Drafting proposals, conducting data-based research, compiling reports and preparing to testify before the New Hampshire state legislature are all in a day's work for Grace Hart '13, a participant in the College's Policy Research Shop at the Rockefeller Center. Hart and the nearly 40 other students involved in the research shop this year will benefit from a $750,000 grant to be awarded over three years given to the Rockefeller Center this fall by the U.S. Department of Education's Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education.
"[The research shop] is an incredible opportunity that's so different because you can do research on real issues and have a real impact on public policy here," Hart said.
Government and public policy professor Ronald Shaiko, who serves as associate director of curricular and research programs at the Rockefeller Center, said the grant has allowed the research shop to broaden the scope of the programs it offers and "will allow [students] to implement and institutionalize [the] current program at a local level."
Shaiko, who submitted the grant proposal on July 31, was alerted that the research shop had been awarded the grant on Sept. 28, Shaiko said.
Prior to the grant, the research shop focused on policy at the state level, but students taking Policy Analysis and Local Governance can now conduct research on local issues comparable to research done at the state level, according to Shaiko.
Director of the Rockefeller Center and economics professor Andrew Samwick, who teaches the Policy Analysis and Local Governance course, said the grant will help the students in his class integrate their learning with real-world policy applications.
"Essentially it will allow us to produce more projects, have them in more venues and have more students participate," Samwick said.
On the local level, the grant will give students the opportunity to consider "a mix of particular needs suggested by localities," Samwick said.
The class is currently analyzing charter schools, local infrastructure and energy efficiency, among other topics, according to Samwick.
The grant will allow the entire research shop to grow in both size and depth, according to Shaiko.
"This past fall our shop students completed seven projects and we hope to reach 15 by the end of the year," Shaiko said.
By the end of the three-year grant period, Shaiko said he hopes to see a continued increase in the shop's productivity.
Beyond internal improvements, the grant includes an outreach element to spread the College's model to other institutions, according to Shaiko.
"[The grant] will help us consider ways we can spread our model to other similarly-situated places, " Samwick said. "And as an educator, the question of replicating [Dartmouth's research shop] is extremely interesting to me."
Students involved in the research shop said they have benefitted from the grant.
"It's great that the [research shop] is able to expand its focus on local issues because of the grant," Brian Freeman '11, student assistant for curricular and research programs at the Rockefeller Center, said. "We only have two states Vermont and New Hampshire but there are dozens of towns and cities that need our help."
Freeman, who has taken Introduction to Public Policy Research and is currently enrolled in Policy Analysis and Local Governance, said that the grant will "allow us students to take on a different set of issues."
The grant will improve the research shop and other Rockefeller-sponsored programs, Eric Yang '14 said in an e-mail to The Dartmouth.
Yang was one of several research shop students who presented research to the Vermont Child Poverty Council that the students had conducted on Jan. 31.
The students wrote a brief suggesting improvements to the Council's method of data collection.
"I'm glad for all the work that was put into securing the grant because the funding allows students like me to get a quality experience in public policy research," Yang said.
To promote the work of both the Rockefeller Center and research shop, Shaiko will lead a workshop at the American Political Science Association's Teaching and Learning Conference in Albuquerque, N.M., on Feb. 11.
Shaiko said he hopes to reach out to "other faculty members interested in civic engagement and to teach them about the Rockefeller Center's programs such as [the First-Year Fellows program]."
The grant will help fund the research shop's daily activities by supporting the paid faculty and student research positions offered by the research shop, according to Samwick. Financially, the grant will "build upon the support that the Rockefeller Center received from a $300,000 grant by the Ford Foundation four years ago," Shaiko said.
