Prof. David Mednicoff (Center for Public Policy and Administration and Social Thought and Political Economy) will teach a new course this spring, Public Policy and Law a Decade after 9/11/01 (CPPA 613).
This course analyzes topical issues of U.S. and global policy under a common theme. Its goal is to allow highly qualified graduating seniors and public policy graduate students to learn and apply theories of public policy formulation and law. The course is both an intensive practical exercise in interdisciplinary policy analysis for students, and a means of bringing diverse members of the university and broader community together around policy and legal analysis. Taught as a seminar, the course is required by seniors entering the new UMass accelerated Master of Public Policy program, which awards a recognized professional policy degree in one additional year after the bachelor’s to a select group of outstanding, highly motivated area students.
The theme of this year’s seminar is “Public Policy a Decade after 9/11/01.” We consider three different and timely issues of public policy, each of which has emerged as cogent in light of the attacks on U.S. targets 10 years ago. The issues are (1) the relationship between law, national security, civil liberties and surveillance in the U.S., (2) Islam, national identity and migration policy in Europe and the U.S., and (3) the 2011 Arab uprisings and their implications for U.S. policy.