The Ford School of Public Policy held its nineteenth annual Gramlich Showcase of Student Work on March 20—providing students with a chance to highlight their work and service as well as educate and engage with the community.
Students are recognized for their hard work at the Gramlich Showcase of Student Work after being nominated by Ford School faculty and staff.
Student projects
It was bright and decidedly spring-like inside the Becky Blank Great Hall, where students got to explain their months-long projects to guests. Four tables held 16 projects around as formally dressed students shared their work.
“It’s an honor that both projects were featured,” Amr Brown, a junior majoring in public policy, says. He had two projects in the showcase—one on “Out-negotiating China” and one on “Strengthening European Security” in the face of the four-year-old war in Ukraine.
Chiante’ Hamilton is a Masters of Public Affairs candidate and the Executive Director at the Society for History and Racial Equity. She said her “Future Detroit” project delves into the root causes of the challenges Detroit schoolchildren face, including, “skipping school and how the high poverty rates connects” as well as childcare, after school care, transportation, and safety.
“Our project … focuses on the policies on the educational policy systems for the City of Detroit, and making recommendations to the incoming mayor,” Hamilton explained, adding that the project started before we knew that Mary Sheffield would be the one to replace Mike Duggan; becoming the city’s first female leader. Hamilton said that doing this project right alongside such a substantial transition of power “is a really big opportunity” to bring recommendations for change to the Transition Committee for Education that Sheffield has established to improve the city’s schools.
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“They were really receptive. They really enjoyed the opportunity to work with us, talk about the project, and even in the first 100 days, some of our recommendations have been taken into account,” Hamilton said.
Another student who was part of a project shown was Patrick Szendro-Arceo, a Senior in Public Policy.
“One of the things our professor really stressed is that whenever we do our research on these projects, we always try and look for public policy solutions to the issues at hand. With that, we do learn quite a lot, which is very relevant to think tanks and policy writing for governments,” Szendro-Arceo said. “Who knows? Some of us will end up in the European Commission, some will end up in the Hague. This type of research and analytical skills; dissecting information and putting it into a recommendation for policy change, prepares us for future careers.”
Jonathan Hanson, a public policy lecturer at the school who had three groups in this year’s showcase, said that they “make it pretty accessible” for any student who has made an effort to stand out academically in a research project and that the Showcase it is a great opportunity for students by demonstrating how their work can lead to real world impacts.
When it comes to future careers, Hanson said, “Just participating in an event like this gives them an opportunity to … [develop how to] talk in a succinct way about a project, that is often very complicated.”
Drew Saunders is a freelance business and environmental journalist who grew up just outside of Ann Arbor. He covers local business developments, embraces his foodie side with reviews restaurants, obsesses over Michigan's environmental state, loves movies, and feels spoiled by the music he gets to review for Ann Arbor!
