How to Build a Policy School

The new School of Government & Policy at Johns Hopkins is being built from the ground up, emphasizing a departure from traditional Master's programs in public administration (MPA) and public policy (MPP), which are argued to be outdated for the current political and institutional environment. The core argument centers on the need to move beyond the traditional division of labor between policy-making and implementation by creating a more integrated approach that accounts for current realities, including profound volatility, polarization, and distrust in expert authority.
The proposed new curriculum prioritizes developing skills related to system thinking, project management, knowledge of organizational functions, and technological innovation, aiming to equip graduates to focus on institutional reform rather than simply delivering pre-determined policy outcomes. The program seeks to foster an environment where students critically examine the institutions they operate within and develop methods for making those institutions solve public problems, rather than just advocating for optimal policies.
Furthermore, the institution aims to address academic structures, including tenure, by embedding a commitment to pluralism across disciplinary, epistemological, and ideological lines, recognizing that rigid structures often foster conformity. The long-term goal is to produce graduates who are not only experts but also capable of fostering institutional revitalization and navigating complex political environments with intellectual agility.

* Will Howell is the inaugural dean of the School of Government & Policy at Johns Hopkins.
* The school welcomes its first class in fall 2028.
* The proposal is for a new School of Government & Policy (SOGP) located in D.C., situated in the Newseum basement.
* The debate addresses whether the standard policy master's degree is fit for purpose.
* A traditional view held that policymaking required two separate degrees: public administration and public policy, divided by phases of the policymaking process.
* The historical view favored neutral competence, focusing on cost-benefit analysis and program evaluation for policy experts (MPP).
* Training in public administration is intended for those who implement orders handed down from higher authority within stable administrative agencies.
* Current conditions involve profound volatility, disruption, and distrust in governing institutions, exacerbated by technological innovations like AI.
* The school emphasizes the need to move beyond simply assessing evidence to understanding institutional reform and creating systems of accountability.
* A key challenge is that current educational models do not adequately prepare students for working in contested environments or recognizing systemic flaws.
* The institution seeks to integrate knowledge from various fields, including political philosophy, history, and administrative law, to understand the provenance of institutions.
* Faculty discussions suggest reevaluating tenure processes to reward contributions beyond publication metrics.

The core tension in this discussion lies between the pursuit of specialized expertise—the traditional division of labor in policy versus administration—and the necessity of holistic, adaptive institutional action in a volatile era. The argument that focusing solely on optimal policy delivery (e.g., through evidence-based policymaking) ignores the structural inertia and political contestation embedded within the administrative state reveals a tension between technical efficacy and systemic change. The shift sought by the new school is not an outright rejection of evidence, but a demand for the skills to contextualize that evidence within institutional realities; moving from assessing optimal policy *in isolation* to understanding the institutional mechanisms that enable or impede policy execution.
A critical pattern emerging is the struggle against conformity. Whether in curriculum design (MPP vs. MPA), tenure structures, or interdisciplinary academic endeavors, there is a powerful inertia favoring established norms and easily measurable outcomes. This inertia is reinforced by professional incentives that reward presenting pre-packaged solutions rather than grappling with the complex, slow work of institutional revitalization. The defense against interdisciplinarity, exemplified by the concern over combining disparate fields into a "mush," suggests an underlying fear that integrating different perspectives dilutes the focus needed for effective, actionable change; this reflects a pattern where complexity is managed by segregation to maintain clear lines of authority.
The future direction hinges on whether institutions can successfully shift from being centers of knowledge production to becoming engines of institutional change. The implied failure mode—allowing professional incentives to lead to self-reinforcing narratives (the "I’ve done it, I’m a hero" pathology) and prioritizing short-term metrics over long-term systemic health—suggests that the greatest risk is not simply making new courses, but failing to fundamentally restructure the incentives within academia itself. The demand for historical grounding in reform efforts points toward a need to understand the deep political forces that shape institutional design, suggesting that pure proceduralism or purely evidence-based approaches are insufficient without recognizing the embedded contestation of power.