Courses

In an interconnected and rapidly evolving world, the concept of social impact has become central to addressing the most pressing challenges of our time. This course introduces students to the fundamentals of creating and evaluating social change through various disciplines, sectors, and frameworks. Students will explore the role of social entrepreneurship, nonprofit organizations, corporate social responsibility, and government initiatives in tackling issues such as poverty, climate change, racial equity, and public health.

This non-credit, 3-session module introduces students to the basic functionalities of Microsoft Excel such as basic formulas, absolute versus relative cell reference, formatting, and time-value of money financial functions. The module is held in a computer lab and every student has a computer. It is intended for students with limited or no Excel experience, and is designed to be taken concurrently with CORE-GP 1021 (Financial Management).

The course incorporates topics of capital planning and other finance issues making as applied to health-care organizations. This course will cover three main topics:

-Public payer rate setting

-Understanding risk and the costs of capital in making financial decisions.

-Issues in working capital and investment management activities of healthcare organizations.

Couples with CAP-GP.3227.

This course examines the inner workings of successful international public service projects and gives students the opportunity to design one or more themselves. Students will then study the characteristics of effective programs, which bring together a series of projects for mutually supportive and concerted action. Particular attention is paid to programs selected from the five areas where international public sector entities are most active: peace building, relief, development, advocacy and norm-setting.

The Doctoral Research Colloquium incorporates the NYU Wagner Seminar series at which prominent researchers present current work on pressing social issues. The speakers represent a range of disciplines and methodological approaches, and are affiliated with institutions from around the country.   Doctoral students registered for the colloquium will actively engage with the seminar speaker both during and after the presentations.  Course requirements also include written critiques of the presented papers.

This course will train students to obtain, clean, manipulate, analyze, map, and visualize spatial and non-spatial data to support their work throughout their urban planning careers. The course emphasizes the critical role of design and communication in effective data storytelling. Students will practice the open-source tools R and QGIS in depth. The course will help students build a strong foundation in working with data that will allow them to learn and master additional programs, languages, and tools toward future goals.

This course offers a hands-on opportunity for doctoral and advanced masters students to experience the practice of qualitative research. We will address the nature of qualitative research in the administrative and policy sciences, with ample opportunities to discuss the implications of the choices made in designing, implementing and reporting on the findings of a “mock” project which we will determine in class, with your input.

This course incorporates topics of planning and financial decision making as applied to health-care organizations. This course will cover two main topics:

-Financial analysis both as a proactive exercise and a tool for organizational control.

-Issues of budgeting, cost determination, pricing and rate setting in a healthcare environment.

New York City is the nation's largest city, with a strong, active municipal government and an annual municipal budget of approximately $110 billion. The city charter provides the mayor with more power than the mayor of any other large city in the United States. The role of the mayor, the state government and the city council are explored with a focus on economic development policies, public safety, immigration, transportation, planning and climate change.

The goal of this course is to provide students with an introduction to advanced empirical methods. We begin by discussing a framework for causal inference and how randomized controlled trials provide a simple and powerful template for thinking about causal questions. We then develop a sequence of advanced empirical methods as alternatives to randomized trials, in settings where experiments are infeasible or not desirable. In particular we discuss regression discontinuity, matching methods, difference-in-differences and panel data, and instrumental variables.

Couples with CAP-GP.3149.

Operations management specifically involves the analysis, design, operation, and improvement of the systems and processes that deliver goods or services and ultimately outputs and outcomes. It is required to achieve the organization’s mission, provide value to the organization’s many stakeholders, and effectively translate policy into action. As such, operations management plays an important part of being an effective manager and policy implementer.

This interdisciplinary seminar brings together law, urban planning and public policy students to analyze historic and current trends in affordable housing, community development, land use, and housing finance.  We use New York City as a laboratory that is both unique from, and similar to, other American cities.  The course focuses on housing/community development policy, real estate and mortgage financing, subsidies, community participation, environmental impact, and neighborhood change such as gentrification and displacement, with particular emphasis on how issues of race, povert

In this course, we will study “shari’ah,” the primary legal and ethical tradition of Islam. First, we will briefly cover the historical development of shari’ah. Then we will turn to the contemporary era, and examine the articulation of shari’ah in regard to a variety of concrete issues. It is hoped that by the end of the course, the student will have a greater appreciation for the complexity of shari’ah, and its continued relevance in today's legal and ethical debates both nationally and internationally.

This course describes the growing involvement of government in stimulating and directing the development of information technology in healthcare organizations. Included is a discussion of attempts to exchange information for the purposes of improving the quality of personal healthcare and public health. Methods for determining the financial value of information technology are described. Techniques for insuring the security and privacy of health information are presented.

This is an introductory course in urban transportation planning. The course is divided into 3 parts. Part One is a foundational review of theories and research about the complex relationships among transportation, land use and urban form.  Part Two examines certain key factors that today’s transportation planners deal with as transportation and land use interact in the context of planning and projects. Part Three involves a review of some of the most notable transportation and land use plans, projects and problems facing the New York City metropolitan region.

Open only to students in the MSPP program. Communication Skills for Policy Analysts is a seminar course that simulates a fast-paced public policy environment where different stakeholders require a constant flow of written and oral communication work products. Each work product assignment will be treated as a case with a specific audience, background information and real-world situation and will require outside research and collaboration. MS in Public Policy students will draw on knowledge and techniques being learned in their other Fall coursework.

Required for doctoral students.

Recent momentum behind criminal justice reform permitted new discussions concerning incarceration policy and punishment in the United States.  This course takes an interdisciplinary approach in examining the role of crime, incarceration policy, and institutions in driving contemporary discussions on criminal justice reform—with race often being a salient component for many of these public policy conversations.  This course will provide students with an opportunity to critically examine topics such as racial differences in crime, policing, incarceration policy, and prisoner reentry

In the context of an increasingly polarized American society, this course seeks to train students to mobilize diverse faith communities together for the greater good. Unleashing the power of their own story, students will articulate their values and explore the ways it can be shared. The course will draw on case studies from historical and contemporary faith leaders who have achieved success in creating sustainable change, as well as interrogating relevant current affairs as they arise.

Traditionally, governments have the ultimate responsibility for assuring the conditions for their people to be as healthy as they can be. In this sense one of the fundamental societal goals of health services may be considered the health improvement of the population served and for which the individual government is responsible. As our understanding of the multiple determinants of health has dramatically expanded, exercising this responsibility calls for a national health policy that goes beyond planning for the personal health care system and addresses the health of communities.

Using “business as a force for good”, social entrepreneurs implement innovative private sector approaches to solve social, cultural and/or environmental problems.  Surviving start-up and scaling to maximize impact is both an art and a science, especially when attempted without outside investments.  Statistics show that approximately 10% of small businesses surpass $1 million in revenues, while only 0.5% surpass $10 million.  Fundamentals of Social Entrepreneurship will draw upon the real-life successes and challenges faced by the professor and other social entreprene

In 2016, the United Nations Secretary General noted in the World Humanitarian Summit Outcome Report that, “Armed conflicts and other violent situations, disasters caused by natural hazards and the impacts of climate change, health threats, soaring inequality and increased fragility marked by extreme poverty and weak institutions are among the factors contributing to the unprecedented spike in humanitarian needs.” In 2020, the world was further destabilized by the Covid-19 global pandemic leaving the humanitarian sector further extended and in desperate need of a radical rethink.