Graduate Certificate in Public Policy

Students in this course are introduced to Walden University and to the requirements for successful participation in an online curriculum. Students work toward building a foundation for academic and professional success as scholar-practitioners and social change agents. They assess the relationship of mission and vision to professional goals and develop a program of study, a Professional Development Plan, and strategies for online success. Students also explore resources used throughout the program, such as the online Walden University Library. Students engage in course assignments focused on the practical application of professional writing, critical-thinking skills, and the promotion of professional and academic excellence and integrity.

Students in this course are introduced to the crafts of policymaking and policy analysis in the U.S. democratic system. Students examine the tasks involved in the policy process, including setting agendas, using policy analysis tools, managing the political process, implementing policy, and providing evaluations and feedback. Through this analysis, students work toward developing skills to conduct policy and economic analyses as well as to determine the political feasibility of proposed policies. They learn about regulation as a policy choice. They also work toward enhancing their ability to develop alternatives and to assess strategies proposed to achieve certain policy objectives. Students engage in scholarly writing assignments and discussions on policy areas of interest, such as communications, immigration, transportation, housing, labor, arts, and environmental policies. 

There are a variety of tools available to policymakers and policy analysts to evaluate the impact of social programs. In this course, students examine these tools and work toward gaining the skills needed to develop plans for evaluation and to assess social programs effectively. Students engage in discussions and assignments designed to provide practical application of content on a variety of topics, such as selecting programs to evaluate, crafting program descriptions, identifying stakeholders and their interests, developing logic models, framing evaluation questions, applying utilization-focused evaluation techniques, using quantitative and qualitative tools to complete formative and summative evaluations, and providing evaluation reports and feedback to decision makers. Using concepts presented in the course, students gain hands-on experience developing an evaluation design for a social program.

Public policymakers often rely on microeconomic and macroeconomic models to formulate new policies and re-evaluate existing polices. In this course, students examine the use of such models in the public policy setting and assess how public finance influences policy choices as well as implementation alternatives. Through weekly, analytical writing assignments and peer discussions, students explore tax policies and tax incentive models; budgeting, public/private models; market influences on policy; the impact of government expenditures on income redistribution; and economic considerations of welfare; food stamps, workers' compensation, Social Security, and outsourcing of public programs. Synthesizing course content and applying critical-thinking skills, students assess a local government jurisdiction, examine the decisions of policy makers, and recommend improvements based on economic models.