What we have here is a modern version of the proverbial distinction between giving someone a fish, and teaching someone to fish. For our own students, the process by which these projects were carried out is as important as their substantive content. Graduate education at the LBJ School of Public Affairs is a mix of the academic and the practical. The work Lodis describes was undertaken by groups of students engaged in a series of Policy Research Projects. The collaborative nature of the Policy Research Project helps the LBJ School fill in a gap that often develops during students' undergraduate years.
Undergraduate education stresses self-reliance and individual achievement.
There is a disconnect between the knowledge we impart at the undergraduate level and the knowledge our graduates need in order to thrive socially and economically. One reason is that the American university, a wondrous invention for discovering and passing on knowledge, is one of the few institutions in which people are rewarded for not collaborating. Professors earn tenure as a result of their individual research. They cannot pass on what they themselves have not been encouraged to practice. At the LBJ School of Public Affairs, we are preparing men and women to shape and manage the public's business.