Center for History & Policy
Founded in 1990, the Center for History and Policy has played an important role in stimulating new research opportunities for students in both the History and Policy and Social and Cultural History programs. Under its auspices, nearly two dozen funded projects (including two multi-year dissertation grants) have been conducted solely by graduate students or in collaboration with faculty. Several have resulted in, or are in the process of leading to, journal articles and book-length publications.Students have participated in a wide variety of research projects on such topics as policies concerning the evolution of youth gangs in American cities between the 1920s and the present; the historical controversies surrounding the participation of blacks, women, and gays in the military; the formulation and implementation of environmental regulations during World War II; changes in rates of infant mortality in 20th century Pittsburgh; cocaine use, manufacture, and regulation in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; the transformation of American business schools during the past century; innovations in correctional treatment programs in juvenile and adult prisons between the 1880s and 1950s; and the evolution of the American Educational Research Association as a professional organization. Financial support has come from diverse public and private organizations, including the University of Chicago's School of Social Service Administration, the Graduate Management Admission Council, the American Educational Research Association, the National Center for Research in Vocational Education, the Jewish Healthcare Foundation, the National Defense Research Institute (RAND), the Drug Policy Research Center (RAND), the RAND Graduate Institute, and several law firms.
For more extended information on the Center for History & Policy, please contact the Director of the Center, Caroline Acker at acker@andrew.cmu.edu.