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Please find enclosed a proposal from the Public Policy Program to convert

their prog

r

am into a School.

I

believe that

t

his is

an excellent

proposal

.

for

all the reasons listed

i

n the document and i

t

has my

stronges

t

endorsement.

This proposed change fits into

t

he

FASS 3

-

year plan. The Public Polic

y

Program

participa

t

es in

t

he S

F

U strateg

i

c areas of health and environmen

t.

It

i

s an in

t

erdisciplinary p

r

ogram. w

h

ich combines innova

ti

ve research

w

i

t

h

s

t

rong community connections.

All th

i

s is part of the SFU 3-year plan and

vis

i

on.

I

n the FAS

S

3

-

year plan, we

L

ist as a new program de

v

elopmen

t

for

the

2010-13 pe

r

i

o

d:

W

ork w

i

th

t

he Public

Po

lic

y p

rogram to create a School o

f

Public Policy

,

in

order to take

f

ull ad

v

antage o

f

the synergies

across

the university

,

to allow

national and int

e

rnational

visibility, and

t

o facil

i

tate fund raising and

r

ecrui

t

ment.

The Public Policy ?rogram already performs

all the

functions of a school;

this would simply recogni

z

e

a situation already in

existence.

In

terms

of resource implicat

i

ons,

there would

be no new res

o

urces needed

or

expec

t

ed.

This move would greatly

increase

the

visibility of

a

flagship

program

.

Finally

.

changing the designat

i

on

t

o

School

would

enhance

fundraising

oppo

r

tuni

t

ies substantially.

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---

SFU

SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY

THINKING OF THE WORLD

MEMO

To:

From:

Date:

Re:

Lesley Cormack

Dean, Faculty of Arts and Social Science

Nancy

OlewiJer, Director

25 January 2010

Graduate Public Policy Program

515 West Hastings Street

Vancouver,

British

Columbia

Canada

V6a SK3

Tel: (778) 782-5289

Fax: (778) 782-5288

E-mail:

mpp@sfu.ca

http://www.sfu.ca/mpp/

Proposal to Convert the Graduate Public Policy Program to the

Graduate

School of Public Policy

At its meeting of 11 January 2010, the members of the Public Policy Program unanimously approved a

motion

to convert our unit from the Public Policy Program to the Graduate School of Public Policy.

I hope you would support this proposal and take it forward to SCUP as soon as possible. I append the

proposal

as it provides the background to support our conversion from a Program to a School.

Thank you,

Nancy Olewiler

---

Proposal to

Convert the Master of Public Policy Program to the

School of Public Policy

Background and Rationale

The Master of Public Policy Program (MPP) in the Faculty of Arts and Social Science was

approved by Senate in September

2002 and began full operation in the 2003-04

academic year with the appointment of a Director (seconded from Economics) and

hiring

of one HE junior faculty, a CRC tier I Chair, a senior policy professor, secondment

of a full professor, and our Program Manager. The first student intake was for

September 2003. The program is 'stand alone'; it never was part of another

department. The Master

of Public Policy Program created a two-year cohort-based full-

time course of graduate studies leading to the Masters of Public Policy (MPP) degree.

We are a 'premium fee' program because when the

MPP was created, graduate

enrollment levels were frozen and no incremental per capita funding was available

from

the provincial government. A research centre - The Centre for Public Policy Research

(CPPR) was also created when we came into existence. It is devoted to enhancing public

policy research at

SFU and connecting to the wider policy community beyond the

university through its workshops, policy seminars, discussion papers, and invited

speakers. We are also the departmental home

to the Institute for Critical Studies in

Gender and Health

(Olena Hankivsky is the co-director), and another research initiative,

ACT, Adaptation to Climate Change.

The program is highly successful by any metric. Our HE faculty complement has grown

through the realization

of a number of opportunities to 8 tenured faculty members who

have Public Policy as their home department.

1

We are fortunate also to have five highly

qualified policy practitioners and researchers

as adjunct professors who teach some of

our elective courses. We are at full capacity in the MPP program given our teaching

resources

with approximately 60 full-time graduate students (30 per each cohort of our

two-year program). Each year we receive over 150 applications to our program. The

appendix presents data

for the past five years on enrollment, number of faculty and

graduation rates.

2

The Federal Government, a major employer of graduates and

summer interns, actively

seeks out our MPP students because of the strength of the

skills and abilities

that they bring to their work. So too do many NGOs, provincial

governments, crown corporations and business organizations. The number

of graduates

selected

for elite government programs intended to quickly advance promising young

professionals

has been proportionately higher than other competing graduate

programs, and senior government managers have offered frequent testimonials

attesting

to the extraordinary quality of graduates as employees in an increasingly

I

Professors Andrew Petter and Maureen Maloney will be joining our unit on July I. 20 I O. Their

appointments

will bring to 10 the number of faculty who have Public Policy as their home department.

!Data was nO( yet available for 2009-2010. In 2009-20 I O. we added another faculty member and our

Director was transferred from Economics to Public Policy on a permanent basis. Also note that graduate

headcount is for the combined two cohorts.

---

Proposal to

Convert the Master of Public Policy Program to the

School of Public Policy

competitive environment for training public policy specialists. A number of our

graduates have gone on to PhD programs in a variety of fields (Political Science, Public

Policy, Health).

Our program is very challenging. We require students to complete 14 courses (5 credits

each) and a major research project.

Our goal is to graduate at least 80 percent of our

cohort after the four semesters of courses plus one semester for the required co-op

internship. We have

met or exceeded that target every year. One reason for this

success and the corresponding reputation

as a superior program is that the program is

academically rigorous, cross-disciplinary and professionally relevant. Whereas many

programs emphasize technical and applied skills

of immediate application to the work

place, MPP students also receive solid foundations in economics and political science,

thus ensuring they are strong in

the two disciplines most important for policy studies

and analyses. The offerings in these courses are provided by respected and experienced

faculty who tailor them

to provide an integrated body of cross disciplinary knowledge

and analytical skills

with clear relevance to modern policy problems. The third area of

emphasis is research methodologies. We require four courses in methodology-

quantitative and qualitative analysis as well as policy analysis. These courses are

augmented by electives offered by

our department or other graduate departments at

SFU (or UBC through the Western Deans Agreement) and direct hands-on practical

work.

Our graduates are grounded in all aspects of effective policy making. This is

capped by a major research and analysis project - the capstone. Taken together, these

requirements are widely recognized

as superior to those in many comparable programs,

thus

putting the program in a strong position to compete and succeed over the long

term.

A clear strength

of the program is the excellence and diversity of the faculty. Practical,

first rate senior government experience

is represented as is many years of academic

success in scholarly research.

Our faculty members are highly multi-disciplinary; we

come from economics, political

science, and psychology. Faculty members have

successful track records in advising and working

for governments on difficult policy

problems, some in senior government policy management roles, and are able

to provide

students

with the benefits of such experience. Our research and experience cover fields

from the local to the international level. Our colleagues are involved in research

projects and policy analysis related

to all levels of government in Canada and in the UK,

Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan, Africa, the Ukraine, Southeast Asia and latin

America. Our areas of expertise encompass a range of policy issues the address the

environment, aboriginal peoples, income disparity, governance, immigration, health,

diversity, ageing, education, policy innovation and more. We also engage in extensive

media-based comment and analysis on topical policy problems and many have been

directly

or indirectly responsible for policy innovations adopted by governments. This

---

Proposal to

Convert the Master of Public Policy Program to the

School of Public Policy

track record adds greatly to the capacity of the program to attract students, gain the

respect of policy activists and leaders, and to make a difference in policy outcomes.

These together add greatly

to our reputation and put the program in a strong position in

terms

of potential for long term success. Three of our faculty, John Richards, Jon

Kesselman, and Doug McArthur have won the SFU President's Award for Service to the

University through Public Affairs and Media Relations.

Our faculty

have very active research agendas recognized by significant national awards

and research grants. Professor Hankivsky

is a Michael Smith Foundation Senior Scholar

and holds a CIHR Research Chair. Professor Kesselman is a Canada Research Chair in

Public Finance. We have been successful in obtaining SSHRC and other major grants and

are affiliated

with research groups and think tanks such as the BC Pacific Institute for

Climate Studies, Institute for Research on Public Policy, Canadian Policy Research

Network, Metropolis

BC, and CD. Howe Institute.

A host of reasons support converting our Program into a School at this time::

• Our faculty complement is large enough in size and disciplinary coverage to sustain

our outstanding MPP program and to explore additional graduate level degree

programs

such as joint degrees with other departments/faculties and targeted PhD

programs. For example, we are in discussion with the Health Sciences Faculty on a

joint masters program in Health Policy. It would be the one of the only programs in

the country. We are also in discussion with Economics to create a masters degree in

Economic

Policy. Joint PhD programs with REM and Health are also possibilities.

These graduate programs have

the potential to further enhance SFU's reputation for

its innovative multi-disciplinary programs.

• We are multi-disciplinary; our faculty brings expertise from the fields of political

science, economics, and psychology, and soon

to add, law. Our students come from

a large number

of undergraduate and graduate disciplines in social science,

humanities, science, applied sciences, law, and business. They

reflect the entire

spectrum

of university education.

• We have a proven record of performance. We graduate in a very timely way high

quality students

who have been very successful. Demand for the program is strong

and will remain

so given the age structure in the public sector is skewed toward

employees over age 50. The growth of public policy schools in Canada has created

greater awareness

of the value of this degree, among both potential students and

employers.

---

Proposal to

Convert the Master of Public Policy Program to the

School

of Public Policy

• The School designation would enhance the university's stature as well as our own. It

is the norm in Canada and the United States that multi-disciplinary units that offer

graduate degrees in public policy are deSignated as Schools of Public Policy. Among

our competitors in Canada, we are the only 'program'; the rest are all schools. While

we have attracted high quality graduate students,

our designation as a program

lowers

our profile and can be confusing. We are often asked by prospective

students, employers

of our students, and external policy experts what department

we are in. They find our title confusing; they have difficulty locating us on the SFU

web pages and directories. Our designation as a single degree program implies to

the external community that we are a subsidiary of another department or an entity

without permanence. Sustaining the name Master of Public Policy Program limits

our ability to offer additional degree programs beyond the MPP. There remains

some confusion even

within SFU as Continuing Studies once had a Public Policy

Program. For this reason, we have begun referring

to ourselves as the 'Graduate

Public Policy Program'.

• Public policy research and outreach as well as multi-disciplinary education and

research are components

of SFU's strategic plans.

• Becoming a school would offer considerable scope to attract donors interested in

supporting

the university by endowing a chair and/or having a naming opportunity.

Donors

will want their name on a chair in a school or to name the school, not a

program.

• Changing our name from the Master of Public Policy Program to the School of Public

Policy would entail no

immediate budgetary implications. We require no additional

faculty or staff. We are very efficient

with one of the largest graduate programs

relative

to our full-time equivalent faculty size.

In summary, we believe SFU will benefit from the greater profile and recognition

afforded

to our unit as a School rather than a Program. We will work with our Senior

Administrators and other departments to continue to develop priority areas of

excellence and innovation in public policy education and research.

APPENDIX: Data on Master of Public Policy Program

2008/09

2007/08

2006/07 2005/06 2004/05

Graduate

AFTE

(Annualized)

81.1

83.5

78.1

87.0

63.0

Graduate Headcount (Fall)

62

58

64

46

Graduation Rate (Headcount)

21

26

23

11

Faculty (Headcount)

6

5

4

4

2

?