2001. “I just remember feeling like I wanted to do something,” he recalls of his high school senior year. This feeling led him to an ROTC scholarship,...
As vice president of regional initiatives for the South Bend-Elkhart Regional Partnership, Tayrn MacFarlane (MBA/MPP ’08) unites local officials, business leaders, educational institutions, and community organizations from northern Indiana and...
If you ask Vincent Pinti (MPP/JD '27) why he entered the dual degree master’s of public policy and law program at the University of Michigan, he’ll tell you that he didn’t have a...
Cavaillé: A large and growing number of voters have found in political figures like Trump, Meloni, Orban, and Le Pen a home to express their grievances over the state of the economy, their own socioeconomic status, and immigration...
In his last public event as U.S. Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg visited the Ford School for a conversation on investments in infrastructure. Below is an excerpt from an interview with S&H....
Moynihan: "State capacity” is hard to define and measure, and is perhaps seen as boring, but capacity is the hidden glue that holds public policy together, or, when debased, causes public policy to fall apart. If you care about the quality of...
Susan M. Collins, former dean of the Ford School and now president & CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, made a welcome return to Weill Hall in November for a public event and lunch with students. During her visit, she shared insights into...
The economics of tariffs is surprisingly simple: they are a tax, which raises the price that buyers pay and that competing sellers inside the country can...
Have you ever disassembled a broken coffee maker or a sink, convinced you could fix it, only to end up with a jumble of parts? As a child, Terry Nguyen’s (BA ’25) curiosity about how things worked led to a broken fan, a pile of parts, and no idea...
Over the past 32 years, Jennifer Niggemeier has been a supportive career coach and enthusiastic cheerleader for thousands of public policy students. Her influence has extended beyond individual mentorship to shape and advance programs and...
Gerald R. Ford once said, “The global economy requires an unprecedented grasp of diverse viewpoints and cultural traditions.” This sentiment is woven throughout and embedded in who we are and what we do at the Ford...
Professor Elisabeth Gerber is the inaugural faculty director of the Ford School’s Online Master of Public Affairs (MPA) program, which will launch in January 2026. Read what she has to say about the new...
Dean Watkins-Hayes, at the Congressional Breakfast in DC, with Michigan in Washington undergraduates Ajay Morelli, Malinda Brunk, Rachel Ellisen, and Isaac Davis, and Riecker Fellow Hope Wang (MPP...
Ford School professor Betsey Stevenson has been widely sought for her insights, and concerns, about the implications of the Trump administration's proposed tariffs. Here are some of the notes Stevenson has shared with news outlets over the past few...
The American Economic Association named Susan M. Collins, former Joan and Sanford Weill Dean of the Ford School and current Boston Federal Reserve Bank President and CEO, as one of four Distinguished Fellows for 2025. The award recognizes the...
Christina Weiland, co-director of the Education Policy Initiative and professor at the Ford School, delivered her inaugural lecture as the Karl and Martha Kohn Professor of Social Policy. Weiland, who is also a professor at the Marsal Family School...
“The government gets to basically treat a generally decentralized national system of universities as a pay-as-you-go resource to get problems solved,” the Ford School's Jason Owen-Smith told the Associated Press. Owen-Smith discussed ways that the...
“I genuinely have never been this concerned about the ability of that agency [Social Security Administration] to function,” said Pamela Herd, professor at the Ford School, in an interview cited by FactCheck.org. “Yes, I think people are right to be...
Paula Lantz highlights an “overt disconnect” between the creation of President Trump’s Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) Commission and his administration's concurrent actions that reduce federal funding for public health...
Bloomberg Network spoke with the Ford School's Betsey Stevenson in pursuit of an estimate for what the Fed will do in response to Trump's recently implemented tariff policies. Stevenson stated, "There is clearly an inflation risk, and we know that...
"What we’re seeing is not targeted tariffs that are trying to help support certain aspects of American industry. This is across the board tariffs," said Bestsey Stevenson, professor at the Ford School. In a debate with an ex-campaign aide for...
Ford School professor Pamela Herd explained how Trump's agenda of using AI and making cuts to federal staff will damage Social Security. She said, “We’re talking about an agency that manages one-fifth of the federal budget—AI alone won’t cut it.” By...
A major policy change in early education in the Philippines led to an unexpected drop in test scores and academic achievement—revealing the challenges that even well-intentioned reforms can have and the importance of wisely investing in the first...
