Policy
Studies at Dickinson
Policy
Management
major • Law
and Policy major
Contributing
Faculty
• Phil
Grier (Professor, Philosophy)
• John
Ransom (Professor, Political Science)
• Ed
Guido (Adjunct Professor; Judge, Cumberland County)
• John
Cherry (Adjunct Professor; Judge, Dauphin County)
Advising
for Majors
| Policy
Management major
Policy
Management
majors develop
and learn to apply complex problem solving skills across a wide variety
of institutional contexts (in the public sector, in the private sector,
and in international settings). Policy Management majors also take an
ethics
elective and an internship which must be approved by the student's
Policy
Studies advisor. Use the color-coded advising sheet below to
follow
the advised course of study in the major. Adjustments to the
sequence
suggested here can be, and may have to be made (especially for those
studying
abroad the Junior year).
|
Law
and Policy
major
Law and
Policy
majors develop and
learn to apply complex problem solving skills in areas where law and
policy
intersect. Majors study the structure (POLSC 248: The Judiciary)
and philosophical underpinnings of the legal system (LP/PHILO 255:
Philosophy
of Law) while also taking two law electives, one policy elective, and a
law-related internship which must be approved by the student's Policy
Studies
advisor. Use the color-coded advising sheet below to follow the
advised
course of study in the major. Adjustments to the sequence
suggested
here can be, and may have to be made (especially for those studying
abroad
the Junior year).
|
• Policy
Management Advising form
Note:
this link
will open as a .pdf file
and requires Acrobat
Reader
|
• Law
and Policy Advising form
Note: this link will
open as a .pdf
file
and requires Acrobat
Reader
|
Honors guidelines
• What
is Policy
Studies?
• Interdisciplinarity
• Advising
Handbook Page (Registrar)
WHAT
IS POLICY STUDIES?
“Complex problem solving” is the concept that serves as the
intellectual
core of Policy Studies. Policy studies students learn how to
distill
substantive knowledge drawn from various relevant disciplines in order
to fuel both (1) the process of understanding the various dimensions of
social, economic, and political problems, and (2) the process of
building
viable solution sets that are framed by ethical norms.
| ...... |
• Some
students
will be interested
in the breadth that is achieved from investigating the management of a
wide array of policy problems and solutions that exist in various
public,
non-profit, private, and comparative contexts. These students
will
choose the "Policy Management" (PM) major. All students in both
majors
will be required to operate across disciplinary boundaries. The
"Policy
Management" major is designed to acclimate students to the processes of
complex problem solving that exist in a variety of contexts, including
the public, non-profit, and private sectors, as well as in various
comparative
cross-cultural settings. While "Law and Policy" majors
specialize
in the intersection of law and policy, "Policy Management" majors will
focus on learning more about the various frameworks, orientations,
stake
holders, and value sets that exist in different policy contexts.
• Some
students
within the policy
studies program will be deeply interested in the law, both as a source
of problems and a source of solutions (and the source of problems those
solutions will inevitably spawn). These students will choose the
"Law and Policy" (LP) major within the Policy Studies program.
While
the "Law and Policy" major may well help prepare students for graduate
study in policy or law, its primary mission is to provide students with
a coherent interdisciplinary approach to the topics of law and policy
in
a liberal arts framework. Law and policy is a natural
combination,
providing students with a lens to see how a legal regime limits policy
choices and how the policy process informs and limits laws.
|
Both the
proposed majors
are designed
"to prepare students for career and community involvement in a world in
which teamwork and multiple perspectives are critical (footnote
1)."
And both majors will build on a common foundation that includes
developing
within students an appreciation for (1) fluid interdisciplinarity, (2)
the contingent nature of knowledge, (3) connections to the wider world
beyond the college, (4) principle-based models of leadership, (5) the
meaningful
application of ethics, and (6) the role of stake holder values in
problem
analysis and decision making processes. These core values will be
communicated in the "Foundations" course and echoed through the
"Gateway"
course (where policy makers from beyond the college are recruited to
play
a key role), through the Senior Seminar (where students are tasked to
do
hands-on policy problem solving of their own), and through the required
internship (where students learn via the context of practical, hands-on
experiences).
Both of the
proposed
majors will
also include more explicit attention to "law" in the common
requirements
than is the case with the current policy studies major. Expanding
the role that law plays in the policy studies program will improve the
program, and the overall curriculum, in at least three important
ways.
| ...... |
•
First, enhancing
policy studies
with more explicit coverage of law helps students interested in policy
understand that law -- omnipresent in the working world -- often
operates
both as a springboard and as a constraint on policy making. For
example,
city councils react to U.S. Supreme Court decisions in fashioning new
policy,
while lawyers are regularly charged with figuring out whether the
policy
preferences of a government or private sector actor can be squared with
the law.
•
Second, students
more interested
in law will be forced to confront the policy process in all its breadth
and diversity. Rather than looking at the law as a static set of
court decisions and statutes, law and policy majors will begin to
understand
that law, like policy, is really as much a complex and fluid process as
it is a set of rigid rules.
•
Third, the
reformulated policy
studies major introduces students interested in the law to systematic
and
explicit study of ethics as it emerges in policy and legal contexts.
This
is a crucial part of the education of a future lawyer or policy maker
and
our program makes it a significant element.
|
INTERDISCIPLINARITY.
One central key to complex problem solving is
interdisciplinarity.
Policy studies advances interdisciplinarity because it is useful (some
might say essential) to span more than one discipline to fully
understand
-- or consider solutions to -- policy problems of the world around
us.
Policy studies focuses on the contours of the problem solving process,
where sifting and sorting information drawn from various disciplines
and
diverse perspectives is systematically synthesized into a coherent view
of the world so that one can better understand what is wrong, and what
might make it better.
j
hoefler 05.21.06
|
Policy Studies home page 
