UConn’s Department of Public Policy (DPP) is proud to announce that the U.S. News & World Report has ranked the Department’s public finance and budgeting offerings once again in the Top 10 in the nation. The DPP’s public affairs program was ranked 45th nationally and 2nd in New England. The top three in New England included Harvard University’s Kennedy School and Brown University’s Watson School. A total of 285 public affairs programs made the 2022 rankings.
Department Head and Professor Mohamad Alkadry notes, “The rankings are a mere acknowledgement of the quality of our faculty and students, the quality of our curriculum and the impact of our alumni on communities and the practice of public service in New England and the nation.”
Over the last four years, enrollment in the department has nearly doubled with almost 300 graduate students (including Fast-Track students). The department’s 1,300 alumni are leaders in the State of Connecticut and across the globe. During the pandemic, adjunct faculty member Jason Jakubowski has helped distribute millions of pounds of food to families across Connecticut as the CEO and President of Foodshare. He recently became President and CEO of the Foodshare/Connecticut Foodbank merge, which will be announcing a new name soon! Secretary of the Connecticut Office of Policy and Management, and DPP alum, Melissa McCaw, is working to champion and lobby Governor Lamont’s latest budget which works to address the impact of the pandemic. Both were named to Hartford Business Journal’s 2020 Power 50. At the DPP’s recent awards night and Pi Pi Alpha Induction, DPP alum Admiral Karl Schultz was the Distinguished Alumni Awardee. He currently serves as the Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard.
For the 2021-2022 academic year, the DPP’s year-long Internship program is expected to place over 80 interns. Students interns are impacting state agencies, municipalities and nonprofit organizations. Current interns are completing the following projects:
- Utilizing data to address racial disparities in service delivery at the Department of Children and Families
- Helping to declare racism a public health crisis in Connecticut
- Collecting and analyzing data to reduce future involvement in the criminal justice system through the Early Screening and Intervention Project with the CT Division of Criminal Justice
- Engaging with high school students to engage them in the college process and increase access to higher education
- Working to mobilize and engage with the youth of Connecticut through voter access and civic participation to improve the understanding of state government and environmental issues in the State
- Improving Veteran services at UConn through data analytics and survey research
- Addressing affordable housing in Connecticut and working to integrate housing with economic development, transportation, and environmental planning
- Analyzing education funding and state finance data to create tools and resources for transparency
Throughout this last year, DPP faculty have been leaders in public finance, education policy and finance, gender and social equity research, Reparations for Slavery and gun violence prevention research. We highlighted the impact of our faculty at the end of 2020 with three special edition newsletters on social equity and social policy, public budgeting and finance and nonprofit management.
Later this month the DPP will graduate its second Encore!Connecticut class of the academic year. During the 2019-2021 academic year, the second act program will have graduated more than 55 private sector executives to the nonprofit sector through the retooling of their skills. In the community, the DPP has also provided professional development programs to more than 500 State of Connecticut, local government and nonprofit management professionals through the Public Service Executive Leadership Collaborative (PSELC).
Interested in joining the DPP this fall? Admissions for the 2021-2022 academic year are still in progress. Our preferred deadline for fall 2020 is May 15th. For more information please see our Meet with Us page. The DPP admissions staff would be happy to assist you.
To keep up to date with our department, please visit us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or Twitter. Have news, a job posting, or an event to share? Email us at dpp@uconn.edu! We are always happy to support and spread the impact of our network!