FULL-TIME FACULTY
Russell S. Harrison
(A.B., Duke; Ph.D., University of North Carolina)
Dr. Russell Harrison was educated at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He received tenure as an Associate Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University in the late 1970s. Since then he has served as Chair of the Political Science Department twice, and as Director of the Rutgers University Forum for Policy Research, beginning in 2000. He received a Rutgers Sabbatical in 2003 to work on education manuscripts. He returned to full time teaching and research in 2004.
He teaches courses on research design and evaluation methods, state and local government politics and administration, and conducts seminars on state government policies for education, youth programs, and health and human services. He now holds a joint appointment in the Political Science Department and the Department of Public Policy and Administration, teaches both graduate and undergraduate courses, and supervises the dual degree program in political science and public administration.
Initial work on government programs for children and youth began with a dissertation and a publication on K-12 vocational education and its intergovernmental funding in Publius: The Journal of Federalism . Early work on state policy reforms for education includes a book on Equality in Public School Finance: Validated Policies for Public School Finance Reform [ Lexington].
Follow-up research focused on the interplay of education policy, zoning, and segregation, and the more recent connections between smart growth and small school policies. Two articles on school finance and zoning were published in the Rutgers Law Journal. Two chapters were published in Causes and Effects of Inequality in Urban Services (Lexington Press), State Supreme Courts (Greenwood Press), and Constitutional Politics in the States (Greenwood Press).
The New Jersey State Legislature electronically published his 2002-2003 reports to the New Jersey (Joint Legislative) Commission on Business Efficiency of the Public Schools. [They are available online]. He has published education related research in more traditional venues like law reviews and book collections as well. In 2002 he published a report in The Rutgers Forum on school size, administrative pathologies, and the isolation and concentration of poverty children in public schools. During 2001 – 2004 he worked with public choice schools that include two private schools and a public charter school, where he evaluated the GEARUP program and provided policy advice under contract.
His work on reform of state and local programs for children under the care of family courts includes published papers, panel papers, and training work shops for the American Humane Association in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and North Carolina, the Chadwick Center for Children in San Diego, the Child Welfare League of America in New York City. He served as both panel chair and paper giver at American Society of Public Administration conferences, including Newark and Phoenix, plus two Restorative Justice and Reparative Practice Conference panels in Toronto. He convened public service conferences at Rutgers University, and in 2002 published an article on Community-Based Mediation in family courts and dependency courts in The International Journal of Public Administration.
He conducts a wide variety of consulting studies as principal investigator and project manager for state and local government agencies. He specializes in econometric evaluation research on management issues and administrative reforms for state and local government. His expertise on census data keeps him involved in litigation as an expert witness in various court cases, most recently in 2003 and 2004.
Prior evaluation studies were funded by and conducted for a range of federal, state, and local government agencies. They include the federal Economic Development Administration, its regional affiliates both in North and South Jersey, the New York-New Jersey Port Authority, the New Jersey Department of Transportation, the Salem Port Authority, the South Jersey Port Authority, the County Improvement Authority. He conducted several municipal government and county government policy evaluation studies, management audits, and implementation projects. Two papers on county projects were published in County News and Public Management: The ICMA’s Public Management Journal.