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...
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...
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....
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...
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...
Nearly 1 in 5 adults in the U.S. lack access to reliable transportation, making it one of the country's most common forms of material hardship, say University of Michigan...
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...
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...
Center for Racial Justice Postdoctoral Fellow Kristina Fullerton Rico explores what she calls the dangerous implications of President Trump's deportation policy in an essay in The Conversation. Citing extensive social science research on U.S....
Donald Moynihan joined the Ford School this year as the next J. Ira and Nicki Harris Family Professor of Public Policy. His research seeks to improve how government works by studying the administrative burdens people encounter in government, and he...
Rusty Hills has taught nearly 1,000 students in the 20 years he's been teaching the art and science of political campaigning. Winning campaigns require strategy, voter insight, compelling communication, and a well-executed plan, he tells students. A...
Mental health and marriage timing Decades of research document powerful associations between parents’ characteristics and children’s marital behaviors. “Parental mental health strongly shapes or disrupts family life and long-term opportunities for...
We looked at other countries to get a sense of the range and then compared it to what we had in the state. Then we looked at a number of different ways that it's administered. I think if you’ve seen one single-payer system, you’ve seen one...
Before becoming an academic, Ford School Lecturer Amy Beck Harris worked in international development and foreign assistance implementation across Latin America with Chemonics International, the largest international development firm that implements...
As the 2024 elections approached, former governors Steve Bullock (D-MT) and John Kasich (R-OH) modeled speaking and listening across political and policy fault lines. The talk was organized by the Ford School with support from the University of...
