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Students synthesize what they learned in the M.P.A. program in a paper that addresses an important gap in knowledge about a particular issue in public policy or management.

Introduction to basic statistics including use and interpretation of statistics used in policy research. Topics include statistical methods, descriptive statistics, probability theory, analysis of tabular data, correlation and regression, and multiple regression.

Integrates material from core courses and applies it to actual and hypothetical policy issues in many areas. Examines policy analysis methods using case studies from a wide range of substantive policy areas. Looks at social, economic, organizational, political, and other influences on policy decisions.

This practicum course is a collaboration between the University of Massachusetts Police Department's Citizen's Police Academy and the Legal Studies program. The Citizen's Police Academy is a combination of in-class lectures and hands-on experiences through which students learn how police officers are trained and how they do their jobs. Among other things, students will learn about the constitutional limits on police power, how crime scenes are processed and how police deal with active threat situations.

Examines ways in which law, especially constitutional law pronounced by the courts, influences the adoption, legal and political strategies, and public perception of major public policy issues. Several short topics, such as same-sex marriage, teaching of evolution in public schools, and Internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII. Major topics include reproductive freedom, right to refuse medical treatment, and end-of-life healthcare decisions.

This course will examine the complex origins and manifestations of the conflict and peace on the island of Ireland with a concentration on the north of Ireland/Northern Ireland between 1969 and the present. We will explore the enduring elements of this protracted conflict and the multiple avenues through which peace and justice have been constructed. The mediation process which resulted in the 1998 Belfast Agreement (Good Friday Agreement) will be examined in depth from the perspective of the parties as well as the mediator.

This course explores the ways in which law affects and is affected by the movement of people across borders. An estimated three percent of the world's population are migrants, and while the United States has long been a "nation of immigrants," countries across Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East are all becoming host to large numbers of non-citizens. We will examine the various ways in which states approach migration law-making, studying migration law as a form of national identity, a means of social control, and a way of reproducing racial hierarchies.

This course explores the interplay between law, crimes, and social institutions like the family, the state, and political economy. More broadly, Law, Crime, & Society is an introduction to the uses of theory in the social sciences and the ways in which it relates to the world beyond the classroom. This class shows students how to employ abstract concepts as tools for explaining contemporary real world situations, and pushes them to reflect on and synthesize the full arc of their undergraduate learning experience in preparation for the demands of life after the University.