Policy Design, Analysis, and Evaluation Commons^™

Using An Ai Chatbot To Improve Access To Lake Skaneateles Watershed Regulations, Lucas Colleluori, Tomás Olivier

Center for Policy Design and Governance

This report evaluates whether a retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) chatbot can simplify access to the overlapping state, county, and local regulations governing the Lake Skaneateles watershed.

What Municipalities Really Want: Perceptions Of Artificial Intelligence Among New York State Municipal Leaders, Nicholas Croce, Saba Siddiki

Center for Policy Design and Governance

This brief summarizes "What Municipalities Really Want: Perceptions of Artificial Intelligence among New York State Municipal Leaders," co-authored by Nicholas Croce (Syracuse University) & Saba Siddiki (Syracuse University).

Rule-Mediated Connectivity In Social-Ecological-Technological Systems: A Comparative Network Analysis Of Reservoir Operation Rules In Coyote Valley Dam (United States) And Ameghino Dam (Argentina), Tomás Olivier, Hoon C. Shin, David J. Yu, Margaret Garcia

Center for Policy Design and Governance

This brief summarizes "Rule-mediated connectivity in social-ecological-technological systems: A comparative network analysis of reservoir operation rules in Coyote Valley Dam (United States) and Ameghino Dam (Argentina)," co-authored by Tomás Olivier, Hoon C. Shin, David J. Yu, and Margaret Garcia in the Journal of Environmental Management.

Evidence-Based Practices And Us State Government Civil Servants: Current Use, Challenges, And Pathways Forward, Yuan (Daniel) Cheng, Leslie Thompson, Shuping Wang, Jules Marzec, Chengxin Xu, Weston Merrick, Patrick Carter

Center for Policy Design and Governance

This brief summarizes "Evidence-based practices and US state government civil servants: Current use, challenges, and pathways forward," co-authored by Yuan (Daniel) Cheng, Leslie Thompson, Shuping Wang, Jules Marzec, Chengxin Xu, Weston Merrick, and Patrick Carter in Public Administration Review.

Institutional Fit And Policy Design In Water Governance: Nebraska's Natural Resources Districts, Tomás Olivier, Sechindra Vallury

Center for Policy Design and Governance

This brief summarizes "Institutional fit and policy design in water governance: Nebraska's Natural Resources Districts," co-authored by Tomás Olivier and Sechindra Vallury in the Policy Studies Journal.

Evaluating Conflict In Collaborative Environmental Governance: A Study Of Environmental Justice Councils, Graham Ambrose, Jangmin Kim, Saba Siddiki

Center for Policy Design and Governance

This brief summarizes "Evaluating conflict in collaborative environmental governance: A study of environmental justice councils," co-authored by Graham Ambrose, Jangmin Kim, and Saba Siddiki in the Policy Studies Journal.

A Policy Design Perspective On Electricity Rates, Nicholas Oesterling

Center for Policy Design and Governance

This brief summarizes "A policy design perspective on electricity rates," authored by Nicholas Oesterling in Policy Design and Practice.

Social Media As Fragile State, Caroline A. Haythornthwaite, Philip Mai, Anatoliy Gruzd

School of Information Studies - Faculty Scholarship

Social media platforms are grappling with how to respond to hate speech, misinformation, and political manipulation in ways that address human rights, free speech, and equality. As independent ‘states’, they are enacting their own rules of conduct, deriving their own ‘laws’, convening their own extrajudicial self regulatory institutions, and making their own interpretations and enactments of human rights. With the rise of social states such as Facebook, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter) and Reddit, how fragile are they in their ability to achieve outcomes of fair, equitable and consistent application of their own laws? Could an assessment of the fragility of …

Emotional Distress During Covid-19 By Mental Health Conditions And Economic Vulnerability: Retrospective Analysis Of Survey-Linked Twitter Data With A Semisupervised Machine Learning Algorithm, Michiko Ueda-Ballmer, Kohei Watanabe, Hajime Sueki

Center for Policy Design and Governance

The brief summarizes "Emotional Distress During COVID-19 by Mental Health Conditions and Economic Vulnerability: Retrospective Analysis of Survey-Linked Twitter Data With a Semisupervised Machine Learning Algorithm," co-authored by Michiko Ueda-Ballmer, Kohei Watanabe, and Hajime Sueki in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.

Evaluating Change In Representation And Coordination In Collaborative Governance Over Time: A Study Of Environmental Justice Councils, Saba Siddiki, Graham Ambrose

Center for Policy Design and Governance

This brief summarizes "Evaluating Change in Representation and Coordination in Collaborative Governance Over Time: A Study of Environmental Justice Councils," co-authored by Saba Siddiki and Graham Ambrose and published in Environmental Management.

Conservative State Policies Damage U.S. Life Expectancy, Jennifer Karas Montez

Population Health Research Brief Series

Conservative state policies are killing Americans. U.S. life expectancy gains since 2010 would be 25% greater for women & 13% greater for men if state policies hadn’t become more conservative.

Let Them Eat Lunch: The Impact Of Universal Free Meals On Student Performance, Amy Ellen Schwartz, Michah W. Rothbart

Population Health Research Brief Series

Children need healthy and balanced meals to perform well in school. Universal Free Meal programs improve English and Math test scores and may even reduce obesity among middle school students. District and school leaders nationwide should consider adopting this program.

Fundraising Tools For Community-Based Housing Organizations In Syracuse, Ny: Collaboration With A Tiny Home For Good, Michelle Kincaid

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

This Capstone is a two-part project that seeks to better understand the impediments to affordable housing development in Syracuse, New York and take action to ameliorate the problem with a local community-based housing organization. A Tiny Home for Good is a Syracuse-based nonprofit agency dedicated to ending the cycle of chronic homelessness. They do this by managing tiny homes and rent them to individuals who are facing or have faced homelessness. Their long-term goal is to build 50 homes by 2020. One problem facing their work is that they do not have enough money to achieve their long-term goals. Further, …

Localizing The International: Examining How Fieldworkers Combat Adolescent Pregnancy In Northern Ghana, Alexandra C. Sloss

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

International aid is often ineffective because it is delivered without an understanding of local ideologies and contexts. My Capstone examined whether or not international aid in northern Ghana could be effective when addressing adolescent pregnancy. The Ghanaian programs I address in my Capstone are six non-governmental organizations, a government sub-district clinic and government junior high schools. The majority of my data was collected through interviews with individuals at all levels of the organizations, including directors, staff members, volunteers and individuals seeking the organization’s services. Alongside interviews I also spent time in the field, participating in youth group discussions, visiting regional …

Guide To The 1948-1990 Archive Of The Inter-University Case Program, Edwin A. Bock

Public Administration - All Scholarship

Between 1948 and 1990, the Inter-University Case Program (ICP)—named during its early years “The Committee on Public Administration Cases” (CPAC)—published five case books and 170 individual studies of government policy-making and administration. The Program was created by educators who had spent over three years working in Washington wartime agencies. They wanted to show their post-war university students an aspect of public administration that was largely ignored by prewar textbooks: namely, the civil servant’s role in the making and carrying out of public policies. And they wanted to demonstrate to professors of public administration who had not had personal experience at …

Textbook Alternatives: Faculty Approaches To Reducing Student Costs For Required Course Materials, Ashley Klair Burke

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

American undergraduates spend approximately $600 per semester on required course materials, most of which are traditional textbooks. This study examines the high textbook costs placed on students and the factors contributing to cost increases. Textbook prices have increased more than twice the rate of inflation, approximately 6 percent per year since 1986. The textbook market is unlike many other economic markets within the United States, as instructors set the demand and students make the purchases.

A review of over 128 articles on textbook costs and alternatives provide information for this study. In particular, 16 studies evaluating textbook costs and alternatives …

Cultivating Reform: Richard Nixon's Illicit Substance Control Legacy, Medical Marijuana Social Movement Organizations, And Venue Shopping, Jason Scott Plume

Political Science - Dissertations

Over the course of the last two decades, organizations representing the medical marijuana social movement have campaigned for, proposed state level legislation, and supported numerous legal arguments that challenge and attempt to reform U.S. federal illicit substance policies. This set of social regulatory policies, commonly known as the Controlled Substance Act of 1970 (CSA), were drafted, promoted, and implemented by the Nixon Administration then subsequently entrenched by multiple presidents with acquiescent congresses adopting supplemental supply-side resource allocating legislation. My dissertation research uncoils the convoluted history and institutional dynamics of path dependent U.S. illegal drug control policies to answer the question …

Collaborating To Build Futures The Role Of Non-Governmental Organizations In Creating Education Opportunities For Migrant Workers’ Children In China, Emerson A. Gale

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

This project examines how informal and legal relationships between the Chinese government, migrant communities, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are useful for educating migrant workers’ children. Market reforms have increased internal migration of Chinese families and have sparked a growth in non-profit NGOs which assist under-privileged migrant youth. Contemporary Chinese urban education literature notes legal and financial obstacles which prevent millions of migrant students from being entitled to the same education opportunities as their non-migrant peers. I note that creating equitable schooling for migrant youth is highly important for the political, economic, and social health of the Chinese state. By drawing …

Success Of Theme Implementation: Small Leadership Theme High Schools In New York City, Samantha Leigh Wiese

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Introduction: This study reports the research results of small public high schools in New York City whose founding was centered around the theme of leadership. As an undergraduate student who interned in one of these high schools, the researcher has witnessed the disconnect that can exist between a school’s name and its curriculum. While there are many high schools in New York City that support the development of leadership in their students, the 15 high schools studied in this project were selected because they included the word “leadership” in their title. These schools were selected because they are more obvious …

Community Service Intiatives Of Medical Students, Kerri I. Aronson

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

This Honors Capstone Project focuses on community service projects of medical students. Extensive research was done on the types of community service programs that exist in medical schools. The types of programs were divided into four different categories representing the various ways that schools conduct their community service initiatives. Schools may have multiple types of programs, and a combination of any of these programs is offered at many institutions. This project also examines nationally recognized programs and the awards received for excellence in community service initiatives.

The study was completed in collaboration with SUNY Upstate Medical University (UMU). A close …