This week Dr. Shankar Prasad from NYU’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service met with SAYA!’s Institute for Public Service (SIPS). Dr. Prasad’s dissertation "Red, Brown and Blue: The Political Behavior of Asian Indian Americans" analyzes the politicization of the Indian American community. During his visit, he gave our youth an introductory course on public policy. To get a better idea of Dr. Prasad’s talk with SIPS, here’s what Saad Says…

"Hey everybody! Last Tuesday SIPS had a special guest come to SAYA!’s Elmhurst center and give a small talk on his work. Dr. Prasad is a professor at New York University’s Wagner School where he teaches public policy and statistics. Public policy is basically the decisions made for the public by certain people. Government officials are elected so that the people they represent have a say in these matters. Things such as the creation of the curb cut, which is a sidewalk ramp, were debated for a long time and eventually people working in the field of public policy specifically in New York had the bill passed to allow these curb cuts. The most interesting part of the visit was when Dr. Prasad shared the story of one woman working in public policy who changed the way people think about public health in regards to obesity. She noticed a growing trend in obesity but no one listened to her. After some hard work and patience she got it onto the news and that's why children today are taught so much about health.

Dr. Prasad’s talk was much better than a high school class because there was no pointless information and the work was minimal and straight-forward. Most importantly, it was much more informative than the average high school class and based in discussion. Public policy is relevant to SIPS in many ways because, for example, we had a discussion about the new law the mayor is trying to pass about soda. Public policy workers are the ones who either lobby for or against this. This kind of stuff is relevant to the public and SIPS aims to learn about these issues and maybe try to resolve them. The meeting was really fun and the professor was great. We had a good time overall and learned a lot. Check in next week for more of summer programs at SAYA!"

Saad participates in Dr. Prasad's lecture

Dr. Prasad introduces public policy to SIPS

Thank you Dr. Prasad for inspiring our youth to think critically about the issues facing their community! Thanks for reading and make sure to what check out what “Saad Says…” about his summer at SAYA!