Courses Typically Offered in the Fall

The American Presidency

The past five years have forced a national reexamination of the institution of the American presidency. And the effect has been traumatic. Allies of former President Trump celebrated the disruption of presidential “norms” in support of populist ideals. Supporters of President Biden bemoaned the disappearance of those “norms” and saw, especially on January 6th 2021, the threat that a resurgent “Imperial Presidency” posed to American democracy and its constitutional system. This course will introduce students to the evolution of the presidency, especially its phases in the modern era.

Capstone: Advanced Simulation in Healthcare Management

For MPA-Health Management and Health Financial Management students. Students experience the challenges of executive leadership and strategic decision-making in a complex, multi-health system marketplace. Students will have an opportunity to integrate the knowledge and skills acquired throughout the program and apply them to a set of challenging problems in healthcare management via a strategic simulation. The technology provides students real-time feedback on processes and performance in the field.

Understanding the Role Federal Tax Credits Play in the Affordable Housing & Renewable Energy Sectors

For better or worse, both affordable housing and renewable energy projects in the US are mostly built and owned by private developers and corporations. These private developers in turn are reliant on private capital provided by investors, corporations and banks. Almost all these investors rely heavily on federal tax credits.  90% of affordable housing in the US receives a subsidy through the low-income housing tax credit (“LIHTC”). Virtually all large-scale wind and solar projects receive tax credit subsides as well (“ITC” or “PTC”).

Policy Implementation: How Plans, Policies and Projects are Put into Action in the Government

This course examines how government agencies implement plans, policies, and projects under real-world constraints. Government agencies are some of the largest and most consequential organizations shaping contemporary life, especially for the poor. Their importance is even more evident now, as governments around the world continue to mishandle the pandemic, slide towards authoritarianism, and abuse the rights of vulnerable people. Surprisingly, their outsized influence is rarely matched by an adequate amount of attention.

Environmental, Social, Governance Investing

The most common Mission-Related Investment (MRI) approaches include socially responsible investing (SRI), and environmental, social, and governance (ESG). While private investments generally account for 20% of an institutional investment portfolio, public investments can represent more than 75%.

Grammar Fundamentals

This 0-credit workshop will drill down on fundamentals of written English. We will cover punctuation, articles, passive/active voice, how and when to cite others’ work and best practices for self editing. Our focus will be on memos, but the lessons will be applicable to all written communications deliverables. Using short in class assignments and a memo you could possibly use in another class, the course is geared toward Wagner students who want to improve sentence mechanics.

Current Issues in Reproductive Healthcare Management and Policy

This class will utilize a hands-on and practical approach to understanding reproductive healthcare in the context of policy and management. Students will have the opportunity to think through real-world case studies and engage with relevant reproductive healthcare topics. Such topics include contraception, abortion, forced sterilization, abuses of power, gender, and gender identity.

Project Management Workshop

This workshop provides participants with the fundamental steps of how to plan and implement transformation initiatives using the PMP methodology and best practices. Project Management forms the basis for effectively delivering improvements to business processes, deploying new technologies, transformation using data and metrics and communicating change management.

Strategic Communications for Advocacy

Organizational storytelling both effectively communicates an organization’s mission and builds empathy for its cause. A story is more than an exposition, climax, and resolution. Effective storytelling weaves a narrative that tells a systemic story about the social justice movement. The course will offer an overview on how to strategically use values-based communications, helping students understand how to move persuadable audiences to garner support for social justice issues.

Environmental Infrastructure for Sustainable Cities

Sustainability requires the efficient use of resources.  The least carbon- and energy-intensive pattern of settlement today is in compact, walkable cities whose integrated networks of infrastructure that allows us to move, eat, drink, play, and survive extreme weather.  As our population shifts to urban and coastal areas, we will need to build more infrastructure systems to accommodate growth and to increase sustainability.  Yet we are building too little, too slow to maintain our existing infrastructure, let alone to facilitate next generation systems that will accelerate ou

Urban Research Seminar

This course, taught jointly by faculty members across the university, offers doctoral students an opportunity to learn about the latest theoretical and empirical research on critical urban issues. The course is not taught in a lecture format. Rather, the colloquium focuses on discussions of academic works in progress by scholars from around the country, working in such disciplines as sociology, history, planning, law, public health, public policy, and economics.