Mar 28, 2024  
2019 - 2020 Academic Catalog 
    
2019 - 2020 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

Policy Studies Concentration


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Policy Studies

Chair(s):

William Ferguson

This interdisciplinary concentration aims to provide students with the tools to analyze policymaking processes and implementation and to evaluate policy decisions and outcomes from multiple perspectives. The concentration will take an interdisciplinary approach to case-study analysis and student research.

Students who intend to declare a policy studies concentration must, at the time of declaration, design a curricular concentration plan, which indicates how the student will meet concentration requirements 1–6 listed below. Ideally, student plans will utilize students’ major or other curricular interests as a focus for policy analysis and develop some expertise in a specific policy area. However, in order to ensure the interdisciplinary nature of the concentration, students may not count more than eight credits from any one department (including methods courses) toward the concentration.

Concentration requirements: 22 or 24 credits as follows:


1. Foundation Course: 4 credits


2. Empirical Methods Course: 4 credits


One from the following list:

3. Humanistic and Scientific Context of Policy-Making: 4 credits


Take at least one course from the Humanistic and Scientific Context List. The concentration will periodically revise this list on-line.

Recommendations:

  • This course should be taken prior to PST 320 - Applied Policy Analysis .
  • Students with majors in the Division of Social Studies should take at least two courses from this list (one humanities course and one science course).
  • Students with majors in the Division of Humanities should take at least one science course from this list.
  • Students with majors in the Division of Science should take at least one humanities course from this list.
  • Students who wish to pursue policy research projects (see item 6) in the sciences or humanities will be encouraged to take additional relevant courses from the list.

4. Institutional Context of Policy: 4 credits


Take at least one of the following:

  • One course from the Institutional Context List below. The concentration will periodically revise this list online.
  • A Two- or four-credit internship with prior committee approval, which must be supervised through an existing Grinnell college program such as Grinnell-in-Washington, D.C. or Grinnell-in-London.

5. Applied Policy Analysis: 4 credits


6. Research project: 2 or 4 credits


Either one of the following, with a prerequisite of: PST 320 - Applied Policy Analysis 

  • A two-credit research project PST 420 
  • A four-credit Mentored Advanced Project (MAP) POL 499 with prior committee approval

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