If you saw the Duke Chapel lit up in blue on World Diabetes Day or thousands of Cameron Crazies wearing red ribbons at the Duke-Michigan State game on World Aids Day last winter, you saw the work of Braveen Ragunanthan PPS ’12. These are only two of the projects that earned Ragunanthan the 2012 Terry Sanford Leadership Award.

Two Sanford professors have been recognized by Duke University for their excellence in teaching and academic research.

“How can the government make us buy health insurance?  What gives them that right?” Sitting on my left while our airplane raced above the clouds, Elizabeth was clearly upset about Obamacare. 

Lauren Hendricks PPS ’12 arrived at Duke from South Carolina eager to take advantage of opportunities to broaden her worldview. Outgoing president of the PPS Majors Union and ex-officio member of the Sanford Board of Visitors, Hendricks will head to Mongolia in August as a Fulbright scholar. She talked about her experiences with Communications Assistant Hyejin Sul.

A collaboration between Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy and the PBS documentary program FRONTLINE will bring to the public full-length interviews with federal officials and industry leaders involved in the U.S. financial crisis.

The summer before she started at Duke, Rebecca Ward was in Beijing at the 2008 Olympics thwarting fencing competitors with cool competence.

Duke University senior Michael Bernert has been selected as the first recipient of an award designed to support student social entrepreneurship.

Editor’s Note: There will be an information session about the program held on Monday, April 16, 5- 6:30 pm in the Allen Building, Room 226.

Next spring, about a dozen Duke undergraduates will head to the nation’s capital for a new Sanford School program that will combine classroom learning with real-world education and interactions with practicing policymakers.

Shirin Ebadi, the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner and Iranian human rights activist, with give the Crown Lecture in Ethics at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy.  The event will be in the Fleishman Commons at 5:30 pm on April 16, 2012.

In the spring of 2007, lawyer and businessman Michael Sorrell MPP'90/JD’94 was named interim president of Paul Quinn College, a historically black college (HBCU) in Dallas on the verge of collapse. It had mounting debts, crumbling buildings, falling enrollment and was threatened with losing accreditation.

The cornerstone of the Obama administration's strategy for addressing homegrown terrorism is the development of trusted relationships between law enforcement and communities targeted by al Qaeda and other radical groups. Since the policy was rolled out last summer, a series of episodes has undercut this effort.

Television producer Rome Hartman calls on viewers to reach beyond their comfort zone: "Does retweeting it or clicking on the 'Like' button constitute meaningful action?" 

A recently released report has spawned new outrage over an old problem: Black and Hispanic students are more likely to be suspended from school than white students.

Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson, authors of “The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism,” will discuss the impact and future of the movement at Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy on March 15, at 4:30 p.m.

As Alberta’s Premier makes her rounds in the United States this week to sell the oil sands, she might want to capitalize on the current American preoccupation with gasoline prices, which have soared more than 20 percent in parts of the country since mid-December.

Grace Zhou is a junior public policy major and Global Health Certificate student from Cleveland, Ohio.  In fall of 2010, Grace and a fellow Duke student, Alexandra MacLeish, founded an organization that works in Durham to inspire positive social behaviors through play.

Andrew S. Rosen, chairman and CEO of Kaplan Inc., and Jennifer Haygood, CFO for the N.C. Community College System, will discuss the future of higher education in a panel discussion at noon on Friday, Feb. 24, at Duke University.

Today, Feb. 2, also known as Groundhog Day, marks a more momentous event in North American history that most Americans can’t remember, and most Mexicans can’t forget.

(Republished with permission from the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research)

New York, NY— A report released today by The Manhattan Institute’s Center for State and Local Leadership focuses on the pervasive decline in segregation that occurred during the first decade of the twenty-first century. “The End of the Segregated Century: Racial Separation in America’s Neighborhood, 1890-2010” was co-authored by MI senior fellow and Harvard Professor of Economics Edward Glaeser and MI adjunct fellow and Duke University Professor of Public Policy Jacob Vigdor.

Facts, figures and wise cracks were tossed around the stage in equal measure Wednesday night, but Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson made it clear the federal budget and congressional gridlock are no laughing matters.