History

The Idaho Policy Institute was launched by Associate Professor and Director Gregory Hill and Research Director Vanessa Fry. In the first five years, Idaho Policy Institute completed over 125 projects with partners from the nonprofit, private, and public sectors. During this time, the team more than doubled by adding full-time, part-time, and student employees. IPI continues to increase its capacity to serve the public by adding staff, partnering with faculty and organizations on campus, and increasing student opportunities

A note from Dean Corey Cook about the School of Public Service and the Idaho Policy Institute:

“Boise State University holds the State mandate for public affairs education. In other words, of the State’s institutions of higher education, Boise State is expected to be the most prominent in public service programming – a mission the University chose to embrace by creating the School of Public Service in 2015. So not only is the School established to inspire and equip students to be innovative, principled and effective public service leaders, it was also explicitly intended to promote meaningful community engagement and civil discourse, and to serve as an objective and unbiased resource for citizens and decision-makers throughout the state. Faculty, staff, and students at Boise State had a long history of doing this kind of work. But to do so in a systematic way required the creation of an institute dedicated fully to this purpose.

We anticipated that the Idaho Policy Institute would serve a critically important need in Idaho. But the success and growth of IPI far exceeds my wildest expectations, which is fully due to the outstanding staff of the institute their well-earned reputation for unbiased, objective, and exemplary work.”