Powering the World [Podcast]
It’s estimated that 1.2 billion people around the world live without electricity. Another billion have only limited access to electricity. And billions more lack access to clean fuel and technology for cooking. There’s an exciting new project designed to address the energy needs of the world’s poor. It’s called the Energy Access Project.
How Sputnik Sent Women to College [Podcast]
Today, women outnumber men on college campuses, but that wasn't always the case. Before the 1960s, colleges routinely used gender quotas to suppress the number of women on campus. Some colleges excluded women entirely. There's a curious backstory to how more women ended up in college, and it starts with the Soviet’s launch of the satellite Sputnik in 1957.
Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper To Speak At Sanford
James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence under President Obama, will discuss the United States' security vulnerabilities in a free public talk on Monday, March 5, at Duke University.
Alum Pearce Godwin leads Program to Promote Political Dialogue
Sitting on a bus in Uganda, Pearce Godwin PPS’08 felt the urge to write. He had been following the political news from his home state of North Carolina and felt troubled by what he saw as increasingly vitriolic political rhetoric.
Rev. Barber Calls for Action to ‘Save Our Ship of State’
Rev. Dr. William Barber II delivered the Terry Sanford Distinguished Lecture and the Boyarsky Lecture in Law, Medicine and Ethics in Page Auditorium on Feb. 20. Barber is the former president of the NC chapter of the NAACP and the current president of Repairers of the Breech, which is reviving Dr. Martin Luther King’s Poor People’s Campaign.
Fleishman Discusses State of Philanthropy, New Book
Sitting on stage in the space named in his honor, Joel Fleishman, professor of law and public policy, discussed the changing nature of philanthropy by the “mega-wealthy” on Feb. 14 at the Sanford School. Fleishman wrote his new book — Putting Wealth to Work: Philanthropy for Today or Investing for Tomorrow? — out of “a sense of alarm” about the direction of philanthropy in the United States, he said. Fleishman discussed the topic with Judith Rodin, former head of the Rockefeller Foundation.
The Fracking Debate [Podcast]
In recent years, oil and gas production in the U.S. has increased dramatically, in part because of new technology. High volume hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” is one of these new processes. “Fracking” is hotly debated.
How Do Criminals Get Their Guns? [Podcast]
Duke professor Philip J. Cook has been tracking the underground gun market in America for the last 15 years. For one project, his team went to one of the largest jails in the country and asked the inmates one simple question: where do you get your guns? Also on the podcast, a former Chicago gang member reflects on his life with guns.
Gerrymandering in North Carolina, Two Perspectives [Podcast]
A panel of federal judges recently declared North Carolina's congressional maps unconstitutional. (Congressional maps divide the state into voting districts.) The maps had been drawn by Republicans and tilted heavily in their favor.
#HumansofDukeSanford Rachel Rubin PPS'19
As somebody with a lot of access to information still am not educated on all of the things that I feel I should be educated on. And so, that's kind of a foundational question of democracy - how, with a sprawling public that has a lot of different issues and people who assign different importance to different issues, how do you get people to a place where everybody has the same facts, everyone is operating with the same types of policy understanding? How do we get to a place where people are having meaningful debate?
Policy Questions Around Facebook's Algorithm Changes [Podcast]
The algorithms that determine what we see on social media platforms wield a lot of power, especially when it comes to the news that people see. Facebook made big news recently when the company tweaked its algorithm. And did you know some real news stories are not written by humans, but by smart algorithm? In this episode of the Policy 360 podcast, Kelly Brownell discusses the promise and peril of algorithms with Phil Napoli. Napoli was recently awarded a fellowship by the Carnegie Corporation of New York to explore this topic more closely.
Military Women, Health Care Access, Fake News: Undergraduates’ Policy Research Reflects Interests, Career Plans
By Adam Beyer
The public policy honors thesis program draws students with a diverse array of passions, all interested in pursuing original research.