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Outside Voices

The Public Policy Studies major at the University of Chicago attracts scores of excellent undergraduate students. All of these students take part in a capstone experience in their senior year. A new option for the capstone experience is the Policy Project Seminar, a one-quarter course devoted to honing policy analysis and communication skills.

Writing is the focus of the Project Seminar, and in the inaugural Autumn 2022 offering, students prepared a long policy essay, along with a related short op-ed. For senior Public Policy majors, the expectation is that these pieces of writing will be of professional quality, something that has value outside of the classroom.

The theme adopted for our opening Project Seminar was “Chicago Through a Policy Lens”: all of the student projects took on Chicagoland policy issues. Future iterations of the Project Seminar will have different themes – Education and Justice are scheduled for the next two editions – but the commitment to outstanding written work will remain.

I am proud to introduce the first set of Project Seminar op-eds. These pieces are short, and opinionated, but they are neither casual nor gratuitous; within the Project Seminar, they are as meaningful as the essays. Public Policy thinking that does not reach and engage the public is a rather sterile exercise. Brief, opinionated pieces, from writers whose opinions are well-grounded in the facts and steeped in theoretical considerations, are a vital element of the process of making better policies – and in the case of the Autumn 2022 Policy Project op-eds, a better Chicago.

Jim Leitzel

Executive Director

Public Policy in the College

13 posts
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The Hidden Dilemmas of Vote-by-Mail

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Vote-by-mail (VBM) has garnered national attention since 2020 as a system to increase voter turnout by allowing citizens to exercise their voice safely and conveniently, especially given the new wave of voter suppression efforts. What many proponents have fail... More »

Educating The Future, Not Reinventing the Wheel

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Chicago’s Preschool for All initiative, a universal preschool program that promises access to full-day preschool in community centers and Chicago Public Schools for all Chicago 4-year-olds, is currently in its first year of fully-fledged implementation. The pr... More »

The Arlington … Bears?

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While the Bears continue to garner headlines within Chicago, it is most certainly not due to their stellar play. If you’re not a football fan in Chicago, then perhaps the only news you hear about the Bears is on Monday mornings following another one of their l... More »

The Early Bets Are In

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All eyes are set on Chicago’s upcoming casino opening. Chicago Mayor Lightfoot has put her support behind the Bally’s casino development, with the promise of $200 million worth of annual tax revenue for the city and the creation of thousands of jobs, many targ... More »

Chicago Policy vs. Council Politics

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It’s election day morning, you perform your due diligence on candidates, get up before work to reach the polls, and minutes later, proudly don the “I voted” sticker as a mark of commitment to your civic duty. But wait…what if someone told you that your vote ha... More »