Ford100

Investing in the next century of citizens,

public servants, and leaders

Our next century

On the cusp of our second century, the Ford School’s vision is bold. To inspire and train exceptional leaders. To launch and lead game-changing research projects that transform how we address society’s most intractable challenges. To arm policy communities in the state of Michigan, in Washington, DC, and around the world with first-rate academic insights and discoveries.

In our first century, the Ford School earned its reputation as a true pioneer in policy education. One hundred years ago, we launched the nation’s first systematic public service training program for local government leaders. Forty-five years ago, we built the nation’s first interdisciplinary, analytic public policy degree. In 1999, we proudly took the name of the University of Michigan’s favorite son, the 38th President of the United States of America.

Today, we’re known around the world as an elite policy school housed at a world-class University.

Your generosity—your investment— will power our proud next century of shaping leaders and tackling the toughest public challenges.

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T h e F O r d S c h O O l O F P u b l I c P O l I c y

Inspiring leaders

T h e F O r d S c h O O l O F P u b l I c P O l I c y

Students who choose the Ford School are diverse and gifted, active and engaged, creative and passionate, and committed to finding big-picture solutions to our world’s most difficult challenges.

Our program teaches them to think analytically and across disciplines, appreciate context and culture, commu-nicate clearly and effectively, and govern wisely. We bolster their networks and knowledge, offering rich and plentiful opportunities for them to address real-world policy challenges. Our collegial culture builds their confidence to lead.

But the University of Michigan is being constrained financially from all sides. Over the last 20 years, funding for public education has experienced historic declines across the nation. And so too often, our students graduate with a debt burden that limits their choices, their potential.

We must increase the number of students that we can help. We must grow our opportunities for applied learning and international study.

Our vision is to provide the best policy education in the country to the most promising future leaders.

Our world needs pathfinders

A life transformedMadelynne Wager (BA ‘13), a first-

generation college student from

the small town of Greenville, Mich.,

knew she wanted to help people.

She thought she could do that best one

person at a time—by becoming a doctor.

But a summer medical internship in

Venezuela left Wager troubled by the

health disparities between rich and

poor patients. Why are poor people

getting so much sicker in the first

place, she wondered, and if poverty

makes you vulnerable, can a living

wage improve your health?

In her junior year at Michigan, Wager

joined the Ford School, committed to find-

ing systemic solutions to the challenges

of inequality. She studied international

trade and economic development.

Ford School financial support enabled

Wager to undertake a prestigious DC-

based fellowship with the Center for the

Study of the Presidency and Congress,

where she began to research poverty

and inequality in Africa.

Today, Wager works far from her

hometown, pursuing innovative

solutions to extreme global poverty

as the Machel-Mandela Fellow at

South Africa’s Brenthurst Foundation,

a position she found through a Ford

School visiting professor.

“Young South African leaders have a

real entrepreneurial spirit,” says Wager

admiringly. “Perhaps ironically, they’ve

taught me a lot about what it means

to be an American.”

« Madelynne Wager in Johannesburg, South Africa

Our world needs communicators

rare and powerfulWhy did hundreds of New York City

firefighters lose their lives during

9/11, even after police and other

first responders had been ordered

to evacuate the towers?

Latesha Love (MPP ‘02) reviewed

the nation’s response to 9/11 with

a team of policy analysts at the U.S.

Government Accountability Office.

Her findings: poorly designed

wireless communications systems

didn’t allow firefighters, police,

and paramedics to share crucial,

life-saving information during

the disaster. Nearly all of Love’s

recommendations have been

implemented since her 2004 report,

and every state in America now has

a federally approved interoperable

communications plan.

Today, Love leads teams of analysts

that investigate a wide variety of

Congressional concerns, recom-

mending actionable solutions that

save U.S. taxpayer dollars, while

improving the efficiency and

effectiveness of government.

“The Ford School taught me how

to conduct and write analysis that

is balanced, objective, direct, and

above reproach,” says Love. “In DC,

a truly independent, unbiased

review is rare and it’s powerful.”

Latesha Love at the National 9/11

Pentagon Memorial »

Game-changing discovery

T h e F O r d S c h O O l O F P u b l I c P O l I c y

Poverty and economic development. Health and human security. Energy and the environment. Alongside their critical work as teachers and mentors, Ford School faculty members are nationally and inter-nationally recognized experts in these and other vitally important policy areas. They use cutting-edge social science research methods, including demonstration trials, complex-adaptive systems approaches, mixed-methods studies, elite opinion surveys, and more.

Michigan is a knowledge powerhouse, with a truly unique level of cooperation across schools and departments. With the time and resources required to launch and lead strategic research, our interdisciplinary and collaborative faculty make transforma-tional discoveries—identifying new methods for fostering cooperation in the midst of intractable conflicts, slowing the spread of life-threatening diseases, and designing low-cost methods to reduce poverty in developing nations.

We must recruit and retain thought-leaders in vitally important policy areas. We must invest in their most promising research ideas.

Our vision is to unleash the creativity of the world’s most inventive faculty researchers, making it possible for them to tackle the world’s most pressing concerns.

Our world needs pioneers

Philanthropy’s powerA single gift can make a difference, and gifts

to the Ford School yield impressive returns.

The Annenberg Professorship, established to

honor the life and legacy of President Ford,

enabled the Ford School to attract and retain

Brian Jacob, a rising superstar in education

policy. He then recruited another star,

colleague Susan Dynarski. Together,

they’ve made the Ford School a national

powerhouse in education policy.

Last year, Jacob and Dynarski launched the

Education Policy Initiative, which now also

includes four postdoctoral fellows, four

professional staff members, and nearly two

dozen student researchers.

They’ve raised more than $9 million in

external funding to produce and disseminate

rigorous, policy-relevant research in

education policy.

Have charter schools improved student

performance, college entry, and completion?

How effective is the growing reliance on

online education for K-12 students? Can we

design a smarter structure for repayment

of federal student loans? How can schools

screen out potentially ineffective teachers

before they’re hired? How can we boost

degree completion rates and post-graduation

wages for low-income students?

With deep expertise and a passion for directly

engaging with decision-makers, Jacob

and Dynarski lead a team poised to deliver

groundbreaking answers to some of

education’s most challenging questions.

« Brian Jacob and Susan Dynarski (foreground,

left and right) with the Education Policy Initiative team

in Weill Hall

Our world needs innovators

dramatic returnsWe’ve all heard about the power of

microlending, small business loans

that create paths out of poverty for

some of the world’s poorest people.

In impoverished countries with

no national identification system,

however, microloans are tough to

extend profitably—particularly to

rural farmers with no credit history,

or poor credit history—and few

compelling incentives to repay.

Through a carefully-designed random-

ized field experiment with 3,000

paprika farmers in Malawi, Dean Yang

found that fingerprinting borrowers

on a laptop dramatically increases

their investment in paprika crops

while doubling repayments—boosting

lenders’ profits, enabling new loans to

be made, spurring more development.

This is just one of eight microfinance

innovations Yang is testing around the

world with funding from the World

Bank, USAID, the Gates Foundation,

and others.

Yang’s methodology—akin to

pharmaceutical trials employed

by the medical community—is the

“gold standard” of social science

research. While complicated to

design and run, these types of studies

can clearly and precisely identify

the impact of low-cost innovations—

innovations that can yield dramatic

returns for the world’s most vulner-

able citizens.

Dean Yang in Lilongwe, Malawi »

catalysts for change

T h e F O r d S c h O O l O F P u b l I c P O l I c y

At the Ford School, brilliant researchers are seeking and finding actionable policy solutions.

But knowing what could make a difference is not enough. Our vision is to move from understanding to action—not an easy task in a noisy world, a world where innovative solutions are too often thwarted by partisanship, spin, and gridlock.

On critically important policy issues, our faculty have enriched understanding, built consensus, and mobilized action. They’ve grown the number of low-income students who attend college by simplify-ing a complex financial aid form. They’ve helped communities balance the economic and environmental issues raised by frack-ing—arming state and local government leaders with trustworthy information on policy options. And they’ve saved lives by working to regulate the trade of weapons to countries with poor human rights records.

We must do more. We must invest in policy engagement, enabling the Ford School to put its strengths and relationships to work, cutting through the noise to catalyze real and lasting change in the world.

Our world needs problem-solvers

lasting, local change When the Governor of Michigan invested

$10 million to create 1,000 sustainable

jobs for the long-term unemployed,

the Michigan Economic Development

Corporation tapped distinguished

political scientist Elisabeth Gerber

to measure the outcomes.

When metro Detroit launched efforts

to develop a more cohesive and acces-

sible public transit system, the Regional

Transit Authority board chose Elisabeth

Gerber for a leadership role.

And when the Kresge Foundation funded

a major assessment of climate adaptation

needs and initiatives in Great Lakes

cities, Elisabeth Gerber was among

those selected to support their efforts.

At the Ford School, Gerber oversees

teams of graduate students who

complete commissioned assignments

for domestic and international

nonprofits, federal government

agencies, city administrators, and

community development organizations.

Gerber is deeply committed to strength-

ening the connections between rigorous

academic research, real-world policy

issues, and the student experience.

She inspires tomorrow’s policy leaders

while supporting today’s.

« Elisabeth Gerber at the Blake Transit Center

in Ann Arbor

Our world needs collaborators

cooperative conservation As Chief of the USDA’s Natural Resources

Conservation Service, Jason Weller

(MPP ‘99) oversees an agency of more

than 11,000 soil, water, and wildlife

experts charged with conserving and

restoring America’s privately-owned land.

“In the lower 48 states, there are 1.9 billion

acres of land, and 1.4 billion of them are

privately owned,” says Weller. “If you

want to make a real difference in pro-

tecting our nation’s natural resources,

you have to work collaboratively with

landowners.”

Weller’s team does just that, but it’s

not all about conservation, he says.

It’s also about saving landowners

money, time, and energy.

In regions prone to drought, Weller’s

team designs and installs more efficient

irrigation systems. In regions prone to

flooding, they teach farmers how to

stabilize vulnerable soils. Instead of

regulating or issuing edicts, his team

works hand in hand with farmers and

ranchers to improve conservation

practices while protecting the profitability

and sustainability of farms.

In 2012 alone, the agency helped land-

owners improve irrigation efficiency,

soil quality, and water quality on tens

of millions of private acres—a powerful

example of leveraging federal dollars to

match and mobilize private investments

in resource conservation.

« Jason Weller on a farm in Maryland

your role

Society’s challenges are daunting. But they’re surmountable.

From analysis to insight—and from insight to strategic, collaborative action: well-crafted public policy improves lives.

So we celebrate the Ford School’s 100th anniversary, our pioneering accomplish-ments, and the impact of our alumni and faculty—but briefly. The future does not wait. We embrace the challenges and opportunities of the century ahead.

This campaign is the moment when you can make an impact. A time when your participation can transform this great school and contribute to your legacy.

Our world needs leaders. Our world needs solutions. Our world needs you. Come be a part of our next century.

Susan M. CollinsJoan and Sanford Weill dean of Public Policy

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Dean Collins in Weill Hall

«

Ford100 Gerald r. Ford School of Public Policy

university of MichiganJoan and Sanford Weill hall735 South State StreetAnn Arbor, MI 48109-3091734 764 3490fordschool.umich.edu

“There may be no greater honor than to have a school bear your name. Such recognition means all the more when it comes from an institution that you love, and when it is dedicated—not to me personally—but to the cause of public service to which I have devoted most of my life.”

Gerald R. Ford 1913-2006

On the occasion of the dedication of Joan and Sanford Weill hall, October 13, 2006

38th President of the united States; Ab ’35 and hlld ’74, university of Michigan

© 2013 regents of the university of Michigan

Mark J. bernstein, Ann ArborJulia donovan darlow, Ann Arborlaurence b. deitch, bloomfield hillsShauna ryder diggs, Grosse Pointedenise Ilitch, bingham FarmsAndrea Fischer Newman, Ann ArborAndrew c. richner, Grosse Pointe ParkKatherine e. White, Ann ArborMary Sue coleman, ex officio

A Non-discriminatory, Affirmative Action employer

degrees offered:• Master of Public Policy (MPP)• Master of Public Administration (MPA)• Dual master’s degrees with schools and departments across the university of Michigan• Joint PhDs with Economics, Political Science,

or Sociology• Bachelor of Arts in Public Policy

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