Providence Mayor David Cicilline '83 and two other panelists discussed student policy papers at the launch event Monday for the Brown chapter of the Roosevelt Institution, the country's first student think tank.
"As students at universities such as Brown, we are already effectively think tanks - we are just not effective think tanks. Through classes, theses and student groups, we are writing on national policies on a daily basis. But we don't have access to the policy process," said Kate Brandt '07, the chapter's co-president, in her opening remarks.
The non-partisan Roosevelt Institution, she continued, provides students with the infrastructure and connections to contribute to the policy-making process.
And policy-makers are listening, Brandt said. She cited public attention in newspapers such as the New York Times and support from politicians such as Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.
Cicilline told The Herald he thinks students can influence policy-making. "There is no doubt that carefully developed and well thought-out public policy ... will be very well received by policy-makers in Washington and locally," he said.
The launch of a Roosevelt chapter at Brown incorporates an existing student group, the Brown Policy Review, into a national organization. The Brown Policy Review first published student policy papers online last semester and hopes to produce a print version in Spring 2006.
Three policy analyses written by Brown students for undergraduate classes were presented to the panel, which was composed of Cicilline and two other local policy-makers: Elizabeth Burke Bryant, executive director of Rhode Island Kids Count, a children's advocacy organization, and Patrick McGuigan, a visiting lecturer in public policy at Brown and the executive director of the Providence Plan, a nonprofit corporation that oversees Providence's revitalization.
The first paper, presented by Michaela Labriole '07, was written by Robert Mair '06 for BC 31: "Health and Society - Health Care in the United States." Mair argued that skyrocketing health care costs in the United States should be attributed to advances in medical technology.
But the panelists were not persuaded.
Cicilline suggested that technology has actually reduced costs. He acknowledged that medical advancements might have indirectly caused higher costs by increasing life expectancy, but he pointed out that people living longer is a positive consequence.
According to Cicilline, the "real answer" to health care problems is to emphasize preventative care "to make it less necessary for people to engage in the health care system."
McGuigan argued that a market model with better-informed consumers would reduce health care costs.
Health care is not just an economic question, Burke Bryant said, but also has a human element - everyone wants the best healthcare for loved ones, making efforts to decrease expenditures difficult.
The second featured policy paper, presented by Blair Albom '07, was an analysis of international monetary policy written by Ben Tracy '07 for PS 40: "Conflict and Cooperation in International Politics." It failed to generate stimulating responses from the panelists because, as they explained, they were not fiscal experts.
The final paper, presented by Katherine Klobe '07, produced more involved discussion. Nicolaas Van Der Meer '06 wrote for PS 10: "Introduction to Public Policy" that school systems could attract more - and better - teachers with a market-based alternate teacher certification program with competitive hiring processes.
Cicilline, acknowledging the problems facing the education system and describing Rhode Island's alternate certification programs as very restrictive, said the proposal should be seriously considered.
Calling differences in school quality the "civil rights issue of our time," Burke Bryant agreed with Van Der Meer's suggestion. She also lauded him for including an implementation plan that would "rapidly make the policy change take hold." Van Der Meer wrote that the new programs could be included in federal No Child Left Behind legislation.
McGuigan agreed with the proposal but suggested that more far-reaching change was needed.
In a brief interview with The Herald, Cicilline stressed the importance of student participation in policy-making to generate "more thoughtful, more progressive public policy."
"We can't wait for this generation to complete college. We actually need the ideas, the passion and the idealism of university students," he said.
