Ron Gibbs
Ron Gibbs is an Adjunct Professor at Loyola University teaching Political Feasibility Analysis: Winning
Strategies in Public Policy. He is also President of National and International Public Affairs Consulting
(NIPAC) and provides strategic counsel to governmental officials, businesses and non-profits on public
policy, legislative affairs, marketing/branding, fund raising and corporate social responsibility. In addition,
he conducts seminars for corporate and non-profit executives on developing successful public policy and
advocacy campaigns.
He received a Master's Degree from Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government and BA in
Political Science from Drake University. He has studied at The Hague Academy of International Law,
London School of Economics and Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies.
Ron is a nationally recognized expert in public policy. He has a track record of implementing successful
public affairs and public relations campaigns by using various policy and communications strategies and
coalition building techniques. He has provided effective leadership in numerous public policy and social
change areas dealing with urban and rural affairs, child welfare, health care, hunger relief, diabetes
education, Medicare reform, veteran's affairs, immigration, global poverty, farm bill reform, renewable
energy, among others.
He has worked in high level executive public policy positions for Chicago Mayor Harold Washington,
Department of Health & Human Services and National Association of Counties in D.C. He was selected
as a Congressional Fellow to work in the U.S. House and Senate as a legislative assistant. He has worked
in high level executive positions for major national non-profit organizations including Feeding America
and UNICEF. Ron was a senior vice president at Edelman Worldwide and Fleishman-Hillard, two world
class public relations firms. He was a candidate for the Illinois State Senate and for the U.S. Senate from
Illinois.
He established the Kim Foundation to help child victims of war, which is chaired by Kim Phuc. Her photo
was captured by Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Nick Ut after her village was napalmed during the
Vietnam War. Her photo is an international symbol of the tragic impact of war on children.
Ron has been nationally recognized for his work in creating a national coalition and spearheading the
passage of the legislation that established the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the most visited memorial in
our nation’s Capital. As Jan Scruggs stated in his book, To Heal A Nation, "Ron spent many hours
walking the halls of Congress. He never asked for public recognition or acclaim. His only desire was to
see the 58,000 names of those soldiers killed inscribed in a place of honor." He served as an Army
Infantry Captain in Vietnam and Germany. He can be contacted at rgibbs1@luc.edu or 312-543-1455.
Political Feasibility Analysis: Winning Strategies in Public Policy
LAW-421 and MPP-408
Course Overview
Enacting public policy is a dynamic process because of the changing nature of the political environment. Developing successful public policy requires an array of strategic approaches, analytical tools
and resources, as well as understanding the importance of timing, assessing risk and opportunity,
identifying historical precedents and understanding key pressure points in the political system.
This course will review and analyze various strategies for assessing the political feasibility of successfully implementing public policies at the federal, state and local levels. The course will utilize real
world case studies to demonstrate the viability of the political feasibility analysis model and how to
build a power base to win in the endgame.
This course will analyze successful and unsuccessful campaigns to bring about public policy change
at all levels of government. Examples of cases to be analyzed will range from Clinton losing and
Obama winning in health care reform to energy and environmental initiatives, urban affairs, education, immigration reform, transportation, gay marriage and LGBTQ rights, gun control, among other
policy areas.
Students will analyze various policy strategies put forth in the course to include inclusionary, exclusionary and persuasive models. A focus area for the course will be the use of social media as a powerful tool to foster social change and impact the political environment.
Students will examine various types of policy domains at the legislative, executive, judicial and bureaucratic levels. The course will analyze the impact of indirect policy makers outside of government
such as lobbyists, public interest groups, unions, media, public relations firms, business groups, faithbased organizations and individual activists, among others.
By the end of the course, students will be adept at assessing the political feasibility of implementing
current public policies under debate at all levels of government and to evaluate the risk and opportunities in pursuing a particular course of action.
Reading materials for the course will include Harvard Kennedy School of Government policy case
studies and chapter readings from numerous books and articles. The instructor will include additional
reading materials on several important case studies where he played a leadership role in developing
the strategies for various public policy campaigns, including urban affairs, health care, farm bill reform, veteran’s affairs, renewable energy and others.
Students also will be required to read materials on current national and local issues for class discussions. There will be at least two guest speakers which may include legislators, journalists, lobbyists,
public interest groups, and public affairs consultants.
The structure for course will center on case study analysis, policy study groups and class participation.
Students will be called upon to integrate the skills and draw upon analytical tools gained from other
core curriculum. Group presentations will be a major element of the course so that students are
grounded in how to use the political feasibility model as an analytical tool in the real world of public
policy after graduation.
For further info contact: Ron Gibbs, Adjunct Professor, at 312-543-1455 or rgibbs1@luc.edu.