This required course forms the core of the Cornell in Washington program for students in the public policy option. The central course objective is to provide students with the instruction and guidance necessary to analyze and evaluate their own chosen issue in public policy. Toward that end, the course has three components: (1) weekly lectures providing background on the structures and processes of national politics and policy (with a particular focus each semester) as well as training in research methodology; (2) student externships; and (3) individual research papers or projects. All three components interrelate so as to provide students with a strategy and framework for integrating classroom based learning, field experience, and individual research.

Required of all Cornell in Washington students pursuing the American experience option. The course attempts to understand the American experience by looking at the history and culture of the United States, using a wide range of historical works, memoirs, and literature. Each semester focuses on a particular aspect of the American experience. There are weekly discussions that investigate the American experience and explore the methodologies of the disciplines associated, such as American studies and history. Students pursue an individual research project based on the resources available in Washington.

This course is an examination and analysis of the major trends in art from Neoclassicism and Romanticism through Post Impressionism and the dawn of the twentieth century. Lectures and readings will concentrate on the historical context of great masterpieces by seminal artists. The class will investigate the imagery and theoretical foundation of nineteenth-century European and American art using a selection of appropriate methodological approaches. Major figures to be discussed include David, Copley, Goya, Delacroix, Courbet, Cole, Manet, Morisot, Monet, Degas, Cassatt, Sargent, Eakins, Homer, Rodin, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne, and Toulouse-Lautrec. Part of each class will be devoted to discussions of the readings. Two classes will be held in the National Gallery of Art at times and dates to be determined. Exams, two short papers, and class participation will be used for evaluative purposes.

Surveys the sources of comparative advantage. Studies commercial policy and analyzes the welfare economics of trade between countries. Some attention is paid to the institutional aspects of the world trading system. Prerequisites: Economics 1110-1120 and 3130 or permission of the instructor.

This course explores the history of the United States Senate from its origins at the Constitutional Convention to recent times. The modern Senate will serve as a point of reference for an inquiry into the evolution of the institution's powers and responsibilities, including its advice and consent role in treaties and nominations, and its sole power to try impeachments. Class readings and weekly discussions will focus on the themes of continuity and change, the role of individual senators, the nature of leadership, and the institutional evolution of the Senate. In addition to general class reading and exams, each student will write a short paper and participate in an oral presentation.

In 1965 the landscape of American politics changed dramatically with the passage of the Voting Rights Act. That same year, Congress passed the Immigration Reform Act, which though little heralded at the time, arguably has had equally profound effects. This course will provide a general survey of minority politics in the United States, focusing on the effects of these two key pieces of legislation. The course will highlight the relationships between immigrants and minorities, electoral politics and protest politics, and between cooperation and competition within and among minority groups. The purpose of the course is not only to pinpoint the similarities and differences in the agendas and strategies adopted by racial and ethnic minority groups, but also to show how inextricably intertwined “minority” politics and American politics have been and continue to be.