Undergraduate Program
The A. Alfred Taubman Center for Public Policy and American Institutions was established at Brown in
1984. Its mission is teaching, research, and service focused on the areas of health care and social welfare
policy, education policy, urban policy, law and criminal justice, and media and technology. The Center
sponsors an undergraduate program in Public Policy and American Institutions and offers master’s degrees in
Public Policy and Public Affairs. This guide provides a brief overview of the requirements for the
undergraduate concentration as well as information about the Center's research and teaching activities.
Public policy refers to societal actions to resolve issues or solve problems. Because issues that become problems typically emerge from complex and multi-faceted social conditions, the study of public policy requires students to utilize the institutional awareness built into a number of academic disciplines as tools for understanding societal problem-solving. For students, a policy focus provides an excellent vehicle for integrating ideas drawn from several disciplines around issues of real world significance. If we are successful, Brown students will be in a better position to understand the new era of institutional change, and they will be much better equipped to participate in processes of change.
In designing this concentration, we had three fundamental goals in mind. First, all students in the
concentration should emerge with a command of the fundamental tools of policy analysis. Second, all students
should develop an appreciation for the varied institutional contexts within which public policy is made. And
third, all students should develop depth: they should know some policy issue or problem in enough detail to use
their knowledge in some practicable way.
