Courses

The politics of immigration and immigration policy seem more critical now than ever.  Public debates about immigration have roiled nations around the world, and disagreements about how immigration should be regulated, who should have the right to migrate, what political rights immigrants should have once they cross a border, and how immigrants should participate in the economy have strained political alliances and upended norms of political discourse.  In some cases, conflicts over immigration debates have been used to justify the overhaul of political institutions.  However,

Standard economic theory assumes that individuals are fully rational decision-makers; however, that is often not the case in the real world. Behavioral economics uses findings from lab and field experiments to advance existing economic models by identifying ways in which individuals are systematically irrational. This course gives an overview of key insights from behavioral science and identifies ways in which these findings have been used to advance policies on education, health, energy, taxation, and more.

The primary purpose of the microeconomics core course is to enable you to use microeconomic thinking, concepts and tools in your professional public service work. Accomplishing this also requires refreshing and strengthening your quantitative skills.

Understanding geographic relationships between people, land use, and resources is fundamental to planning. Urban planners routinely use spatial analysis to inform decision-making. This course will introduce students to Geographic Information Systems (GIS), a tool to analyze and visualize spatial data. The course will emphasize the core functions of GIS: map making, data management, and spatial analysis. Students will learn cartographic best practices, how to find and create spatial data, spatial analysis methodology, and how to approach problem solving from a geographic perspective.

Open only to students in the MSPP program. Policy and Data Studio builds on the core courses, your advanced coursework, and is specifically meant to deepen your data and data analytic skills, in the content of a policy issue. Studio is a unique end event where you will use data to shed light on a policy question of your choice using the technical skills and specialized knowledge gained from the program.

Open only to students in the MSPP program. This course will provide students with an opportunity to engage in policy analysis in situations that mimic the real world practice of the craft of policy analysis. In practice, policy analysis requires drawing inferences from limited information, under time pressure and data constraints. It requires asking the right questions, finding the right data, assessing the quality of the data and analyses, and communicating results effectively in writing and in person.

Open only to students in the MSPP program. The goal of this course is to provide students with an introduction to key methods of quantitative policy analysis. We develop the statistical toolkit of regression analysis, reviewing the bivariate regression model and then continuing with multiple regression, and explore how these methods are applied to policy analysis in five benchmark techniques: randomized trials, direct regression analysis, instrumental variables, regression discontinuity, and difference in differences.

Open only to students in the MSPP program. This intensive course will provide students with: 

• An understanding of basic statistics principles 
• Familiarity with Stata
• Experience manipulating data and reading outputs in different formats 
• A working knowledge of basic microeconomics concepts 

This course is pass/fail.

The public/nonprofit administrator, whether primarily concerned with management, policy or finance, is called upon to manage or becomes involved in a wide variety of conflicts. Conflict is ubiquitous - within and between organizations and agencies, between levels of government, between interest groups and government, between interest groups, between citizens and agencies, etc.

Developing and executing an organization’s marketing strategy can be a complicated process, but is integral to raising money, increasing visibility, recruiting brand ambassadors/influencers/advocates/supporters – and building momentum to achieve its mission. It is also affected by issues of the day and time, whether the COVID virus, racial and social injustice, the political climate and world events. 

The goal of this course to is help Executive MPA students learn financial tools to apply to decision-making within mission-driven and governmental organizations.

This is a course in Contracts for the non-lawyer.  Every day we see contracts and may have to read them, sign them and/or perform them.  Many organizations are not large enough to have their own in-house counsel and calling outside counsel is expensive.  Thus, more and more executives and their staff have the responsibility of understanding the day to day contracts with which they come in contact.

This graduate level course will provide an in-depth analysis of gender and sexuality policy in the United States. We will focus on the role that criminalization plays in this area, examining topics such abortion and regulation of intimate partner behavior, including sodomy. Practical application on how policy is made will be intertwined throughout the course and we will use case studies to examine why certain policy efforts, such as marriage equality was successful, while the Equal Rights Amendment failed.

Couples with CAP-GP 3402. For MPA-PNP students.

Couples with CAP-GP 3802. For MPA-Health students.

Only students in the Executive MPA program.

The course will focus on current issues in education and social policy, beginning with an analysis  of the case for public intervention in the market for education.  We will then turn to considering key policy debates and options for addressing important problems - including both policies aimed at the education sector (i.e., public schools) and those affecting other sectors (i.e., housing policy). Particular attention will be paid to reviewing and weighing the evidence base for policy making and considering alternative solutions.

Women have engaged and been represented in public service in America through their fearless Women's Suffrage movement to gain the right to vote, which officially began in the 19th century, in 1848, during the Seneca Falls Convention, where the first women's rights convention, was held and was triumphantly realized in the early 20th century After a hard-fought series of votes in the U.S.

This course examines key ideas in the history and theory of planning. We start with some challenges of 21st-century urbanism to activate our conversations about the history and theory of planning. Does the historical and theoretical apparatus of planning equip us to deal with 21st-century urban formations and problems? Are the forms of contemporary urbanism categorically different from those of the past? Are the techniques and methods of planning bound to the American context, or are they also suitable for other social and political contexts?

Many developing countries have been significantly reforming the scope and organization of the public sector in recent years. This course critically examines the changing structures and operations of government fiscal systems in developing countries, with particular emphasis on the growing trend to strengthen sub-national levels.

Students will have an opportunity to learn about fundraising, as well as philanthropy more broadly. This introductory course will examine the range of ways to raise funds from government, individuals, foundations and corporations. The importance of stewardship, program evaluation, and the role of the board and staff in developing effective fundraising strategies will be addressed.

Couples with CAP-GP.3602.

Only open to students in the Executive MPA Program.

This interactive workshop serves as an introduction to the many NYU Libraries resources and services available to Wagner students that will help students develop skills appropriate to graduate-level research. In the session, we will cover fundamental research strategies that will prepare students for course assignments and Capstone projects.