Celeste Watkins-Hayes

Written by Celeste Watkins-Hayes, Joan and Sanford Weill Dean of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy Public policy shapes nearly every aspect of our lives, from the water we drink and the health care we can access to the schools our children a...

The phrase on Joasia Jacobs' pin—"Talk data to me"—could have served as a motto for this summer's ASPIRE cohort. The 2026 Applied Social Policy Internship and Research Experience, known as ASPIRE, brought students from Spelman College and Morehouse C...

Summer 2023 proved to be eventful and rewarding for the inaugural Applied Social Policy Internship and Research Experience (ASPIRE) cohort. The program, a collaboration between the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and Spelman College, provided ...

What are the dynamics of inequity in labor markets? How do we determine appropriate categories for people in a multicultural society?  How is the U.S. approach to ethnicity and nationality different from what they are doing in Europe?  These were...

The 2023 Public Policy and International Affairs (PPIA) Junior Summer Institute (JSI) has welcomed 23 students from 11 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. This year’s cohort will spend seven weeks taking classes, participating in polic...

This summer, four outstanding undergraduate students from Spelman College will participate in the University of Michigan’s Applied Social Policy Internship and Research Experience (ASPIRE)—a seven-week summer program run by the Youth Policy Lab (YPL)...

In a return to her alma mater, Ford School interim dean Celeste Watkins-Hayes visited Spelman College to elevate the visibility of the Ford School at the nation’s top-ranked Historically Black College  and to strengthen the relationship between the t...

Elected officials from local, county, and state government came to the Ford School to hear about the potential for collaborations with their offices and the School’s faculty, research centers, and students.  Fifteen members of the Michigan State Se...