By Matthew Kredell
LOS ANGELES — The University of Southern California (USC) Price School http://priceschool.usc.edu/of Public Policy is pursuing a plan to establish a special doctoral program in public policy and management in Armenia, designed to build the academic infrastructure to address the significant public management needs of this growing country and region.
While Armenia has a growing need for trained public policy and management professionals, it currently does not have a PhD program at any of its universities that can provide training to meet this particular need. The USC Price Armenian Scholars program would begin with awarding one student from Armenia a full scholarship to enroll in the PhD in public policy and Management program at the Price School in 2019. Scholarship recipients must make a commitment to return to Armenia to teach, research and train.
Each year for five years, USC Price will continue enrolling an Armenian scholar, providing comprehensive support — including tuition, health insurance, housing, books, food and transportation — to grow the faculty until a five-member department is ready to sustainably prepare a new generation of policy thinkers and public management scholars in Armenia.
The plan was developed by Prof. Frank Zerunyan, who is of Armenian descent.
“The future of the Armenian democracy rests on the shoulders of young leaders, academics, who are committed to the practice of teaching and rigor of research necessary to ensure that Armenia continues to develop into an independent market economy promoting good governance,” Zerunyan said.
