Oct 11
Thanks to the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis and NASPAA for the 2018 Award for Best Comparative Pedagogy Project, for the Strategies for Governing course that I taught within the School of Public Policy last summer. Left: Professor Nadia Rubaii presents the award. More information about the course here.
Sep 22
I’ll talk about my “Strategies for Governing” course during the JPCA-NASPAA workshop on comparative perspectives in teaching, to be held in Atlanta on October 10. Details about the workshop here.
This file provides background material for my presentation: including an explanation of the approach, the syllabus, course webpages, samples of completed assignments, and the course evaluation.
This video provided a short introduction to the course.
Powerpoint slides for my presentation to the workshop.
I’ll teach a new online course for the UMass Amherst School of Public Policy in Summer 2018: PPA 697SG Strategies for Governing. Details about the course here. The draft syllabus is here. There is a four-minute introductory video here. The course is an elective within our new one-year MPP.
![IMG_0668[1]](https://alasdairroberts.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/img_06681.jpg?w=275&h=206)
Professor Brint Milward of the University of Arizona visited with PhD students in my Governance and Public Affairs class this morning. Professor Milward discussed his work on dark networks as well as his working paper on the neglect of the state in public management research.
Professor Don Kettl of the University of Maryland visited with students in my PhD course on Governance and Public Affairs this morning. We had a great conversation, focusing mainly on Professor Kettl’s book The Next Government of the United States.
Two commentaries written by students in my Law and Public Policy class have proved to be newsworthy. As this story explains, Governor Deval Patrick has just signed legislation that was discussed by Erica Mattison, JD ’13 in a commentary published in Rappaport Briefing last year. And as this story explains, Governor Patrick has also approved regulations that would ban the shackling of inmates in labor, a practice discussed by Hilary Detmold JD ’12 in a 2012 commentary for Rappaport Briefing. The commentaries can be read here.
Massachusetts House Speaker Robert DeLeo talked about his work to my Law and Public Policy class this morning. It was a great conversation.
In June I completed a seminar on Public Sector Reform in the MPA program of the School of Policy Studies at Queen’s University. The aim was to review and assess the main elements of public sector reforms during the age of neoliberalism (roughly 1978 to 2008.) We had a great discussion. The question for the final short paper was: The ‘crisis of governability’ of the 1970s produced a new paradigm about the role and organization of government that guided reform over the next three decades. What do you think is the most important legacy of this period?
Excerpts from the responses: Read more
Today’s Law and Public Policy class featured two speakers on the Mass state government’s policy agenda for the coming year: Rosemary Powers, Senior Director of Government Affairs in the office of Governor Deval Patrick, and Michael Morris, Principal at Beacon Strategies Group. The conversation was hosted by Greg Massing, Executive Director of the Rappaport Center. Photo, left to right: Powers, Morris, Massing.
The first student commentary produced for the Spring 2012 Rappaport Briefing is now available on rappaportbriefing.net. Written by Eva Shell, the commentary examines challenges in serving English language learners in Massachusetts. The commentaries are based on research papers written by students for my Law and Public Policy class in Fall 2011.
Alasdair S. Roberts 
