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,...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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....
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Eviction affects about 1 in 6 households in Michigan each year. Only 2% of tenants are represented by an attorney, placing the burden of understanding court processes and asserting legal rights on individual tenants. To brainstorm ways of tackling...
The Detroit Free Press has recently highlighted Wayne County Executive Warren Evans' plans to combat child poverty through cash aid programs. Evans discussed his hope to bring Rx Kids, the anti-poverty program directed by the Ford School's Luke...
Pamela Herd and Don Moynihan, faculty at the University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy and co-founders of the Better Government Lab, address this issue in a new article published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives. They offer a...
A University of Michigan professor offers insights on the Trump administration’s plans to cut the Social Security Administration workforce.Pamela Herd is the Carol Kakalec Kohn professor of social policy at the Ford School of Public Policy and a...
Luke Shaefer, Ford School professor and Director of Poverty Solutions talked with The Chronicle of Philanthropy about his work on Rx Kids as a guide for the NGO GiveDirectly. Working on Rx Kids he says was "a really humbling experience for me...
Luke Shaefer, Ford School professor and directory of Poverty Solutions, talked about the community violence intervention program in Detroit called FORCE (Faithfully Organizing Resources for Community Empowerment) as well as others including...
Following huge success in its first year, the child healthcare support program Rx Kids is set to expand from Flint into Kalamazoo. Luke Shaefer, professor at the Ford School and the program's co-director stated, "We see families reporting that they...
Rx Kids, the nation’s first-ever citywide cash prescription program for pregnant women and babies, today announced the program’s launch into communities in the Eastern Upper Peninsula (UP). The UP expansion of Rx Kids is made possible by an...
More than 1,300 babies and families in the city of Flint have received nearly $6 million in cash prescriptions since Rx Kids launched in January 2024. A birthday bash complete with cupcakes, coloring pages, and other birthday fun, was held Jan. 29...
