State & Hill, the print magazine of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, is a bi-annual publication featuring stories about the school's students, alumni, and faculty. Feature articles vary in each issue, and generally highlight noteworthy...
Sometimes you have to not just dream about what could be—you get out and push and you pull and you preach. And you create a climate and environment to get those in high places, to get men and women of goodwill in power to act.
Former U.S....
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,...
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...
By Miriam Wasserman
At a time when the U.S. economy is facing the highest inflation in 40 years, two former Ford School deans have a vote on the 12-person committee in charge of steering U.S. monetary policy. Michael Barr will have a vote on the...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Passing the baton
A June gathering with faculty and staff celebrating Michael Barr’s first term as dean—and this photo with then-associate dean Celeste Watkins-Hayes—took on new meaning a couple of weeks later when the U.S. Senate confirmed Barr...
By Tom Ivacko (MPA ’93), executive director, Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy
Democracy in the United States and across the globe has been in decline for years, as documented with rigorous tracking methodologies. Freedom House has...
“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...
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...
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....
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Governing for revolution
In her 2021 book, new Ford School professor Megan Stewart describes how, during the Chinese Civil war in the 1940s, Chairman Mao and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) established a new model for governing as they took up...
Hồng and Wallick share Rebecca Copeland’s (MPP/MPH ’21) commitment to health equity
Two graduate students, Phong Khai Hồng (MPP/MS, ’24) and Danielle Wallick (MPP/MURP, ’23) have been named the first recipients of the Ford School’s Rebecca A....
Widely-read Milbank Quarterly op-ed explains CRT’s importance to population health
By Olivia Bradish (BA ’23)
Since January 2021, 42 states have introduced bills or taken other steps to restrict how “critical race theory” and other so-called...
“(Putin) has already violated every international treaty, including the U.N. charter, by invading. This has international implications, not just European implications. Now, the question of what we do and how we do it, with regards to sanctions or...
Economic and social impact of religious festivals
In Mexico, “patron saint day” festivals are often local public holidays and involve substantial financial expenditures by households and governments. Festival dates vary greatly across localities:...
Arun Agrawal was selected as co-chair on the Intergovernmental Transformative Change Assessment, sponsored by the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.
Javed Ali provided his expertise on national security to numerous...
Fordie festivities
A beloved tradition returned in December as Fordies gathered to celebrate the end of the fall semester at the school’s annual holiday party.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren
U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)...
