In 2014, Harris Public Policy received two gifts totaling $32.5 million for a physical expansion. A former residence hall designed by architect Edward Durell Stone was renovated and renamed The Keller Center, housing the Harris School of Public Policy as of 2019. The Keller Center's Forum provides a venue for speakers and open work space.[3] Harris is ranked third among policy analysis schools in the United States, and listed as the second best public policy institution globally in the field of economics research by RePEc.[4][5]
History
The Harris School of Public Policy was predated by the Committee on Public Policy and The University of Chicago Center for Policy Study. The Center on Public Policy, established in 1966, was a research center and so did not offer degrees. The Center hosted fellows and conferences and published research in the field of public policy, primarily urban studies and urban journalism.[6] The Committee on Public Policy was formed to offer master's degrees to students interested in policy studies. The Committee, formed of professors employed by different academic divisions, began offering classes in 1976 to a small group of one-year Master's students who had applied internally from other graduate divisions within the University of Chicago. The Committee's long term viability was called into question for reasons including the small demand for one year master's degrees in public policy and weak administrative support for such a small program.[7] Over the next three years the Committee began offering two year degrees, joint BA/MA degrees and PhDs, but it continued to be threatened by weak administrative support and unstable funding.[8] In 1986 a committee of Deans recommended the Committee should secure a better endowment and become a professional school or be dissolved. At that time Irving Harris pledged $6.9 million in order to create the public policy school, a figure he later raised to $10 million.[9] In 1988 the Harris School of Public Policy opened in the former American Bar Association Building which it has shared with affiliates including NORC at the University of Chicago and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. In 2019, the Harris School moved to the newly renovated Keller Center.
Curriculum
The Harris Public Policy offers the following full-time professional master's degree programs:
Ethan Bueno de Mesquita (interim 2023-2024) (2024–Present)
Notable faculty
James J. Heckman – Nobel Prize winning economist, Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor, and director of the Center for the Economics of Human Development
Roger Myerson – Nobel Prize winning economist and game theorist, David L. Pearson Distinguished Service Professor of Global Conflict Studies
Michael Kremer – Nobel Prize winning developmental economist, University Professor and director of Development Innovation Lab.
William G. Howell – Sydney Stein Professor in American Politics; Director, Center for Effective Government; Chair, Department of Political Science
David O. Meltzer – Director of the Center for Health and the Social Sciences and Chair of the Committee on Clinical and Translational Science
Tomas J. Philipson – Daniel Levin Professor of Public Policy Studies, Harris School of Public Policy; Associate Faculty Member, Department of Economics
Robert Rosner – William E. Wrather Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics Department of Physics, and the Enrico Fermi Institute
Chris Blattman – Ramalee E. Pearson Professor and member of The Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts
James A. Robinson – British economist and political scientist; University Professor at the Harris School of Public Policy
Jens Ludwig – McCormick Foundation Professor of Social Service Administration, Law, and Public Policy
Dan A. Black – Deputy dean and professor, senior fellow at the National Opinion Research Center
Stephen Raudenbush – Lewis-Sebring Distinguished Service Professor, Department of Sociology and the College; Chair, Committee on Education
^"History of the Harris School". Harris School of Public Policy. Archived from the original on June 1, 2009. Retrieved July 19, 2009. . Established in 1988, the Harris School emerged from an interdepartmental Committee on Public Policy
^"Irving B. Harris, Remarks". The Irving B. Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies, A Celebration. The University of Chicago. Chicago, Illinois. September 13, 1990.
^"History of Harris". Harris School of Public Policy. Retrieved October 19, 2017.
