Advice To The Next President: About The Series
- by Barry Bluestone and Iris Adler
Introduction
What are the key issues, challenges and opportunities facing the next president of the United States?
Whether Barack Obama is re-elected or Mitt Romney wins the election, behind each president stand many advisors. Presidential agendas are based upon the expert opinions of scores of analysts, scholars and policymakers.
This fall Cognoscenti teams up with the School of Public Policy & Urban Affairs at Northeastern University to bring you a series we’re calling Advice to the Next President.
From economic recovery to immigration, each week we will focus on one of the most critical issues facing the country. Experts in that area will offer their advice for the next president.
Northeastern’s Barry Bluestone explains the program at the core of the partnership. WBUR’s Iris Adler explains Cognoscenti’s role – and what it aims to achieve.

Barry Bluestone is a professor of public policy and urban affairs at Northeastern University.
The Open Classroom is a program of the School of Public Policy & Urban Affairs at Northeastern University devoted to inviting the Greater Boston community free-of-charge to share in some of the intellectual richness of the university and brilliant scholars and practitioners throughout the region. This fall semester’s course is called – and is focused on – Policy Advice to the Next President. Each Wednesday evening, we feature guest speakers who are experts in one area of public policy. This semester’s topics include economic recovery and growth, taxes, spending, income inequality and mobility, foreign policy, healthcare, crime, education, and immigration.

Iris Adler is WBUR’s program manager. She oversees Cognoscenti.
Cognoscenti’s mission is to bring the most informed and thoughtful voices to our readers. When we learned that the School of Public Policy & Urban Affairs at Northeastern had invited nationally renowned experts to share their policy advice to the next president in its Open Classroom series, we knew there was a perfect synergy with Cognoscenti. We would benefit from high quality content addressing the critical issues facing the country, and we could bring those important voices beyond the classroom, to our online audience. So every Wednesday this fall, check out Cognoscenti, and read what leading experts from all political persuasions say the next president must do on the big issues of the day.

A special series by Cognoscenti and the School of Public Policy & Urban Affairs at Northeastern University.
Complete Coverage:
- 10/2/12 Larry Summers and Greg Mankiw: Taxes And Spending
- 10/2/12 Thomas Kochan and John Kwoka: Economic Recovery
- 10/10/12 Barry Bluestone and Katharine Bradbury: Income Inequality And Social Mobility
- 10/17/12 Graham Allison and Juliette Kayyem: National And Homeland Security
- 10/24/12 Nicholas Burns and Stephen Kinzer: Foreign Policy
- 10/31/12 Michael Dukakis and Wendy Parmet: The Future Of ‘Obamacare’
- 11/8/12 David Seltz, James Roosevelt, Regina Herzlinger and Stephen D’Amato: Health Care Cost Containment
- 11/21/12 Edward Powell, Jon Feinman and Edward Davis: Gun Violence In Cities
- 12/5/12 Paul Toner, Jim Stergios and Tassy Warren: K-12 Education And Early Childhood Development
- 12/12/12 Eva Millona, Jeff Jacoby and Robert Hedlund: Immigration Reform
- 12/19/12 Deval Patrick and Michael Dukakis: Leveraging The Power Of The Oval Office
More about the Open Classroom:
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The views and opinions expressed in this piece are solely those of the writer and do not in any way reflect the views of WBUR management or its employees.