Fund:

Public Policy Scholarship Fund

Department:

SPP Dean's Office Dept D01313

Purpose:

Undergraduate Student Support

History and Purpose:

This is a brand-new program being offered for the first time ever at UCR. Indeed, despite the popularity of public policy masters programs at U.S. universities, undergraduate public policy majors and minors are not commonly found at most colleges. Only a handful of universities around the country Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, USC, and Brown offer such programs. Indeed, UCR is the only UC campus to offer a public policy major. (UCLA offers a minor but not major in public policy).

Public policy is the study of policy-making how policies are and should be made to serve the public interest, how policies should be designed and implemented to have the desired impact on individuals and communities, and how policies should be monitored and evaluated to see if they are having the desired impacts. The field of policy analysis has become critically important as societies have grown more complex and as governments and public organizations increasingly play a more active role in addressing social problems and influencing the quality of people¿s lives. Policies are increasingly developed on the basis of information about household and community behavior, and programs and projects are regularly subjected to scientific evaluations and assessments.

By its very nature, public policy is inter-disciplinary in scope. Thus, for instance, health problems in society have to draw upon developments in philosophy, economics, political science, medicine, and ethics (among other disciplines). Likewise, science and technology policy has to be based on science, ethics, economics, and philosophy, among other disciplines.

The UCR public policy has six tracks: health/population policy, social/cultural/family policy, economic policy, urban/environmental policy, policy institutions and processes, and international/foreign policy. Courses from 12 departments can be used to satisfy the program requirements anthropology, economics, environmental sciences, ethnic studies, film and visual culture, history, political science, philosophy, psychology, religious studies, sociology, and women's studies.

Selection and Guidelines:

To award scholarships to undergraduate students with a major in Public Policy.
Student needs to be a public policy major (not minor)
Student should have within-major GPA of 3.5 or better
Student needs to have taken PBPL 001
Preference for students who have completed an internship (PBPL 198I), although this is not a requirement
Student should submit a one-page letter, indicating their interest in and reasons for pursuing public policy studies.


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