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...
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...
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...
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...
When Congress passed the Financial Data and Transparency Act (FDTA) in 2022, it required all municipalities in the U.S. to modernize and digitize their financial reports. This is a heavy lift for small towns and school districts, most of which still...
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,...
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...
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...
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....
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...
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...
The Michigan Public Policy Survey, conducted last spring by U-M’s Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy, found most officials are unsure about the accuracy of public safety risk assessments made by automated tools such as AI. However, sheriffs...
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...
In March, CLOSUP released its second annual report analyzing the fiscal health of local Michigan governments. Using financial data reported to the State of Michigan in 2023, the researchers developed a set of indicators to look at cash, budgetary,...
The challenges facing big cities such as Detroit and Cleveland have been widely examined by experts over the decades, as each has dealt with the loss of population and major industries. Stephanie Leiser chronicled the situations in small- to...
Most of Michigan’s county sheriffs and local police chiefs support some type of alternative or hybrid approach for responding to 911 calls beyond traditional law enforcement officers.However, a majority of them believe it would be difficult to...
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...
Rx Kids, co-directed by the Ford School's Luke Shaefer, celebrated it one-year anniversary at the end of January. The program has given access to $6M in cash support for over 1,300 Flint families with pregnant mothers and babies in their first years...
