In this course, students will explore and examine financial citizenship in the United States and how it intersects with existing inequalities by race and immigration status. How financial products and services reproduce inequality carry deep consequences for it means to belong, how people are treated within the U.S. economic system, and what policy recommendations can be adopted. Students will examine these broader questions across various weekly topics, including banking and dignity, homeownership, entrepreneurship, and emerging financial technology.

Public service work involves some amount of writing and communications. But the tools for success have dramatically changed in the last few years with the development and deployment of Large Language Models and Artificial Intelligence. This communications course will equip students with the skills to leverage AI tools, such as GPT, GrammarlyGo, and other AI products, to produce compelling and persuasive communication  deliverables.

In the US, Health is a privilege, not a right. Approaches to health in this country have focused on treatment and cures, rather than prevention and care. Studies have shown that your zip code, where you live, matters more to your health than your genetic code. Concurrently, data continues to emerge that trauma, and the effects of trauma, can be passed through our genes, from generation to generation, suggesting that enslavement, forced displacement, and poverty of our ancestors are felt in our bones, today.

The last three decades have witnessed a global proliferation of public sector restructuring, decentralization, and democratization in developing countries. Traditional development planning has adapted (unevenly) to these trends as they have unfolded. This course presents an overview of the evolution of the theory and practice of planning in developing countries with a particular focus on subnational governments.

This course is about the process of scoping and planning public sector investment projects and the basic knowledge and skills required for their financial and economic appraisal (‘ex-ante’ evaluation).

The focus is on urban infrastructure projects identified, prioritized, and appraised through local/municipal planning processes. Case studies include water supply and sewerage, urban transport, solid waste management and green infrastructure.

In this course students will learn the fundamentals of financial institutions and markets, along with risk measurement and management. Through readings, lectures, real-world case studies, and assignments, students will gain an understanding of how financial institutions and markets work, the basics of how financial instruments are priced, and then primarily through case studies examine how risk measurement and management failures led to disasters in financial markets, institutions and/or products. 

This is an introductory course for students who want to better understand theories, principles, and methods of community-based participatory action research (CBPAR), which is research done with communities and community partners. CBPAR is a means for community planning and organizing to address local issues and social needs that center individuals and communities directly impacted.

The course focuses on economic inequality and poverty, drawing on research in economics and other social sciences. The aim is to explore research questions, recent empirical approaches, and policy responses. The course draws on international experiences, with a tilt toward the United States, and an emphasis on framing problems comparatively.

Emergency events are disruptive. Whether acutely impactful and short-term, negligible and protracted, or any mix thereof, these incidents alter healthcare organizations’ abilities to consistently deliver safe and effective care. While potentially devastating, emergencies are also unique opportunities for exemplary leadership and unprecedented innovation. COVID-19, ransomware, and active shooters are, respectively, a few of the myriad natural, technological, and intentional emergency events that healthcare organizations, and their leaders, face.

Management and Leadership is designed to empower you with the skills you will need to make meaningful change in the world—whether you care about bike lanes, criminal justice, prenatal care, community development, urban planning, social investment, or something else. Whatever your passion, you can have an impact by leading and managing. In this course, you will enhance the technical, interpersonal, conceptual, and political skills needed to run effective and efficient organizations embedded in diverse communities, policy arenas, sectors, and industries.

Management consultants work in all corners of the public and nonprofit sectors on every imaginable topic—from organizational strategy to technology implementation, education to migration. But what is management consulting? Why do so many public service organizations rely on it? What skills and experience do you need to be a management consultant?  And how much good can management consulting really do for the public and nonprofit sectors?

Data plays an increasingly important role in powering today’s enterprises, governments and society as a whole. With the rapid pace of innovation, data science, advanced analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are becoming increasingly central and critical to business today. Over time, social impact organizations will deem these tools as core to achieving their mission.