Mission
The Master of Arts in Policy Studies provides a transformative graduate experience enabling students to translate interdisciplinary understandings into the professional competence essential to making practical, substantive contributions to their policy communities. The curriculum blends a strong theoretical base with practical field and applied experiences, allowing students to develop rigorous policy research, analysis, and management skills that can shape policy in for-profit, non-profit, and governmental contexts.
Objectives
- To enhance intellectual growth through a cohort learning community model
- To foster a public service identity through applied research
- To develop analytical and synthetic thinking skills through training in quantitative and qualitative methodologies and a generalist module-based curriculum in policy studies
- To engage in research in a wide range of policy arenas
- To make connections within and among disciplines through critical thinking, problem solving, modeling of policy work
- To help students gain a mastery of policy studies that is competent, critical, and curious
- To prepare students for further graduate education and to improve their career opportunities in policy fields