Professor Gary Wyckoff’s public policy students worked in teams this semester to meet the challenge of devising effective yet feasible policy proposals for education reform. They presented and defended their projects to a panel of alumni who work in education on May 12.

Using examples from today’s political landscape, Professor of Government P. Gary Wyckoff examined elements of critical thinking in an essay titled “What Exactly Is Critical Thinking,” published by InsideHigherEd in its Oct. 11 edition. “As I prepared for the start of classes this fall, I tried to pinpoint the critical thinking skills I really want my students to learn,” wrote Wyckoff.  “And as I listened to public debates on everything from tax policy to Obamacare, five essential thinking skills seemed to be missing, again and again.”

A Levitt Public Service internship this summer has solidified Jose Vazquez’s ’15 desire to pursue a career in education policy and reform. Vazquez is in Washington D.C. as an intern for The Heart of America Foundation, a non-profit organization that builds libraries for under-resourced schools across the nation.  The organization partners with Target and embarks on their 15th year anniversary building 150+ libraries nationwide.

Dissent Magazine published an article titled 50 Years Later: Poverty and The Other America by Publius Virgilius Rogers Professor of History Maurice Isserman in its winter 2012 issue. The article is an adaptation of the prologue of The Other American: The Life of Michael Harrington, the biography Isserman wrote in 2000. The article included updated statistics and observations.

An article titled “Study: Does enduring extreme weather make you vote liberal?,” appearing on the USA Today website on Dec. 30, reported on a study written by four Hamilton economists. Henry Platt Bristol Professor of Economics Ann Owen, Assistant Professor of Economics Emily Conover and Associate Professors of Economics Julio Videras and Stephen Wu co-authored the study, “Heat Waves, Droughts, and Preferences for Environmental Policy.” The Weather Channel also reported on the study on Jan. 2. 

The New York Times published a letter to the editor written by Professor of Government P. Gary Wyckoff as the leadoff response to “Class Matters. Why Won’t We Admit It?” in its Dec. 22 editorial section titled “Reducing Inequality in Our Schools.” He compared our current educational policies as being “like a requirement that all children clear the same height in the high jump, regardless of their stature.”

WAMC/Northeast Public Radio in Albany will feature P. Gary Wyckoff, professor of government and the director of the Public Policy Program , on Wednesday, Oct. 12, as part of the public radio station’s Academic Minute. During his reading, Wyckoff explains why holding teachers and students responsible for poor school performance ignores the single greatest factor that determines individual educational outcomes.

The Levitt Center has recently published the spring 2011 edition of Insights, the academic journal that features the best undergraduate social science research papers written by Hamilton students.

For students interested in public policy, a think tank offers an ideal environment to begin exploring a range of policies, methods of research, and potential solutions to current issues. Elizabeth “Betsy” Bilharz ’12, an economics major with a public policy minor, plans to take full advantage of a think-tank environment; she will spend her summer as an intern for the New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies in Concord, N. H.

A new national survey of Americans’ attitudes on immigration, race, ethnicity and religion shows a large majority of Americans (60%) support allowing legal immigrants to vote in local elections, with the strongest support coming from young Americans and opposed only by a majority of those over age 60. The poll, funded by Hamilton's Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center, found that almost half of all young people feel the government should focus more on integrating illegal immigrants into American society.