Public Policy Minor

The public policy minor provides a grounding in public service values that underscore the ethical pursuit of the public interest with accountability, competence, efficiency, objectivity, respect, equity, and fairness. The minor seeks to serve students who wish to complement their training as liberal arts scholars with these public service values and competencies.

The public policy minor may be paired with any existing major at Carleton. No political science-economics double majors may add the public policy minor. Other double majors ought to discuss their plans with the director.

No more than four courses may be taken in the same department or program. Any course taken for the core cannot be applied towards the electives requirement.

Public Policy Minor Requirements

Minor Requirements:  48 credits (8 courses)

Required Courses (36 credits, 6 courses):

  • Economics Core (18 credits)

In cases in which students have AP Statistics credit, they are required to take POSC 230 or SOAN 240 or PSYC 200. Students with more advanced statistics training may apply another course with the director's approval.

  • Gateway Course (6 credits)
    • POSC 265 Public Policy and Global Capitalism

Electives (12 credits, 2 courses):

At least one of the electives courses must be designated as including "advanced work." All 300-level courses represent advanced work. Some 200-level courses may be designated as representing advanced work or the director and the relevant department or professor may define a course for a particular student as advanced work. Normally, advanced work includes independent research or project-based learning beyond the classroom, including community-engaged work.

The electives are listed under the following "clusters." Both courses may be taken in the same cluster or they may be divided between clusters.

  • Economic Policy-Making and Development

    • ECON 240 Microeconomics of Development
    • ECON 241 Growth and Development
    • ECON 258 Ethical Questions and Economic Models (not offered in 2019-20)
    • ECON 268 Economics of Cost Benefit Analysis (not offered in 2019-20)
    • ECON 274 Labor Economics (not offered in 2019-20)
    • ECON 275 Law and Economics (not offered in 2019-20)
    • PHIL 214 Ecology, Ethics, and Economics (not offered in 2019-20)
    • POSC 209 Money and Politics
    • POSC 266 Urban Political Economy (not offered in 2019-20)
    • POSC 325 Corruption, Clientelism, and Political Machines* (not offered in 2019-20)
    • POSC 337 Political Economy of Happiness* (not offered in 2019-20)
    • POSC 361 Approaches to Development*
    • POSC 366 Urban Political Economy (not offered in 2019-20)
    • RELG 227 Liberation Theologies (not offered in 2019-20)

  • Public Health

    • BIOL 234 Microbiology (not offered in 2019-20)
    • BIOL 240 Genetics
    • BIOL 310 Immunology
    • BIOL 338 Genomics and Bioinformatics
    • BIOL 370 Seminar: Selected Topics in Virology
    • ECON 264 Health Care Economics
    • HIST 262 Public Health: History, Policy, and Practice (not offered in 2019-20)
    • IDSC 235 Perspectives in Public Health (not offered in 2019-20)
    • PHIL 222 Topics in Medical Ethics
    • POSC 334 Global Public Health* (not offered in 2019-20)
    • PSYC 260 Health Psychology
    • RELG 233 Gender and Power in the Catholic Church (not offered in 2019-20)
    • RELG 238 The Sacred Body (not offered in 2019-20)
    • SOAN 262 Anthropology of Health and Illness

  • Environmental Policy and Sustainability

    • BIOL 210 Global Change Biology
    • BIOL 338 Genomics and Bioinformatics
    • ECON 269 Economics of Climate Change (not offered in 2019-20)
    • ECON 271 Economics of Natural Resources and the Environment
    • ECON 273 Water and Western Economic Development (not offered in 2019-20)
    • ENTS 212 Global Food Systems (not offered in 2019-20)
    • ENTS 215 Environmental Ethics
    • ENTS 244 Biodiversity Conservation and Development
    • ENTS 248 Sustainable Development (not offered in 2019-20)
    • ENTS 265 The Science of the Earth System (not offered in 2019-20)
    • ENTS 288 Abrupt Climate Change
    • ENTS 289 Climate Change and Human Health (not offered in 2019-20)
    • ENTS 310 Topics in Environmental Law and Policy
    • HIST 205 American Environmental History
    • HIST 306 American Wilderness
    • HIST 307 Advanced Wilderness Studies
    • HIST 308 American Cities and Nature (not offered in 2019-20)
    • POSC 212 Environmental Justice
    • POSC 224 Measuring and Evaluating Social and Ecological Systems (not offered in 2019-20)
    • POSC 225 Global-Local Commons: Sustainability, Diversity & Self-Gov't in Complex Social-Ecological Systems (not offered in 2019-20)
    • POSC 268 Global Environmental Politics and Policy (not offered in 2019-20)
    • POSC 333 Global Social Changes and Sustainability (not offered in 2019-20)
    • RELG 243 Native American Religious Freedom
    • SOAN 203 Anthropology of Good Intentions
    • SOAN 323 Mother Earth: Women, Development and the Environment (not offered in 2019-20)
    • SOAN 333 Environmental Anthropology

  • Social Policy and Welfare

    • ECON 246 Welfare Economics and Mechanism Design (not offered in 2019-20)
    • ECON 257 Economics of Gender
    • PHIL 232 Social and Political Philosophy (not offered in 2019-20)
    • POSC 273 Race and Politics in the U.S.
    • POSC 338 Politics of Inequality and Poverty* (not offered in 2019-20)
    • RELG 289 Global Religions in Minnesota
    • SOAN 272 Sociological Perspectives on Race and Ethnicity in the United States
    • SOAN 288 Diversity, Democracy, Inequality in America (not offered in 2019-20)
    • SOAN 314 Contemporary Issues in Critical Criminology
    • SOAN 325 Sociology of Adoption and Assisted Reproduction (not offered in 2019-20)

  • Education Policy

    • ECON 259 Economics of Higher Education (not offered in 2019-20)
    • EDUC 225 Issues in Urban Education (not offered in 2019-20)
    • EDUC 245 School Reform: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (not offered in 2019-20)
    • EDUC 250 Fixing Schools: Politics and Policy in American Education
    • EDUC 353 Schooling and Opportunity in American Society (not offered in 2019-20)
    • HIST 203 American Indian Education, 1600s-present
    • POSC 218 Schools, Scholarship and Policy in the United States (not offered in 2019-20)
    • POSC 313 Legal Issues in Higher Education (not offered in 2019-20)

  • Foreign Policy and Security

    • POSC 231 American Foreign Policy
    • POSC 236 Global, National and Human Security (not offered in 2019-20)
    • POSC 267 Comparative Foreign Policy (not offered in 2019-20)
    • POSC 282 Terrorism and Counterterrorism (not offered in 2019-20)
    • POSC 285 The U.S. Intelligence Community (not offered in 2019-20)
    • POSC 328 Foreign Policy Analysis (not offered in 2019-20)
    • RELG 228 Martyrdom (not offered in 2019-20)
    • RELG 262 Islamic Africa (not offered in 2019-20)
    • RELG 264 Islamic Politics
    • RELG 329 Modernity and Tradition (not offered in 2019-20)
    • SOAN 248 Genocide: An Anthropological Perspective (not offered in 2019-20)

  • Other Comparative Public Policy Courses

    • POSC 201 Tools of National Power: Statecraft and Military Power (not offered in 2019-20)
    • RELG 249 Religion and American Public Life

  • Off-Campus Programs at Carleton
    • ECON Microeconomic Development in Bangladesh (winter-break program
    • ENTS Ethiopia and Tanzania Program
    • HIST Wilderness Studies at the Grand Canyon (spring-break program)
    • POSC Washington D.C. Program
    • POSC Political Economy and Ecology of Southeast Asia
    • IDSC Public Health in Practice: Washington, D.C. and the Twin Cities (winter-break program)

The OCS office and the Director of the minor can recommend other public policy-relevant off-campus programs. Application of courses from these programs to the minor must be approved by the director.

Recommended Additional Work

Students wishing to build further on their public policy training may pursue, with the support of the director or designated adviser, additional recommended work. Many of these opportunities will be listed on the webpage for the minor, but these and others will be available through civic engagement projects (ACE), the Center for Community and Civic Engagement office, and the Career Center. The webpage of the minor and the director of the minor will maintain current information on recommended public policy internships.