Director’s Message

As a new academic year dawns, we a very happy to welcome a new member of our academic team, Alex Coppock. Alex, a persuasive scholar of political persuasion, joins a team that’s at the top of its game, as new pieces by Eitan Hersh (in the Washington Post and on 538.com) and David Mayhew (in Yale News) suggest. (I hope I’ll be forgiven for touting a few of my own hits as well, notably this NYT Sunday Review piece on the economic models of “red” and “blue” states.) Meanwhile, ISPS star sociologist Andy Papachristos has also been much in the news—his work on gun-related violence is sadly timely, and hopefully will push policymakers to adopt more effective criminal justice strategies. Speaking of such strategies, Dahl Scholar Simone Seiver has started an innovative new “Connecticut Bail Fund” with two other Yale College students. (By the way, if you’re interested in becoming a Dahl Scholar, applications will open shortly.) ISPS’s growing contribution to social entrepreneurship also includes Adam Chekroud’s Spring, a program that matches depressed patients with more effective treatments.