Public Policy Major
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About the Major
Public policy majors are given the opportunity to explore the connection between major issues facing society — like the economy, health care, crime, education — and the public policies used to address them. Courses are designed to explore the complex interaction of ideas, individuals and institutions involved in the policy-making process.
Jobs in Public Policy
- Policy/program analyst
- Communications manager
- Community Outreach manager
- Consultant
- Senior Policy Adviser
- Attorney
Past Elon Public Policy Internships
- City of Burlington
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
- The White House
- Amnesty International
- U.S. and state legislatures
Related Majors
Scholar leaves mark at Elon with student-led think tank and push for more inclusive policymaking
Amaya Gaines could see that there were racial disparities in how her peers at Western Guilford High in Guilford County, N.C., were disciplined. But she knew anecdotal evidence was nothing compared to hard data, and through her AP Research capstone course, she found that data.
The yearlong study of racial disciplinary disparities, which proved her hypothesis, not only gave Gaines valuable lessons in the research process, but it also allowed her to combine her passions for social justice, public policy and law to produce an academic research project. When she entered Elon University in 2019, she only hoped she could do similar research and have the opportunity to get published.
Gaines would end up doing that and so much more.
In 2021, she received the Lumen Prize, which led to research that uncovered the need for more intersectionality in the policy-making process for government assistance programs. And later in her Elon career, she co-founded the Phoenix Policy Institute, a student-led policy think tank to amplify undergraduate policy research on campus.
wanted the institute so we could create multiple paths for students to engage with policy-making in ways, and in the areas, they are passionate about.
“Public policy serves as this perfect field where I can look at things from multiple perspectives,” Gaines said in 2022, shortly before her final semester at Elon. She graduated in 2023 with a double major in policy studies and political science.
One of the hallmarks of an Elon education is the close relationships that are often established between students and their professors. Gaines found that in Assistant Professor Dillan Bono-Lunn, who became her mentor for the Lumen research.
The Lumen Prize — which awards 15 rising juniors with a $20,000 scholarship to support a chosen research project — gave Gaines the resources to tackle a topic that combined her interests in policy and social justice.
“My research is essentially looking at the presence of intersectionality — or the lack thereof – in the policy process that led up to us having Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF),” Gaines said in 2022. “When we talk about intersectionality, we mean what are the ways that someone’s layered identity — particularly, gender, race, and class — impact not only their lived experience of poverty but also TANF as the policy solution to poverty.”
Working with mentor Bono-Lunn, Gaines compared how six states implement TANF grants and how identity is weaponized in these funding decisions.
In November 2022, Gaines presented her research at the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management fall conference during a panel discussion on the Intersectionality and Critical Race Theory in Public Policy.
The Lumen experience also helped enrich Gaines as an academic. Immediately after being selected in the spring of 2021, she attended two summer policy programs — the Pre-Law Undergraduate Scholars Program at the University of Oregon School of Law and the North Carolina Summer Policy Institute. Then in the summer of 2022, she was a fellow with the Public Policy and International Affairs Junior Summer Institute at the University of Michigan Gerald R. Ford School Public Policy, where she was introduced to graduate research and academia.
“Whether you anticipate it or not [the Lumen experience is] going to touch other parts of your life, like your personal and professional development,” Gaines said. “Lumen served as a springboard to finding these programs. It’s pretty amazing to see … all these different things that I wouldn’t have necessarily had if I weren’t a Lumen Scholar.”
And while Elon opened many doors for Gaines, she left something behind for Elon, too.
In 2021, Gaines conceived of a student-run policy think tank as her Leadership Fellows Common Good Initiatives project. After approaching Bono-Lunn with her idea, it didn’t take long for faculty to see the potential in creating a policy studies think tank.
Gaines worked with Bono-Lunn to create the think tank and a for-credit course. Students in the PST 2100 Public Policy Think Tank course devised the think tank’s mission — as a non-partisan organization producing evidence-based policy research at all levels of government — and structure, and the Phoenix Policy Institute at Elon University published its first policy memos and blog posts in fall 2022. Gaines was its first director.
“I wanted the institute so we could create multiple paths for students to engage with policy-making in ways, and in the areas, they are passionate about,” Gaines said.
The student-led think tank puts Elon’s policy studies program in league with peer and aspirant institutions and has the potential to grow into a robust outlet for superior and creative approaches to public policy writing and analysis.
“We want to be prepared as global leaders and thinkers, but we can really act locally through something like this think tank,” Gaines said, “to not only put knowledge into practice, but to build relationships with the broader community through partnerships that transcend the ‘Elon bubble’ we always talk about.”
After completing her undergraduate degree, Gaines continued her research at Cornell University, pursuing a Ph.D. in Public Policy.
Did You Know?
- The public policy major emphasizes the skills necessary to conduct systematic, rigorous, and applied research to help answer enduring problems in society. Policy studies majors enhance their classroom education by pursuing original research projects, both individually and with other students and faculty.
- Students have access to the latest technological resources in gathering and analyzing research data, including SPSS, STATA or R software to conduct statistical analysis on quantitative data, geographical information systems (GIS) software to analyze public policy and planning issues, and sophisticated public opinion polling software as part of the Elon University Poll.
- Most public policy majors balance their coursework with real-world experience through service learning opportunities and internships, where they work with professionals in the field. Other hands-on learning opportunities include on-campus simulations like Model U.N. and the N.C. Student Legislature, community-based learning projects, the Phoenix Policy Institute, the J-term Washington Center Seminar in D.C., and study abroad.