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CORE CLASS - MAPL 6001 The Political Process and Public Policy (3 cr)(1st class of core classes)
Course Description: In the early stages of this course, students gain familiarity with the concepts of agenda setting and policy development and on the variable meanings used in the political arena to define core concepts like equitable and efficient. After reading and reporting to the rest of the class on a leading book from the public affairs literature, students then focus primarily on the end of the year assignment, in which they pick a policy they wish to see enacted or changed, then prepare background papers and oral presentations arguing for that enactment or change.
~check UMD course guide~ [top of page]
CORE CLASS - MAPL 6003 Civic Engagement and Political Cultures (3 cr) (2nd class of core classes)
Course description: Students in this course will identify at least four major issues currently facing the policy-makers in Minnesota and/or the nation. Using historical analysis, students will ascertain how these issues came to be what they currently are and attempt to analyze where they might go, given the political culture in the state and nation. Along the way, students will quickly survey and critique the philosophical foundations of American politics, from Jefferson and Madison to Rawls and Martin Luther King.
~check UMD course guide~ [top of page]
CORE CLASS - MAPL 6004 Political Organizing and Communication (3 cr) (3rd class of core classes)
Course description:
This course is designed to give students an understanding of the sociological, intra-personal nature of political and advocacy communication as well as familiarity with successful advocacy writing and with modern organizing strategies.
~check UMD course guide~ [top of page]
CORE CLASS - MAPL 6002 Policy Evaluation (3 cr) (last class of core classes)
Course Description: This course prepares students to understand and, in some cases, to perform, formal evaluations of policy proposals, including cost benefit analysis and other efficacy-based measures. At the same time, students will learn that neither public policy nor politics are or can be ethically neutral. A key question for this course: given a problem as defined, how might various policy proposals be compared? What is the balance between what is efficient and what is, in the mind of the policy-proposer, ethically right? As a part of this ethical grounding, students will need a thorough understanding of the seminal theoretical concept of the civil society. What makes a society civil? How have Eastern European countries contributed to this important idea? How can Minnesota and Wisconsin improve on their civility? Why does civility increase with participation? How does one implement the value-laden imperatives of the civil society without infringing upon the rights of the citizen in the value neutral society?
~check UMD course guide~ [top of page]
CORE - MAPL 6008 (3cr) and MAPL 6009 (2cr) Advocacy Internships
Students will begin taking their MAPL internships around the second semester. In addition, students will take two internships (i.e. one with 2 credits and another with 3 credits).
click here for more info
~check UMD course guide~ [top of page]