USC Schedule of Classes

Strategies and processes of social innovation in the context of economics, institutional, and innovation theory. How social innovation materializes across all sectors, including the government, nonprofit, and for-profit spheres. Critical thinking and practical application development to solve social problems.

Performance improvement methods and principles in health care; how Lean, Six-Sigma, and Human Centered Design (HCD) methodologies are applied to health care organizations to improve quality and efficiency.

Theories and methods of how to develop original data about, analyze, and produce visualizations of urban space; conventional conceptualization and representations of cities and urban spatial data. Recommended preparation: PPD 631 or other GIS coursework.

Fundamentals of urban mass transit planning. Topics include the fiscal context of mass transit planning, fares and farebox recovery, ridership forecasts, land development near transit, and transit operations, scheduling, and network design.

Accounting and financial management principles and practices in nonprofit organizations: budgeting financial analysis, internal controls, financial policies, grant making and financial reporting. Duplicates credit in PPD 541.

Grant making process and proposal development; philanthropic foundations; strategies for funding; budgeting, logic models, and evaluation; peer review

Critical issues involved in International Development NGO management; theoretical work and analytical framework to understand organizational features; NGO management, issues and challenges

Examination of China through the lens of the US federal government; trade issues; economic coordination and stability; environment and sustainability; defense and security; human development

Application of econometric methods for causal inference. Production and evaluation of empirical estimates of causal relationships to inform evidence-based policy decisions.