The University Record, January 18, 1999

Blank to be recommended as dean of School of Public Policy

By Jane R. Elgass

Rebecca Blank, currently serving on the President’s Council of Economic Advisers (CEA), will be recommended to the Regents at their February meeting as dean of the School of Public Policy. Her appointment will be effective Aug. 1, 1999.

Blank, on leave from Northwestern University to serve on the CEA, specializes in labor economics and income distribution. Her recent work has investigated the relationship between eligibility for and participation in major U.S. welfare programs, and the effect of changes in the macroeconomy on poverty and income distribution.

“We are all very excited at the prospect of Blank’s appointment,” Provost Nancy Cantor said. “She will provide strong and creative leadership for the School of Public Policy as it continues to grow and evolve.

“Blank is a distinguished scholar and policy analyst and her myriad of experiences will enrich the campus community in mulitple ways. We are simply delighted that she has chosen to make Michigan her intellectual home.”

“One of my goals for the School is to maintain its strong reputation,” Blank told the Record last week. “The market for public policy schools is increasingly competitive. Schools are thinking more creatively. We need to think creatively about where the School of Public Policy fits in the national scheme, and to carve out a first-rate niche.

“The School should be the center of public policy discussions at the University. It should draw people from others schools and coordinate with them to develop their interests in policy. The idea of trying to improve and build on an already very good program is exciting to me. I am very enthusiastic about taking the position and working with the people at the U-M.”

Blank has been a member of the Economics Department at Northwestern since 1989 where she also holds a research position in the Center for Urban Affairs and Policy Research.

She was director of the Joint Center for Poverty Research for one year and served five years as co-director of the Interdisciplinary Training Program in Poverty, Race and Underclass Issues, a joint program of Northwestern and the University of Chicago.

Prior to joining Northwestern, Blank was a senior staff economist for the CEA for one year and taught for six years at Princeton University, where she held a joint appointment in the Department of Economics and in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

In 1993, Blank received the Richard Kershaw Prize from the Association of Public Policy and Management, presented biannually to a scholar under age 40 whose research has had the most significant impact on the public policy process. Her research has been supported by grants from the Russell Sage Foundation, National Science Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation and the Jerome Levy Economics Institute, among others.

In addition to regularly contributing to edited collections and periodicals, Blank is the author of It Takes a Nation: A New Agenda for Fighting Poverty and Do Justice: Linking Christian Faith and Modern Economic Life. She also edited Social Protection vs. Economic Flexibility: Is There a Tradeoff?

Blank holds a B.S. in economics from the University of Minnesota and a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.