NEWS

Austin Lacy

Graduate Student Excellence-in-Research Award 2012

Austin Lacy, a recent doctoral graduate of the Institute of Higher Education, researched and wrote a dissertation that uses Bayesian analysis to further the understanding of state-level higher education governance systems. By arraying states along a continuum of governance centralization, Lacy’s analysis will lead to a more precise measure of state higher education governance that may be included in examinations of various state policy adoptions and funding trends. Beyond this methodological technique that incorporates historical information into the measure, this work stands to deepen the general understanding of governance arrangements by providing a measure that more closely represents the state governance structures. Lacy has also conducted research related to state- and campus-level policy innovations. For example, he uses duration analysis and other longitudinal techniques to examine state policy adoption and universities as multi-product firms. Lacy regularly publishes and presents conference papers in the leading outlets for both higher education and public policy.