GSPA

This new core class provides students with an overview of governmental policy-making processes. At the beginning of the class, we touch on some of the basic approaches and assumptions of traditional policy analysis. This course, however, is not intended be to a course on "How to be a policy analyst." Instead, we recognize that policy-making in the United States occurs in a great number of venues and involves all types of individuals and groups. Our focus is complex constitutional and political context that public administrators must understand to develop and implement effective policy at all levels of government. The goal of this broader study of "policy-making" is not to develop analytical expertise, but to give practitioners the knowledge they need about the policy process and about important policy issues.

Dr. Julia Robinson has over twenty years executive management experience in health and human service agencies in Wyoming and Montana. She served as the cabinet level director of the Montana Department for Social and Rehabilitation Services from 1989 to 1993. In this position, she was responsible for annual budgets of over $400 million in state and federal funds and 900 staff, serving diverse populations across a large geographic area.

Dr. Robinson has won state, regional and national awards for policy initiatives for the developmentally disabled, troubled youth, welfare reform and health care. She served as the coordinator of the Tenth Circuit Court Task Force on Gender Bias and Sexual Assault (1995). Her articles on policy have appeared in Public Administration Review and The Journal for Children and Poverty.