Policy Making Process
Individual Presentation
Develop an oral presentation (no more than 10-12 minutes) presenting his/her policy. Students are required to provide a visual aid, such as PowerPoint. Begin your presentation as if you were in front of your elected officials. Remember, most elected officials may not be experts in your field, so design your presentation to be easily understood. The presentation must cover the following points:
• Background: The background will help the audience focus on the region and issue(s) involved and help you “set-up” the problem/issue that you will cover in the next section. Although this may not normally be done in a real-life setting, it is important for the class to be able to follow your policy process. This section may include information such as your mission, your constituents, programs and/or activities currently offered, and/or a brief history of the problem or issue.
• Problem/Issue Statement: The problem/issue section will focus on the problem or issue your policy is addressing. When possible, be sure to include your support information in the presentation to give your analysis more credibility.
• Causes: This section will address specific causes of the problem.
• Stakeholders: The stakeholders section will identify the main stakeholders and a brief statement on each their concerns.
• Policy Alternatives, Expected Outcome, Major Activities, and Estimated Costs of Implementation (might be a true guess). This will give the audience a feel for how large or small the problem really is.
• Evaluation: After all policy alternatives have been presented, students should present their evaluation criteria, and a justification for using the most pertinent criteria.
• Conclusion/Recommendation: This section is designed to pull together a summary of the pros/cons of each alternative. It can be presented as a recommendation for one alternative over another, or simply layout the benefits and drawbacks of the alternatives based on the evaluation criteria. The elected official can make his/her own informed decision.