Glossary
UW Seattle Course Descriptions
UW Tacoma Course Descriptions
Detailed course offerings (Time Schedule) are available for
BPOLST 492 Topics in Policy Research (3-5, max. 10)
Explores topics in policy research to prepare students planning to enter a graduate level policy program. Topics may include: quantitative research methods, qualitative research methods, or research writing for the social sciences.
View course details in MyPlan: BPOLST 492
BPOLST 501 Public Finance and Budgeting (5)
Analysis of government expenditures and revenues. Uses economic theory to examine key pubic policies in areas such as health, education, and labor. Emphasizes policy rationales and impacts regarding efficiency and equity. Develops accounting concepts necessary for budgeting analysis. Offered: Sp.
View course details in MyPlan: BPOLST 501
BPOLST 502 Statistics for Policy Studies (5-)
Surveys important aspects of social science research for academic and practical investigation. Focuses on gaining an understanding of research and statistical analyses and their relationship to policy concerns. Prerequisite: minimum grade of 2.7 in BPOLST 500. Offered: W.
View course details in MyPlan: BPOLST 502
BPOLST 503 Policy Analysis (-5)
Focuses on methods and approaches used in policy analysis and program evaluation. Examines and applies interdisciplinary approached and methods for evaluating policy impacts and outcomes, including cost-benefit analysis, randomized field experiments, quasi-experimental assessment, and participatory assessment.
View course details in MyPlan: BPOLST 503
BPOLST 505 Leadership and Organizations (5)
Explores the human interactional dimension of organizational culture, behavior, and outcomes. Special attention is devoted to how individual and group dynamics frame the options open to leaders, managers, and employees in public, private, and non-profit organizations, and how leaders and managers shape the culture and behavior of organizations. Offered: W.
View course details in MyPlan: BPOLST 505
BPOLST 506 Capstone Research (5-)
Depending of work experience, participate in an internship or field research in a private, public, or non-profit organization to investigate a policy problem. Conduct primary or secondary research, collecting data, and selecting theoretical perspectives. Represents the first stage of the Capstone project. Offered: A.
View course details in MyPlan: BPOLST 506
BPOLST 509 Proseminar for Policy Studies (1/2, max. 5)
Network with alumni and faculty in the MAPS program, professionals active in the field, and other UW faculty in order to inform the MAPS experience and explore policy perspectives from multiple points of view. Students will engage in workshops designed to deepen their skills in applied policy ethics, conflict resolution, policy writing and public speaking. Credit/no-credit only. Offered: AWSpS.
View course details in MyPlan: BPOLST 509
BPOLST 510 Statistics Fundamentals for Policy Studies (5)
Intensive two-week, pre-fall course providing foundations in statistical methods. Covers statistical notation, population, sampling distribution and standard normal distributions, graphs and tables, inferential statistics, descriptive statistics and correlations. Prepares students for advanced linear methods. May include weekend meetings. Credit/no-credit only.
View course details in MyPlan: BPOLST 510
BPOLST 511 Policy Process and Policy Analysis (5)
Focuses on public policy processes and introduces common methods of policy analysis. Examines rationales for public policy and how policies are articulated and negotiated; formulation of policies; selection of policy instruments; policy implementation; cost-benefit analysis and deliberative policy analysis approaches. Offered: A.
View course details in MyPlan: BPOLST 511
BPOLST 513 Practicum in Policy Studies (5)
Begins capstone research sequence. Students explore issues of policy interest by connecting and building relationships with community stakeholders that influence and are affected by those issues. Students develop community engagement skills by completing a community-based learning project and reflect on the ethical, practical, and theoretical implications of community engagement. Offered: W.
View course details in MyPlan: BPOLST 513
BPOLST 514 Management and Program Evaluation (5)
Provides an overview of the major literatures in organization theory and management. Focuses on developing managerial skills: supervising subordinates, building a team, mapping stakeholders, and problem-spotting, with special attention to program evaluation methods and approaches, including logic models, participatory approaches, and quantitative methods. Prerequisite: minimum grade of 2.7 in BPOLST 500, BPOLST 502, and BPOLST 503.
View course details in MyPlan: BPOLST 514
BPOLST 515 Capstone ([1-8]-, max. 11)
Integrates students' learning experience in the program. They demonstrate their ability to apply the tools of policy research, analysis, and engagement to a contemporary policy issue. It follows the Practicum and builds on promising questions and collaborations. Students work in close partnership with their faculty Capstone Advisor. Offered: AWSpS.
View course details in MyPlan: BPOLST 515
BPOLST 520 Policy Internship (2-5, max. 10)
Student arranged internship with a local organization or agency that incorporates a "field-based" component into their learning. Includes a policy project that benefits the organization and has academic merit. Prerequisite: BPOLST 500; BPOLST 502. Credit/no-credit only. Offered: AWSpS.
View course details in MyPlan: BPOLST 520
BPOLST 571 Policy Ethics (5)
Examines the complex relationships between policy and ethics. These relationships are grounded in moral and political theories about the behavior of state and non-state actors. Offered: AWSp.
View course details in MyPlan: BPOLST 571
BPOLST 576 Education Policy and Politics (5)
Covers the historical development of U.S. K-12 education policy, with particular focus on contemporary education policy issues and debates, such as standards, tests, accountability, and school choice. Addresses the process and politics through which education policy is made at the federal, state, and district levels.
View course details in MyPlan: BPOLST 576
BPOLST 581 Issues in Human Rights Policy (5, max. 10)
Explores the theories and practices of implementing the international human rights regime as government policy. Students engage in issues of normativity in policy formation and the pathways by which certain norms become domestic and global standards.
View course details in MyPlan: BPOLST 581
BPOLST 582 Issues in Technology Policy (5, max. 10)
Explores how science and technology contribute to economic growth and human development, and how political processes shape and manage that impact. Examines historical and contemporary issues.
View course details in MyPlan: BPOLST 582
BPOLST 583 Issues in Environmental Policy (5, max. 10)
Analyzes current policy issues in the complex and every changing arena of environmental policy.
View course details in MyPlan: BPOLST 583
BPOLST 584 Issues in Labor and Human Resources (5, max. 10)
Examines issues in the changing arena of labor and human resource policy.
View course details in MyPlan: BPOLST 584
BPOLST 585 Issues in Health Policy (5, max. 10)
Examines relevant current issues in the changing arena of health policy including managed care, public health and safety, and the ethical dimensions of medical research and practice.
View course details in MyPlan: BPOLST 585
BPOLST 586 Issues in Education Policy (5, max. 10)
Examines issues in education policy in local and global contexts.
View course details in MyPlan: BPOLST 586
BPOLST 591 Research Colloquium (1-2, max. 6)
Provides an opportunity for graduate students and faculty members to exchange research ideas, present findings, discuss analytical methods and tools, and evaluate the implications of the presented research. Credit/no-credit only. Offered: jointly with BCULST 591; AWSp.
View course details in MyPlan: BPOLST 591
BPOLST 592 Topics in Policy Research (3-5, max. 10)
Develops advanced technical skills in policy research methods. Topics may include various qualitative and quantitative methods of research.
View course details in MyPlan: BPOLST 592
BPOLST 593 Topics in Policy Studies (3-5, max. 10)
Examines the changing arena of policy. Topics are relevant to current issues and may include the following: policy and gender; transportation policy in Puget Sound; policies of aging; and environmental policy.
View course details in MyPlan: BPOLST 593
BPOLST 594 Research Design (5)
Provides grounding in research designs, such as experimental, longitudinal, cross-sectional, case-study, and action research design. Helps professionals design and evaluate research proposals and be astute consumers of published research. Develops research proposals that can be submitted for institutional review at UW. Offered: Sp.
View course details in MyPlan: BPOLST 594
BPOLST 595 Policy Studies Skills Workshop (1-3, max. 9)
Provides the opportunity to develop applied skills commonly required of managers and analysts in the public and non-profit sectors. Workshops emphasize hands-on learning and actual practice.
View course details in MyPlan: BPOLST 595
BPOLST 598 Directed Research (1-5, max. 15)
Individual advanced research on policy topics conducted under the direction of one or more instructors.
View course details in MyPlan: BPOLST 598
