The Roosevelt Institution
Stanford chapter fellows from The Roosevelt Institution, the nation’s first student-run think tank, are steering away from their previous national policy making focus to team up with Bay Area legislators to make headway at the local level.
The reason for this shift, organizers say, lies in the institution’s dedication to making student-initiated policy waves — a much more attainable goal at the local level, where networking opportunities with officials are more accessible.
To facilitate interaction between students and local officials in the Bay Area, Roosevelt leaders are in the process of establishing a policy discourse forum where both parties will collaborate on producing, polishing and disseminating ideas to key policymakers. Chapter President Eric Mitzenmacher, a junior, said that fellows have already met with several local officials, including Redwood City Mayor Barbara Pierce and Palo Alto City Councilmember Peter Drekmeyer.
Roosevelt fellows will also work to lubricate local policymaking machinery by providing legislators with research for their ideas, added Mitzenmacher.
“Research infrastructures often lag behind the material progress being made,” he said. “This leaves a gap that can be filled by students.”
All it takes is a well-reasoned pitch from the students and policy experts are on board with the concept, said senior Leslie Finger, policy coordinator for the think tank.
“Policymakers realize that Stanford students — and university students in general — have invaluable resources and have the ability to do meticulous, original research,” she said. “They know that we are capable, committed and passionate about policy. Combine that passion with resources, and students can come up with great policy ideas. They usually are as excited about Roosevelt as we are."The organization is currently pairing local officials with one of the 12 policy centers whose interests best align with their own. These centers cover a broad spectrum of policy concerns, which range from environmental issues to clean politics and voting rights.
Junior Shivan Sarin, director for the center on international security, lauded the organization’s forum model for policy discourse provided to students.
“By inviting policymakers and high-name professors to advise us on our policies, they get a good look at what we are, and they guide us to a correct goal,” he said. “They also make a connection to the policy, which opens numerous channels for the policy and the center in the future.”
Mitzenmacher said that fellows look forward to navigating the complexities of local policymaking, which often faces unique federal constraints.
“Working within fairly strict boundaries while still having to address some basic problems makes local policymaking an exciting challenge for students who want to make a real impact,” he said.
Although Roosevelt has yet to achieve success at the local level, Finger is optimistic the strategy will eventually bear fruit. She cited 2006 graduates Laura McCloskey and Maria Ocampo’s Op-Ed piece on California’s high school exit exam, which appeared last spring in the San Francisco Chronicle, as an example of the impact Roosevelt fellows can make on Bay Area discourse.
“We are a very new organization,” she added. “We’ve only been around since winter 2004, and we’re working right now on establishing the framework through which we can have working relationships and policy success with local policy makers. These relationships will play out in the course of the year.”
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