T
he nine members of this year's Federal Policy seminar traveled to Washington, DC in May to visit with a variety of policy actors over a three-day period. Students met with congressional staffers and representa-tives from higher education think tanks, public policy research groups, higher education associations, and government agencies such as the Department of Education and the General Accountability Office.
The annual seminar, led by Professor Scott Thomas, is designed to expose students to the latest conceptual approaches to federal policy, as well as first-hand encounters with those working in the federal higher education policy arena in both Georgia and Washington, DC. The seminar provided students with a better understanding of professional opportunities in this area, while also exposing them to a wide variety of perspectives on policy issues they were actively studying as part of the course. Students spent the term developing policy-research briefs on topics ranging from higher education accreditation and quality assurance to international student migration and competitiveness in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields.