Alex Gabriel is a 2015 WRD alumnus who went on to pursue a Masters in Public Policy at the University of Maryland and worked at the Do Good Institute and Aspen Institute. He is currently a Research Analyst at American University. His forthcoming article, “Politics of School Choice: a case study of Maryland’s BOOST program,” will be released through the Equity Project in 2018.
Gabriel says his dual DePaul majors in Writing, Rhetoric and Discourse and Economics complemented each other well. He says that the two disciplines helped him build a unique perspective for analyzing and thinking through problems, and that post-graduation from DePaul they have helped him succeed in “conceptualizing and organizing frameworks for problems that consider how an individual experiences a system and how to order complex phenomenon.”
“Economics takes an objective approach and assumes a value-free actor within a well-ordered system,” Gabriel says. “Rhetoric takes a subjective approach and assumes value-laden actor within an amorphously organized system. Diverse knowledge hangs together in interesting ways. What unites rhetoric and economics is the understanding of what power is and how it manifests and reproduces itself. With this perspective I could bring a normative, value-laden framework and apply econometric data techniques to think through research questions.”
Pursuing a Graduate Degree
Gabriel decided to pursue a Masters in Public Policy at the University of Maryland after graduation because “social change requires the language and practices of policy.”
“I earned my MPP (Masters in Public Policy) to receive formal quantitative and qualitative methodological training and to explore complex issues,” Gabriel said. He has been a part of the The Do Good Institute (formerly the Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership), a “creative and engaging center for developing curriculum around philanthropy and leadership education.” Gabriel has had the opportunity to develop curricula for a new social entrepreneurship course and work with professors to create a student-centered, project-based course in which students collaborate to solve an issue in the community while learning ways to design and evaluate programs.
Partnering with the Apsen Institute
Gabriel says at the Aspen Institute his team partnered with many organizations to do innovative work. According to Gabriel the Aspen Institute is a great place to share ideas with people working on all sorts of issues, from Native American public health to social policy for the future of work. While there, Gabriel released an October 2017 report evaluating public advocacy and implementation. Gabriel says Aspen Institute circulated the report to “describe our experience testing an innovative methodology for assessing policy implementation.”
“Many organizations believe that their program will create a large, positive outcome such as increasing graduation rates or decreasing gender based violence,” Gabriel explains. “But programs usually have a smaller impact and require repeated and sustained interventions. The challenging part is often working with clients to articulate a clear theory of change and manage expectations.”
Understanding Rhetoric
Gabriel explains that his WRD courses “laid a foundation for examining and thinking about language.” According to Gabriel, by understanding rhetoric as social action and language as imbued with social meaning, he could create quasi experimental designs to assess some hard-to-measure outcomes. This knowledge helped him thrive at the Aspen Institute. Alex is currently a research analyst at American University.
* NOTE: This post is written by WRD Student Assistant, Charlene Haparimwi.