More than 150 students, faculty, and Capstone clients were on hand May 3 as second-year MIA and MPA students celebrated the completion of this year’s Capstone workshops in the Kellogg Center at IAB. Guests enjoyed drinks and hors d’oeuvres — as well as a representative sample of student findings.
Joined by Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Dan McIntyre, Interim Dean Robert Lieberman saluted participating students and faculty advisers. The workshops, Lieberman said, are one of SIPA’s “hallmarks,” where the lessons of the classroom meet the practical challenges of the real world.
Over four months collaborating with selected public agencies, private companies, and nonprofit organizations students put their policy education and professional experience into practice —producing recommendations that clients can follow in the near future.
Suzanne Hollmann, Capstone program director, said that multiple clients had already expressed eagerness to implement student recommendations. And, she added, the team that visited Uganda — to study how the government might effectively manage newly found oil reserves — even attracted mentions in the Ugandan press.
All told, 362 students took part in 60 projects during the 2011-12 academic year, mostly in the spring semester. The five projects highlighted at the presentation included:
- Evaluating the impact of budget reductions to the Department of Parks and Recreation’s tree maintenance program in Brooklyn (New York City Mayor’s Office of Operations)
- Central and sub-national government fiscal relations: Indexing the risk posed to central governments by their sub-national governments’ contingent liabilities, Moody’s Investors Service
- Global Commodities Research Politics and economics of the rare earths industry, Citigroup
- Mapping youth access to contraception and abortion information and services in Ethiopia, Planned Parenthood Federation of America
- Data sharing in support of U.S. counter-terrorism efforts, The Markle Foundation
Congratulations to students on their successful completion of the workshops, and their impending graduation!
