The Fall 2017 semester will mark the start of a new academic year as well as the introduction of new course opportunities for politics students through the Marron Institute of Urban Management and the Graduate School of Arts and Science.

These two graduate-level courses on urban policy are called Topics in Urban Management and Methods of Policy Analysis. They will be taught by Marron faculty members and are open to graduate students both within and outside of the politics department. Undergraduate students can also get special permission to enroll through Marron.

Director of the Air Quality Program and clinical assistant professor at Marron Kevin Cromer will be the lead instructor of Topics in Urban Management next fall. The course will cover subjects including criminal justice, environmental health and drug policy.

“The topics covered are critical issues when thinking about how to best manage cities and they’re timely now just like they’re timely at any time,” Cromar said. “I think in terms of addressing current issues, it’ll be more focused on the current pressing issues [professors are] addressing in their research and less driven by the political commentary of the day.”

Cromar also said that they are offering only two classes so that students can engage with professors both in the classroom and through professors’ research.

“We hope that we’ll have a lot of students take our classes out of interest in the subject matter and have a chance to learn from these great researchers in the classroom, [and] that some will then have an interest to come work with us on research as well,” Cromar said.

Methods of Policy Analysis will be led by Mark Kleiman, a professor of public policy at the Marron Institute, which is within the Wagner School of Public Service.

“The techniques of policy analysis are drawn from economics, political science and operations research — topics such as benefit-cost analysis, the study of market and government failures, decision theory, game theory and discounting,” Kleiman said. “The course will be a mix of learning techniques and applying them to case studies ranging from lead in gasoline to taxing cannabis.”

Cromar is excited about working directly with students next year. He believes that the crossover between Marron and Wagner will help students gain as much as possible in their courses.

“It’s such a benefit to be here at NYU, to have access to so many great thinkers and researchers, and to not have some of the great professors here at Marron engage with students, it just wouldn’t be right,” Cromar said. “We really want to find a way to get in the classroom, to engage with students and to share with the broader university the expertise of the Marron Institute, and also open our doors to let students come work with us as well.”

Email Téa Kvetenadze at [email protected].