The role of public policy in strengthening local communities will be our primary emphasis, as we explore ways we can help collective efforts to respond positively to change. Course participants will begin by investigating two key concepts: "community resilience" and "public policy." Then we'll shift our attention to how public policy is formulated and implemented, and also how process helps shape a policy’s effectiveness. Part of our work will take place in simulations and serious games, widely-accepted methods of research and field inquiry in a board range of fields, including the social sciences and natural resource management.

Development and application of effective presentation-preparation skills, including thinking and writing, will be a major course emphasis. Participants will be expected to attend in person or to watch online a minimum of two public meetings relevant to our work, and to write a brief report about each. Additional written assignments will include several short weekly discussion papers to be shared with other course participants. As the quarter progresses, this writing will build into a final 10 minute in-course presentation with associated documentation, based on course readings and knowledge of a specific community, to explore a topic of each student’s choice. Credit will be awarded in Public Policy: Community Resilience.

This course may be taken alone. It is informally linked (with minimal overlap of content) to Vital Signs: Public Health and Social Policy, another four-credit course also taught on Saturdays by the same faculty. Students enrolled in both courses may choose to complete separate final projects on different topics, or to combine their projects into a single 12-15 page exploratory paper on a topic related to public policy and human health, accompanied by a short presentation of their work in Community Resilience: An Introduction to Public Policy.