At Rand, Fellows Learn Big-Picture Thinking

Lynne Wainfan first heard about the Rand Corp.’s tiny public policy graduate school when a friend asked her to write a letter of recommendation for her application.

Wainfan, then a top executive at Boeing Space Services, did some quick research on the school, found it interesting and wrote her friend a glowing recommendation. Then she decided to apply as well.

“It just sounded so intriguing,” Wainfan, now a second-year student, said of the Pardee Rand Graduate School, which is housed in the Santa Monica headquarters of the nonprofit think tank. “It seemed like exactly what I’d been looking for -- really a broad, big-picture type of place.”

Well-respected in the public policy and academic arenas, Rand’s graduate program of about 90 students is low-profile outside them. “The most common reaction you get when you tell people you’re a student here is: ‘Rand has a graduate school?’ ” second-year student David Howell said with a laugh. “People look shocked.”

Founded in 1970, the school was among the first graduate programs in the nation to focus on public policy analysis. Such programs have since burgeoned to several hundred around the country, but Rand’s remains the only one based at a think tank rather than a university. It offers only a doctoral degree, accredited by the Western Assn. of Schools and Colleges.

Its graduates work in government, in private industry and at universities. They include Philip Romero, a business school professor at the University of Oregon who was former Gov. Pete Wilson’s chief economic advisor, and Assemblyman Joe Nation (D-San Rafael).

Policy analysis trains scholars to assist government and business leaders to make informed decisions about complex problems. Recent dissertation topics included the rise of health maintenance organizations, improving Air Force supply management, and factors influencing breast-feeding patterns.

Rand prepares its students with rigorous training in mathematical modeling, statistics and economics, and classes on such broad topics as social welfare policy. They also work year-round on Rand Corp. research projects funded by the government and other clients.

Known at Rand as graduate fellows, students also take part in five-week workshops on issues that the research institution’s leaders believe need fresh analytical approaches. This year’s topics include terrorism and the challenges of a world with the U.S. as its sole superpower.

Rand leaders and researchers view the graduate school as a place to explore ideas. “It’s the think tank’s think tank,” said James Thomson, Rand’s president.

In 2003, the graduate program was renamed in honor of Frederick S. Pardee, a former Rand analyst who donated $10 million to the school to help keep it self-supporting. Pardee, a real estate investor, said he is interested in “helping to improve the global human condition. This is an institution that can do that.”

Each student gets a full ride, in the form of a $41,000 annual fellowship, out of which they pay the $17,000 yearly tuition and their living expenses. The funds also include payment for their work on Rand’s research projects.

Robert Klitgaard, the school’s dean, said it tries to arm its graduates with the analytical tools to solve problems, cutting across disciplinary boundaries.

On a recent morning, for instance, students in a policy analysis seminar were learning about a groundbreaking 1994 Rand study that looked at different ways to control cocaine consumption, including disruptions in the supply chain and prevention and treatment programs.

The study, co-authored by one of their professors, Rand researcher Susan S. Everingham, used mathematical modeling to examine the cost and effectiveness of various options. It concluded that treatment programs, which made up a tiny fraction of U.S. government and private spending on the issue, were far more cost-effective than enforcement efforts at reducing cocaine consumption by 1%.

The study was initially funded by the U.S. Army, Everingham said, noting dryly that the Army became less interested as it became clear that its conclusions would not support increased funding for control programs overseas. Funding then came from Rand itself, she said, and later from the government’s Office of National Drug Control Policy, which has used the research in formulating treatment policies.

During a lively discussion, students peppered Everingham with questions. Had the researchers considered the issue of legalization? No, Everingham said, partly because it was a political nonstarter. Had they examined the experience of other countries where cocaine use was similarly high? No, she said, because the biggest problem was in the U.S.

“So we were the market leader,” Wainfan said, to laughter from her classmates.

Other students debated whether the researchers should have focused exclusively on the criminal aspects of cocaine use, and not its social policy implications. “But we all pay for those health consequences,” the professor pointed out.

Students and faculty alike say they enjoy the intellectual challenge and the informal give-and-take of such discussions.

“Not a day goes by here where I don’t have this sort of lightbulb moment,” said Wainfan, 46, the former director of business development and chief strategist for Boeing Space Services. “There’s not enough time in my life or my career to study all these fascinating things, but I sure wish I could.”

Wainfan, an engineer who holds several patents in telecommunications design, said she hopes her Rand education will help her better understand how people use such devices. She plans to return to Boeing and help design better communications products.

The students, most of whom already have advanced degrees, come from many backgrounds and academic disciplines, including engineering, economics, and international development. The average age is 26.

Each year’s class of 20 to 25 students is selected from about 150 applicants. Several times that figure send the school preliminary application information, but many of those are gently discouraged from applying, said assistant dean Alex Duke. “It’s a very specialized sort of place, with a fair amount of math,” he said. “It’s not for everyone.”

Brian Maue, 34, a former U.S. Air Force nuclear missile launch officer and instructor at the Air Force Academy, is working on a Rand project he finds fascinating: retention in the military. After he graduates in another year or so, he expects to continue such research at the Pentagon, then hopes to become a community college or high school teacher.

“In the long term, I’d like to make the world a better place,” he said, in a statement echoed by several of his fellow graduate students.