Mission
The Carsey School of Public Policy mission is to address pressing public issues by conducting research that is unbiased, accessible, and rigorous; offering education that provides students with research, policy, and political skills; and engaging with communities to bring people together for thoughtful dialogue and practical problem-solving.
History
University of New Hampshire alumna Marcy Peterson Carsey, a 1966 cum laude graduate in English literature and the producer of such television classics as The Cosby Show and Roseanne, established the Carsey Institute in May 2002 through a generous gift to the university. The Carsey Institute was created to address the new reality of families and women, work, and communities in the twenty-first century.
Over the next ten years, the Carsey Institute, under the leadership of Cynthia “Mil” Duncan and then Bruce Mallory, grew to become a respected national resource for timely, relevant applied research analysis of critical social, economic, and environmental issues facing families and communities.
In 2013, Marcy Carsey gave a second gift of $20 million to the University of New Hampshire to establish a school of public policy. The gift was the second largest in the university’s history. In June 2014, Michael Ettlinger became the founding director of the newly established Carsey School of Public Policy, arriving from his post as senior director at the Pew Charitable Trusts. Following his departure in January 2023 to return to policy work in Washington, DC, Daniel Bromberg—Carsey’s director of academic programs and associate professor—became the interim director.