IPR Distinguished Public Policy Lecture Series

Summer 2003, Volume 25, Number 1

On May 29, the Institute for Policy Research held its tenth Distinguished Public Policy Lecture. Professor John McKnight, who spoke on “Regenerating Community: The Recovery of a Space for Citizens,” joined a number of academics, politicians, and government officials who have taken the podium at Northwestern to address current topics in public policy.

Established in 1994, the first IPR lecture was delivered two years before the landmark Welfare Reform Act of 1996, when Health and Human Services secretary Donna Shalala outlined the Clinton administration’s goals for overhauling public aid programs.

In January 1996, David Ellwood of the Kennedy School of Government examined the collapse of many of the reforms Shalala had envisioned in the context of a new Congress and shifting ideological winds.

The following year, in 1997, former U.S. Senator Paul Simon gave a wide-ranging speech in which he addressed how public policy affects the American labor market, and in particular, how the U.S. and Illinois could do more to boost education.

In 1999, economist Rebecca Blank, then a member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, described which social services would fare best—and worst—under privatization.

Other speakers have included Eleanor Chelimsky, a former assistant comptroller at the General Accounting Office; Yale professor and education reformer James Comer on “Why Schools Can’t Solve our Problems”; and most recently, U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) on citizen activism.