Seminar kicks off Harris School anniversary year

The Irving B. Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies is celebrating 20 years of public policy studies with a year-long series of events that will begin with a seminar from 9 to 11 a.m. Friday, June 6, in Max Palevsky Cinema, Ida Noyes Hall. A continental breakfast, beginning at 8:30 a.m., precedes the panel.

"Twenty Years of Public Policy Studies: A Celebration" will feature members of the original Committee on Public Policy Studies, as well as others who have been or are currently on the Harris School's faculty.

Russell Hardin, who led the Committee on Public Policy Studies at Chicago from 1983 to 1987 and who is now chairman of the political science department at New York University, will lead a panel discussion examining the importance of public policy studies and the success and challenges experienced by scholars at Chicago.

Joining Hardin on the panel are Robert Aliber, Professor in the Graduate School of Business; R. Stephen Berry, the James Franck Distinguished Service Professor in Chemistry; Pastora San Juan Cafferty, Professor in the School of Social Service Administration; Sidney Davidson, Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in the Graduate School of Business; Charles Glaser, Associate Professor in the Harris School; V. Joseph Hotz, Professor in the Harris School; and Robert Michael, the Eliakim Hastings Moore Distinguished Service Professor in the Harris School.

"The panelists will each make a short presentation addressing the importance of public policy studies as an area of research and as a professional training ground and then engage in a discussion examining these implications," said Don Coursey, the Ameritech Professor in Public Policy and Dean of the Harris School. "We want this seminar to be a fond but also critical look at the past 20 years. It will be a valuable means for us to shape our thoughts as we look to the future."

The Committee on Public Policy Studies was established in 1977 to bring researchers from a variety of disciplines together to study public policy issues. The University opened a formal public policy professional school in 1988 and, in 1990, named it in honor of Irving B. Harris, a Chicago philanthropist, businessman and a University Life Trustee.

Today, the Harris School provides one of the nation's premier public policy training programs with a concentration in key policy areas.