Spring 2014 State & Hill: A Century of Impact - 100 Years of Policy at Michigan

A Century of Impact 100 Years of

Policy at Michigan

&The Magazine of The

Gerald r. Ford School oF Public Policy

From Our Corner to the Four Corners of the Globe

SPRING 2014

Regents of the University of MichiganMark J. Bernstein, Ann Arbor

Julia Donovan Darlow, Ann Arbor

Laurence B. Deitch, Bloomfield Hills

Shauna Ryder Diggs, Grosse Pointe

Denise Ilitch, Bingham Farms

Andrea Fischer Newman, Ann Arbor

Andrew C. Richner, Grosse Pointe Park

Katherine E. White, Ann Arbor

Mary Sue Coleman, ex officio

State & Hill

Dean: Susan M. Collins

Associate Dean: Alan V. Deardorff

Director of Communications/Executive Editor:

Laura K. Lee (MPP ’96)

Associate Editor and Lead Writer: Erin Spanier

Contributors: Kat Bergman, William Foreman,

Elisabeth Johnston, Tom O’Mealia,

Zach Petroni (BA ’13), Erin Sullivan (MPP ’13),

Katie Trevathan

Design: Savitski Design

Photographers: Peter Smith,

Michigan Photography

Printer: University Lithoprinters, Inc.

Let us know what you think:

[email protected], or Editor,

State & Hill, Ford School,

University of Michigan,

735 S. State Street,

Ann Arbor, MI 48109-3091

As we celebrate 100 years of preparing graduates for careers in public service, we’ve been exploring our school’s history and uncovering some marvelous stories. We’ve dedicated a full ten pages of this issue

to a photo-rich walk through that history: the Progressive Era origins of our master’s program in 1914; the revolutionary sixties, when we shifted our focus from administration to policy; and the powerful role of new media today.

But choosing a dozen events a decade, on average, is no simple task. Of course you include the firsts—first director, first alumnus, first alumna, first Detroit internships, first endowment, and more—but what else goes in? What’s left out?

Ultimately, we chose to include steps forward, like our Bureau of Government Research, and steps back, like the fire that destroyed much of that bureau’s collections. We chose to include ongoing commitments, like the fact that pro-fessional experiences have been a required part of our curriculum from the start and that applied policy engagement is just as important now as it was in 1914. And we chose to include some of the world events that shaped today’s policies, and today’s policy challenges.

We also decided to include a number of stories that offer a flavor of our people, and our community. For the last 100 years, our school has prized people and community. The warmth and camaraderie here is palpable, and we hope that it will always be a part of what makes our school such a special place.

What have we left out? Far too much. Partly, because our research continues and partly because we’re out of space. As such, our plan is to release a far more thorough timeline during our 100th anniversary reunion at the end of October. That version, which will be permanently available online, can go on and on and on. And we hope that it will include many of the stories, memories, and photographs you share with us between now and then, and those you make with us in the years ahead.

Among the items that I know will be included in future timelines are the programs and initiatives made possible with your support of our Next Century campaign. Toward that end, this issue also includes two campaign-related articles. One, about our very first endowment for student support, illustrates the power of endowments to last and grow. The other, about alum Peter Borish’s (AB ’81, MPP ’82) philanthropic ventures, highlights an equally powerful approach to philanthropy.

As always, I invite you to reach out and share news of your lives and accomplishments. And please, take a moment to mark your calendars for a phenomenal Centennial Reunion celebration this fall. We hope to see you there.

Sincerely,

SuSan M. CollinSJoan and Sanford Weill Dean of Public Policy

The University of Michigan, as an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer, complies with all applicable

federal and state laws regarding nondiscrimination and affirmative action. The University of Michigan is

committed to a policy of equal opportunity for all persons and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color,

national origin, age, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, disability, religion,

height, weight, or veteran status in employment, educational programs and activities, and admissions. Inquiries

or complaints may be addressed to the Senior Director for Institutional Equity, and Title IX/Section 504/ADA Co-

ordinator, Office of Institutional Equity, 2072 Administrative Services Building, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1432,

734-763-0235, TTY 734-647-1388. For other University of Michigan information call 734-764-1817.

2 g E r A L D r . F O r D S C H O O L O F P U B L I C P O L I C y

&S p r i n g 2 0 1 4

The Magazine of The

Gerald r. Ford School

oF Public Policy

A century of impact 4From the Progressive Era to the era of dissent and beyond

Skin in the game 14Elisabeth Gerber and students provide a service to public sector clients

Fighting poverty like an IPPSter 18Peter Borish applies analytics and creativity to for-profit and not-for-profit endeavors alike

Hauling charcoal, studying conservation in Kenya 20Zach Petroni on including people in the conservation equation

What every alderman should know (about endowments) 24New endowed funds for the next century of student support

in additionThe Danziger legacy 16

Discourse, Ford School faculty in the news 17

Soundbites, overheard @ Ford School events 22

Hybrid Justice and Armed with Expertise 23

Staebler: Call for nominations 29

The Centennial Reunion 31

DepartmentsFaculty News & Awards 26

Class Notes 28

The Last Word 30

Ph

oT

o: L

AR

Ry

Co

LLiN

SP

ho

To

: BE

NT

LEy

hiS

To

RiC

AL

LiB

RA

Ry,

UN

ivE

RS

iTy

oF

MiC

hiG

AN

Ann Arbor, circa 1914

Policy students strike a pose, 1948 and 1995

Ford100Ford100Ford100Ford100

A century of impact. Policy at Michigan.

1913 Reflecting Progressive Era frustrations with government inefficiency and corruption, Jesse S. Reeves, chair of the University

of Michigan’s political science department, proposes America’s

first master’s in municipal administration.

While Reeves is primarily focused on international law (and in 1930 will serve as a technical advisor at

the League of Nations Hague Conference), he believes “that

the University has a distinct opportunity, not only in offering a public service to the people of the state [of Michigan]…but in leading the way in the training of municipal experts.”

16th Amendment permits a graduated income tax.

1914 University of Michigan announces the nation’s first graduate degree in municipal administration; a three-month professional experience in municipal governance is required for graduation. Robert T. Crane, who served as consul in Argentina and Guadalupe, is appointed director.

A Bureau of Reference and Research in Government is established to ensure that courses are tied to the most pressing issues faced by municipal government leaders.

First joint master’s degree, in public works administration, offered with the University’s engineering department. Many more will follow.

President Woodrow Wilson signs the Federal Trade Commission Act on September 26, 1914. The Federal Reserve System, established at the end of 1913, begins operations.

1916 Lent D. Upson, first director of the Detroit Bureau of Government Research, is recruited to teach weekly seminars in municipal governance and to coordinate student internships in Detroit. His starting salary: $0. Later, the bureau will become the Citizen’s Research Council of Michigan. “The right to criticize government,” says Upson, “is also an obligation to know what you are talking about.”

1917 Capen A. Fleming becomes the first student to earn the Master of Municipal Administration degree. Following graduation, the Kansas native moves to San Francisco, where he will serve as manager of the Chamber of Commerce Department of Industry.

United States declares war against Germany on April 6; Selective Service Act signed into law on May 18.

1919 Over the last two years, World War I has prevented many students from continuing their studies; no municipal administration degrees are conferred this year.

The University of Michigan opens the Michigan Union building. It’s a gathering space, but only for men.

Versailles Peace Treaty signed on June 28; League of Nations established to promote world peace.

1920 19th Amendment is ratified on August 18, giving American women the right to vote.

One hundred and one years ago, Jesse S. Reeves responded to

America’s frustrations with government inefficiency by calling

on the University of Michigan to offer advanced degrees in

public administration. The University responded to that call,

and has never looked back, never stopped leading, never stopped serving.

In celebration of our centennial anniversary, we offer a walk through our

history—from IPA to IPPS; from SPP to the Ford School; from our first

female alum to our 100th anniversary class.

By Erin Spanier

The Michigan Union, c. 1923

Reeves, c.1925

Fleming’s student registration card

Draft registration, 1917PhoTo: LoC, LC-DiG-GGBAiN-24572

Wayne County Building, downtown DetroitPhoTo: LoC, LC-DiG-DET-4A24394

UN

ioN

, RE

Ev

ES

, AN

D R

EG

iST

RA

Tio

N C

AR

D P

ho

To

S: B

EN

TLE

y h

iST

oR

iCA

L Li

BR

AR

y, U

Niv

ER

SiT

y o

F M

iCh

iGA

N


Ford100Ford100Ford100Ford100A century of impact. Policy at Michigan. “The right to criticize government is also an obligation

to know what you are talking about.” Lent D. Upson

1922 Thomas H. Reed takes over as director, serving for the next twelve years. Reed is an academic

who taught at Berkeley, but also a municipal government leader who served as city manager of San Jose, California and executive secretary to California Governor Hiram Johnson. Reed places emphasis on practical municipal problems.

Reed continues the commitment to hands-on professional development

opportunities for students, “You can’t teach all there is to know about managing a city academically. You cannot put it in the form of lectures, or get it into a textbook, and give it to a young man, and let him read it, and send him out a full-fledged city manager. He has to cut his eye-teeth upon some kind of a city manager problem.”

1927 Charlotte Mary Conover Jones becomes first alumna. As field secretary for the Dayton Ohio League of Women Voters, Conover Jones helps coordinate citizenship schools for women, an active lecture series, and municipal research projects for local leaders.

A number of international students graduate this year, including Rudolfo Kawi Hidalgo, from the Besao Mountain Province of the Philippines. Hidalgo, the son of a rice farmer, will go on to represent his district in

the Philippine Legislature.

1929 In response to pressure from alumnae, the University of Michigan opens the Michigan League—it’s open to students, faculty, and staff, but only women.

Stock market crashes on October 29; Great Depression will soon follow.

1931 Ione Dority (AB ’23, ABLS ’27) is hired to build the research collection in public administration. By 1940, she’s gathered 25,000 books and documents and nearly 50,000 pamphlets. The material is broad in scope, but Dority places special emphasis on materials of relevance to the State of Michigan.

1933 Franklin Delano Roosevelt inaugurated on March 4: “... A host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return,” he says. “This nation asks for action, and action now.”

1934 A grant from the Horace H. Rackham estate allows the Bureau of Government to expand research programs; bureau begins work on an analysis of fiscal policy during the Great Depression.

1935 The degree program is discontinued for two years due to low enrollment during the Great Depression, but Harold D. Smith, a 1925 alumnus, runs the research bureau while serving as first director of the Michigan Municipal League.

Smith goes on to serve as budget director for the state of Michigan, then as budget director for the U.S. under Franklin D. Roosevelt. He oversees the U.S. budget from the end of the Great Depression

to the launch of the United Nations and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, part of today’s World Bank.

The Social Security Act of August 14 provides aid for the elderly and others in need.

1936 The Institute of Public and Social Administration is formed by an interdepartmental committee. The goal: to expand the curricular focus from municipal administration to public administration more broadly.

A Charles Stewart Mott Foundation grant allows for another expansion of Bureau of Government research. The primary focus: Michigan taxation and finance. Publications offer a condensed analysis of property tax delinquency, retail sales tax, highway finance, and more.

1939 It’s been twenty-five years since the launch of the Master of Municipal Administration degree program. All told, only sixty-seven students have earned the degree, an average of three per year.

World War II begins as Germany invades Poland.

Help us tell your story: fordschool.um

ich.edu/100-reunion/mem

oriesThe Michigan Union, c. 1923

Left: Charlotte Mary Conover Jones (circled) in Dayton Daily News, May 1, 1921PhoTo: DAyToN METRo LiBRARy

Thomas h. Reed, c. 1920s

hidalgo

RE

ED

, hiD

ALG

o P

ho

To

S: B

EN

TLE

y h

iST

oR

iCA

L Li

BR

AR

y, U

Niv

ER

SiT

y o

F M

iCh

iGA

N

harold D. Smith on the cover of TIME,

June 14, 1943

Ph

oT

o: T

IME

MA

GA

ZiN

E

S TAT E & H I L L 5


IPA1940 Mary Ellen Heitsch Ward graduates. The only female in her class, she’s announced as “Mr. Heitsch” at commencement. She is engaged in public service and administration ever after, and becomes a particularly passionate advocate for people living with disabilities, a cause she serves for more than five decades.

1941 World War II interrupts the studies of many students and class offerings are reduced. The required professional experience is maintained through a partnership with the Michigan Civil Service Commission.

1944 Bretton Woods Conference is held July 1–22, gathering hundreds of delegates from Allied Nations to regulate monetary practices.

1945 The United Nations is formed on October 24.

1946 The Institute of Public Administration is born, led by an interdisciplinary executive committee of deans and directors.

1947 June 5, Marshall Plan pledges support to European nations to rebuild after WWII.

1949 The October Newsletter to Graduates reports, “If we get very much prouder of all our graduates, we’ll be bursting at the seams… we can boast of 2 city managers, 3 administrative assistants to city managers, 3 “professors,” 11 in state government, 2 at Washington, as well as numerous graduates scattered through personnel and planning agencies, citizens’ groups, research offices, etc. from Maine to California. Not bad, for a post-war crop…”

Gerald R. Ford runs for his first public office to support the Marshall Plan—wins his U.S. Congressional seat with an impressive 60.5 percent of the vote.

1950 John W. Lederle serves as director from 1950-1960 when he leaves to become president of the University of Massachusetts. A former Detroit lawyer, Lederle consults for the United States House and Senate and serves on a number of state boards and commissions.

In an arrangement with the U.S. Department of State, the institute hosts eleven young German administrators for a five-month democracy program.

Haven Hall burns down. No one is badly hurt, but the Bureau of Government collections suffer extensive damage. About a third of the collection is beyond recovery, much of the rest is water-logged.

1952 U.S. Agency for International Development grant allows faculty to help establish the National College of Public Administration and Governance at the University of the Philippines. Letters from Manilla discuss the resurrection of Rizal Hall (after WWII bombing damage), residential and in-service courses for current and future public servants, a growing library, and more.

1953 Larry Mohr (MPA ’63, PhD ’66) meets Odetta at a North Beach bar in San Francisco. The two will go on to record the live folk/blues album, Odetta and Larry (aka The Tin Angel), released by Fantasy Records the following year. From 1966 until his retirement in 1999, Larry will teach scores of aspiring public servants at U-M.

1957 The institute opens a field office on the ninth floor of the Bank of Lansing building. Lansing staff coordinate research projects for state clients and organize internships for public administration students.

1958 Institute staff conduct a comparative study of prison camps in Canada and the U.S., as well as several state studies on administrative service growth, workmen’s compensation, natural resources management, controls on state agency spending, and more.

Ward, center, late 1930s

Ph

oT

o: U

N P

ho

To

/yo

ULD

Ford’s first campaign

Ph

oT

o: G

ER

ALD

R. Fo

RD

PR

ES

iDE

NT

iAL LiB

RA

Ry

GR

AP

hiC

: US

AiD

iPA faculty with Filipino administrators, c. 1952

iPA

AN

D K

EN

NE

Dy

Ph

oT

oS

: BE

NT

LEy

hiS

To

RiC

AL

LiB

RA

Ry,

UN

ivE

RS

iTy

oF

MiC

hiG

AN

PhoTo: CoNCoRD MUSiC GRoUP



1960 Ferrel Heady, one of the founders of comparative public administration, is appointed director of the institute. He believes that all public administration students should be knowledgeable about the governance systems used abroad, and advocates for incorporating a comparative perspective into all courses. In 1966, Heady publishes Public Administration: A Comparative Perspective, now in its sixth edition.

John F. Kennedy announces the concept of the Peace Corps during a Presidential campaign stop on the steps of the Michigan Union. “How many of you who are going to be doctors are willing to spend your days in Ghana?” he asked the students huddled around the steps. U-M students rally around the concept and more than a thousand pledge to serve.

1962 U.S. Agency for International Development contract sends IPA faculty to Taiwan to assist in the development of National Chengchi University’s Department of Public Administration.

1964 President Lyndon Johnson delivers “Great Society” speech at U-M commencement. “The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice….But that is just the beginning.”

Thomas H. Reed (director 1922-1934) returns for the 50th anniversary of the program. In the 1920s and early ’30s, says Reed, “we generally patted ourselves on the back that we were doing something unique here.” That’s no longer the case. Similar training programs have sprung up at a number of universities.

Nice prognosticating.

At a panel on the future of public administration, Deil S. Wright (MPA ’54, PhD ’57) sums up the first fifty years of research, and tries to peer ahead to 2014. Wright’s predictions include:

• high-speed computers will make it easier to handle scores of variables, and will reduce the effort and cost of analyzing data;

• greater methodological sophistication, more sophisticated theories, and more studies confirming causal relationships;

• a combined empirical-normative approach;

• a closer relationship to the policy process that will “force researchers to have a concern for value judgments based on the[ir] research findings;”

• better and more relevant information for decision-making, but no easy answers for administrators; and

• the continued growth of interdisciplinary studies and more research in which a given problem is approached simultaneously with different techniques.

Two-hundred and fifty-one students have graduated in the last 25 years, an average of ten per year.

Johnson signs Civil Rights Act on July 2, Economic Opportunity Act on August 20, Food Stamp Act on August 31, and others.

1965 University of Michigan faculty organize first teach-in to protest the war in Vietnam. Thousands of students attend. Teach-ins will follow at universities around the nation.

1967 Lansing field office closes. Ferrell Heady, director of the institute, recruited to the University of New Mexico.

November 29, Robert McNamara resigns his post as Secretary of Defense to lead the World Bank. McNamara and his “whiz kids” employed advanced statistical methods and systems analysis to streamline the Pentagon. They also contributed to the escalation of the Vietnam War.

1968 A comprehensive review of the institute is launched, led by an interdisciplinary advisory council that deliberates on the future of public administration. The council believes many practical skills can be learned on the job, and suggests refocusing the curriculum on “an analytic toolkit” and cutting-edge “problem-solving methodologies.”



ories

John F. Kennedy announces the Peace Corps

Bank of Lansing Building, home of the Lansing Field office

Ph

oT

o: B

ET

TM

AN

N/C

oR

BiS

S TAT E & H I L L 7

Ford100Ford100Ford100Ford100IPPS

Twenty-nine year old Pat Crecine is appointed director of the transitioning institute and serves in that capacity until 1973, when he’s recruited to Carnegie-Mellon where he’s first dean, then senior vice president and provost. In 1987, Crecine becomes the 9th president of Georgia Tech.

The Institute of Public Policy Studies (IPPS) is launched; it’s the nation’s first public policy degree program (others will soon follow). Crecine and his colleagues dramatically reshape the curriculum. The pioneering interdisciplinary social science core emphasizes economic and statistical analysis, an understanding of the political environment of policy, and the importance of organizations to successful implementation. This will become the gold-standard approach, employed by policy schools everywhere.

1970 U-M students protest war and discrimination. A massive teach-in on the environment is held in March, attracting roughly 50,000. Across the nation, the first Earth Day events on April 22 draw 20 million.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency established December 2.

1971 First Master of Public Policy degrees awarded.

1973 Vice President Spiro T. Agnew resigns and in his place, Richard Nixon appoints Gerald R. Ford (AB ’35, HLLD ’74). Nixon congratulates Betty Ford. “Congratulations? Or condolences?” she quips.

Japan begins to send competitively selected public administrators to IPPS for graduate study. More than 100 Japanese administrators will enroll in the program in the years ahead.

1974 Jack L. Walker serves as director of the Institute of Public Policy Studies from 1974–79. He encourages faculty to take leaves of absence to serve government agencies. “When faculty members return,” he says, they immediately see ways to improve the curriculum, “to better prepare students for entry into government.” He pushes to integrate realistic problem-solving exercises into policy courses.

IPPS PhD and postdoc programs are launched with gifts from the Ford Foundation and National Institute of Mental Health. Early graduates include Patrick Larkey (MPP ’71, PhD ’75), who goes on to direct the Department of Social and Decision Science at Carnegie-Mellon University and John Padgett (MA/MPP ’74, PhD ’78), who becomes professor of political science, history, and sociology at the University of Chicago.

Ford grants Nixon full pardon. Foreseeing a long litigation, bitter controversy, divisive national debate, and challenges to the credibility of government at home and abroad, Ford says, “It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it. I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must.”

1976 First endowment is established in honor of Arthur W. Bromage, a beloved faculty member and public administrator.

Ford signs the Government in Sunshine Act on September 13, narrowing the authority of agencies to withhold information from the public and requiring most agencies to give advance notice of meetings and to hold them openly.

1977 President Carter launches Presidential Management Intern Program to entice public management graduates into federal service. First IPPS PMIs are Andy Moxam and Stephen Deal. In the coming years, 141 alumni will accept Presidential Management Fellowships.

1978 John Chamberlin offers first seminar on ethical issues of concern to policymakers. This will become a core component of the school’s curriculum in the years ahead.

Robert Axelrod begins research for The Evolution of Cooperation (Basic Books, 1984). The book, which has been translated into 12 languages and is taught and read around the world, earns him a MacArthur Foundation genius grant (in 1987) and the first National Academy of Sciences award for “behavioral research relevant to the prevention of nuclear war.”

“IPPS Goes International.” Newsletter announces a new international track to prepare students for mid-level positions at USAID, the World Bank, the United Nations, and other agencies. All track instructors are named Bob: Bob Putnam, Bob Stern, Bob Axelrod, Bob Powell, and Alan “Bob” Deardorff, who teaches “International Economic Policy.”

“It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it.” Gerald Ford on the Nixon pardon

Crecine and colleagues

Walker with President Ford

Deardorff in Korean press



1979 Edward (Ned) M. Gramlich serves first stint as director of the institute from 1979-83. He’ll serve a second stint, too; then a third. A nationally recognized economist, Ned spends the next decades balancing prominent public service commissions (Governor of the Federal Reserve Board among them) with the mentoring and training of aspiring public servants.

Fifteen policy schools and research institutes become charter members of the Association of Public Policy and Management (APPAM); among them, the Institute of Public Policy Studies.

Department of Education Organization Act signed October 17.

1981 “IPPS Automates,” designing software to replace faculty, reports IPPS RIPPS, an irreverent student newsletter that stormed the institute from 1981-83. “Michael Cohen, found packing his bags for California, muttered, ‘I kept emphasizing the human factor and job satisfaction, but once they got rolling, there was no stopping them. They just kept screaming, ‘Efficiency, Automation, Computerization!’” Among the authors of IPPS RIPPS, Jeff Mackie-Mason (MPP ’82), now dean of the U-M School of Information.

1983 “Ned Gramlich, the Mr. Rogers of the policy world, is stepping down from his directorship as of July 1,” reports IPPS RIPPS. Paul Courant, “a man of different temperament, a modern-day (shorter) Rasputin, who has for years influenced the decisions of Milktoast Gramlich,” takes the reigns from 1983-1987. Later asked if he anticipates any significant changes in the structure of the institute, Courant responds, “Not really, Helene [McCarren] will still be running the place.”

Public Policy and International Affairs (PPIA) program is launched by the Sloan Foundation in a national effort to help underrepresented minorities prepare for leadership roles in public service. IPPS signs on, and has never looked back—a point of pride. During three decades, more than 15 percent of the 4,000 Public Policy and International Affairs Fellows will complete their studies in Ann Arbor. Alumni include Foreign Service officers with USAID, senior policy advisors to the United Nations, vice presidents at major corporations, program managers at national nonprofit advocacy groups, and more.

1985 Scientists discover hole in earth’s ozone.

1987 Edie Goldenberg becomes the first female director of the institute—during her two-year tenure, she helps to lay the groundwork for IPPS’s transition to a school. Edie’s next post? Dean of the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts— a role she’d fill for nearly a decade.

Elena Delbanco replaces Tish O’Dowd as IPPS’ part-time writing tutor. Increasing numbers of students turn to her for help and over time, additional writing instructors are hired. Today, three instructors teach writing courses and work one-on-one with the Ford School’s students. We’d like to say the school’s intense focus on policy writing is “unique,” but Delbanco outlawed that word here years ago.

“It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it.” Gerald Ford on the Nixon pardon



ories

Gramlich

Chamberlin

Courant

Goldenberg

S TAT E & H I L L 9

Ford100Ford100Ford100Ford100SPP

1989 With initial funding from the Rockefeller Foundation and ongoing support from the Ford Foundation, Sheldon Danziger organizes a postdoctoral training program on poverty and public policy for minority scholars.

Seventy-fifth anniversary of the program. In the last twenty-five years, 783 have graduated from the program, an average of 20 per year.

1990 Alumni/ae Advisory Board meets for the first time, “The advent of the Board is part of what I am coming to think of as the “growing up” of IPPS,” says Paul Courant, during one of several stints as director. “In addition to being a window on the practice,” Courant says, “I hope that the Board will also serve as a door (or, perhaps, as a Star Trek-like teleporter) between IPPS in Ann Arbor and IPPS in the rest of the world.”

“The IPPS computing center (i.e., closet) has recently become a much happier place,” reports the newsletter. Peter Borish (MPP ’82) donates six personal computers with printers and software for use by IPPS students.

National Affordable Housing Act, November 28.

1991 The Ford School Committee (originally, the Committee for IPPS), begins to meet regularly to promote and increase private support for the school’s students, research, and policy engagement. Michael Staebler (JD ’69), a senior partner with Pepper Hamilton LLP and son of former Democratic State Chairman Neil Staebler (AB ’26), serves as founding chair.

1992 IPPS News reports “Jim Levinsohn, Gary Solon, Elena Delbanco, Carl Simon, and Paul Courant, once again fail to come up with a funny holiday skit.” More (or less) entertaining holiday skits remain an ongoing tradition at the Ford School.

Energy Policy Act, October 24.

1993 NAFTA Implementation Act, December 8.

1994 Ned Gramlich, previously contracted by Major League Baseball for an analysis of economic questions of interest to players and owners, is tapped for a UM-Flint professor’s “Economists Trading Cards,” the academic equivalent of baseball cards, minus the gum.

1995 “Greetings from Ann Arbor, home of the new School of Public Policy,” opens the newsletter. The promotion to schooldom provides SPP with self-governance and most importantly, enables the school to hire faculty and grant tenure. Ned Gramlich becomes the school’s first dean.

Unfunded Mandates Reform Act, March 22; Lobbying Disclosure Act, December 19.

Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity house (at the corner of State and Hill Streets) burns down. The house will be razed, replaced by a parking lot, and will one day provide a site for the newly promoted school. Fraternity members support the construction efforts, and a study room is named in their honor.

1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, August 22.

1997 Last class of the millennium arrives; the class of 1999 includes 63 students. Forty-six percent are women, 27 percent are students of color, and 10 percent are international.

First official “Applied Policy Seminar” offered, putting students to work on a semester-long commissioned assignment for a public sector client. In 1997, students analyzed the revenue impacts of a city income tax for Ann Arbor. In 1998, they conducted research for a number of community-based development organizations in Detroit.

Ford School is accepted into the prestigious Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs; in 2013, Ford School Dean Susan M. Collins will be elected president.

1998 The Nonprofit and Public Management Center is launched in a joint venture with the schools of business and social work; Janet A. Weiss is founding co-director. Since 2010, nearly 200 Ford School students have participated in the center’s premier programs, including its Social Impact Challenge, nonprofit board fellowship program, and Social Innovation Summit.

Alumni Board meets with PPiA students, c. 1990


Ford100Ford100Ford100Ford100U.S. State Department sends the school its first Diplomat-in-Residence: Dan Turnquist, who speaks five languages and has spent a quarter-century working as a labor officer in nine different countries.

1999 Rebecca Blank becomes dean. During her tenure, the school will be renamed in honor of President Gerald R. Ford; launch a joint-PhD program and a new undergraduate degree; establish three major research centers; and construct a new building, Joan and Sanford Weill Hall, with contributions from hundreds of alumni and friends.

First Integrated Policy Exercise is taught by Ann Lin. The focus: sweatshop labor. The course became a required component of the curriculum, and has been taught annually ever since.

Students propose a new international economic development course. They’ll select a country for study, investigate its most pressing development issues, and plan a week-long spring break visit that will allow them to meet with policymakers. In the next ten years, roughly 250 students will participate, visiting Cuba, Ethiopia, Jordan, Peru, the Philippines, and other nations.

To honor and celebrate its most distinguished alum, the University of Michigan names the policy school after President Gerald R. Ford. In 2001, the school marks the occasion with a major naming ceremony at Hill Auditorium. Henry Kissinger delivers the keynote. The New York Times publishes a stirring letter from President Ford, publicly and forcefully voicing his support for affirmative action as the U.S. Supreme Court weighs a case against the University of Michigan’s admission practices. “I don’t want future college students to suffer the cultural and social impoverishment that afflicted my generation.”

2001 CLOSUP, the Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy, is founded with an allocation from the state legislature; Elisabeth Gerber is recruited as founding director. The goal: to ensure continuous engagement between U-M’s academic researchers and the stakeholders and policymakers working to address state, local, and urban policy problems.

Some $12 million is contributed to the school’s endowment fund this year, most gifts in honor of Gerald R. Ford. Endowment funds support a variety of initiatives, including faculty professorships, lectures and public speakers, a policymaker-in-residence program, and more.

Joint-PhD program established with economics, political science, and sociology; Mary Corcoran serves as founding director. In the first ten years, 38 students will earn the degree and find positions, some with policy organizations

and most with prestigious universities, including Duke, Harvard,

Princeton, and Yale

January 23, President George W. Bush signs bipartisan No Child Left Behind Act.

2002 Ford School receives a $5 million award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to host the National Poverty Center.

2004 A crowd watches on as President and Betty Ford join the groundbreaking ceremony for Joan and Sanford Weill Hall, the school’s future home. Newsletter reports, “Throughout the school’s nomadic history, home has been a state of mind.” Over the last 90 years, the school has taken refuge in the library, Angell Hall, the law building, Haven Hall, Rackham Building, Lorch Hall, the Huron Annex, the Oakland Annex (staff will throw rocks, quite literally, when it’s torn down) and, according to legend, a space above a nightspot called the Nectarine Ballroom.

Ford School begins U.S./China academic exchange with Renmin University’s School of Public Administration.



ories

international Economic Development Program students in Jordan

Blank with President Ford

Blank with Weill hall construction crew

S TAT E & H I L L 11

SPA

CE

Ph

oT

o: S

EA

WiF

S P

Ro

JEC

T, N

AS

A/G

oD

DA

RD

SPA

CE

FLi

Gh

T C

EN

TE

R, A

ND

oR

BiM

AG

E


Ford School

2005 The International Policy Center is founded to foster interdisciplinary research and education for policymaking in an increasingly globalized world.

2006 “Those of you who always thought that a student lounge consists of two couches at the end of the hallway? Come see the new graduate student lounge,” boasts Becky Blank, anticipating the construction of Weill Hall. “While our alumni, faculty, and current student body demonstrated an admirable ability to look beyond the physical in recognizing the Ford School’s attributes, future recruits will be spared that particular test.”

The Science, Technology, and Public Policy certificate program is launched; Shobita Parthasarathy and Jim Duderstadt (former U-M President) co-direct. Recipients have gone on to prestigious positions with the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Government Accountability Office, Department of Energy, New York City Mayor’s Office, and more.

The mayor of Ann Arbor, John Hieftje, is recruited to teach “Local Government, Opportunity for Activism.”

Gerald R. Ford is unable to attend the dedication of Joan and Sanford Weill Hall, but his prepared remarks are read by Steve Ford, his son. “In this era of spin and sound bites, of raised voices and clenched fists, it is easy to throw up one’s hands in exasperation or disgust. But whoever said that democracy is easy?”

2007 Susan M. Collins joins the Ford School as dean. An international economist and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, Collins’ research focuses on economic growth in developed and developing economies. At the Ford School she works to dramatically raise the school’s visibility by hosting more events and attracting high-profile speakers. The annual number of Ford School media

mentions quintuples during her tenure, from 500 in 2008 to 2,600 in 2013. Ben Bernanke visits in 2013 and over 11 million people see Twitter dialogue about the event.

First bachelor’s students begin their studies at the Ford School; John Chamberlin, founding director of the program, calls them “incredibly bright students who rip up every class they take.”

Ford School offers graduate fellowships to returned Peace Corps volunteers preparing for careers in public service who commit to intern in underserved communities. The program has attracted close to four-dozen Peace Corps volunteers since inception.

2008 Economic Stimulus Act, February 13; Housing and Economic Recovery Act, July 30.

2009 With startup funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, CLOSUP works with the Michigan Municipal League, the Michigan Association of Counties, and the Michigan Townships Association to launch the Michigan Public Policy Survey (MPPS), a longitudinal survey of the chief elected and appointed officials in every county, city, township, and village in Michigan.

“Alum Annie Maxwell (MPP ’02) named White House Fellow. Congrats Annie! bit.ly/b3nkL” Awww…our first Tweet! 3,175 Tweets later…most RT’d? “Betsey Stevenson appointed to President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers. ow.ly/TNMx.”

2010 March 23, Affordable Care Act; July 21, Dodd-Frank.

Collins

Students visit the Great Wall of China

12


2011 From the Great Hall, to the Great Wall: a new course takes students and faculty to China to study contemporary policy.

The Ford School helps to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps; Susan Collins co-organizes a national symposium, “Charting the Future of International Service.”

2012 Education Policy Initiative launched by Susan Dynarski and Brian Jacob to lead rigorous research that informs education policy debates in Michigan and across the nation.

Barry Rabe launches National Surveys on Energy and Environment (NSEE) in collaboration with Muhlenberg College. The surveys gather opinions about climate change, hydraulic fracturing, and other topics.

2013 Puppy play dates, Bulgarian cursing lessons, guided tours of Detroit, sausage-making classes, growlers of homemade hard cider….Student-led charity auction wins Forever Go Blue philanthropy award from U-M.

July 14 marks 100th anniversary of the birth of Gerald R. Ford. Ford School hosts Henry Kissinger, Paul O’Neill, Carla Hills, Brent Scowcroft, Frank Zarb, and others from his administration.

2014 In the last twenty-five years, 2,094 students have earned public policy and public administration degrees at the school, an average of 84 per year.

In September, the 100th anniversary class will arrive. We anticipate 105 master’s candidates, 65 bachelor’s candidates, 6 joint-PhD candidates, and 7 who will work toward certificates in science and technology policy.

Today, more than 150 schools in America, and many others across the world, offer degrees in public policy.

“In this era of spin and sound bites, of raised voices and clenched fists, it is easy to throw up one’s hands in exasperation or disgust. But whoever said that democracy is easy?” Gerald Ford

Now it’s your turn. Please share your stories and pictures at fordschool.umich.edu/100-reunion/memories. We’ll be building a longer web-based timeline as we celebrate our centennial this summer and fall.

Student-led charity auction

Joan and Sanford Weill hall


Skin in the gameApplied Policy Seminar puts students to work for local governments, NGOsBy Jeff Mortimer

When Susan Pollay, executive director of the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority (DDA), wanted to document the economic impact of her organization and others like it

around the state of Michigan last fall, she sought help from the Ford School.

Development authorities like Pollay’s are funded through a mechanism called Tax Increment Financing, which allows them to capture some of property tax growth from new construction in their district—funds that would otherwise go to other local taxing entities. As those entities’ budgets have become increasingly stretched, though, this mechanism has been increasingly questioned.

Although Pollay thought the project would be a good fit for the Applied Policy Seminar, a semester-long graduate course in which teams of students serve as consultants for community organizations, the quality of the product, and the experience, blew her away.

“We are very happy campers,” she says. “We would do it again in a heartbeat. Four students who were incredibly smart, incredibly creative, and incredibly experienced for their age did an amazing job to put together as professional a report as I have ever seen. The intelligent, thorough approach they took resulted in an outstanding final product that has served in

some amazing ways to convey information that I might not otherwise be able to convey about what our DDA does, how we do it, and how effectively we do it. I just used it yesterday, sharing the contents with someone in the county community development department.”

While Pollay well understands the educational value the students receive, “this was clearly a benefit to me as someone who’s working in the community.”

Public service has been a vital part of the mission of the Ford School and its antecedents from the start, through commissioned research projects, faculty service to government agencies, and an insistence that students

engage in professional internships to earn their degrees. From 1913 into the 1960s, the program’s Bureau of Government conducted policy research for dozens of state, county, and local governing bodies. Later, individual faculty integrated applied policy projects into their courses, and in 1997, the school launched a new graduate course, the Applied Policy Seminar (APS), to continue the tradition.

In the early years, Applied Policy Seminar students generally worked for a single client, but in 2010, the format was changed to allow small teams of students to assist a larger number of organizations. Since then,

“Four students who were incredibly smart, incredibly creative, and incredibly experienced for their age did an amazing job to put together as professional a report as I have ever seen.” — Susan Pollay, Ann Arbor DDA

ST

RE

ET

SC

EN

E P

ho

To

S: v

iSiT

AN

NA

RB

oR

.oR

G

14

When EliSabEth R. GERbER was awarded a collegiate professorship

by the University of Michigan Board of regents in 2012, one of the highest honors the university can bestow on a faculty member, she chose to have her chair named after JaCk l. WalkER, JR., a distinguished professor of public policy and director of the Ford School’s predecessor, the Institute of Public Policy Studies, from 1974 to 1979.

“Jack was a highly influential advisor and mentor to me,” she says. “His work on political representation profoundly influenced my intellectual development and the course of my research career. He was also a good guy—generous, friendly, thoughtful, and supportive.”

gerber delivered the Jack L. Walker, Jr., lecture, on “metropolitan areas, regionalism, and the politics of intergovernmental cooperation,” in April to commemorate her appointment.

25 nonprofit organizations, government agencies, and foundations have benefited from APS students’ consulting skills. Partnerships with some organizations—such as Macomb County, MI; the City of Adrian, MI; Direct Relief International; The Heat and Warmth Fund; and the U.S. Government Accountability Office—have been sustained for multiple semesters.

“There is tremendous demand for this,” says EliSabEth R. GERbER, the Jack L. Walker Jr. Professor of Public Policy, who teaches the APS. “I barely have to mention that I’m doing this and people start pulling out their lists of all the things they would love for a team of Ford School students to work on. The problem for me is having enough students.”

There are several criteria for winnowing applicants, but “some of our best clients come to us through alumni connections,” she says. “Typically, with them, the fit is really good, the scope is appropriate, the project reflects the interests of our students, and the client understands what their skills and competencies are—what you can and cannot do in a 14-week semester with three or four students working 15 hours a week apiece.”

Unlike the Ann Arbor DDA, what makes clients “happy campers” is not always the outcomes they sought.

“It’s not the ones who get what they think they want in the beginning, but the most engaged

clients, the ones who put the most skin into the game, who get the most out of the students,” Gerber says. “Projects often take on a life of their own, and there’s a lot of education for the organization, too, as they start to see things in a different light. Students inject some new ideas into how organizations think about their problems, their questions, their planning.”

This is especially true when, as is often the case, the client is exploring expanded activities or program development. “A big piece of what they get from our students is a fresh eye on whether it makes sense to move into a new area,” she says. “Our students come in from outside and provide that fresh perspective, which is a hard thing for people on the inside. We hear clients say, ‘Your students helped us understand a better way to do what we’re doing to avoid pitfalls, and also helped us identify new opportunities.’”

It was the opportunity for such public engagement that lured Gerber back to her alma mater in 2001 after a decade of teaching and consulting on the West Coast.

“That’s really what brought me here,” she says, “the ability in my own work to do exactly the kind of thing the students do in the Applied Policy Seminars, to work with organizations on real policy problems and embark on the kind of engaged scholarship that the Ford School really manifests and facilitates.” ■

15

This year, ShEldon h. danziGER took

a leave of absence to serve as the

tenth president of the russell Sage

Foundation, the premier foundation devoted

exclusively to social science research.

With great happiness for him, and an equal

measure of sadness for us, we report that

Sheldon will continue on at russell Sage and

retire from our faculty at the end of 2014.

From the moment Sheldon joined our faculty

in 1988, our school was “on the map” as

one of the nation’s strongest social policy

programs. In 1989, with seed funding from

the rockefeller Foundation and ongoing

support from the Ford Foundation, he launched

an incredibly successful postdoctoral fellowship

program in poverty and policy for under-

represented minorities. In 2002, he and

rebecca Blank founded the National

Poverty Center here at the Ford School.

This April, dozens of phenomenally impressive

poverty researchers—a more brilliant

collaborative, caring, and diverse group for

Sheldon’s tireless commitment to them as

students and colleagues—flew in from

distinguished universities across the country

to help us celebrate Sheldon’s legacy.

Sheldon and his wife, SandRa k. danziGER,

have created a new permanent endowment

to support undergraduate and master’s

students pursuing unpaid or low paying

summer internships in social welfare policy

and research. gifts to the Sandra and

Sheldon Danziger Fund will honor Sheldon

and his lifelong contributions to research

and teaching. ■

Look for more on Sheldon and the research

and Training Program in Poverty and Public

Policy in the fall edition of State & Hill.

Each spring, Ford School faculty and staff nominate dozens of outstanding student research, engagement, and service projects for recognition at the GRaMliCh ShoWCaSE

of StudEnt WoRk. The annual event honors internationally-renowned economist and former Ford School dean, Ned gramlich.

Eighteen graduate students studied Myanmar for this year’s International Economic Development Program, then spent spring break in the country on a trip led by Professors PhiliP PottER and allan StaM. Students met with a wide range of NgOs and policy shops, including the Myanmar Peace Center, the World Bank, and the U.S. Embassy, to learn more about the challenges and opportunities that await the burgeoning democracy of Myanmar.

Ford School Spotlight

Sheldon Danziger to retire from the University of Michigan

Sheldon h. Danziger, President, Russell Sage Foundation


Discourse

“The particularly stark divide among Americans regarding their recognition of global warming and their unwillingness to pay for the solutions poses vexing policy challenges for the nation’s leaders.”Barry Rabe, on the policy implications of fluctuating public opinion on global warming. Orange County Register op-ed, September 27, 2013.

“Stealth and persistence determine the minimum stakes required to justify an attack.”Robert Axelrod, on his new mathematical model that predicts timing of cyber attacks by analyzing when attackers are most motivated to exploit vulnerabilities in a target computer system. Popular Mechanics, January 13, 2014.

“Tonight, i feel reassured that my daughter’s economic future is in good hands. i also plan to tell her that she, too, can grow up to become the most powerful economist in the world. it’s a potent stimulus.”Justin Wolfers, praising the nomination of Janet Yellen as Federal Reserve Chair. Bloomberg View column, October 8, 2013.

“What would happen if all the time, talent, and money expended in making sure we pay what the law requires, but not one penny more, were put to more productive uses?”Marina v.N. Whitman, calling for tax code reform. Detroit Free Press op-ed, February 8, 2014.

“Absent a government willing to address high unemployment and inequality of opportunity, the ‘lost decade’ of economic progress in the 21st century is on track to last for a second decade.”Sheldon H. Danziger, on the persistent effects of the Great Recession. Huffington Post op-ed, November 9, 2013.

“We have a repayment crisis because student loans are due when borrowers have the least capacity to pay.”Susan M. Dynarski, highlighting her student loan reform proposal to set monthly payments as a percentage of income. Wall Street Journal, November 6, 2013.

“They have made an assessment that they could get away with this.”Ambassador Melvyn Levitsky on Russia’s use of force in Ukraine. U.S. News & World Report, March 7, 2014.


I was like every other kid,” says PEtER

boRiSh (AB ’81, MPP ’82). “When I was growing up, I wanted to become a professional baseball player.”

Like almost every other kid, he didn’t. But if he wasn’t the Rookie of the Year in his chosen field, he came close. Five years after earning his master’s at the Ford School, the hedge fund he co-founded with Paul Jones, Tudor Investments, was already so successful that he, Jones, and another hedge fund executive were able to create the Robin Hood Foundation, now the largest anti-poverty organization in New York City.

It was 1987, and the methodology he and Jones developed for predicting, and profiting from, volatility in the then-nascent derivative

markets had kept them prosperous despite that year’s stock market crash. The disparity between their lot and that of so many others brought them to the “giving back” phase of their careers earlier than most.

“We felt—and, by the way, we were wrong on this—that the crash would have a similar economic impact as the one in 1929,” Borish recalls, “and that New Yorkers and those in need would be really suffering for a long time. We had a decision to make: buy or build, give money to another not-for-profit or start our own. Being analytical, and wanting to try to measure impact, we decided to build our own.”

Being analytical, their first realization was that “the three of us were pretty good at making money but that didn’t mean we knew anything,” he says. “There’s a fallacy that people who make money know something about everything. We knew something about markets but we didn’t necessarily know how to build a nonprofit.”

They brought in a seasoned team of stars in the not-for-profit world to do that, but they also brought their business acumen to the table.

“Robin Hood, in a nutshell, goes back to the first course I ever had at the Ford School on benefit-cost analysis,” says Borish. “If I only had one dollar to give, who would I give it to? How do I measure its impact?”

They implemented three principal innovations that were all, in a way, answers to those questions: the foundation has no endowment, its board pays all overhead costs, and it has an institutionalized assessment component.

“If I’m convincing you to give a dollar to Robin Hood,” he says, “that dollar will be spent over the next 12 months, it’s not going to be 87 cents because 13 cents goes to overhead, and because we actually have a metrics committee, you’ll know we take a very analytical approach in measuring our program.”

Peter Borish: Every day a new testBy Jeff Mortimer

Peter Borish at the New york City offices of CharityBuzzPhoTo: hEiDi GUTMAN

iMA

GE

: Ro

BiN

ho

oD

Fo

UN

DA

Tio

N


Borish describes himself as a “serial entrepreneur. Most of my success has been in the hedge fund business. Once I made a decision to leave the hedge fund business, I focused on early stage technology investing.” It’s not a typical path for a Ford School alum, but he still credits his “coaches” there for the approach that led to his success.

“The Ford School helped me think analytically,” he says. “That’s what people need today. Excel can tell me what two plus two is. One differentiates oneself in the marketplace by being analytical. And it’s not just analysis; you have to be able to think creatively about the questions to ask. If you’re just asked questions and you have to answer them, you’re studying for the test. Success in business, and particularly in the market, is not about tests. Every day the market opens and it’s a new test.”

Grasping the difference between knowing answers and knowing how to think about finding answers is “where the Ford School comes into play,” says Borish. “It’s a very subtle distinction, but I think that’s something the Ford School does better than anyone else.”

He uses a sports metaphor to limn the core insight that’s helped keep him in the investment game for more than three decades. “As athletes get faster and stronger, the game has to evolve,” he says. “It’s the same thing with the market; there’s always this game of innovation.”

That insight also applies to the philanthropy game. In 2005, Borish was one of the founding investors of charitybuzz.com, a for-profit internet company that raises funds for nonprofit organizations through online charity auctions of items like meetings with celebrities and high-end or one-of-a-kind merchandise.

“Getting markets and not-for-profits to work together just happens to be really cool and something I love,” he says. “We do things on charitybuzz that not-for-profits never do.” Last year’s highest bid, for example, was for coffee with Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple.

“That went for a little over $600,000, and the beneficiary was the Robert F. Kennedy Foundation for Criminal Justice,” he says.

“Tim donates some time and helps raise a lot of money for RFK, the buyer gets access to someone he would never have been able to get access to, and the foundation, after our fee, gets more money off that auction than most not-for-profits will ever get from a live benefit. In economic terms, that’s about pareto optimal as you can get, a win-win for everybody.”

Perhaps his path hasn’t been all that anomalous for a Ford School alum.

“People ask, ‘What is public policy?’” he says. “I answer that it’s anything you want it to be. Super PACs, 501(c)(4)s, nonprofits, these are all measures designed to affect public policy. You sit in a room asking questions about what’s the best way to go about doing this, and they’re all analytical questions, all data-driven. That analytical seed that the Ford School planted touches everything that I do.” ■

Meet Peter BorishSince 1991, PEtER boRiSh and his wife, Julie (BBA ’82), have given more than $286,000 to the Ford School. They also established The Peter and Julie Borish Fellowship Award, which is given to two first-year PhD students, one at the Ford School and one in Department of Economics, who show great promise and are interested in policy-oriented economic issues. The Borishes have three children: Isabel Borish graduated from the University of Michigan in 2013, and

Harley and Eliza Borish are currently enrolled in U-M’s College of Literature, Science, and the Arts.

“I’m proud to be part of this tremendous public policy program,” says Borish, a member of the Ford School Committee. “The Ford School and Michigan were central to helping me in terms of my thought processing. I’m grateful and appreciative, which is why I’m a supporter, and my offspring have gone there.”

“Robin Hood, in a nutshell, goes back to the first course I ever had at

the Ford School on benefit-cost analysis: If I only had one dollar to

give, who would I give it to? How do I measure its impact?”

Students with Borish-donated computers, 1990 (see p. 10)

iMA

GE

: Ro

BiN

ho

oD

Fo

UN

DA

Tio

N


I nd

i an

Oc e

an

Hauling charcoal, studying conservation in KenyaBy William Foreman

ZaCh PEtRoni (BA ’13) believes that to truly know something, you have to experience it. So that’s why he spent some

time working as a charcoal hauler in Kenya, loading huge bags of the fuel on a rusty fixed-gear bike and pedaling it 20 miles into town.

He’s in Africa as the first recipient of the Raoul Wallenberg Fellowship—a $25,000 award named after one of the University of Michigan’s most heroic alumni. The annual fellowship

allows graduating seniors to carry out explorations, projects, or activities anywhere in the world.

Petroni is studying how local people deal with conservation efforts in their own backyards. In the West, conservation is often viewed to be a positive, moral effort—saving a forest or protecting a herd of elephants, Petroni says. But for the local population, it often means losing a home, farm field, or job that leads to a deeper plunge into poverty.

As he travels in Kenya, Petroni can afford to stay in guesthouses or budget hotels. But he says this would prevent him from better understanding how life is really lived in Kenya. So he stays with families instead.

It was a chance encounter that led Petroni to the temporary job hauling charcoal. He was walking with a friend in a rural area on the central coast of Kenya, about an hour and a half from Mombasa, the country’s

Kenya’s Arabuko-Sokoke Forest (ASF), the largest

remnant of a hardwood forest that once spanned

East Africa’s coast from Somalia to southern

Mozambique, is a refuge for dozens of endemic and

endangered flora and fauna--the Sokoke Scops Owl, Amani

Sunbird, and golden-rumped Elephant Shrew among them.

The 420-square-kilometer reserve, roughly the size of the

city of New Orleans, is internationally recognized as a

biodiversity hotspot—the highest distinction bestowed by

conservationists prioritizing what remains of the world’s

natural heritage. An aerial view is all it takes to see why:

the forest is an island of verdant green that lies in stark

contrast to the drab, beige-colored backdrop of the region

that surrounds it.

This contrast illuminates something else, as well:

Arabuko-Sokoke is an island of conservation in a much

greater, human-dominated landscape where thousands

of Kenya’s people make their homes. Most of the people

who live around the forest are subsistence farmers,

“economic have-nots.” With few opportunities for formal

employment, informal activities—such as tapping palms

for wine, ferrying charcoal to urban centers, or illegally

harvesting timber and poaching wildlife from within the

forest—can be the difference between destitution and

survival, between survival and advancement.

For these people, the forest is a “resource sink.” It helps

them cope with temporary vulnerabilities like droughts and

failed harvests; it helps them stave off enduring, structural

Zach Petroni (BA ’13), inaugural Raoul Wallenberg Fellow

Carrying charcoal to market by bicycle


challenges, like a lack of paying jobs; and it also enables a

kind of nonessential opportunism humans have practiced

throughout history (the same opportunism that has fueled

the economic growth of the Western world).

These distinctions, though, rarely factor into the conservation

equation—a key reason why conservation efforts aimed at

preserving Arabuko-Sokoke’s unique biodiversity have been

fraught with contention.

Some progress has been made. In the past two decades,

commercial logging, once allowed, has been halted, and

more humane conservation practices are employed, allowing

a few uses that conservationists deem less destructive,

like firewood collection and butterfly harvesting. These days,

there are also alternative livelihoods programs for forest-

adjacent communities (such as bee-keeping and agroforesty)

and a pilot initiative that grants villagers the opportunity

to manage sections of the forest in partnership with

conservation officials.

Unfortunately, persistent poverty, profit-seeking, and delays

in joint management continue to frustrate conservation

efforts. Local sources say that destruction of the forest is

reaching a volume unseen in recent years.

Forest officials and conservationists may understand the

ecological value of Arabuko-Sokoke, but they’ve mostly failed

to include people in their ecological model. Thinking only of

binaries—conservation versus use, forest versus farmland—

they jeopardize the welfare of those who call this region home,

and ultimately the forest itself. — zaCh PEtRoni (BA ’13) ■

second-largest city. His friend introduced him to another friend, a charcoal hauler who Petroni simply calls John to protect his privacy. John invited Petroni home and the student stayed with his family for four days in a mud-clay house with a corrugated steel roof. The living space for the family of eight was as big as three dorm rooms. Meals usually included corn meal porridge called “ugali” with boiled greens and a bit of fish or chicken.

“I got to see firsthand and experience his struggle and how he does it in good faith, with nothing but love in his heart and for everyone else,” Petroni said. “He makes on average 800 or 1,000 shillings ($9 or $11.50)

a day and he’ll send 500 shillings of that to his son every day to pay for his school fees.”

Petroni hauled charcoal with John for two days, and the work provided valuable insights for his research. Much of the charcoal wood came from a protected forest, so John was technically involved in a network of illegal activity that the government and international organizations want to crack down on.

Through John, Petroni was able to meet the other links in the charcoal chain, including the producers, and this enabled him to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the importance of charcoal to those in the area.

The underlying theme of Petroni’s Wallenberg proposal was to question conservation in a firsthand way. His fellowship is almost over, and he still hasn’t reached a conclusion.

“The more time I spend, I don’t think there’s a black or white conclusion. It’s all just shades of gray,” he said. “Conservation is very place specific. In one place it can be this. In another place it could be the polar opposite. I just think my understanding of conservation has become more nuanced.” ■

A longer version of this article appears on the University’s global Michigan website, global.umich.edu.

Charcoal processing and storage facility

Evidence of lumber harvesting in Arabuko-Sokoke Charcoal bundles


SoundbitesOverheard this semester: Policy Talks @ the Ford School

“It seems to me that our efforts to narrow racial differences in schooling and other things, if applied too late, are almost doomed to fail.”kerwin Charles, deputy dean and Edwin and Betty L. Bergman Distinguished Service Professor,

Harris School of Public Policy Studies. January 20, 2014.

“Stephen Colbert, in my opinion, has single handedly done more for campaign finance reform than anyone else in the 21st century, save Richard Nixon.” heather Gerken, J. Skelly Wright Professor of Law, yale Law School. February 3, 2014.

“I don’t think we (the U.S.) are too good at nation building. I don’t think we do that part too well. And I don’t think we’re very good at regime change.” John negroponte, former U.S. Ambassador to Honduras, Mexico, the Philippines, the United Nations, and Iraq. February 27, 2014.

“Why should I have to pay for my neighbor’s healthcare? You could be next. It’s that simple. Every single person in this room is an accident, heart attack, some-disease-you-don’t-know away from having a catastrophic illness.”Jonathan Cohn, senior editor of the New Republic and author of Sick: The Untold Story of America’s Health Care Crisis and the People Who Pay the Price. March 17, 2014.

“There’s no pot of gold, no leprechaun. There’s no manna from heaven. It’s real debt. Real problems.”kevyn orr (JD ’83), emergency financial manager, City of Detroit. March 25, 2014.

orr

C

oh

n

neg

rop

on

te

Ger

ken

C

har

les


Hybrid Justice and Armed With Expertise

Two new books from Ford School faculty members John d. CioRCiaRi and Joy RohdE deepen our understanding of international criminal justice systems and the role social scientists have played, for better or for worse,

in American national security.

In Hybrid Justice: The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, Ciorciari, assistant professor of public policy, and Anne Heindel, legal advisor at the Documentation Center of Cambodia, examine the hybrid tribunal created by the United Nations and the Cambodian government to try key Khmer Rouge officials for crimes in the Pol Pot era. In the book, published in February 2014 by

the University of Michigan Press, the authors argue that the contentious politics behind the tribunal’s creation, its flawed legal and institutional design, and frequent political impasses impaired the court’s ability to deliver credible justice.

During a panel on the book at the East-West Center in Washington, DC, Ciorciari discussed lessons that can be learned from the Cambodian experience, stating: “the UN has undeniably a weak structural position in this court, but it’s still chosen to interpret its mandate narrowly, conservatively, deferring in most cases to Cambodian sovereignty and prerogative. So the lesson here is that if the UN gets involved, it needs to exert ownership and stronger control.”

Hybrid Justice has received significant praise from legal scholars. Steven R. Ratner, University of Michigan Law School and member of the UN Secretary-General’s Group

of Experts for Cambodia, writes “John Ciorciari and Anne Heindel have written the definitive study of a highly controversial experiment in accountability for human rights atrocities…this study makes a profound contribution to the scholarship and policy debates within fields ranging from international criminal justice to comparative politics.”

In Armed with Expertise: The Militarization of American Social Research during the Cold War, Joy Rohde investigates the Cold War origins and contemporary consequences of the Pentagon’s social science research contracting system.

Rohde, a new Ford School assistant professor, describes the rise, fall, and resurgence of social scientists’ involvement

in U.S. military research. The book shows that the expulsion of military-funded social science research from university campuses in response to ’60s-era protests created a rift between the academy and the military. “That rift,” says Rohde, “has yet to be mended, much to the detriment of America’s international reputation.”

The book, published in September 2013 by Cornell University Press, raises questions about the quality of the social science research that the national security state relies upon. It also raises questions about the militarization of domestic life. In his review of the book, Michael Sherry, the Richard W. Leopold Professor of History at Northwestern University, states “Rohde offers especially striking and disturbing material on the blowback of social science collaboration with the armed forces, as individuals and institutions moved beyond addressing threats abroad into assessing domestic disorder and attempting to control it.” ■

Joy RohdeJohn D. Ciorciari


What every alderman should know (about endowments)Two new endowed funds for the next century of student support

We all know how tough it is to save—to choose between immediate needs and future ones. At the Ford School, we face a similar challenge in asking alumni to contribute to endowments rather than annual funds. But endowments have tremendous

power. Like savings, they’re investments in the future. Case in point? Our very first endowment for student support, The Arthur W. and Mary C. Bromage Fund.

In 1979, our school lost aRthuR W. bRoMaGE, our longest serving faculty member, someone who had been at the center circle of our community for five decades. Alumni and friends who had established a small fund in his honor just after his retirement, immediately set out to do more. With gifts from the Michigan Municipal League, the International City Managers Association, and the Earhart Foundation, they awarded Arthur W. Bromage Fellowships and Internships to a small group of students, and began to reach out to alumni and friends to contribute to an endowed fund that would honor his legacy far into the future.

Contributions from alumni and friends poured in and, though they slowed in subsequent years, they never really stopped. Together, 250 donors along with institutional investments have contributed $383,000 to the Bromage Fund. From the beginning, the University of Michigan invested those funds carefully, as it does all endowed funds, and provided our school with a small percentage of the

value each year for Bromage Fellows and Interns. Today, thirty-seven years since its launch, the Arthur W. and Mary C. Bromage Fund is valued at $1.3 million.

In the last decade, this endowment has provided $631,532 to more than 100 of the Ford School’s talented students.

Thirty-seven years since its launch, the Arthur W. and Mary C. Bromage Fund is valued at $1.3 million.

An endowed gift of

$100,000given now

over 20 years will grow to

$254,847(estimated market value)

providing

$130,805for students in that time

Mary C. Bromage, with UN Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, c. 1944

Arthur Bromage, ireland, 1970s

Arthur and Mary Bromage, Ann Arbor, 1970s

PhoTo: JohN CoLLiER (1913-1992)


in the spring of 1949, students organized an alumni

reunion. The student newsletter of the era reported that

a “mob” of 72 alumni turned out at the Dexter-Huron

Metropolitan Park where, “Dr. Bromage, in commemoration

of his recent elevation to the city council of Ann Arbor (!!),

was awarded a laurel crown, a badge of honor and a

pamphlet on ‘What every alderman should know’ or the

most famous of municipal administration bibliographies.

After miscellaneous contests including spirited egg tossing

and a three-legged race (won by gene Moody and bride),

the group adjourned to the baseball field where Dorrit’s

Delinquents suffered defeat at the hands of Bromage’s

Firefighters, 9 to 2.”

Collins Vereen family kick-starts new funds with $25,000 giftQ. First donors to the new Graduate Centennial and Future Leaders Funds?

A. Dean Susan M. Collins and her husband, Dr. Donald r. Vereen Jr., director of the University of Michigan Substance Abuse research Center.

Q. Why a gift to student support?

A. “Financial support was essential to both of us for our graduate degrees, so that made it a no brainer. We wouldn’t be doing what we’re doing now if it hadn’t been for student support.”

Q. Why give to an endowment?

A. “We’re committed to and really excited about the school’s future. Plus, we know how well the University stewards endowed funds.”

Q. What’s special about Ford School students?

A. What’s not special about Ford School students! Their spirit, collegiality, smarts, creativity… There’s a lot to love.”

Q. Fun photo! What’s the story?

A. Our kids, Ana and Alec, have grown up in Ann Arbor; they were 10 and 13 when we moved here from Washington, DC. Ana chose this spot for her senior photo, and we asked the photographer to get a family shot, too. It’s hard to believe that Ana is a sophomore in college and Alec will graduate from high school next year; the years here have flown.

Last year alone, $74,000 from the Bromage Fund supported five fellowships and nine internships.

Annual gifts are vital and valued. They allow us to offer much-needed fellowships and internships to our students in the same year we receive a gift. But endowed gifts are powerful, just as savings are powerful, as we look to the future.

This year, as we celebrate our 100th anniversary, we will launch two new endowed funds—designed to commemorate our first century and prepare for our next. For master’s students, we’ve created The Graduate Centennial Fund. And for undergraduates, we’re starting The Future Leaders Fund. Both will support fellowships, internships, travel grants, professional development activities, and other initiatives that enhance the student experience at the Ford School. ■

To contribute to our new funds, visit

giving.umich.edu/give/ford.

PLUSit keeps growing in perpetuity.

The Graduate Centennial Fund___________________

The Future Leaders Fund

Dean Susan M. Collins, Alec, Ana, and Donald R. vereen Jr.


Faculty News

In January, RobERt axElRod

introduced a mathematical model to better predict the timing of cyber attacks by analyzing when attackers are most motivated to exploit vulnerabilities in a target computer system. His paper on the model, “Timing of Cyber Conflict,” co-authored with postdoctoral research fellow RuMEn iliEv, was published in the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America and has received coverage in leading academic journals, news outlets, and blogs from over 20 countries. Axelrod was also selected to receive a Jefferson Science Fellowship and serve as a science advisor for the State Department for 2014-15.

The second edition of alan v.

dEaRdoRff’s book, Terms of Trade: Glossary of

International Economics was published by the

World Scientific Publishing Company. The new edition

has over 50 percent more content than the first edition,

which came out in 2006.

StEPhEn dESJaRdinS and bRian P.

MCCall published an article titled “The Impact of the Gates Millennium Scholars Program on College and Post-

College Related Choices of High Ability, Low-Income Minority Students” in the Economics of Education Review.

SuSan M. dynaRSki was selected as a 2014 nonresident senior fellow for the Brookings Institution’s Economic Studies program. Throughout her appointment, she will contribute to Brookings’ new Economic Studies working paper series.

Ford School Professors SuSan M.

dynaRSki, EliSabEth R. GERbER, yaziER hEnRy, aMbaSSadoR MElvyn

lEvitSky, and JuStin l. thoMaS were nominated for the University of Michigan’s Golden Apple Award this year. The Golden Apple Award recognizes outstanding university teaching, and is the only such award where nominees are chosen by students.

bRian a. JaCob received a $200,000 grant from the Walton Family Foundation to study the effectiveness of online learning in the K-12 sector. The study, which will be co-led by SuSanna loEb (MPP ’94, PhD ’98), a professor at Stanford University School of Education, will use administrative data to characterize the current use of online courses and examine the impact of expanding online opportunities on student outcomes.

In January, hElEn lEvy testified at the U.S. House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee hearing on “The Impact of the Employer Mandate’s Definition of ‘Full-time Employee’ on Jobs and Opportunities.” Levy testified that there is considerable evidence that defining full-time employment as 30 hours or more will not result in a distortion in labor demand.

baRRy RabE was named a Distinguished Alumnus of his alma mater Carthage College. He also recently completed his service on the U.S. National Research Council Committee on Shale Gas Risks and Governance, which sponsored two workshops and published a special symposium issue of Environmental Science & Technology.

Deardorff Axelrod Dynarski henry

The University of Michigan’s thirteenth president, MaRy SuE ColEMan, will retire this summer after twelve years of leadership and service. President Coleman was a good friend to PRESidEnt and MRS. foRd, and a tireless advocate as the Ford School worked to build Weill Hall.

Ford School Spotlight


kEvin M. StanGE was awarded a $25,000 grant from the William T. Grant Foundation to support his research on the influence of physical school settings on student success. In addition, his paper, “How Does Provider Supply and Regulation Influence Health Care Markets? Evidence from Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants,” was published by the Journal of Health Economics in February.

MaRiS a. vinovSkiS gave a talk titled “Using Knowledge of the Past to Improve Education Today: U.S. Education History and Policymaking” based on his experiences working in the U.S. Department of Education during the first Bush and Clinton Administrations, as well as his books on the history of Head Start and No Child Left Behind. A revised version is scheduled for publication next year. Last summer, Vinovskis was a keynote speaker at the annual International Standing Conference on the History of Education (ISCHE) at the University of Latvia, the first time an ISCHE conference was hosted in an Eastern European country.

MaRina v.n. WhitMan’s essay, “The Accidental Economist” is featured in Eminent Economists II: Their Life and Work Philosophies, published by Cambridge University Press. The first volume, focusing on an earlier generation of economists, was published in 1992. Whitman has also contributed frequent editorials to the Detroit Free Press, including a call for a moderate majority political party.

dEan yanG recently completed a microfinance study on the impact of modest financial literacy training on migrants’ decisions to save. Yang and his colleagues found that a three-hour motivational seminar on financial decision-making changed the behavior of migrants in positive ways, leading them to save more and send more money to family back home.

McCallJacob Rabe Stange Thomas Whitman yang

Ford School hosts two Towsley Foundation Policymakers in Residence

RiChaRd bouChER and MaRGo PiCkEn, currently serving as the Towsley Foundation Policymakers in residence, are using their experience to inform two new half-semester courses at the Ford School. Boucher, former Deputy Secretary-general of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the longest-serving Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs at the U.S. State Department, is teaching “Wielding Economic Power,” a course that explores how economic levers and status affect a nation’s global standing and international relations.

Picken, who formerly worked at the United Nations as director of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human rights in Cambodia and established the Office of Amnesty International at the United Nations, is teaching “Human rights at the United Nations: A practitioner’s perspective.”

The Towsley Foundation Policymaker in residence program brings individuals with significant policymaking experience

to campus to interact with students and faculty.

Boucher Picken

27

StEPhEn hoRnER (MPP ’73) has spent the last 29 years as a forensic economist in Corpus Christi, Texas. At the annual meeting of the National Association of Forensic Economics this January, he was presented with the inaugural John Ward and Michael Piette Research Prize for his article with Frank Slesnick titled “The Valuation of Earning Capacity Definition, Measurement, and Evidence.” The Ward/Piette prize recognizes the best research published in the Journal of Forensic Economics.

alan MillER (MPP/JD ’74) retired from the International Finance Corporation on January 1st. He is now a Walton Fellow with Arizona State University and is doing independent consulting on climate change finance and policy.

After many years as an economist at the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, DC, dan SiChEl (MPP ’83) has joined the faculty of the Economics Department at Wellesley College.

kiP bankS, SR. (MPP/MUP ’90) has been named the interim general secretary of the Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc. (PNBC). PNBC, headquartered in Washington, DC, is the church convention of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

lauRa PERna (MPP ’92), professor in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania, is founding director of UPenn’s new Alliance for Higher Education and Democracy. She also has a new book examining the role of state policy in improving educational attainment in the United States, titled The Attainment Agenda: State Policy Leadership in Higher Education, published by Johns Hopkins University Press.

SEan JonES (MPP ’00) and May Salameh gave birth to a son, Zacharia, in Mexico City on October 4, 2013.

WaltER bRaunohlER (MPP ’02) will be departing his role as the spokesman at the U.S. embassy in Bangkok, Thailand to become the next U.S. Consul General in Krakow, Poland.

In January, ShElly tEn naPEl (MPP/MSW ’02) became the director of Health Care Reform and Innovation for the Washington, DC Department of Health Care Finance.

zaiRE dinzEy-floRES (PhD ’05) published Locked In, Locked Out: Gated Communities in a Puerto Rican City (University of Pennsylvania, 2013) and was promoted to associate professor with tenure at Rutgers University in April 2013.

In July, kaREn biddlE andRES (MPP/MBA ’08), welcomed new son Edwin Biddle Andres into a divided Wolverine/Spartan family. Karen also recently accepted a new position as the director of research for the Center for Financial Services Innovation, where she has worked for five years, helping providers develop financial services and products that promote the financial health of all consumers, but especially those who have been traditionally underserved.

Beginning this August, MaRia S.

JohnSon (PhD ’10), will be an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of Delaware.

dani liffMann (BA ’10) was promoted to senior research analyst at NORC at the University of Chicago. In the role, she conducts program evaluation and policy analysis for government and foundation-funded health care programs.

Jonathan nEWMan (BA ’10) recently started a new job as an associate in the Financial Restructuring Group at the New York law firm Milbank, Tweed, Hadley, McCloy LLP.

RoSS ChanoWSki (BA ’11) founded Mana, a start-up in the 3D printing industry. Based in Boston, Mana is developing a software service that will allow consumers to use 3D Printers in their own homes. Launch is expected in Fall 2014.

PaRvati Patil (MPP ’11) is now working for Vittana, a Seattle-based social enterprise that specializes in developing and launching student loan programs in emerging and developing markets. Vittana’s mission is to graduate

Class NotesBeilein Braunohler Chanowski

zaChaRia JonES (left),

EdWin biddlE andRES.

Class of 20??


horner

a generation beyond poverty. As a regional program manager for South Asia, Parvati is responsible for Vittana’s portfolio of microfinance partnerships in South Asia. She always welcomes good conversations and looks forward to catching up with the Ford School community either in Washington, DC, India, or Seattle.

After meeting at the Ford School in 2009, adaM SChMidt (MPP ’11) and aShlEE SChMidt (daviS) (MPP ’11), were married in Park City, Utah on September 21, 2013. Several of their Ford School classmates joined them to celebrate!

CandiCE aMMoRi (BA ’12) recently traveled to India. She won the trip based on a three-minute video she submitted to Creativeland Asia, an advertising agency

in Mumbai. She had an incredible ten days there crashing weddings. Candice has been working at VisionFund Cambodia for six months, doing a mix of mobile, operations, and staff retention strategy for the organization’s microfinance operations.

andREW bEilEin (BA ’12) joined Business Roundtable as manager of Advocacy Programs.

Last May, kathERinE hall (MPA ’13) was hired as a policy associate with the Economic Opportunity team at Corporation for a Skilled Workforce, a national policy organization that focuses on economic development and workforce issues. CSW is headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Katherine plans to attend The Centennial Reunion!

Eboni WEllS (MPP ’13) just wrapped up the first quarter of her two-year Public Policy Fellowship with the Skillman Foundation in Detroit.

hall Johnson Schmidt

C A L L f o R N o M I N A t I o N S

Neil Staebler Distinguished Service Award

The Ford School Alumni Board seeks nominations for the Neil Staebler Distinguished Service Award.

The Staebler Award is a program of the Neil Staebler Fund for Political Education at the Ford School. The Staebler Fund was established in 1987 to honor Neil Staebler (AB ’26), one of Michigan’s leading political figures. Staebler, who passed away in 2000, devoted his public life to improving democratic government by increasing the participation of citizens in all aspects of public affairs.

The Staebler Award recognizes a Ford School alumnus or alumna for outstanding professional achievement consistent with Staebler’s dedication to excellence in public service. Qualified alumni will have demonstrated a commitment to engaging with the public policy challenges of our world through professional accomplishments and/or public service through volunteerism. Volunteer service to the Ford School is also considered.

Any member of the Ford School community is invited to submit a nomination; only Ford School alumni are eligible to be nominated.

Nominations are due by June 30. Visit fordschool.umich.edu/alumni/staebler-award to learn more.


The Last Word

tH

e f

oR

D S

CH

oo

L C

eN

te

NN

IAL

S&h: A centennial reunion—rare indeed! How has it been to have the chance to plan this?

J: (laughing) I’m pretty sure it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity! It’s super exciting. I mean think about it: we’ve been around 100 years. What an impact our alums have made over that time!

S&h: I know some details are in progress. What can you say now about the Reunion?

E: As we’re just announcing, we’ll host a keynote lecture with Steven Levitt along with a brunch for alums and faculty. We’ll go to the football game and the Alumni Association’s M Go Blue Tailgate. That’s very family-friendly, with the Marching Band and lots of good food and giveaways. This year’s tailgate will feature the Ford School and include some great surprises for our alums.

J: The Reunion falls on Halloween, so we’re planning an Open House—almost like a trick-or-treat throughout the building, where you can stop by and have ‘office hours’ with faculty. That will be followed by a reception in the Weill Hall courtyard for the entire Ford School community.

S&h: How have alums been involved in the planning?

E: Our Alumni Board has been discussing and advising us on options for over a year. And right now, we’re looking for a team of alumni volunteers to help spread the word about the Reunion via phone calls and social media.

S&h: What are you most looking forward to?

E: We’re putting on a great weekend. Fall in Ann Arbor is gorgeous—it’s a classic.

J: From a personal perspective, I’m hoping that some alums from my first years at the Ford School make it back to campus. How fun would that be!—To see where people are fifteen and twenty years later…. (pause, eyes welling). Quote, ‘As she says with tears in her eyes,’ unquote!

S&h: (laughter) Anyone who knows Jennifer can picture this scene!

J: It’s that time to come back. Re-live some of your memories, connect back with some faculty and staff who were important during your time here. We’ve heard from some alums who have started rallying their friends. They’re saying, ‘Hey, we’ve been talking about going back to campus. We know others will be there. Let’s make this happen. Let’s get it on calendars now. Let’s have some fun!’

S&h: Our Centennial Reunion coincides with the launch of the Victors for Michigan campaign. Thoughts?

J: It’s great timing. We’re thinking not just where we’ve come in these hundred years but more importantly, where do we want to go? We’re at a turning point; we’re launching the school’s next century. The generosity and engagement of our alums will be key.

S&h: Last thoughts?

E: Make hotel reservations soon! And please keep an eye out in June for your registration materials; that will include information about how to get football tickets (which we expect to sell out).

J: As we’ve been looking through our history, it’s been amazing to think about the legacy of this place and of all the people who have come through over one hundred years. To you, reading this article: you’re a part of that. You helped build the school. This place matters, and this is the year to come back. ■

For more info: Elisabeth Johnston, 734-615-5760 or [email protected].

Jennifer Niggemeier, director of graduate career services and alumni relations, and elisabeth Johnston, alumni relations manager, sit down with State & Hill to preview The Centennial Reunion (October 31 – November 1, 2014).

L-R: Jennifer Niggemeier and Elisabeth Johnston


’90s alumni: who can i.D. the theme of this holiday skit?

Be Engaged Be Inspired Be Here this Fall

Centennial ReunionOct. 31 - Nov. 1

our Centennial Lecture, featuring

StEvEn d. lEvitt Policy Talks @ the Ford SchoolFriday, october 31, 2014 12:30 p.m.

Rackham Auditorium Free and open to the public

Steven D. Levitt is the bestselling author of Freakonomics and Superfreakonomics, co-founder of Spin for Good, and William B.

ogden Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago.

After the Centennial Lecture on October 31, our Open House at Weill Hall awaits you for an afternoon of family-friendly fun:

» Catch up with classmates, friends, colleagues, and faculty

» Showcase of student work» Student-led tours of Weill Hall» Kid-friendly Halloween activities » reception» Commemorative gifts» Happy Hours (hosted by student

organizations)

On Saturday, November 1, it’s Homecoming as the Wolverines take on the Hoosiers of Indiana.

» Coming soon: purchase football and tailgate tickets online

» go Blue Homecoming Tailgate (the biggest and best pre-game party, with 3,000 of your closest Michigan friends)—featuring the Ford School’s Centennial

» Food & fun» Activities for kids » Meet former players» Michigan Marching Band

May 30 honoring ned Gramlich and the importance of policy research, a conference co-hosted with the Federal reserve Board (Washington, DC)

May 30Student/alumni networking Event (Nationals Park, Washington, DC)reception: 5:30 p.m.First pitch: 7:10 p.m. Washington Nationals vs. Texas rangers

July 10

4th annual Worldwide ford School Spirit day—our Centennial edition

August 18Policy Talks @ the Ford School: neera tanden, President of the Center for American Progress

october 10Policy Talks @ the Ford School: Steve latourette, former U.S. Congressman (r-OH) and founder of Defending Main Street

october 31–November 1the Centennial Reunion

Visit fordschool.umich.edu/events for more details or fordschool.umich.edu/videos to watch videos from our past events. For the latest event news, sign up by emailing [email protected] or following @fordschool.

Join us in person or online for these upcoming Ford School events:

Ford100

noW: Book your hotel room: fordschool.umich.edu/100-reunion/travel

Soon: In June, look for your invitation to The Centennial reunion! Meanwhile, more details can be found at fordschool.umich.edu/100-reunion

Stay Connected fordschool.umich.edu/stay-connectedHave you moved, changed jobs, or gotten a new email address? Let us know so we can stay in touch.

Stay up to date on the Ford School between issues of State & Hill by subscribing to the feed, our email newsletter.

tH

e f

oR

D S

CH

oo

L C

eN

te

NN

IAL

Joan and Sanford Weill Hall

735 S. State Street

Ann Arbor, MI 48109-3091

Printed on paper made from 100% post-consumer waste using biogas energy.

MPP student hiRokazu

yaMaSaki and his wife Aya welcomed a new baby boy to their family on January 2, 2014. His name: Ippei gerald yamasaki. In Japanese, Ippei means “lucky person” and “being kind to everyone.” His middle name? A tribute to President gerald r. Ford.

Lucky

Non-Profit Org.U.S. PostagePa i dAnn Arbor MIPermit No. 144

And now, on to our Next Century…

Documents

Spring 2014 State & Hill: A Century of Impact - 100 Years of Policy at Michigan