PPS 101 | INTRODUCTION TO PUBLIC POLICY | 4 quarter hours
(Undergraduate)
This core course is designed to provide the student with an introduction to the field of public policy. The historical origins of policy analysis, definitions of what constitutes "public policy", various theoretical approaches developed to address policy problems, and contemporary policy debates on various substantive issues. By the end of the course each student has a solid background for further study of public policy and the social sciences. This course should be taken as one of the first courses in the major.
PPS 201 | PUBLIC POLICY AND URBAN ISSUES | 4 quarter hours
(Undergraduate)
This core course is designed to introduce students to the study of urban areas, to some of the more exciting and difficult issues faced by cities, and finally, to some of the policies designed to address these issues. Readings assist students in exploring what makes cities function, how they have changed over time and what it was like to live through those changes, can show us how modern ways of seeing and modern ways of making sense came into being. If student is a PPS major, then students are encouraged to take PPS 101 prior to PPS 201.
PPS 205 | PUBLIC POLICY RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS | 4 quarter hours
(Undergraduate)
This core course provides students a foundation of and some experience with the research methods used in public policy for collecting and conducting public policy analysis. This will include an overview of research designs and the variety of methods for conducting public policy analysis. Concepts of reliability and validity as well as the use of social scientific policy studies are used. The social science approach to conducting research on public policy is the focus.
PPS 208 | INTRODUCTION TO NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS | 4 quarter hours
(Undergraduate)
This course provides and introduction to and overview of the most important skills needed in managing a nonprofit organization, and gives students a chance to practice those skills using contemporary and historical case studies. Topics covered include the history, scope, and significance of the nonprofit sector, theories of the nonprofit sector, law and governance, resource development and volunteer management, social entrepreneurship, marketing, external relations, the nonprofit life cycle, competition and collaboration, and relationships with business and government.
PPS 231 | ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE | 4 quarter hours
(Undergraduate)
The purpose of this course is to provide students with a historical background on environmental justice (EJ) in the US and an understanding of the current EJ movement. Policy debates surrounding EJ are highlighted from recent studies on determining 'disproportionate impact' to local EJ communities. Students will explore the social, political, and economic processes influencing the spatial distribution of environmental amenities and harms across the U.S. urban landscape, with particular focus on the role of environmental justice struggles in shaping urban policy and the urban landscape. Cross-listed with GEO 205.
PPS 250 | ISSUES IN NEIGHBORHOOD DEVELOPMENT | 4 quarter hours
(Undergraduate)
A major focus of urban policy and grassroots action is the condition of city neighborhoods. This course examines trends in urban policy as they have affected neighborhoods, neighborhood-grounded grassroots action, and local neighborhood development initiatives.
PPS 251 | URBAN POVERTY | 4 quarter hours
(Undergraduate)
This course examines the demographics of poverty and its concentration in central cities. In addition, definitions of poverty and public policies aimed at alleviating poverty are explored with the aim of understanding why poverty remains prevalent in the United States.
PPS 255 | CITIES, GLOBALIZATION AND PUBLIC POLICY | 4 quarter hours
(Undergraduate)
The course will examine the process of globalization on cities and its policy implication. In particular, the course will explore how the impact of globalization on cities may be evaluated; what benefits or problems they produce and for whom. It will conclude by looking at how public policy professionals can influence these results.
PPS 260 | CLIMATE CHANGE POLICY | 4 quarter hours
(Undergraduate)
This course looks at the public policy responses to climate change in a variety of contexts. Beginning with a discussion of the unique, global nature of the problem, the course looks at how international, national, and subnational governments have developed policies to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions as well as ways to build resilience in the face of changing climatic conditions. Special attention will be placed on the role of uncertainty and risk management in the policy making process with regard to climate adaptation. There is no prerequisite for this course.
PPS 278 | DISABILITY RIGHTS AND POLICY | 4 quarter hours
(Undergraduate)
Students use the tools of both justice studies and public policy studies to understand the different aspects that bring about changes in the lives of those affected by disabilities and the ways in which laws and policies can limit the freedom and basic rights of those living with disability. Students will explore a wide range of activism, policies and laws, including employment and public accommodations under the ADA, special education rights under the IDEA, guardianship, and substitute decision making, deinstitutionalization and conditions of confinement and treatment, housing and homelessness, and international disability rights and policy. Students will consider how disability is defined, which rights exist for people with disabilities, and review how the ADA has influenced the United Nations' disability rights laws. Cross-listed with PAX 278.
PPS 300 | APPLIED URBAN AND ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMICS | 4 quarter hours
(Undergraduate)
The purpose of this core course is to provide students with a foundation in microeconomic analytical tools through which to analyze urban and environmental policy issues. This course is intended to be participatory and applied. A variety of public policy issues are examined in terms of microeconomic theory and application.
PPS 301 | PUBLIC POLICY AND POLITICS | 4 quarter hours
(Undergraduate)
This course examines the theories and models of public policy-making. It highlights how public policy is made and who participates in the process. It explores the important role of politics in public policy-making. American institutions and groups are highlighted as well as the unique role the media plays in the process. Students will also have a chance to analyze a public policy based on the diversity of public policy models.
PPS 302 | ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT AND POLICY | 4 quarter hours
(Undergraduate)
Students will explore the different environmental programs and policies. A portion of the course will examine the management of environmental programs and the role of regulations, adjudication, and policy tools available for making policy and managing the implementation of environmental programs. Students will analyze a specific environmental program in the government and evaluate its management. This course prepares students with a background for working in the environmental management field.
PPS 318 | PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS | 4 quarter hours
(Undergraduate)
Every nonprofit organization (NPO) should measure its progress in fulfilling its mission, its success in mobilizing its resources, and its staff's effectiveness on the job. What about a program implemented by an NPO works? How does it make a difference? Who benefits most? And in what context? Program Development and Evaluation is a course that will introduce students to practical program planning, implementation and evaluation skills applicable to nonprofit organizations engaged in a variety of policy areas including emergency relief, service delivery, and policy & rights advocacy. The topics include identifying the problem, planning, implementing and evaluating a program. The course will examine both formative and summative evaluation, and why these components are so critical to measure the real success of an NPO in achieving its mission.
PPS 308 or CSS 300 is a prerequisite for this class.
PPS 319 | FUNDRAISING FOR NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS | 4 quarter hours
(Undergraduate)
This course teaches students the theories and techniques of resource development and fundraising for nonprofit organizations. We discuss the fundraising tradition in the U.S., principal donor types, theories of donor behavior, and the organizational, legal and ethical contexts of fundraising. Students learn basic fundraising tools, including planning, grant writing, special events, major gifts, planned giving, and capital campaigns. Students work as volunteer consultants with nonprofit partners to analyze their current fundraising strategies and materials and help them develop new ones.
PPS 322 | FUNDAMENTALS OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT | 4 quarter hours
(Undergraduate)
This course explores human resource issues facing employees with supervisory responsibilities in public service organizations, including those working in the volunteer, non-profit, religious, government, and education sectors. The course considers human resource planning, employee recruiting and selection, and the motivation and evaluation of staff personnel and managers both individually and in teams. Topics include recruiting and selecting employees and managers, fostering team development, managing employee stress, preventing workplace violence, and handling issues pertaining to termination, training, and development. The course also explores progressive discipline and, improving performance management of employees and volunteers.
PPS 329 | STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT AND PLANNING | 4 quarter hours
(Undergraduate)
Students learn how to apply strategic management and planning concepts and tools to public and nonprofit organizations to achieve goals and objectives in meeting service delivery missions, both domestically and internationally. The course focuses on analyzing the interaction of trends, market forces, stakeholders, and core competencies in developing visions and strategies for alternative scenarios.
PPS 330 | SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT | 4 quarter hours
(Undergraduate)
Sustainable development has become a crucial concept in international initiatives worldwide. It attempts to foster policies that balance the need for economic development with practices that promote healthy communities and ecosystems. This course is based on the instructor's theoretical and practical experience gathered in developed and developing countries under market and command economies conditions. Special emphasis is placed on the role of institutions, both governmental and non-government, in shaping economic policies that are compatible with environmental health. The course pursues the objective of preparing students to understand main environmental problems and to generate solutions for these problems from a multidisciplinary perspective.
PPS 332 | NATIONAL PARKS POLICY AND GOVERNANCE | 4 quarter hours
(Undergraduate)
This course focuses on the interrelationship between public policy, human values, and nature as displayed through environmental policy governing our national parks. Special attention is given to the cultural dynamics (including political and legal) that are demonstrated in how public policies have been created and implemented over time in regards to our national parks. The course reviews the policy literature and theories associated with the management of the national parks as it reflects our societal values of the time period. These policies have dramatically changed over time, so it is an ideal venue that demonstrates a significant change in how we view nature. The role of tourism, economic development pressures and property owners (takings) concerns will be included. Also, critical thinking about national parks policy will be required. This is taught as a hybrid course.
PPS 333 | GREEN CITIES | 4 quarter hours
(Undergraduate)
This course looks at public policies pertaining to urban sustainability. Low-carbon transportation, green building policies, locally produced renewable energy, and storm water management policies are among the topics discussed.
PPS 334 | SUSTAINABLE LAND REVITALIZATION AND BROWNFIELDS DEVELOPMENT POLICY | 4 quarter hours
(Undergraduate)
This course is focused on environmental public policy issues associated with Brownfields, Superfund sites, and an assortment of state and local land revitalization programs. Substantive emphasis includes examination of social problems and public policy impediments associated with the revitalization of neighborhoods. This course includes current public policy regulations and implementation guidelines to prepare students for working in this field.
PPS 336 | QUANTITATIVE PUBLIC POLICY ANALYSIS | 4 quarter hours
(Undergraduate)
This course focuses on writing of research questions and hypotheses, selection of appropriate quantitative statistical analyses for research questions, interpretation of statistical results, and communication of those results. A significant portion of the course work will involve doing statistical analyses of existing data using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). Students will prepare a substantial paper using the techniques for public policy analysis. Students majoring in PPS are encouraged to have completed PPS 205 before taking this course. This core course for PPS majors and minors should be taken before the senior year.
PPS 346 | ADVOCACY AND LOBBYING | 4 quarter hours
(Undergraduate)
Explores the roles of individuals and organizations in the public policy process, particularly as power arrangements facilitate or impede consensus building. Examines how legislation is written and how administrative rules are formed in government agencies. Special attention is paid to advocacy techniques such as lobbying, public education, and litigation.
PPS 350 | ISSUES IN URBAN REDEVELOPMENT | 4 quarter hours
(Undergraduate)
The course examines the central issues in contemporary urban development: how urban restructuring, demographic shifts, new patterns of production and consumption, as well as technologically-grounded globalization processes, shape urban development. The course emphasizes the changing context of urban development policy and explores various critical approaches to interpreting urban development policy.
PPS 351 | THE POLICY AND POLITICS OF URBAN HOUSING | 4 quarter hours
(Undergraduate)
The course looks at housing as a social symbol and material commodity, with particular emphasis placed on the role of government in the direct provision of housing and the indirect support of home ownership, as well as housing policies indirect impact on neighborhood development, race relations, and metropolitan suburbanization.
PPS 352 | ISSUES IN URBAN EDUCATIONAL POLICY | 4 quarter hours
(Undergraduate)
This course examines the politics, history, and social context of urban education. Special attention is devoted to emerging policy alternatives such as the use of school vouchers and the formation of charter schools.
PPS 353 | INEQUALITY AND PUBLIC POLICY | 4 quarter hours
(Undergraduate)
Many recent studies have detailed the significant growth in economic inequality in the United States, showing a level not seen since the 1920s. Others have focused on the consequences on significant inequality for a society and its politics. Often this inequality is seen as a necessary (and even desirable) consequence of a free market. This course focuses, however, on policy aspects of our current inequality: the public policies that have contributed to current levels of inequality, reasons for reducing inequality, and public policies that may reduce inequality. U.S. inequality and public policies will also be contrasted with those of similar nations, such as Germany and Nordic countries.
PPS 358 | SPECIAL TOPICS IN NONPROFIT STUDIES | 4 quarter hours
(Undergraduate)
This course provides an in-depth examination of various issues in nonprofit management. It may be taken multiple times, each on a different topic.
PPS 359 | SPECIAL TOPICS IN PUBLIC POLICY STUDIES | 4 quarter hours
(Undergraduate)
This course provides an in-depth examination of various public policy issues and be taken multiple times for each topic offered.
PPS 360 | GREAT LAKES GOVERNANCE POLICY AND MANAGEMENT | 4 quarter hours
(Undergraduate)
The Great Lakes of the United States are a significant natural resource. This course will give an overview of the discovery, history, and policy development associated with the management and governance of the lakes. Students will research the different organizations involved with public policy of the lakes, as well as learn the legal framework in how they interact. This course takes an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the lakes.
PPS 361 | PUBLIC SPACES AND SOCIAL CONTROL | 4 quarter hours
(Undergraduate)
Several contemporary trends have led city governments to emphasize policies to attract middle class residents, tourists, and conventions back to the city. These policies often include means of increasing social control over public spaces so that these users feel safe. Also, given fiscal constraints, many local governments see privatization of some public spaces, including neighborhoods, as a means of stretching limited dollars while providing needed services. Many commentators and scholars, however, are greatly concerned about the resulting changes in public spaces of urban areas. They write about Disneyfication of urban areas, commodification of culture, the city as spectacle or theme park, the city as fortress or panopticon, the restrictions of certain behaviors and publics in urban areas---in other words, the loss of public space. These issues and policies raise questions about the differences between public and private spaces, the role of public spaces in democratic governance, the definition/identification of "the public" and citizens, the use of private governments for social control, police strategies for social control, and the equity of social control efforts in and current use patterns of public spaces. Those issues are the focus of the course.
PPS 368 | ENVIRONMENTALISM AND DISABILITY | 4 quarter hours
(Undergraduate)
This advanced course looks at the emerging research on how broadly the environmental movement (from transcendentalism through conservation and sustainability) has framed humans' interaction with nature and protection from pollution from an ableist lens. Case studies will be used on the wilderness lands policy, use of national parks, the environmental justice movement on public health, the current climate change and energy justice efforts to demonstrate the importance of framing that has generated exclusionary policies and built structures dislocating the disabled person. Concepts of eco-crip theory, and the notion of the "ecology of other" from the scholarship are explored as well as under the UN Sustainability Goals (SDG4) on disability.
PPS 370 | THE ENERGY SECTOR AND MANAGEMENT | 4 quarter hours
(Undergraduate)
This course gives an overview of energy policy and the dynamic and changing nature of the energy sector both in the US and internationally. Energy management topics are included such as mining, disposal, and challenges to the climate and ecosystems. Energy efficiency and current emergent technology is included. Whenever possible, the course includes a Global Learning Experience (GLE) for DePaul students to engage with students about the energy sector and management on other continents. Issues of energy justice and the global South and North American tribal nations are included.
PPS 374 | RENEWABLE AND SUSTAINABLE ENERGY POLICY | 4 quarter hours
(Undergraduate)
This course takes a case study approach to look at policy innovation that supports efforts to decrease the carbon intensity in the energy sector. Focusing primarily on local, state, and subnational government actions, this course surveys key policy tools such as renewable portfolio standards, community choice aggregation, property assessed clean energy, distributed energy generation, and transportation decarbonization efforts.
PPS 376 | ENERGY POLICY AND THE ENVIRONMENT | 4 quarter hours
(Undergraduate)
Fluctuating energy prices and climate change concerns have kept the public's interest in energy and environmental issues over the years. Legislators have occasionally passed laws to encourage renewable and other green energy technologies, enhance future energy security, and reduce harmful pollutants that result from energy use. This course will provide a historical and broad perspective on energy policy, energy resources and use, environmental protection, energy regulation, renewable resource economics, CO2 emission reduction strategies, and other issues. The course is divided into three main sections that cover: 1) energy supply, including from oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear, and renewable resources, 2) energy demand, including energy use by sector and conservation efforts to use energy resources more efficiently, and 3) environmental impacts from energy use.
PPS 378 | URBAN RESILIENCE AND CLIMATE ADAPTATION POLICY | 4 quarter hours
(Undergraduate)
With more than half the global population living in cities and climate models projecting significant global warming over the next decades, local officials will be at the forefront of adapting to new climatic realities. This course looks specifically at municipal policies adopted to address climate adaptation and responses to other environmental and health stressors such as global pandemics. The course takes a global view, exploring policies from both the Global North and Global South as well as international networks of policy diffusion that facilitate cooperation between urban policymakers around the world.
PPS 393 | CAPSTONE: GENTRIFICATION | 4 quarter hours
(Undergraduate)
This course is designed to bring together much of the knowledge attained by Public Policy students during their four years at DePaul by focusing on the often contentious issues of urban gentrification and re-gentrification. Gentrification involves economic issues, political issues, environmental issues, educational issues, race and ethnicity, and equity issues as well. The course shall examine the variables associated with the process of gentrification, the advantages and disadvantages of that process, the winners and the losers in the process, and the political and economic implications of all of this.
Status as a Public Policy Studies major with Senior standing is a prerequisite for this class.
PPS 394 | CAPSTONE: GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE | 4 quarter hours
(Undergraduate)
This course is designed to integrate the two concentrations of the Public Policy major to address sustainable management of essential urban infrastructure systems, including stormwater management, energy production and efficiency, and urban forests. The course shall examine how municipal green infrastructure investment reflects larger social values and encourages students to examine the social forces that impact the efficacy of green infrastructure.
Status as a Public Policy Studies major with Senior standing is a prerequisite for this class.
PPS 397 | TRAVEL/STUDY | 0.5-6 quarter hours
(Undergraduate)
Travel/Study.
PPS 398 | INTERNSHIP | 4 quarter hours
(Undergraduate)
The course combines academic study with practical experience obtained through work in an off-campus internship setting. The internship course requires academic output in the form of a research journal, paper, or other project.
PPS 399 | INDEPENDENT STUDY | 0.5-6 quarter hours
(Undergraduate)
Intensive study of a topic of special interest. Instructor-guided supervised reading and research. Variable credit.