Requirements for the Public Policy Minor (48 credits, 8 courses)

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.

Minor Requirements: 48 credits (8 courses)

I. Required Courses (36 credits, 6 courses):

In cases in which students have AP Statistics credit, they are required to take one of the following additional methods or statistics courses with an applied focus: ECON 329, STAT 230, POSC 230, SOAN 240 or PSYC 200. Students with more advanced statistics training may substitute another course with the director’s approval.

  • Gateway Course (6 credits)
    • POSC 265 Public Policy and Global Capitalism
  • Ethics (6 credits)
  • ENTS 215: Environmental Ethics · not offered in 2024-25
  • PHIL 213: Ethics
  • PHIL 221: Philosophy of Law · not offered in 2024-25
  • RELG 213: Religion, Medicine, and Healing
  • RELG 219: Religious Law, Il/legal Religions
  • RELG 220: Justice and Responsibility · not offered in 2024-25
  • RELG 269: Food, Justice and Nonviolence: Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain Perspectives · not offered in 2024-25
  • RELG 270: Philosophy of Religion · not offered in 2024-25
  • RELG 274: Religion and Biomedical Ethics · not offered in 2024-25

II. 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 · not offered in 2024-25
  • ECON 268: Economics of Cost Benefit Analysis · not offered in 2024-25
  • ECON 274: Labor Economics
  • ECON 275: Law and Economics
  • ECON 280: International Trade
  • ECON 281: International Finance
  • POSC 209: Money and Politics · not offered in 2024-25
  • POSC 266: Urban Political Economy
  • POSC 361: Approaches to Development · not offered in 2024-25
  • POSC 366: Urban Political Economy · not offered in 2024-25
  • RELG 227: Liberation Theologies
  • Public Health
  • Environmental Policy and Sustainability
  • BIOL 210: Global Change Biology
  • BIOL 338: Genomics and Bioinformatics
  • ECON 269: Economics of Climate Change
  • ECON 271: Economics of Natural Resources and the Environment
  • ECON 273: Water and Western Economic Development · not offered in 2024-25
  • ENTS 210: Environmental Justice · not offered in 2024-25
  • ENTS 212: Global Food Systems · not offered in 2024-25
  • ENTS 215: Environmental Ethics · not offered in 2024-25
  • ENTS 244: Biodiversity Conservation and Development · not offered in 2024-25
  • ENTS 288: Abrupt Climate Change · not offered in 2024-25
  • ENTS 289: Climate Change and Human Health
  • ENTS 307: Wilderness Field Studies: Grand Canyon · not offered in 2024-25
  • ENTS 310: Topics in Environmental Law and Policy · not offered in 2024-25
  • HIST 205: American Environmental History
  • HIST 306: American Wilderness · not offered in 2024-25
  • HIST 308: American Cities and Nature
  • POSC 268: Global Environmental Politics and Policy · not offered in 2024-25
  • POSC 333: Global Social Changes and Sustainability
  • POSC 335: Navigating Environmental Complexity–Challenges to Democratic Governance and Political Communication · not offered in 2024-25
  • RELG 243: Native American Religious Freedom · not offered in 2024-25
  • SOAN 203: Anthropology of Good Intentions
  • SOAN 323: Mother Earth: Women, Development and the Environment
  • SOAN 333: Environmental Anthropology · not offered in 2024-25
  • Social Policy and Welfare
  • ECON 246: Welfare Economics and Mechanism Design · not offered in 2024-25
  • ECON 257: Economics of Gender · not offered in 2024-25
  • PHIL 232: Social and Political Philosophy · not offered in 2024-25
  • POSC 253: Welfare Capitalisms in Post-War Europe · not offered in 2024-25
  • POSC 257: Marx for the Twenty-First Century: Ecology, Technology, Dispossession · not offered in 2024-25
  • POSC 273: Race and Politics in the U.S.
  • POSC 274: Covid-19 and Globalization · not offered in 2024-25
  • RELG 289: Global Religions in Minnesota · not offered in 2024-25
  • SOAN 206: Critical Perspectives on Work in the Twenty-first Century · not offered in 2024-25
  • SOAN 252: Growing Up in an Aging Society
  • SOAN 288: Diversity, Democracy, Inequality in America · not offered in 2024-25
  • SOAN 310: Sociology of Mass Incarceration · not offered in 2024-25
  • SOAN 314: Contemporary Issues in Critical Criminology · not offered in 2024-25
  • SOAN 325: Sociology of Adoption and Assisted Reproduction · not offered in 2024-25
  • Education Policy
  • EDUC 225: Issues in Urban Education · not offered in 2024-25
  • EDUC 245: School Reform: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow · not offered in 2024-25
  • EDUC 250: Fixing Schools: Politics and Policy in American Education
  • HIST 203: American Indian Education · not offered in 2024-25
  • POSC 313: Legal Issues in Higher Education
  • Foreign Policy and Security
  • POSC 231: American Foreign Policy
  • POSC 235: The Endless War on Terror
  • POSC 241: Ethnic Conflict · not offered in 2024-25
  • POSC 247: Comparative Nationalism · not offered in 2024-25
  • POSC 282: Terrorism and Counterterrorism
  • POSC 285: The U.S. Intelligence Community
  • POSC 328: Foreign Policy Analysis
  • RELG 329: Modernity and Tradition
  • Other Comparative Public Policy Courses
  • POSC 261: The Global Crisis of Democracy · not offered in 2024-25
  • POSC 271: Constitutional Law I
  • POSC 272: Constitutional Law II
  • POSC 288: Politics and Public Policy in Washington, D.C., Program: Global Politics & Pub Policy in Washington DC · not offered in 2024-25
  • POSC 330: The Complexity of Politics · not offered in 2024-25
  • RELG 266: Modern Islamic Thought · not offered in 2024-25
  • Off-Campus Programs at Carleton
    • ECON Microeconomic Development in Bangladesh (winter-break program)
    • ENTS Ecology and Anthropology in Tanzania
    • HIST Wilderness Studies at the Grand Canyon (spring-break program)
    • POSC Washington D.C. Program
    • POSC Political Economy and Ecology in 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.

III. 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 Public Policy website, but these and others will be available through the Career Center and civic engagement projects from the Center for Community and Civic Engagement.