Inside the Evans School (Winter Quarter 2012)
Below is a list of our newest course offerings at the Evans School this Winter:
PBAF 599D--Prize Philanthropy and Innovation: Gaming for Global Development
In 2004, the Ansari X PRIZE for suborbital spaceflight captured the public's imagination, leveraging a $10M prize into over $100M in innovation. Now the X PRIZE Foundation is developing new prizes to focus innovation around other "Grand Challenge" themes, including genomics, energy, health care, and education. Around the world, prizes are gathering steam as tools for public policy, as well as philanthropy and corporate innovation.
Our special Winter 2012 workshop and interdisciplinary Spring X PRIZE course challenge you to apply the tools of gaming and social media to develop revolutionary breakthroughs in global development. This is not a theoretical exercise, but a real opportunity to design a $10M prize for incentivizing high-leverage breakthroughs while adding essential tools to your innovation toolkit. Together with industry leaders and maverick innovators, we will examine the intersection of incentives and innovation, drawing on economic models, historic examples, and analytic tools, and pitch your ideas to members of the X PRIZE Foundation.
- F: January 6, February 24, and March 2. One of the two last meetings will be an all-day workshop (9am-4pm in Parrington Hall). Class meetings outside the workshop will be held in MGH 287, 1-3:50pm
- Instructor: A. Bostrom
PBAF 599E--Politics of Health Policy
This is an exciting time in the world of health policy. With the passage of landmark federal health legislation in 2010, we are entering a new frontier of reform efforts and relationships between key actors in the arenas of both health and politics. The answers to fundamental questions about the implementation of health insurance reform will rely on the interplay of the public health, health care, and political institutions of the U.S. This course introduces students to the ways in which the public health and health care systems are organized, financed and delivered in the U.S. in concert with how national and state political institutions influence and reflect these systems. We will discuss past, present, and potential solutions to improving the performance of the U.S. health system, as well as actual and possible pitfalls to health reform attempts. Throughout the course, we will analyze new and emerging issues in light of the past. Important concepts and the logic underlying the impact of politics on health policy will be surveyed focusing on the emergence, definition, and framing of health policy problems and solutions. The concepts in this course will be considered via case studies, class discussion, and the development and provision of policy analyses and testimonies.
- M, 11:00am-1:50pm
- Instructor: P. McCann
PBAF 509A—Managing People in Public and Nonprofit Organizations
Managing people in public and non-profit organizations can be both rewarding and challenging at the same time. This class will provide students with a basic knowledge of the employment laws impacting the employee-manager relationship as well as develop basic skills related to developing job descriptions, interviewing potential employees, and managing performance. Through the use of case studies, class exercises, readings, and researching of issues impactingmanagement in public and non-profit organizations, this class will provide the base-line knowledge necessary for front-line managers, while also recognizing the challenges inherent in managing people within these sectors.
- W, 12:30-3:20pm
- Instructor: M. Kornberg
PBAF 569A--Race and Public Policy
This course examines diversity as broader than race/ethnicity in the development and implementation of public policy. The history of diversity-related policy-making and the social construction of groups targeted by such policies will be explored. While course reading and discussion will focus on domestic policy processes, global perspectives on diversity will be considered.
Course readings and discussions will focus on definitions of diversity and multiculturalism in a democracy. We will examine why public policy on diversity is relevant in a pluralist society. Dimensions of diversity to be covered include religion, gender, race/ethnicity, tribal affiliation, disabilities, sexual orientation and socio-economic status. Each week the class will focus on a unique dimension of diversity, including a historical review of policy-making, current perspectives and challenges for policy implementation.
- T, 6:00-8:50pm
- Instructor: S. Edwards Lange