Students and Professors Present Policy Research Shop Model at SPPC Academic Conference

On June 3, 2011, PRS students Travis Blalock '12 and Brian Freeman '11 and Professors Ron Shaiko, Serena Laws, and David Glick described the Policy Research Shop to a group of one hundred professors and graduate students attending the 2011 State Politics and Policy Conference (SPPC 2011) at Dartmouth. Professor Shaiko set the context for the Policy Research Shop by describing the Rockefeller Center as active "in and out of the classroom, on and off campus". He proceeded to describe the structure of the Public Policy Minor, emphasizing the co-curricular opportunities available at each stage. Professors Laws and Glick then spoke about PBPL 45 and PBPL 48, the two gateway classes to the Policy Research Shop. Finally, Travis and Brian spoke about their experiences working on projects in the shop. After the presentation, the group fielded questions from the audience on how projects are chosen, where the model has been successfully replicated, and how many students choose to transition from the classroom to the PRS.

The Rockefeller Center cosponsored SPPC 2011, the annual gathering of the State Politics and Policy Section of the American Political Science Association. The Section publishes State Politics and Policy Quarterly (SPPQ), the premier publication outlet for original research on state politics and policy. SPPQ publishes high quality academic studies that develop and test general hypotheses of political behavior and policymaking, exploiting the unique advantages of the states.