Public and Nonprofit Management and Policy (PADM-GP)

The goal of the course is to help students get the most out of every form of communication: to change minds with the written word, win allies in person, to sway audiences in presentations, and to get what they want out of the various forms of communication most common in the careers of recent NYU Wagner graduates. Students will work both individually and collaboratively on a series of communications deliverables including: 1) Issue Briefs; 2) Memos; 3) Oral Presentations; 4) Press Releases; 5) Talking Points; 6) one-pagers; 7) Podcast; 7) A short video; and 8) A final unified campaign putting much of these forms together to enact a change you are passionate about. Each work product will be treated as a case study with specific audiences and a well-defined purpose.

Community Organizing is for those who could imagine running national or local advocacy organizations that make change happen or anyone who wants to understand the art of community organizing. It will provide an overview of and training in contemporary community organizing practice in the United States. This includes defining what community organizing is and identifying its value base; exploring the strategies, tactics and activities of organizing; and thinking about marketing, language and evaluation. We also will examine the transformations of civic engagement and voluntary associations in the United States and the impact of these transformations on the ways Americans organize and advocate for change. But there is a larger lesson here: The skills of community organizing – listening, finding areas of consensus and building on that consensus, finding ways to make change happen – are skills that can be applied to all professional and life settings. Through readings, class activities, cases studies, speakers and reflection, students will examine skills and techniques for effective organizing, including building a membership base, developing ordinary people as community leaders and running member-led issue campaigns. Students will also have the opportunity to reflect on and strengthen their own skills as community organizers and advocates.

The United States is a very law-driven society, with many of the most important issues and disputes of the day ending up in the courts -- and in the newspapers. This course is designed to help public service students understand key aspects of the U.S. legal system. Part I of the course (roughly two-thirds) examines the overall legal framework governing how federal, state and local regulatory agencies make public policy, whether it is the lead-in-drinking-water rules issued by the federal Environmental Protection Agency or the safe biking rules issued by the New York City Department of Transportation. Economics and management are essential for sound policy design and implementation, but if there is no legal authorization for a policy, or if the policy would be inconsistent with existing law, or if it was enacted in a procedurally defective way, it is not valid and cannot be enforced – at least not without a change in the law. This part of the course covers topics that range from the basic legal requirements for valid policymaking to the constitutional rules about the operation of different agencies, the balance of power between agencies and courts in interpreting regulatory statutes, and the rules around overlapping and sometimes conflicting federal, state and local regulatory regimes. Part I also covers the topic of private “tort” and “class action” lawsuits, which have played a central role in the regulation of harmful activities alongside government agencies. Part II of the course (roughly one-third) promotes general legal literacy by examining a broad array of headline-worthy lawsuits in the media and the important legal issues underlying them. For example, towards the end of the Obama administration, the Supreme Court, in a closely divided vote, ruled that ObamaCare insurance subsidies apply to federal as well as state insurance plans. But how did the lawsuit get to the Supreme Court, why was the vote so close, and what lessons can be learned from the lawsuit for healthcare policymakers? As another example, the New York City Council is suing the Mayor over the enforcement of new expanded housing voucher rules enacted by the City Council (after overriding a mayoral veto) and one of the Mayor’s defenses is that the city rules violate New York State law. But what state law exactly and why does New York City need to comply with state law? Each class in Part II of the course covers a handful of such lawsuits and legal issues from different areas, and will largely be hand-picked by the students.

This course focuses on the three sets of key questions: (1) mission and vision ("What areas or activities should we be working in?"); (2) strategy and operations ("How can we perform effectively in this area?"); and (3) leadership (“What leadership skills are needed to develop and implement strategies effectively?”). We will cover both strategy formulation ("What should our strategy be?") and strategy implementation ("What do we need to do to make this strategy work?"). All organizations – government agencies as well as non-profit or private companies with a public purpose – face substantial challenges that demand strategic responses, often in uncertain economic, social, or political contexts. To deal effectively with these challenges, managers need knowledge and skills in strategic management and leadership: setting and aligning goals with the organization’s mission; handling complex trade-offs between demand for services and resource constraints; defining measures of success; motivating staff and other stakeholders; developing relationships with relevant groups; dealing with crises and environments in transition; and leading organizational change. In short, the course emphasizes the multiple, related requirements of the leader/manager's job: analysis, creativity, and action.

This course addresses the macro and micro effects of gender in the workplace, from the complicated reasons for the lack of representation of women in senior leadership across sectors to the dynamics of individuals of various genders working together. The landscape of the workplace has changed dramatically over the last few decades, and with a shift towards a more diverse and global workforce, understanding the intersection of work dynamics and gender is critical. In addition, this course will explore the important intersections between gender and other demographic characteristics, such as race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, and age. Finally, the course will uncover strategies and examples of how to create more diverse and inclusive work environments.

This four-day course aims to develop your ability to build, lead, and participate in high-performing teams. We will draw from research in psychology, management, strategy, behavioral economics, and sociology to discuss best practices for designing, launching, participating, and coaching in-person and online teams. We will also focus on the benefits and challenges of making difficult decisions in challenging environments; working across demographic, functional, and cognitive differences; creating structures that support creativity, collaboration, psychological safety, and voice; understanding conflict; and using the congruence model for problem-solving. This course will be of most value to those who have some work experience.

Developing and executing an organization’s marketing strategy can be a complicated process, but is integral to raising money, increasing visibility, recruiting brand ambassadors/influencers/advocates/supporters – and building momentum to achieve its mission. It is also affected by issues of the day and time, whether the COVID virus, racial and social injustice, the political climate and world events. Nonprofits also compete with businesses and social entrepreneurs for attention, likes, hits, donations, and votes. This is particularly evident given the widespread use of digital tools and social media, which are critical elements of all organizations’ successes. In order to be facile in this economy and time, all internal levels and functions within a nonprofit must be extremely well focused, must be flexible to alter their course on a dime and aware of the importance of working closely together to have an impact. In addition, many small organizations are also contending with limited staff and financial resources. In this course, students will learn elements of a broad-based assessment approach to marketing and branding including assessing organizational strategies, branding, framing, cause-related marketing, and examining marketing campaigns with an equity-based lens. Students will then have opportunities to develop a marketing SWOT, SMART strategy, and creative stories for digital media and other uses. Special guests and drop-in experts will join the Professor to bring their expertise as students tap into knowledge about organizations with which they are familiar and expand their horizons by learning about others. The types of mission-driven organizations and entities explored may be in such areas as government; the visual and performing arts; health and human services; social, economic and racial justice; education; and the environment. All special guest visits are subject to final availability.

Corporate social innovation is an evolving practice of organizations of varying size and purpose to adapt to business activities with mission-driven models that produce social and environmental outcomes. The course will rigorously explore the evolution and modalities of corporate social responsibility, with particular attention to cross-sector collaboration with government and civil society, often using innovative social finance mechanisms, impact measurement, to get there. This course looks specifically at how different cross-sector partnerships advance the field, emerging trends, and tactics to advance sustainable innovation.

This course brings together a wide range of thinking and scholarship to encourage learning about what race is, why it matters, race and racism in organizations and how to build racial equity and justice at work. While recognizing the importance of intersectionality and other markers of difference such as gender identity, class and LGBTQ status, the course focuses on race for two reasons: 1) it is generally the most charged dimension of diversity in the United States, the most difficult to discuss and, therefore, the topic we most often avoid, and 2) it can have the greatest impact on life chances and opportunities: race is often the best predictor of income, wealth, education, health, employment and other important measures of well-being. Because the impact of race is highly contextual, we will focus on the United States. The course will begin by digging into understandings of race and racism. We’ll then think about our own racial identity and discuss how to talk about race. While organizations will be a theme from the beginning, in the second part we will focus more intensively on how to create anti-racist organizations. The class will introduce a variety of possible interventions, starting with the legal landscape (Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action) and then moving to IDBEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Belonging, Equity and Access) initiatives and anti-racism efforts, exploring the individual, cultural and structural levels. We will also hear from guest speakers who are engaging in this work.

This course provides an in-depth exploration of social entrepreneurship and innovation as a set of promising pathways to drive social change across sectors using a systems-led approach. Students will delve into understanding complex social and environmental problems at a systems level, equipping them to contribute to long-term, sustainable solutions. The course looks at different approaches to creating and implementing social change within systems and through startups, corporate environments (intrapreneurship), nonprofit organizations, and the public sector. Students will explore social entrepreneurship from its origins to present-day practices, examine what differentiates effective interventions, and contemplate the challenges of social entrepreneurship. The course fosters a practical and reflective approach to designing and leading initiatives that create lasting social impact. Students will develop the skills to align social impact ideas with community needs and market opportunities, analyze root causes, map existing solutions in an ecosystem, and practice using tools to operationalize their ideas. By weaving critical thinking, practical tools, and real-world examples throughout the course, students are prepared not only to understand the role of social entrepreneurship as part of a toolkit for social change, but also to engage as social entre(intra)preneurs and innovators capable of navigating and influencing complex social systems.

This course is designed for public and non-profit leaders and managers rather than human resource professionals, and provides a broad overview of human resources and talent leadership. Regardless of the role you’ll play in the public/non-profit sector, your ability to lead people will be a critical component of your and your organization’s success. Topics will include basic human resources functions such as job design and recruitment; equity, diversity and inclusion; leading organizational change; professional development and employee engagement; providing feedback and managing performance. We will also explore current issues within human resources management, and will use current headlines and contemporary issues to inform class discussions. The course will include practical application through case discussions and reflection on students’ prior management experience. While it will focus on values-based organizations, best practices from public, non-profit and for-profit sectors will be considered and analyzed.

This course teaches the principles of macroeconomic policy in an international setting. The course focuses on developing a framework for understanding the forces that determine output, employment, inflation, interest rates, exchange rates, the trade deficit, and other key macroeconomic variables. This framework is used to evaluate different macroeconomic policies in the context of different national economic environments. By the end of the course, students will understand: (1) How an open macroeconomy functions, and why there are business cycles. (2) The role of the Federal Reserve and other central banks, and the challenges they face in designing and implementing good monetary policy. (3) The impacts of fiscal policy choices such as government budget deficits and large levels of public debt.

Standard economic theory assumes that individuals are fully rational decision-makers; however, that is often not the case in the real world. Behavioral economics uses findings from lab and field experiments to advance existing economic models by identifying ways in which individuals are systematically irrational. This course gives an overview of key insights from behavioral science and identifies ways in which these findings have been used to advance policies on education, health, energy, taxation, and more. Additionally, this course will review how government agencies and non-profit organizations have used behavioral insights to improve social policy.

Public economics uses the tools of microeconomics and empirical analysis to study the impact of government policies on economic behavior and the distribution of resources in the economy. The course begins with a review of market failures and preferences for income redistribution to answer questions such as: When should the government intervene in the economy? How might the government intervene? And, what are the effects of those interventions on economic outcomes? Topics include issues related to revenue spending (e.g., education, means-tested programs, social insurance) and revenue raising (e.g., tax incidence, tax efficiency, personal income taxes).

This course builds on the material from the core Financial Management class to further develop skills in managerial and financial accounting. The course covers the recording process (journal entries, T-accounts, adjusting entries, and closing entries), financial statement modeling, and financial statement analysis. In addition, students will learn more about for-profit accounting and corporate structure, as well as how financial management differs across the government, not-for-profit, and for-profit sectors.

An understanding of government budgeting is critical to understanding the policy process and the workings of government. This course covers the theory and practice of government budgeting at both the national and subnational levels. It reviews how governments raise revenue, the process and procedures by which they allocate funds, and the various budgetary institutions that shape fiscal outcomes. The course builds on the concepts and techniques that students learned in their core courses in financial management and microeconomics and introduces new tools that can be applied to the analysis of budgetary information. Along the way, the course draws on insights from political science, economics, accounting, and public administration.

This course will focus on the issuance and management of debt by state and local governments as well as nonprofit institutions. The course will serve as an overview of how municipal and nonprofit borrowers access the capital markets, primarily through the issuance of tax-exempt bonds. Students will understand the role of the various participants in the capital markets, including but not limited to the issuer, underwriter, financial advisor, legal counsel, rating agency, insurer and investor. Discussion and assignments will explore historical events in this niche market that have shaped the current approach to debt management for municipal and nonprofit institutions, investor sentiment and regulatory changes. Students will become familiar with related financial analyses including calculations for debt service, credit metrics and financial covenant compliance. The assignments and exams will feature quantitative exercises that require proficiency with accounting concepts, financial math, budgeting models and Microsoft Excel applications.

The word "design" has traditionally been used to describe the visual aesthetics of objects such as books, websites, products, interiors, architecture, and fashion. But increasingly, the definition of design has expanded to include not just artifacts but strategic services and systems. As the challenges and opportunities facing businesses, organizations, and society grow more complex, and as stakeholders grow more diverse, an approach known as "design thinking" is playing a greater role in finding meaningful paths forward. Design thinking is an iterative problem-solving process of discovery, ideation, and experimentation that employs various design-based techniques to gain insight and yield innovative solutions for virtually any type of organizational or business challenge. At the heart of this approach is a gaining a deep understanding of the needs of people and building solutions that are specifically targeted at solving those needs. In this course, we will unpack each step of the design thinking process and become familiar with the design thinker's toolkit. Students will develop skills as ethnographers, service designers, strategists, and storytellers through a hybrid of lectures, discussions, and group projects. This course will demystify design thinking beyond the media and business buzzwords and provide students with the theory and practical frameworks to integrate design thinking into their own public service practice.

This course introduces students to the main areas of corporate finance and how they relate to policy issues and discussions. The course covers topics in the three main areas of corporate finance: 1) capital structure (financing choices), 2) valuation (project and firm valuation) and 3) corporate governance (optimal governance structures). We will analyze how public policy, through taxes, public expenditures and regulation, affect these aspects of corporate finance. The course will additionally explore how key economic events have shaped public policy and influenced corporate financial practices. Case analysis will be used to enable students to understand practical application of the corporate finance theory introduced in the course and will also incorporate discussion of corporate finance in the context of social enterprises.

This course examines the process by which financing objectives are transformed into municipal bond transactions and other opportunities to utilize structured finance products in the health and corporate finance sectors. The course will center on a case study of an actual bond transaction that financed multiple new money (construction) and refunding projects. We will learn the mathematics underlying financial structure and the governing conventions and vocabulary of structured finance. We will study the instruments of structured finance and how they manifest into structural form. Once we have developed this core understanding, we will review in detail the Official Statement related to the case study to begin our exploration of the structuring process. All cash flow elements of the structuring process will be discussed in detail and formulated in EXCEL. Once a sufficient understanding of the purpose and protocols associated with the structuring process is developed, we will explore the bond structuring process using DBC Finance, the industry standard bond structuring software.

Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) involves the use of microeconomics to formally assess the costs and benefits of different projects or investments. CBA is required for major regulations in the United States and is frequently used as a key input into major policy decisions. Understanding its advantages and limitations, and being able to distinguish well-conducted from poor analyses, is an important skill for a policy analyst. This course provides you with the conceptual foundations and practical knowledge you will need to both conduct CBA as well as be a more thoughtful consumer of policy research. The course draws on a mixture of economic theory and real-life case studies to examine both the theoretical and practical issues involved in conducting CBA.

This course examines how government agencies implement plans, policies, and projects under real-world constraints. Government agencies are some of the largest and most consequential organizations shaping contemporary life, especially for the poor. Their importance is even more evident now, as governments around the world continue to mishandle the pandemic, slide towards authoritarianism, and abuse the rights of vulnerable people. Surprisingly, their outsized influence is rarely matched by an adequate amount of attention. Government agencies are grossly under-examined and often misunderstood. Worse, they are frequently dismissed as broken beyond repair. In contrast to this defeatist view, this course draws from a mix of theory and case studies from around the world to examine how government agencies can deliver remarkable results even when subjected to multiple constraints. The main learning objectives are twofold. First, students learn to identify the variables that can improve government performance. And second, they learn how to design plans, policies, and projects that are more likely to be properly implemented.

During the next few years, generative AI and other forms of artificial intelligence will transform the public sector. They will rapidly increase the productivity of knowledge work, they will expand the types of services governments can offer their citizens, and they will present broad regulatory and auditing challenges. This course covers the opportunities inherent in this technology and the challenges associated with it. The goal of the course is to equip students entering government and related work to adopt AI responsibly, choosing and implementing tools in effective ways. It offers hands-on practice with prompt generation, direct information on the use of generative AI in government, and then focuses on 7 principles for the responsible use of AI: 1) Risk assessment and management 2) Explainable AI and open systems 3) Reclaiming data rights for people 4) Confronting and questioning the bias inherent in data 5) Accountability in the private and public sectors 6) Organizational systems and structures 7) Creative friction: the organizational culture and practices that favor better outcomes We look at each of these issues in light the four logics of power affecting the future of AI: business, engineering, government, and social justice. We model personal and group processes to bring these issues safely to the surface, and learn a set of standards and guardrails (a “calculus of intentional risk”) that students can apply to their own work to help assess and avoid harm. This course is set up as a seminar, conducted through dialogue. It is also structured around comprehensive group assignments: a feasible application of generative AI, a case study of a real-world government dilemma based on news reports and other sources, and a proposal for standards or guidelines.

All public and not-for-profit organizations must assemble and report information on their performance. The need for performance measures goes beyond legal and regulatory requirements. To provide services effectively and efficiently, managers need information to make decisions. This course focuses on what performance measures are needed, how they should be created and what forms of communication are most effective.

This course serves as an introduction to those evaluation tools most commonly used to assess the performance of programs, services, and policies in both the public and private sectors. Topics include needs assessment; explication and assessment of program theory; implementation and process assessment; research design, measurement, and sampling for outcome and impact evaluation; and the ethics of conducting program evaluation. The focus is on critical analysis and understanding of both the underlying programs and their evaluations.

The goal of this course is to provide students with an introduction to advanced empirical methods. We begin by discussing a framework for causal inference and how randomized controlled trials provide a simple and powerful template for thinking about causal questions. We then develop a sequence of advanced empirical methods as alternatives to randomized trials, in settings where experiments are infeasible or not desirable. In particular we discuss regression discontinuity, matching methods, difference-in-differences and panel data, and instrumental variables. We will discuss applications from a variety of domestic and international policy settings, and learn how to apply these methods to real-world data sets. Skills students will acquire in this course include: the capacity to reason causally and empirically, the ability critically to assess empirical work, knowledge of advanced quantitative tools, and expertise in applying these methods to policy problems.

Operations management specifically involves the analysis, design, operation, and improvement of the systems and processes that deliver goods or services and ultimately outputs and outcomes. It is required to achieve the organization’s mission, provide value to the organization’s many stakeholders, and effectively translate policy into action. As such, operations management plays an important part of being an effective manager and policy implementer. In this course, we will develop a lens to perceive processes and systems in a variety of contexts along with an analytical toolbox to examine and understand these. Students will learn how to build basic operations models in Excel to make effective, evidence-based managerial, design, and policy decisions as well as gain defined analytical skills that lend themselves to roles in operations, management, hospital management, policy implementation, human services, consulting, and much more.

Policy, operations, and leadership are inextricably linked. This course aims to expose students to policy formation in a highly political environment, to operations management of systems shaped by state and local policy, and to the requirements and pressures faced by leaders wrestling with difficult problems. The course aims to build a toolbox of specific skills to assess stakeholder environments; to support analysis and decision making in a wide variety of contexts; and to appreciate the role of leadership, consensus building, and conflict management in driving policy outcomes. We will use as a backdrop a unifying Multimedia Interactive Case Study (MICS) built around the New York City family homeless shelter system. This course is an intensive engagement that incorporates perspectives from academic theorists, journalists, City, State and Federal government officials, service providers, advocacy organizations, and public interest law.

This course is appropriate for students interested in the role that leadership plays in advancing social innovation and social change in the context of democratic governance. The course explores the role of leadership in organizational efforts to change thinking, systems, and policies—taking into consideration the contested process by which the responsibility of addressing intractable problems is distributed among key diverse actors in a shared-power world. Traditional approaches to leadership defined by single heroic individuals who influence followers are contrasted with new perspectives—consistent with the demands of today’s complex problems—particularly when we aspire to inclusive, transparent and democratic solutions. Emergent perspectives reveal leadership as the collective achievement of members of a group who share a vision, and who must navigate the constellation of relationships, structures, processes and institutional dynamics within the larger system in which they are embedded. The course will focus primarily on the organizational level of action, but connections to the individual and policy levels will also be explored. An opportunity to apply course concepts in the context of a particular organization of the student’s choice (with instructor approval) will deepen and personalize the student’s understanding of the interconnections between the three levels of action, and challenge assumptions about leadership and social change and their implications for practice.

We enter any subject of investigation filled with learned viewpoints, opinions, and select facts that we choose to employ. This helps to make the task of uncovering what we mean by Jewish and Jewish community fraught with unusual difficulty. Whatever our background, it will be hard to shake preconceived positions. In addition, the Jewish community seeks to nurture purely voluntary association at a time of little support in the popular culture for sustaining communal norms, existing institutions or unenforceable obligations. Our study must also then be understood within the larger American context of voluntary associations. The Taub seminar will wrestle with such issues as identity, communal organization, core and fringe, and the indices and litmus tests of institutionalized belonging. We will explore how power is defined, how leaders are selected and consensus determined. We will examine the wide range of communal institutions and organizations – philanthropic, educational, social, religious and social service – that place themselves within the orbit of the Jewish community to uncover how they define their missions, establish authority, make decisions, recruit involvement and gain (or lose) loyalty and affiliation. As important, we will test the capacities of these institutions and their leaders to address the many challenges they face in an environment of waning allegiance and obligation.

This course introduces the theory and practice of institutional reform in developing and transitional countries. It reviews the evolution of international development paradigms, examining how the role, structure, and management of institutions, the public sector, and non-governmental organizations have changed in response to shifting economic and political trends, with a particular emphasis on accountability. The focus is on major institutional and managerial reforms intended to promote good governance as less developed economies liberalize and their societies democratize. Key topics include issues of property rights, knowledge and innovation, learning, the rule of law, decentralization/intergovernmental relations, civil service reforms, anticorruption, citizen engagement, and public-private partnerships. In addition, the roles of international development aid and the external institutions that support institutional and managerial reform in developing and transitional countries are introduced. The course concludes with a synthetic review and a comparative case study exercise.

This course provides students with a rich sense of the institutional and political context within which policy is made and implemented. The course aims to give students exposure to important ongoing debates in international development and their historical context. The class will provide an overview of some of the major contemporary analytical and policy debates regarding the politics of development. Topics to be covered are: States, Regimes and Industrialization; Politics of Poverty, Growth and Policy Reform; Governance, Civil Society and Development; and The Politics of Development in the Age of Globalization.

While some countries have achieved unprecedented rates of economic growth in the past half century, other countries have experienced set-backs. For those that have seen rapid growth, economic changes have not always translated into proportional social changes – and sometimes rapid social changes have occurred in the absence of economic growth. This course takes up issues of economic growth and social change in a comparative perspective. The course begins by reviewing the relationships between poverty, inequality, and economic growth. In that context, attention then turns to the role of markets, with a focus on local financial markets. In the second part of the semester, attention turns to policy interventions to improve education, confront rapid population growth, reduce the burden of disease, and confront corruption.

International development assistance has evolved considerably in the post WWII period. Although some of the initial development agencies are still operating and remain influential, the way they function has evolved and important new players have entered the field. This course provides an overview of contemporary debates in international development assistance with a detailed review of the major actors-multilateral, bilateral, and nongovernmental. The course explores the political economy of donor-client country relationships, the key accountability challenges that have emerged, and the link between accountability and aid effectiveness. Particular emphasis is given to recent approaches to development assistance that have attempted to bridge the accountability-effectiveness divide. The course closes with consideration of the likely and possible future of development assistance.

This course examines the inner workings of successful international public service projects and gives students the opportunity to design one or more themselves. Students will then study the characteristics of effective programs, which bring together a series of projects for mutually supportive and concerted action. Particular attention is paid to programs selected from the five areas where international public sector entities are most active: peace building, relief, development, advocacy and norm-setting. Case studies will be used in each of these areas to gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between policy and implementation.

The politics of immigration and immigration policy seem more critical now than ever. Public debates about immigration have roiled nations around the world, and disagreements about how immigration should be regulated, who should have the right to migrate, what political rights immigrants should have once they cross a border, and how immigrants should participate in the economy have strained political alliances and upended norms of political discourse. In some cases, conflicts over immigration debates have been used to justify the overhaul of political institutions. However, these are not new. The history of migration is long, and the disputes about migration just as old. In the modern era – defined here as the mid-19th century onward – debates about migration have returned over and over to a consistent set of themes, and have often been as heated and as strident as they are today. These debates have engaged head-on with issues of economic equity and distribution of wealth, national identity, and the allocation of power in a society. Their connection to the actual empirics of migration, however, has been more tenuous. While the political discourse is framed in terms of immigration policy, the political contests have had more to do with tensions around economic transformation and dislocation, with concerns about national security, and with changes in social norms than they have had to do with the actual observed facts of immigration. Despite this slippage, these debates have had stakes that are very high. The policies they have produced have affected migrants profoundly, often upending their social and economic lives. The course considers these debates, their relationship to the empirics of migration, and the policy outcomes that they produce. These issues are considered from several angles: the labor-market incorporation of immigrants and their families; the construction and militarization of borders, and the enforcement of the distinction made between refugees and immigrants; the possibilities for connection among communities, economies, and political categories that migration represents; and new aspects of migration as security concerns and climate change come to the fore. For each of these topics, the course reaches back to find their historical expressions, and brings the insights and questions from the past to bear on the present. To explore these issues, the course considers immigration in local and global contexts. Because of the historical component to the course, the emphasis is on migration flows to Europe and North America. The course reviews the impact of those migration flows on countries of origin and investigates whether migration can be a vector for economic development. The exploration of those issues brings the global South into the course, and that investigation is deepened through a consideration of a subset of South-South migration flows and of the policy questions they generate.

In this course, students examine the challenges and opportunities of national development. Following Lant Pritchett, we define national development as the lockstep improvement in (i) economic productivity, (ii) political representation, (iii) public sector’s administrative capacity, and (iv) respect for minority rights. In contrast to targeted or piece-meal policy interventions that strive to improve conditions in one sector or alleviate the poverty of a chosen group, the pursuit of national development promises sustained gains to the entire nation. And yet, national development is difficult to achieve, and advances in one dimension are often accompanied by setbacks in others. The course is comprised of three modules. During the first module, we discuss the main differences between national development and poverty alleviation. We also conduct a series of data-driven, inductive exercises to help students understand how national development has been pursued over time and around the globe. Through this effort, we identify some of the most important models of development that have existed, and how their different parts fit together. During the second module, we discuss six recent books (or soon-to-be published manuscripts) that present leading-edge analysis on some of the main themes covered during the first module, at a rate of one book per week. Each of these books examines one critical topic –public health, primary education, rule of law, public sector capacity, human capital, and business competitiveness and labor standards – and is rooted in the experience of one key country or region –China, India, Brazil, Egypt, US, Germany and France. After reading each book, we discuss and critique its main premises, data & methods, conclusion, and policy implications. We also discuss how the insights it generates might change our own views on the challenges and opportunities of national development. During the third module, students present and discuss their own papers or research proposals on themes that intersect with the topics discussed in the course.

Many developing countries have been significantly reforming the scope and organization of the public sector in recent years. This course critically examines the changing structures and operations of government fiscal systems in developing countries, with particular emphasis on the growing trend to strengthen sub-national levels. Major topics include: understanding broader national fiscal reform processes; determining an appropriate division of fiscal responsibilities among levels of government; evaluating mechanisms for decentralized government revenue mobilization; and, assessing prospects and options for pursuing decentralization and intergovernmental fiscal reform. The course focuses on economic analysis, but attention is also given to political, institutional and cultural considerations that are critical for effective policy design and implementation.

This course will provide a field opportunity for students to investigate the current practices of an El Salvadoran social enterprise, Acceso Oferta Local – El Salvador, which aggregates agricultural products (fruit, vegetable, fish and seafood) procured from low-income producers. Students will investigate the success factors and challenges of the enterprise, assess its social impact and make recommendations for important enterprise initiatives including the rollout of a new digital training platform, development of an improved financial inclusion strategy and scaling and replication. These opportunities will be viewed through the lens of social impact, financial return, and stakeholder management. In addition, students will have the opportunity to evaluate policy implications on the business and beneficiaries specifically as it relates to El Salvador being the first country to adopt bitcoin as legal tender. Students will also examine how expanding economic impact on the enterprises’ rural beneficiaries can lead to reduced migration to urban areas and other countries including illegal migration to the US. Students will have the opportunity to interview local producers, product buyers, funders, and policy makers, develop frameworks for assessing scaling opportunities and making recommendations for the social enterprise’s evolution. They will also interact with the management of the key customers of the enterprise including the Executive Vice President of Grupo Calleja, a NYU Stern graduate and former candidate for the country's presidency who has grown his family owned and operated Super Selectos chain to over 100 supermarkets. The course will build off the Professor’s two cases on this enterprise.

This course provides an introduction to the impact investing landscape and its evolution, players, and tools. After situating impact investing vis à vis both other forms of investing and other social change tools, we explore what makes an investment impactful - and how one would go about determining that and measuring it. Through a combination of readings, case studies, class discussion, and projects, students will gain deep insight into the perspective of the impact investor and consider how it relates to other stakeholders and to social change writ large. We will examine the process by which an investor develops an impact thesis, sources and evaluates opportunities, all the way to structuring a deal, monitoring financial and social returns, and exiting the investment responsibly. The course aims to combine practical knowledge about how impact investments are made with critical thinking about the field’s potential and limitations.

This course will explore best and evolving practices in the financial management and impact measurement of social enterprises. The class will be taught from the perspective of the social entrepreneur and social enterprise manager and introduce cases to assess financial challenges, fiscal performance and financing strategy of pioneering firms with a social mission. We will explore trends, successes and failures in managing enterprises to achieve both financial and social returns. Measuring social impact in tandem with financial performance will be a core component of the course with topics including triple bottom line accounting, impact measurement, impact reporting and correlation between operating performance and impact sustainability. Students will be introduced to accounting and reporting methods necessary to responsibly calculate and communicate financial and social returns to investors and stakeholders. This course will delve into the financial, operational and strategic management of social enterprises in domestic and international settings including developing nations.

Advocacy Lab is for those who could imagine working in national or local advocacy organizations that make change happen or anyone who wants to understand the art of issue advocacy as a theory and method of social change. An advocacy campaign attempts to impact public policy, most often through changes in regulations and/or legislation. There are a wide range of roles advocacy campaign workers, organizers, community leaders or think-tank experts can play from research and policy analysis to education, lobbying, public relations and organizing constituencies to reaching out to a wide range of influentials, legislative offices and other government officials. At the same time, the skills of public advocacy– listening, fund raising, finding areas of consensus and building on that consensus, finding ways to make change happen – are skills that can be applied to all professional and life settings. The course will provide an overview of and training in how to affect public policy through advocacy campaigns, legislative lobbying, issue branding, coalition building and community organizing in the United States with experts and practioners providing us real life scenarios and case studies.

The purpose of the course is to deepen students’ understanding of the way in which public policy and political realities interact in American government at the national, state, and local levels: how political pressures limit policy choices, how policy choices in turn reshape politics, and how policymakers can function in the interplay of competing forces. The theme explored is how public officials balance concerns for substantive policy objectives, institutional politics and elective politics in order to achieve change. The nature of key legislative and executive institutional objectives and roles is examined. In addition, attention is given to the role of policy analysis and analysts in shaping policy decisions, seeking to identify their potential for positive impact and their limitations in the political process. A second goal of the course is to sharpen students’ ability to think and write like professional policy analysts. Students will be asked to apply both policy analysis framework and political perspective to the issues under discussion.

This course will explore the fault lines within the field of philanthropy and prepare students to effectively leverage resources for their organizations. The course will examine different approaches to grantmaking including: social entrepreneurship, effective altruism, venture philanthropy, social justice grantmaking, and strategic philanthropy. Students will learn the differences across these conceptual frameworks and understand how they influence the ways in which foundations establish goals, develop strategies, evaluate grantees, and determine grant awards. By exploring both the conceptual and pragmatic dimensions of across grantmaking frameworks, students will understand the tensions and debates within the philanthropic sector and be well prepared to identify those foundations most likely to support their work. Coursework will include case studies, individual foundation research, and opportunities for students to become familiar with the research by and about the philanthropic sector. Classes will combine lectures, guest speakers, and class debates to understand and analyze different approaches to grantmaking, identify how they shape foundation priorities, and learn how to effectively position their work within the philanthropic sector.

Students in this course will explore the spatial aspects of inequality, including racial segregation, concentrated poverty, and government structure. Course materials will investigate the consequences of these inequalities for individuals, communities, and American society as a whole, as well as how these seemingly-intractable problems were created by and continue because of public policy decisions. This course will be an interactive experience, requiring preparation before coming to class and active exchange during class.

Multi-sector partnerships represent a social innovation whereby actors from different sectors intentionally “address social issues and causes that actively engage the partners on an ongoing basis” (Selsky & Parker, 2010:22). They emerge from the recognition that solving today's complex public problems requires engaging multiple stakeholders. While promising, these innovations are not panacea: collaborative work is difficult because of structural and institutional barriers, as well as distinct assumptions, work styles, and disciplinary backgrounds of actors engaged. The course encourages students to understand these barriers and develop the skills and competencies to contribute to bridge the gaps through their professional practice. Multi-sector partnerships (MSPs) focuses on collaborations across members of the three sectors—government, civil society and business. The course is structured around cycles of student engagement and learning around multi-sector collaboration cases that span geographical contexts and levels of action–domestic, national and global contexts. Through frameworks, practitioner testimonials and social dialogue techniques, students learn relevant frameworks of cross-sector collaboration, explore assumptions of stakeholders from each sector, clarify and challenge their own assumptions and pre-conceptions about each sector, and identify the strengths and gaps they must address to become competent collaborators.

Reforming education policy and finance are at the center of intense debates at all levels of government, driven in part by the recognition of the central role that education plays in the economy. Education affects the productivity of the labor force, the distribution of income, economic growth, and individuals’ earnings and quality of life. This course uses economic principles to analyze K-12 education. The course begins with an examination of the demand for education, both by the private sector (particularly individuals) and the public sector. Next, we consider the production (including teachers as an input) and supply and cost of education. Finally, we turn to the financing of K-12 education in the United States. The class will be run as a seminar in which we will discuss the content of the assigned readings and try to make recommendations that are empirically and theoretically justified on economic grounds for achieving high performance in elementary and secondary education.

This graduate level course will provide an in-depth analysis of gender and sexuality policy in the United States. We will focus on the role that criminalization plays in this area, examining topics such abortion and regulation of intimate partner behavior, including sodomy. Practical application on how policy is made will be intertwined throughout the course and we will use case studies to examine why certain policy efforts, such as marriage equality was successful, while the Equal Rights Amendment failed. Focus will also include the impact that the current political climate is having on women, LGBTQ and gender nonconforming individuals and an effort will be made to weave in current events, as well as pop culture throughout our learning. Finally, we will study the impact existent and nonexistent policy protections have on people of color, the economically disadvantaged, immigrants, transgender and gender nonconforming individuals. Incorporated into our analysis will be readings from queer liberation scholars and feminist theorists to help us evaluate the pros and cons of existing policy gains. The course will explore what full equality might look like in the United States with an examination of what can and cannot be achieved through policy advancements. Upon completion of Gender & Sexuality in U.S. Policy Formation, students should be able to: 1. Understand the evolution of gender and sexuality policy in the United States; 2. Think analytically and strategically about policy formation and opportunities for pragmatic and transformational change; 3. Articulate how social justice policy is created, including the individual, contextual, and environmental factors that influence policy shifts; 4. Be a step closer to becoming reflective practitioners, i.e. professionals endowed with a sophisticated grasp of the art, science, opportunities, limits of crafting public policy.

This course examines the nature and extent of poverty primarily in the U.S. but with a comparative perspective (developed countries in Europe). To start, this course will focus on how poverty is defined and measured. It will proceed to explore how conceptions of poverty are socially constructed and historically bounded; examine what the causes and consequences of poverty are and discuss how these are complex and interwoven; and show how people can experience poverty at different points in their life course—some groups experiencing poverty more so than others. This course will discuss the role of labor markets, family structure and social organization in shaping poverty. And finally, it will explore how social policies seek to ameliorate poverty and other forms of social disadvantage throughout the life course. But when thinking about how ‘successful’ social policies are at alleviating poverty, this course will demonstrate that ‘success’ is actually influenced by the conceptions of poverty adopted by policymakers in the first place.

Economics—misguided market forces—is at the core of most environmental problems. Economics—guiding market forces in the right direction—is also fundamental to the solution. In this course we develop some of the fundamental economic tools for environmental policy analysis and management: Economics 101 applied to environmental problems—often, though not exclusively, focused on climate change. We will also go well beyond that initial Econ 101 take, narrowly defined. In fact, focusing exclusively on Econ 101 may sometimes be positively misleading. For example, Econ 101 traditionally tells us to price each ton of carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted into the atmosphere, and to get out of the way. Markets will take of the rest. Not so fast. Econ 102 tells us that not only is there a negative carbon spillover of economic activity, but also a positive learning-by-doing one. Installing the first rooftop solar panel is costly. The one hundredth is already cheaper. The millionth is a breeze. That goes for any individual roofer. It also goes for entire countries, and it is at the heart of policies from California’s Solar Initiative (formerly, its Million Solar Roofs Initiative) to Germany’s Energiewende (energy transition). Then there’s Political Economy 101. Shouting “carbon tax” all day long will not make it so. In fact, subsidizing clean technologies may even be a necessary step to get a price on CO2 passed in the first place. We will discuss this and similar examples, applying Econ 101 (and 102) to the real world, keeping Political Economy 101—and real-world politics—in mind every step along the way.

This course intends to negotiate the intersection of law, race, and education by considering their multiple layers and cross-cultural history in education in the United States. We will strive to teach beyond—and perhaps constructively disrupt—the racial binary of Black and white that has historically muffled more comprehensive discussions of law, race and education. Broad subject areas will include: Prohibition against the education of enslaved people and how it reverberates to contemporary history (example: The Tragedy of America's Rural Schools, a New York Times investigation); coerced education of Native Americans in Christian schools and its effect on whole-self education; the negative effect of the Naturalization Act of 1870 on non-white people; the miseducation of interned Americans of Japanese descent; and the diminished education of migrant children living in detention. We will ask which policies and priorities have led to such outcomes and what clear and creative measures can be taken to prevent their repetition in the future. We will further discuss the distinction between policy and law as well as the role of not-for-profit organizations in preventing injustices in law, race and education. This essential historical and legal context established in the class will allow students to bring new insight to contemporary policy issues and ultimately lead to previously unexplored remedies.

The goal of this course is to develop the key data analytics skill sets necessary to inform evidence-based policy. Its design offers hands-on training in how to make sense of and use large scale real world heterogeneous datasets in the context of addressing real world problems. Students will learn how to scope a policy problem, understand the data generation process, how to manage, combine, and structure data, and how to create, measure and analyze the effect of different data decisions. They will also learn the basics of machine learning and visualization as well as inference, bias, privacy, and ethics issues. It is designed for graduate students who are seeking a stronger foundation in data analytics, although undergraduates with strong foundations in data and statistics will be considered for admission. The professor is a former senior White House advisor on the Federal Data Strategy and member of two White House Committees: the Advisory Committee on Data for Evidence Building and the National AI Research Resources Task Force.

This advanced course develops a set of analytic skills that are used by some policy analysts. It focuses on impact analysis. The goals of the course are to (a) extend familiarity with methodologic issues, including various study designs, measurement problems, and analytic approaches; (b) provide hands-on experience in management, analysis, and presentation of data; and (c) develop skills in reading, critiquing, and reporting on policy-relevant impact analyses written by others. The emphasis of the course is on learning by doing, through data analysis, data presentation, and study critiquing activities. Students work on developing the ability to convey findings in text and table format.

Multiple regression is the core statistical technique used by policy and finance analysts in their work. In this course, you will learn how to use and interpret this critical statistical technique. Specifically you will learn how to evaluate whether regression coefficients are biased, whether standard errors (and thus t statistics) are valid, and whether regressions used in policy and finance studies support causal arguments. In addition, using a number of different datasets, you will compute the statistics discussed in class using a statistical computer package, and you will see how the results reflect the concepts discussed in class. If you choose, you can do a larger data and regression project in a team.

The public/nonprofit administrator, whether primarily concerned with management, policy or finance, is called upon to manage or becomes involved in a wide variety of conflicts. Conflict is ubiquitous - within and between organizations and agencies, between levels of government, between interest groups and government, between interest groups, between citizens and agencies, etc. The increasing complexity and interrelatedness of the issues that the public sector is called upon to address, and the increasing sophistication and engagement of groups representing both public and private interests, compounds the challenge. In this environment, it is essential for public and nonprofit administrators to know how to manage conflict effectively. Effective conflict management involves analyzing a conflict, understanding the dynamics between the parties, and determining the appropriate method of conflict resolution. In the absence of confidence and skill in conflict management, most public officials resort, often counterproductively, to the use of power, manipulation, and control. Possessing confidence and skill, one can exercise other options. Through readings, discussions, and simulations you will develop an understanding of conflict dynamics and the art and science of negotiation and will be introduced to the role that can be played by conflict resolution techniques such as mediation. The course will emphasize the theoretical as well as the practical, the reflective as well as the applied.

Effective development, planning execution and communication of special projects are critical to all types of public service organizations. Service organization, health providers, nonprofits and government organizations constantly pursue new initiatives and projects to address the demands of their constantly changing environment. This course offers an introduction to the basic concepts and methods for directing projects and provides students with tools that prepare them for success as a project manager.

This course will help students understand the nuances, complexities and challenges of managing the delivery of services for a public purpose. Through the introduction of key concepts, issues, strategies and analytical methods, students will be able to understand the role of public managers in optimizing service delivery at a time when demand is increasing and public resources are growing ever scarcer. Specifically, the course is designed to enable students to: - Gain insight into the dynamics of managing services, day-to-day; - Understand theories of Organizational Processes and how they apply to the delivery of services to the public; - Manage issues related to waiting for the provision of public services; - Become familiar with the opportunities and pitfalls of Privatizing public services; - Understand how positioning the consumers of public services as customers has the potential to increase accountability; - Learn basic concepts of Supply Chain Management and how they apply to the provision of public services

This two-day course is designed to develop your ability to build, lead, and participate in high-performing teams. We will draw from the fields of psychology, management, strategy, and sociology to discuss best practices for designing, launching, participating in, and coaching in-person and virtual teams. We will also focus on the benefits and challenges of managing diverse teams, using teams in various contexts (including Capstone teams), understanding and managing conflict, and developing problem-solving techniques for team effectiveness. This course will be of most value to those who have some work or team experience.

This is a course in Contracts for the non-lawyer. Every day we see contracts and may have to read them, sign them and/or perform them. Many organizations are not large enough to have their own in-house counsel and calling outside counsel is expensive. Thus, more and more executives and their staff have the responsibility of understanding the day to day contracts with which they come in contact. The course will cover specific contracts related to the type of work many Wagner students may do, such as grant agreements, agreements with fundraisers (consultants), commercial co-venture agreements, and grants to foreign charities that involve contracts with foreign entities.

Though the policymaking process is complex, with a host of actors and competing interests, public policy is traditionally shaped by elected officials, administrative agencies, and organized interest groups. There are many avenues for policies to be informed by the lived experience of members of low-income and marginalized communities; however, their participation is often hidden and/or undervalued. Public servants and policymakers can provide proactive opportunities for communities to assert their own priorities and rights through mechanisms like public planning processes or participatory budgeting. Similarly, marginalized communities can self-organize and even form common cause with broader interests to create more just public policies. In this course, we will explore strategies for initiating participatory policymaking from above (e.g., government/ policymakers initiating participatory approaches to decision-making) and below (e.g., grassroots communities mobilizing to influence policy), and the democratic tradition of challenging traditional power structures. We will also examine the essential concepts of power—what it is, how it is used, how groups and communities can expand and strengthen their political power, and how public officials can share theirs.

In our increasingly data-reliant and data-saturated society, people who understand how to leverage data to generate insights have the power to change the world. Data visualization and storytelling is a crucial skill for policy and data analysts, communications and marketing professionals, and managers and decision-makers within nonprofits, social organizations and the government. With the advent of visualization tools that do not require coding, data storytelling in the digital age is also an attainable skill set for people with varying levels of technical ability. This hands-on introductory course will teach students how to develop meaningful data stories that reveal visual insights accessible for relevant audiences. Students will also learn the basics of Tableau, the industry standard in data visualization tools, to make sense of and visualize publicly available data. Students will leave the course with a portfolio of data visualization projects, analog and digital, that demonstrate the application of data storytelling. This course is intended for a beginner in data visualization and storytelling. Students with extensive prior experience should consult the instructor before enrolling.

Culture -- the system of shared assumptions, values, meanings, and beliefs, which informs the behavior of individuals -- is perhaps the most salient variable mechanism that influences organizational performance (Schein, 2017). Successful leadership of nonprofit organizations largely depends on how closely institutional practices align with professed public values. Strong organizational culture fosters innovation, supports collaboration, and advances impact. Presuming a basic grounding in the structures and roles of nonprofit organizations, this course explores the values that lie behind them, drawing on the instructor’s extensive experience in supporting cross-sector global and mission-driven organizations, advancing DEIB strategies, and managing partnership and funder relationships. Expect a course on exploring organizational culture and how it informs and influences the vision, mission, internal systems and structures, budget, employee performance and satisfaction, external brand identity and, ultimately, the organization’s success.

This course brings together a wide range of thinking and scholarship about race and identity to encourage learning about what race is, why it matters, and racial dynamics in organizations and how best to address them. (In this description, “race” is used as a shorthand for the interconnected complex of race, ethnicity, culture and color, understanding that we will be careful to distinguish among them in the course itself.) While recognizing the importance of intersectionality and other markers of difference such as gender and class, the course focuses on race for two reasons: 1) it is generally the most charged dimension of diversity in the United States, the most difficult to discuss and, therefore, the topic we most often avoid, and 2) it has the greatest impact on life chances and opportunities: race is often the best predictor of income, wealth, education, health, employment and other important measures of well-being. Because the impact of race is highly contextual, we will focus on the United States, although our lens will broaden at different points. The course will roughly divide into two parts. The first part will address the phenomenon of race more broadly, while the second half will look more closely at organizations. It will begin with theoretical understandings of what race is and how it is distinguished from ethnicity, culture and color. Then we will explore the dynamics of racism, discrimination and stereotypes, followed by research on the impact of race on individuals and groups. The intricate connections to gender and class will be our next topics. In the second half, we will address how race influences, and is influenced by, organizational dynamics. This will include classes on discrimination and racism in organizations, traditional approaches to “managing” diversity, alternative approaches that emphasize self-awareness, learning and mutuality, and particular concerns related to public service contexts like health care and philanthropy.

Students will have an opportunity to learn about fundraising, as well as philanthropy more broadly. This introductory course will examine the range of ways to raise funds from government, individuals, foundations and corporations. The importance of stewardship, program evaluation, and the role of the board and staff in developing effective fundraising strategies will be addressed.

An organization’s brand can help it raise money, create change, and recruit participants as it effectively communicates its mission. But a brand is more than just a logo or a memorized elevator pitch, it is the way both internal and external audiences perceive your organization—and shaping this perception is as essential to the success of nonprofit and public organizations as it is to for-profit organizations. And since many nonprofits have limited staff and financial resources available for communications activities, it is even more important that these resources be deployed as strategically as possible. This course will offer an overview of branding and communications concepts, helping students approach branding in a way that builds commitment to their organization’s mission, increases trust, creates ambassadors, and strengthens impact. Students will gain a basic familiarity with a variety of branding principles and develop strategic communication recommendations for an organization they are familiar with.

The past decade has seen the increasing availability of very large scale data sets, arising from the rapid growth of transformative technologies such as the Internet and cellular telephones, along with the development of new and powerful computational methods to analyze such datasets. Such methods, developed in the closely related fields of machine learning, data mining, and artificial intelligence, provide a powerful set of tools for intelligent problem-solving and data-driven policy analysis. These methods have the potential to dramatically improve the public welfare by guiding policy decisions and interventions, and their incorporation into intelligent information systems will improve public services in domains ranging from medicine and public health to law enforcement and security. The LSDA course series will provide a basic introduction to large scale data analysis methods, focusing on four main problem paradigms (prediction, clustering, modeling, and detection). The first course (LSDA I) will focus on prediction (both classification and regression) and clustering (identifying underlying group structure in data), while the second course (LSDA II) will focus on probabilistic modeling using Bayesian networks and on anomaly and pattern detection. LSDA I is a prerequisite for LSDA II, as a number of concepts from classification and clustering will be used in the Bayesian networks and anomaly detection modules, and students are expected to understand these without the need for extensive review. In both LSDA I and LSDA II, students will learn how to translate policy questions into these paradigms, choose and apply the appropriate machine learning and data mining tools, and correctly interpret, evaluate, and apply the results for policy analysis and decision making. We will emphasize tools that can "scale up" to real-world policy problems involving reasoning in complex and uncertain environments, discovering new and useful patterns, and drawing inferences from large amounts of structured, high-dimensional, and multivariate data. No previous knowledge of machine learning or data mining is required, and no knowledge of computer programming is required. We will be using Weka, a freely available and easy-to-use machine learning and data mining toolkit, to analyze data in this course.

The past decade has seen the increasing availability of very large scale data sets, arising from the rapid growth of transformative technologies such as the Internet and cellular telephones, along with the development of new and powerful computational methods to analyze such datasets. Such methods, developed in the closely related fields of machine learning, data mining, and artificial intelligence, provide a powerful set of tools for intelligent problem-solving and data-driven policy analysis. These methods have the potential to dramatically improve the public welfare by guiding policy decisions and interventions, and their incorporation into intelligent information systems will improve public services in domains ranging from medicine and public health to law enforcement and security. The LSDA course series will provide a basic introduction to large scale data analysis methods, focusing on four main problem paradigms (prediction, clustering, modeling, and detection). The first course (LSDA I) will focus on prediction (both classification and regression) and clustering (identifying underlying group structure in data), while the second course (LSDA II) will focus on probabilistic modeling using Bayesian networks and on anomaly and pattern detection. LSDA I is a prerequisite for LSDA II, as a number of concepts from classification and clustering will be used in the Bayesian networks and anomaly detection modules, and students are expected to understand these without the need for extensive review. In both LSDA I and LSDA II, students will learn how to translate policy questions into these paradigms, choose and apply the appropriate machine learning and data mining tools, and correctly interpret, evaluate, and apply the results for policy analysis and decision making. We will emphasize tools that can "scale up" to real-world policy problems involving reasoning in complex and uncertain environments, discovering new and useful patterns, and drawing inferences from large amounts of structured, high-dimensional, and multivariate data. No previous knowledge of machine learning or data mining is required, and no knowledge of computer programming is required. We will be using Weka, a freely available and easy-to-use machine learning and data mining toolkit, to analyze data in this course.

Together we will look at gender and intersecting identities in the context of building an inclusive approach to organizational and/or political leadership. We will focus upon how to leverage research findings as we take a practical stance on identifying both problems and solutions on the path to greater inclusion. This highly practice-based course will circle a core theme of gender-inclusive leadership, considering key concepts driving leadership behaviors and perceptions, and examining the extent to which ‘difference’ is rewarded or not. We will study behaviors, stereotypes, structures, power, and cultures that support or inhibit building inclusive teams, workplaces and political cultures, including considering the implications when more than one social characteristic or identity (such as race/ethnicity, LGBTQ+ status, class/socioeconomic background and disability) intersect with gender. You will complete this course having reflected upon your personal priorities for inclusive leadership and having explored how to apply research findings in designing for effective action.

Management consultants work in all corners of the public and nonprofit sectors on every imaginable topic—from organizational strategy to technology implementation, education to migration. But what is management consulting? Why do so many public service organizations rely on it? What skills and experience do you need to be a management consultant? And how much good can management consulting really do for the public and nonprofit sectors? Management Consulting for Public Service Organizations will answer and invite debate on all of these questions. You will learn how to deliver what clients really want and how to improve the chances your recommendations are adopted. Through our readings and discussions we will explore scholarly and practitioner thinking on strategy, problem solving, innovation and the costs and benefits consulting has in the public and nonprofit sectors. As in consulting, your assignments will be both collaborative and reflective and your final deliverables will be evaluated by current and former management consultants and nonprofit consulting clients. You will leave this course more clear on what a public service-facing management consultant does, having practiced some of the skills they use, and with insight into how you can add the most value to the organizations and sectors you care about.

Advancements in awareness and understanding have led to greater equity and inclusion in society for people with disabilities and health conditions. Developments such as the establishment of Disability Studies as an interdisciplinary field in the 1980’s and the introduction of the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) in 1990 are key milestones in this journey. However, these achievements alone do not guarantee the extent of attitudinal and behavioral change needed within our communities and organizations to remove the barriers and prejudices that remain. Furthermore, how might our response to disability and health conditions be symptomatic of underlying beliefs or practices that compromise our impact as leaders and organizations more broadly? As citizens, developing our knowledge and understanding of disability and health conditions is critical for us to build an inclusive society. As public service leaders, it will enable us to deliver more creative, effective, and lasting solutions for the organizations we lead and the public that we serve. With an emphasis on developing both knowledge and practical skills, this two-day intensive course will provide a survey of the history, recent trends, and current topics that will enable public service professionals to become role models and leaders in the areas of disability, health conditions, and beyond. Whether collaborating on a project, leading a team, or managing service delivery with or for people with disabilities and health conditions, the course will help students to achieve more inclusive impact in their organizations and communities. By reflecting on their own response to the topics, students will be able to identify implications and tangible actions to inform and transform their broader leadership and impact.

This course is appropriate for students interested in the role that leadership plays in advancing social innovation and social change in the context of democratic governance. The course explores the role of leadership in organizational efforts to change thinking, systems, and policies—taking into consideration the contested process by which the responsibility of addressing intractable problems is distributed among key diverse actors in a shared-power world. Traditional approaches to leadership defined by single heroic individuals who influence followers are contrasted with new perspectives—consistent with the demands of today’s complex problems—particularly when we aspire to inclusive, transparent and democratic solutions. Emergent perspectives reveal leadership as the collective achievement of members of a group who share a vision, and who must navigate the constellation of relationships, structures, processes and institutional dynamics within the larger system in which they are embedded. The course will focus primarily on the organizational level of action, but connections to the individual and policy levels will also be explored. An opportunity to apply course concepts in the context of a particular organization of the student’s choice (with instructor approval) will deepen and personalize the student’s understanding of the interconnections between the three levels of action, and challenge assumptions about leadership and social change and their implications for practice.

For better or worse, both affordable housing and renewable energy projects in the US are mostly built and owned by private developers and corporations. These private developers in turn are reliant on private capital provided by investors, corporations and banks. Almost all these investors rely heavily on federal tax credits. 90% of affordable housing in the US receives a subsidy through the low-income housing tax credit (“LIHTC”). Virtually all large-scale wind and solar projects receive tax credit subsides as well (“ITC” or “PTC”). This course is designed for students who are interested in either of these two important areas of public policy as well as students interested in careers in municipal finance who want to expand their knowledge in related fields. We will begin with an overview of what developers need to build their projects and what investors are seeking and how common tax credit programs bridge the gaps. By studying this topic, students will also gain a general understanding of multi-family housing, renewable energy, project development and project financing and federal tax expenditures. Lastly, we will examine the overall efficiency, fairness and policy implications of such subsidies structures that benefit banks, corporations and private developers as well as at-risk populations and society in general.

In 2016, the United Nations Secretary General noted in the World Humanitarian Summit Outcome Report that, “Armed conflicts and other violent situations, disasters caused by natural hazards and the impacts of climate change, health threats, soaring inequality and increased fragility marked by extreme poverty and weak institutions are among the factors contributing to the unprecedented spike in humanitarian needs.” In 2020, the world was further destabilized by the Covid-19 global pandemic leaving the humanitarian sector further extended and in desperate need of a radical rethink. This course will examine this evolving landscape and its implications for aid delivery including how it is planned, financed and executed to meet the changing needs of the people in need of assistance. Students will be introduced to the global systems that guide the sector, the organizations typically involved and how their power dynamics and agendas shape humanitarian response priorities and delivery. This course will provide a response-centered perspective on humanitarian operations, informed by case studies, lectures, and exercises. Experts in the field may guest facilitate portions of course sessions.

This short course will explore the concept of accountability within humanitarian intervention. In particular it will look at the contemporary significance of accountability for humanitarian response – when and why it has become an important concept for humanitarian intervention, and specific events that have led to a shift from donors to recipients of aid as the agents of accountability. Key questions that will be explored include: - To whom are humanitarian agencies accountable? What are the competing accountabilities and how do these influence program decisions and agency performance? - Why is accountability to beneficiaries important during a humanitarian response? Aside from ideological views, why should the humanitarian sector be concerned with accountability to beneficiaries? What are its end goals? - What does an effective accountability mechanism look like? How do agencies implement it? - Do these work? In what contexts? How is their effectiveness being measured? By whom? - Who are the main actors in this space? An examination of HAP, ALNAP, Listen First, ECB project, current NGO frameworks used in the field

Note: This half course meets in New York only (see PADM-GP 2250 for the version of this course that meets in New York and Ghana). This course explores the political and economic policy issues surrounding hunger and food security, drawing on many case examples and using Ghana as a case study. The course will provide an overview of some of the core dimensions of global hunger and food security policy issues, including debates over a new green revolution, food aid, fair trade, the impact of expanded biofuels production and the impact of the inter-related financial, food, and fuel crises.

Affordable housing that's 40% less expensive to build. Three times as many soup kitchen clients served each hour. Hospital ER wait time cut by 90%. This is the type of impact social innovators aspire to achieve by applying the method called "Lean." Since Toyota developed the Lean continuous improvement methodology, manufacturers globally adopted it, then finance and healthcare organizations, and now nonprofits, government agencies, and for-­profit and hybrid social enterprises. What is Lean? How do you set up a Lean program? Which organizations have seen great results, and why? How does Lean relate to financial and social impact strategy and operations? Students will understand the basic concepts and methods of Lean; gain familiarity with case studies from nonprofit, government, and social enterprise; and become ready to take an active role in a Lean project.

Capital is but a tool – one that can be used for many different purposes. This course explores the use of finance as a tool for social change. The sessions provide an overview of different approaches to the question of aligning investments and values and aim to empower the student with a critical framework for the evaluation of the role of finance in society via case studies and a review of current practices along a continuum from “avoiding the bad” to “building the good.” It is geared toward both finance practitioners and social change agents seeking to understand the interrelation and intersection of capital and social change practice. Using impact investing as a starting point – but not an end point – this course provides an actionable, practitioner-centered overview of the opportunities to advance social change via capital. It will cover emerging strategies ranging from divestment in the public equities space to direct investments into social enterprises and communities, touching on some of the major topics in the space, from the allocation of risks and returns among stakeholders, to impact measurement and management.

This course will provide students a thorough understanding of how key environmental challenges can be addressed through innovative financing and investment strategies. Topics will include an overview of the main financial instruments and the key thematic areas of the growing field of environmental finance. Students will be introduced to instruments, structures and investment approaches to achieving positive environmental outcomes and impact including, but not limited to private market investments, renewables, climate and green bonds, water investments, and conservation finance.

The NYU Impact Investment Fund (NIIF) is a unique inter-disciplinary, experiential learning course which is offered in tandem with a student-led and operated Impact Investing Fund of the same name. For students to participate in the Fund they are required to be enrolled in this course. The creation of NIIF has been approved by the Deans of both Wagner and Stern. NIIF is operated under the guidelines of an Operational Handbook which has been reviewed by the NYU Office of General Counsel. Investment transactions made during the course are supported by the Business Law and International Transactions Clinics of the NYU Law School resulting in a three school interdisciplinary collaboration offering students the opportunity to interact with their peers across the University ecosystem. Students participating in NIIF are expected to enroll in the NIIF course for the full academic year (fall and spring) and will receive 1.5 credits for each semester of participation. The course will meet every other week, but students are expected to complete assignments and deliverables during weeks that the class does not meet to assure the investment processes and momentum are responsibly maintained. The class will be divided into five Deal Teams. The Deal Teams will have a sectoral focus (e.g., Financial Inclusion, Environment, Healthcare/Aging, Education and Food Systems) for sourcing prospective investment clients. The teams will also have access to the MIINT (MBA Impact Investing Network & Training) program which is a competitive experiential on-line lab designed to give students at graduate schools a hands-on education in impact investing. The NIIF Investment Committee will recommend one of the teams to compete in the finals of MIINT where top graduate schools present to a judging committee composed of industry leaders in impact investing. Those participating in MIINT will have some additional deliverables in accordance with the MIINT program guidelines though the majority of the requirements align with deliverables identified in this Syllabus for the NIIF class as a whole. This course requires an application.Students participating in NIIF are expected to enroll in the NIIF course for the full academic year (Fall and Spring) and will receive 1.5 credits for each semester of participation.

The NYU Impact Investment Fund (NIIF) is a unique inter-disciplinary, experiential learning course which is offered in tandem with a student-led and operated Impact Investing Fund of the same name. For students to participate in the Fund they are required to be enrolled in this course. The creation of NIIF has been approved by the Deans of both Wagner and Stern. NIIF is operated under the guidelines of an Operational Handbook which has been reviewed by the NYU Office of General Counsel. Investment transactions made during the course are supported by the Business Law and International Transactions Clinics of the NYU Law School resulting in a three school interdisciplinary collaboration offering students the opportunity to interact with their peers across the University ecosystem. Students participating in NIIF are expected to enroll in the NIIF course for the full academic year (fall and spring) and will receive 1.5 credits for each semester of participation. The course will meet every other week, but students are expected to complete assignments and deliverables during weeks that the class does not meet to assure the investment processes and momentum are responsibly maintained. The class will be divided into five Deal Teams. The Deal Teams will have a sectoral focus (e.g., Financial Inclusion, Environment, Healthcare/Aging, Education and Food Systems) for sourcing prospective investment clients. The teams will also have access to the MIINT (MBA Impact Investing Network & Training) program which is a competitive experiential on-line lab designed to give students at graduate schools a hands-on education in impact investing. The NIIF Investment Committee will recommend one of the teams to compete in the finals of MIINT where top graduate schools present to a judging committee composed of industry leaders in impact investing. Those participating in MIINT will have some additional deliverables in accordance with the MIINT program guidelines though the majority of the requirements align with deliverables identified in this Syllabus for the NIIF class as a whole.

Technology excites in its promise to help transform and improve lives. Yet we observe that this promise has not always translated into reality. Through active/experiential learning this course examines the promises—and pitfalls—of technology for impact. Together we will co-create ways to examines how entrepreneurs and practitioners harness technologies to solve key challenges, while questioning how new technologies transform or reinforce dominant paradigms. It attempts to stimulate ideas on how new technologies and innovations can be harnessed and utilized for positive social benefit while mitigating risks and minimizing unintended consequences. Key Areas of Exploration: • When does a technology become emerging? • What does social impact really mean? • What opportunities for impact have new technologies created? • How disruptive or revolutionary are new technologies for impact? • What tools do we need to improve these technology-driven initiatives? • How might we mitigate unintended consequences of new technologies? • Assessment, measuring and ESG? • Mapping the stakeholders? • Adoption Curves and critical mass for skills acquisition?

This course assesses the role of inclusive business (IB) as a strategy for economic growth, private-­‐sector development and poverty reduction, and the two main IB financing modalities: bank debt and private equity. Analytical frameworks are provided for understanding how IB strategies incorporate and affect the poor as consumers, producers, suppliers, distributors and employees. In this context, important distinctions are drawn between IB financing and sound environmental, social and governance (ESG) policies; socially-­‐responsible investing (SRI); and corporate social responsibility (CSR). Using case studies from selected developing economies, we take stock of the successes and failures of financial institutions and private equity funds in IB financing. In assessing modifications and solutions needed to boost capital deployment in IBs, the key debates in this emerging discipline are considered and placed in the wider context of impact investing. You will learn to identify and interrogate IB strategies and determine the most appropriate—and likely successful—financing modalities for them. The course will enable you to identify and prioritize key components and risk factors when designing an IB lending program or private equity fund.

The most common Mission-Related Investment (MRI) approaches include socially responsible investing (SRI), and environmental, social, and governance (ESG). While private investments generally account for 20% of an institutional investment portfolio, public investments can represent more than 75%. Unlike impact investments, which primarily target private investments that intend to generate positive social/environmental benefits alongside a financial return through mostly venture capital and private equity investment vehicles, this course explores how endowments, foundations, pension firms, and other organizations can invest in public investments using environmental, social, governance (ESG) selection criteria. This style of investing has captured the attention of asset owners (investors), asset managers (fund managers), and service providers (consultants) globally and is one of the fastest growing areas of finance. This course will also broadly cover the relationships among the main MRI approaches. The application of ESG factors to investment selection is no longer in its infancy. It is a distinct career specialization for finance professionals requiring both traditional investment acumen and awareness of complexities and nuances necessary to gain a diverse skill needed to effectively engage stakeholders—such as policymakers, millennials, and the generations to come—that will shape the future.

Data plays an increasingly important role in powering today’s enterprises, governments and society as a whole. With the rapid pace of innovation, data science, advanced analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are becoming increasingly central and critical to business today. Over time, social impact organizations will deem these tools as core to achieving their mission. This course will enable future social sector leaders to leverage these powerful tools along with an organization’s data footprint and external data sources to accelerate their organizations’ impact. This course aims to develop students’ understanding of what it takes to propel organizations along their journey to advanced use of data and AI. New organizations may look to proactively build a culture of data from the start, while many established organizations may be navigating their digitization journey by putting new tech practices in place such as replacing paper systems with digital records, implementing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, or establishing Marketing Technology (MarTech) stacks to more effectively and efficiently communicate with stakeholders across different social channels. Students can play an important role in enabling organizations to meet the challenge of leveraging their digital footprint. This will help them more effectively communicate with stakeholders and funders, expand their donor and investor base, improve service delivery, innovate on products and program models, derive new insights to inform policy agendas, and leverage data for advocacy efforts.

Recent momentum behind criminal justice reform permitted new discussions concerning incarceration policy and punishment in the United States. This course takes an interdisciplinary approach in examining the role of crime, incarceration policy, and institutions in driving contemporary discussions on criminal justice reform—with race often being a salient component for many of these public policy conversations. This course will provide students with an opportunity to critically examine topics such as racial differences in crime, policing, incarceration policy, and prisoner reentry.

Corporate philanthropy and engagement is an evolving space which is critical to the existence and operation of nonprofit organizations. The role of the private sector in helping nonprofits achieve their mission, serve their clients and realize their expected goals and outcomes is unique and very different from the role that government funders and individual major donors play. This course will provide a survey of key topics, trends and best practices within the corporate philanthropy, corporate social responsibility and grantmaking space, with a particular emphasis on public and private multinational organizations headquartered in the United States. This course is ideal for those with limited-to-no exposure or prior engagement with corporate institutions as grantmakers and partners and/or for those who work closely with corporate giving offices and philanthropy departments.

Public service work involves some amount of writing and communications. But the tools for success have dramatically changed in the last few years with the development and deployment of Large Language Models and Artificial Intelligence. This communications course will equip students with the skills to leverage AI tools, such as GPT, GrammarlyGo, and other AI products, to produce compelling and persuasive communication deliverables. Students will engage in hands-on activities and assignments to gain practical experience using these tools to enhance their communication skills while improving their expertise in a single content area of their choosing.

The course will focus on current issues in education and social policy, beginning with an analysis of the case for public intervention in the market for education. We will then turn to considering key policy debates and options for addressing important problems - including both policies aimed at the education sector(i.e., public schools) and those affecting other sectors (i.e., housing policy). Particular attention will be paid to reviewing and weighing the evidence base for policy making and considering alternative solutions.

Organizational storytelling both effectively communicates an organization’s mission and builds empathy for its cause. A story is more than an exposition, climax, and resolution. Effective storytelling weaves a narrative that tells a systemic story about the social justice movement. The course will offer an overview on how to strategically use values-based communications, helping students understand how to move persuadable audiences to garner support for social justice issues. This course teaches students how to communicate with the public and work with the media. The concepts and skills prepare students to generate public support for their organization's mission, strategic initiatives, and fund-raising activities. Students learn to position organizations in the public eye and translate complex concepts into clear and concise messages for public consumption. They develop skills in written and oral communication, critical thinking, and problem solving. Students learn about a range of communications vehicles and discuss ways to use those vehicles to get their messages out.

Elections In Action is for those that are interested in learning how a campaign works from start to finish. Whether one is working a local to national campaign the structure is still the same. This seven-session course will provide an overview and training in modern day campaign planning and implementation all the way from preparing as a candidate, staff roles, media, fundraising and Get Out the Vote strategies.

This course examines reproductive rights law and policy in the United States and how advocacy can impact it. Reproductive rights encompass the ability of individuals to make and exercise informed, independent decisions about their own body, sexuality, and reproduction. This includes procreation and family formation, pregnancy care, abortion, birthing and breastfeeding, among others: deeply personal, often, life-changing decisions. Yet contentious legal, policy and public debates at the national and local level controls who can, and cannot, access the health care services and information necessary for people to realize these rights. Historically, and still today, reproductive rights law and policy does not center, or adequately protect, those most impacted. In this course, students will gain a grounding in the relevant constitutional doctrines and federal and state laws that have defined and constrained reproductive rights in recent decades. We will also discuss intersections with human rights, racial, economic, and gender equality, among other inseparable rights. Learning from real-world advocacy campaigns, including guest speakers, we will investigate the challenges and value-add of different strategies--from litigation to legislation to public communications--for creating enabling legal and policy environments in which people have the resources they need to freely exercise their reproductive rights.

This course should help those who believe that the United States must reduce its pollution responsible for climate change. The course will provide an overview of climate science and politics. Next, we will examine the “theories of change” concept, and identify new theories of change and their policies to reduce climate pollution. Additionally, we will learn to design issue advocacy campaign plans that would create the political space essential to adopt these policies.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of U.S. workers involved in work stoppages in 2018 reached its highest point since the mid-1980s. The resurgence of the use of strikes and worker activists withholding labor is set against the backdrop of enormous societal challenges like wealth and income inequality, climate change, and a lack of affordable, quality health care. These powerful strikes also come at a time when unions themselves are facing innumerable challenges: declining memberships and dues, increasing employer offensives, a weakening of the labor law, and a changing economy that makes traditional methods of union organizing more difficult, costly and less successful. We know that unions raise the standard of working conditions and wages for all workers, strengthen the overall economy and decrease inequality. Since the 1970s, the labor movement has seen a significant decline in strength, density and strikes - one of their key sources of leverage and expressions of power. Consequently, the decline of union density in the past forty years has coincided with and contributed to a modern economy that doesn’t work for working people. This class is an exploration of the political expression of labor unions and seeks to provide students with practical skills to participate in the current labor movement. The class will tell the story of the U.S. labor movement and seek to examine the ways in which unions have driven social change. Furthermore, the class will analyze what conditions were necessary to successfully ignite change and seek to apply those learnings to the current labor movement and political work of unions. With an emphasis on developing both knowledge of unions and their relationship to political change and practical skills in labor movement advocacy, this course will provide an overview of the history, recent trends, and current topics as well as provide students with a working knowledge of organizing and advocacy skills.

This course will introduce students to the history of and contemporary fight for voting rights in the United States. We will begin with a brief overview of historical struggles over access to the ballot box, up through and including the 15th Amendment and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The bulk of the course will focus on the contemporary context of voting rights, looking specifically at recent Supreme Court decisions, and include scholarship about white backlash against the growing political power of Americans of color. We will examine both laws with discriminatory intent and facially-neutral laws that nonetheless have racially disparate outcomes. Of course, Americans of color have always organized and fought for their rights as citizens. As such, we will pay close attention to the agency and power of these groups. This course specifically attends to how voting laws both reflect and codify structural iniquities in the American context. While we focus on race in this class, we will use an intersectional lens to discuss how different laws disproportionately burden different identities.

Research is an important part of the policy process: it can inform the development of programs and policies so they are responsive to community needs, it can help us determine what the impacts of these programs and policies are, and it can help us better understand populations or social phenomena. This half-semester course serves as an introduction to how to ethically collect data for research projects, with an in-depth look at focus groups and surveys as data collection tools. We will also learn about issues related to measurement and sampling. Students will create their own focus group protocol and short survey instrument designed to answer a research question of interest to them.

This half-semester course will focus on the analysis of data. We will discuss cleaning raw data – including trimming, variable transformations, and dealing with missing data – before turning to complex survey data. We will discuss how regression analysis differs when using complex survey data. Students will take real data and produce a cleaned version, as well as perform simple analyses using multiple regression. One key skill you will learn in this class is Stata, a commonly used statistics package. I will teach the basics, but if you have not used it before, you will likely need to spend a bit of extra time becoming acquainted with the program.

The goal of this course is to establish a first-principles understanding of the qualitative and quantitative techniques, tools, and processes used to wield data for effective decision-making. Its approach focuses on pragmatic, interactive learning using logical methods, basic tools, and publicly available data to practice extracting insights and building recommendations. It is designed for students with little prior statistical or mathematical training and no prior pre-exposure to statistical software.

The goal of this course is to train advanced students on the principles, practices, and technologies required for good database design, management, and security. An introduction to the concepts and issues relating to data warehousing, governance, administration, security, privacy and alternative database structures will be provided. The course concentrates on building a firm foundation in information organization, storage, management, and security.

R is a powerful open source language and environment for statistical computing and graphics. R provides a wide selection of statistical and graphical techniques. It is rapidly becoming the leading language in data science and statistics. R can easily tackle linear and nonlinear modelling, statistical tests, time series analysis, classification, clustering and more. This 7-week course leads the students into the R world, helps them master the basics and prepares them with plenty resources for self-advancement in the future. The course offers students basic programing knowledge and effective data analysis skills in R in the context of public policy-making and policy evaluation. Students will learn how to install R and RStudio, comprehend and use R data objects, become familiar with base R and several statistical and graphing packages. The course will also teach students to develop their own R functions, which they can use, improve or adapt in the future.

This 7-week course exposes the students to the application and use of data analytics in setting public policy. The course does so by teaching introductory technical programming skills that allow students to learn and apply Python code on pertinent public policy data, while emphasizing on applicability. The course is accompanied by readings for each class in order to contextualize why data analytics supplements but doesn’t replace the student / professional role in setting public policy. With an influx of data and an increased preference for using algorithms to drive decisions, this course builds on how public policy professionals should discern the correct data sources to use and how to interpret the accompanying algorithm-driven results. Since data and algorithms can lead to false positive and false negative results that adversely shape the impact of public policy decisions, this course exposes students to common data biases that influence how public policy professionals understand, use, and interpret the world. At the end of the course, students will write basic code using the Python programming language and have a firm foundation for data analysis. To gain a practical context beyond the readings, students are encouraged to attend events and follow studies put together by NYU’s The AI Now Institute, which produces interdisciplinary research on the social implications of artificial intelligence and acts as a hub for the emerging field focused on public issues.

In a complex and difficult world, some idealism is needed to energize meaningful change. This course is for aspiring policy-makers who want to combine a necessary sense of optimism with real-world understanding of how to get things done. Each session will focus on specific examples of how practical solutions were found to seemingly intractable problems.