Policy and Values

Policy and Values

Building leaders in law, government, and politics through variety, connection, and application.

College of Arts and Sciences

Location: Crete

Degree Type: Undergraduate

Doane’s Policy and Values program is practical idealism in action. We offer rigorous coursework in law, government, politics, and policy formulation that is designed to help you hone your skills in the areas law schools and employers are looking for: critical thinking, writing, and oral communication. We are committed to giving you the education necessary for you to find meaningful work where you can make a difference in your community, your nation, and your world.

At Doane, Nebraska’s oldest private college, you will find small classes and personalized attention from faculty who genuinely care about your growth and your success. The Policy and Values program is like nothing else in Nebraska: it is firmly rooted in a liberal arts approach that believes the best education is broad-based and interdisciplinary, but it also provides specialized training to give you an edge after graduation.

Policy and Values majors choose one of three areas to specialize in:

• A legal affairs emphasis that helps students to build the skills they need to “think like a lawyer.”
• A healthcare policy emphasis that explores the contours of the system connecting Americans to medical care.
• An environmental policy emphasis that investigates how decisions in government affect the natural world.
• Students can also design their own emphases, in consultation with faculty.

From the first day of their classes, students will be challenged to get involved in their education and apply what they are learning to the real world. Our location is just a few minutes’ drive from Lincoln, Nebraska’s state capital, so internships in law, government, and politics are readily available for students who want to participate in them while continuing their studies in other areas. Our Encountering Washington program gives you the chance to live and work in Washington, DC for a semester, building connections for their lives after graduation. And all seniors participate in a capstone experience, in which they take everything they have learned over four years and apply it in some real-world internship or other context. Doane Alumni have taken the skills they learned as undergraduates and used them to attend the University of Nebraska College of Law, the University of Oklahoma College of Law, the University of Minnesota College of Law, the University of Kansas, Kansas State University, Seton Hall University, and many, many others.

Regardless of whether you want to pursue law school, grad school, or a job after you graduate, a Policy and Values degree can help you get there. The flexibility of the major means that you can use it to launch a career in law, politics, nonprofit work, journalism, or corporate compliance work, just to name a few. In the next four years, you will learn, grow, and gain the confidence to take on the world. As practical idealists, we will be there every step of the way to send you into whatever future you want to imagine.

Policy and Values Mission Statement

Policy and Values seeks to provide students with two equally important competencies: a knowledge of how American policy systems work, and an ability to think critically about the values, value structures, and worldviews of the actors within those systems.

Policy and Values Learning Outcomes

1. Acquire knowledge about the institutions and actors within the American political system;

2.Acquire knowledge about the values and value structures shaping American society;

3.Acquire knowledge about a field of policy of particular interest to the individual student;

4.Master the skills necessary for high-quality analysis of 1-3 above;

5.Acquire the necessary knowledge and motivation to be active citizens beyond their college careers, both within and beyond their professional lives;

6.Prepare for entry into graduate or professional programs and/or careers where the knowledge and skills in 1-5 above are necessary.