PPOL101 Democracy and Public Policy
This course
examines the American policy process by
interrogating a number of domestic policy
issues—affirmative action, poverty and welfare,
HIV/AIDS, health care, labor/workplace,
education, community development, and
environmental concerns. Students examine all of
these issues from various perspectives, including
the modern conservative, modern liberal, and
radical/democratic socialist, with particular
attention to the role of the federal government in
the policy process. Students have the opportunity
to confront their own roles within the American
policy process from a critical perspective.
Students discuss, too, the role of the policy
analyst in a democratic society and consider the
interdisciplinary nature of public policy analysis.
(Rimmerman, offered annually)
Typical readings: Katznelson, When Affirmative Action was White; Olasky, Compassionate Conservatism; Rimmerman, The New Citizenship: Unconventional Politics, Activism, and Service; Levenson, The Story of AIDS and Black America; Ehrenreich, Nickle and Dimed; Kozol, Savage Inequalities; Schlosser, Fast Food Nation; Speth, Red Sky at Morning.
PPOL219 Sexual Minority Movements and Public Policy
This course explores the rise of the
lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered
movements from both contemporary and
historical perspectives. The course addresses the
sources of these movements, the barriers that
they have faced, and how they have mobilized to
overcome these barriers. Students devote
considerable attention to the response of the
Christian Right to the policy issues that are a
focus of this course—HIV/AIDS, same-sex
marriage, integration of the military, education
in the schools, and workplace discrimination.
Finally, students address how the media and
popular culture represent the many issues
growing out of this course (Rimmerman, offered
alternate years)
Typical readings: Boylan, She’s Not There; Blasius and Phelan, eds., We Are Everywhere; Walters, All the Rage; Rimmerman, From Identity to Politics: The Lesbian and Gay Movements in the United States; Bull, ed., AIDS: While the World Sleeps; Chauncey, Why Marriage?; Bawer, Place at the Table: The Gay Individual in American Society; Lorde, Sister Outsider; Boykin, Beyond the Down Low.
PPOL328 Environmental Policy
This course assesses
the capability of the American policy process to
respond to energy and environmental concerns
in both the short and long term. It examines the nature of the problem in light of recent research
on global warming, pollution and acid rain, solid
waste management, and deforestation. Students
interrogate the values of a liberal capitalist
society as they pertain to our environmental
problematic from a number of perspectives:
modern conservative, modern liberal, democratic
socialist/radical, ecofeminist, and
doomsday perspectives. Students evaluate which
perspective or combination of perspectives offers
the most coherent and rigorous response to the
policy and moral and ethical issues growing out
of this course. Students assess the development
and accomplishments of the environmental
movement over time. The goal is to evaluate
how the American policy process works in light
of one of the most significant public policy issues
of our time. (Rimmerman, offered alternate years)
Typical readings: Speth, Red Sky at Morning; Bradsher, High and Mighty: The Dangerous Rise of the SUV; Rifkin, Beyond Beef; Anderson and Leal, Free Market Environmentalism, Shutkin, The Land that Could Be: Environmentalism and Democracy in the Twenty-First Century; Seager, Earth Follies; Vig and Kraft, eds., Environmental Policy: New Directions for the Twenty-First Century.
PPOL364 Social Policy and Community Activism
This is a course about social policy and
community participation and activism; it is also
a course about democracy, community,
education, and difference. All students are
required to be fully engaged in a semester-long
community activism/service project. Students
have an opportunity to reflect upon how their
participation in the community influences their
own lives, their perspectives on democracy, and
their understanding of democratic citizenship. In
addition, students examine contemporary social
policy issues—HIV/AIDS, health care,
affirmative action, welfare, and education
policies from a number of ideological perspectives
and from the perspective of how these
issues are played out on our campus and in the
Geneva, N.Y., communities. (Rimmerman,
offered alternate years)
Typical readings: Katz, The Price of Citizenship: Redefining the American Welfare State; Murray, Losing Ground; Rimmerman, The New Citizenship: Unconventional Politics, Activism, and Service; Cohen, The Boundaries of Blackness: AIDS and the Breakdown of Black Politics; Quadagno, One Nation Uninsured; Kozol, The Shame of the Nation; Sunderman, Kim, and Orfield, NCLB Meets School Realities: Lessons from the Field
PPOL385 The Workshop in Public Policy This
course has a public policy research emphasis.
The specific issue is chosen at the start of each
semester and students spend the semester studying the topic, analyzing the policy
implications and designing alternative solutions
or recommendations for public policy action.
The course is designed for public policy majors/
minors and it serves to satisfy the program
requirements for a capstone course and
practicum. See instructor for a list of potential
topics. Prerequisites: Public Policy major or
minor or permission of instructor. (McGuire,
offered occasionally)
PPOL499 Internship in Public Policy Studies
The
public policy internship is designed to provide
students with an opportunity to provide students
with an opportunity to connect their classroom
study of public policy to the real world of policy
making. In doing so, students draw upon the
analytical, methodological, and substantive
training that they have received in the public
policy process. (Staff, offered annually)
For more information, contact:
Craig Rimmerman, Professor of Public Policy and Political Science, ext. 3435, 308 Stern Hall
