Aaron Wildavsky was the founding dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley in 1969. He helped establish the school's focus on quantitative analysis, practical skills, and a strong sense of community. Wildavsky believed public policy schools should have full-time faculty focused solely on the core curriculum, promote diverse disciplinary perspectives, and emphasize hands-on policy analysis and modeling over passive learning. Core courses should be required and stress active learning rather than just definitions. The administration should create a supportive environment where students, staff, and faculty are assumed meritorious unless proven otherwise.

1. v
Aaron Wildavsky,
Speaking Truth to Power
Appendix: Principles for a Graduate
School of Public Policy

2. Goldman School, UC Berkeley: History
“During the late 1960's, educators nationwide recognized the need for a new kind of
public leadership and a new type of graduate education, fostering the vision,
knowledge, and practical skills to empower a new generation of policy makers. The
Goldman School of Public Policy, founded at the University of California, Berkeley in
1969, was one of the nation’s first graduate programs of its kind. As such, it
has helped define the art and science of modern public policy.”
“Aaron Wildavsky, a political scientist, was the Goldman School’s founding dean. He
helped established what would become GSPP distinctives: a strong quantitative core,
an analytic “tool kit,” committed faculty, a strong sense of community and hands-on
experience. The first group of faculty included Allan Sindler, Arnold Meltsner, Bart
McGuire, Percy Tannenbaum, Bob Biller, Bill Niskanen and Eugene Bardach, the
author of A Practical Guide for Policy Analysis: The Eightfold Path to More Effective
Problem Solving, a distillation of the policy analysis methods developed at GSPP.”
https://gspp.berkeley.edu/about/history

3. Aaron Wildavsky
• Aaron Wildavsky (1930-93) was a political
scientist and the founding dean of the
Goldman School of Public Policy.
• Born to Ukranian Jewish immigrants Eva and
Sender Wildavsky, Aaron Wildavsky
graduated from Brooklyn College and
received his doctorate in political science
from Yale University. He joined the political
science faculty at UC Berkeley in 1962 and
served as department chair from 1966-69. In
1969, he founded the school of public policy
and served as its dean until 1977

4. Principles for Public Policy Graduate School:
School Structure
o “Make direct, 100 percent-time appointments in the school, or, if you can’t, hire full-
time faculty for each area of the required curriculum” (no faculty with joint
appointments-split fte).
o Physical “space should promote the interpretation of perspectives in a program that
draws necessairly from diverse disciplines.”
o “The Master of Public Policy degree for practioners should be the sole entryway for
the Doctorate of Philosophy in Public Policy.
o The most important thing about the required curriculum in policy analysis is that
there be one.” “Analysis should be shown, not just defined.”
o Schools of public policy, unless they have abundant resources, should use teaching
time to develop a single series of core courses in policy analysis. The reverse also
applies: do not engage in peripheral activities.”

5. Principles for Public Policy Graduate School:
Faculty
o “Choose economists interested in politics, political scientists interested in economics,
and sociologists, lawyers, historians, philosophers, and so on, interested in both.”
Obstacles become insurmountable if economists bewail intrusion by irrational political
factors; political scientists see rational choice as fit only for robots; sociologists explain
that neither group understands the latent function of its own stereotyped combat.”
o “A useful rule of thumb is that faculty should include people who have had practical
experience in doing (as opposed to merely talking about) policy analysis.”
o “Whether or not it is possible to hire a few policy analysts, there should be an active
policy of giving the faculty frequent leaves to perform policy research. A faculty strong on
theory thereby will not lose touch with practical problems.”
o “Hire analysts, not just economists. Economics and economists are so obviously
indispensable that it is easy to get the wrong kind of faculty.”
o “Modeling is an art; hire an artist…Who is best at constructing the simplest model to do
the job?”

6. Principles for Public Policy Graduate School:
Curriculum
o “Core courses are school courses; they belong to the school as an institution and
not to the individual instructor.”
o “Don’t overload the curriculum! What should be taught in a school of public policy?
The answer, naturally, is AE (Almost Everything).” “It is a school’s task to decide not
the maximum, but the minimum that must be included in the curriculum.”
o “Seek creative redundancy in the curriculum.” (i.e., sequential learning).
o “A first year curriculum should be required.”
o “Courses should stress not passive appreciation but active manipulation.”
o “One cannot overemphasize political and organizational factors.”
o “Always take the high ground: emphasize moral aspects of public policy.”

7. Principles for Public Policy Graduate School:
Curriculum (continued again)
o Emphasize analysis, not subject matter.”
o “At the master’s level, the program in policy analysis should be inclusive; at the
doctoral level, it should be exclusive.” (admissions).
o “Unless a student obviously is wrong, we assume that, like the customer, he is
always right.” Teach students that their instructors also need to learn. (encourages
discovery and experimentation)

8. Principles for Public Policy Graduate School:
Administration (continued)
o “The administrative sin of meritocratic universities is the absence of historical
reciprocity. No one ever deserves to keep anything until they have proved
themselves anew. Past accomplishment is what got you here, but it’s not going to
keep you here, and so we want to know why you, among our many other prima
donnas, should lay claim to scarce resources. Claims may be levied only on the
future.”
o The administrative philosophy of the Graduate School of Public Policy is
deliberatively designed to counter the worst effects of this meritocratic ethos. Every
effort is made to create a nurturing environment in which students , staff, and faculty
are assuimed meritorious unless proved otherwise.”
o A supportive environment is one in which the administration always says “Yes”
unless there is a strong reason to say “No.”
o “Make minimal the cost of being turned down. “ (AKA it doesn’t hurt to ask)

9. Principles for Public Policy Graduate School:
Administration
o “Correcting errors when things go bad is easier if you help school members when
things are good.”
o “Never have more rules than the number of people involved.”
Principles for Public Policy Graduate School: Administration