The curriculum of the Public Economics class includes discussions about government finance. It was then appropriate for students at the Stamford campus in Dr. Smirnova’s class to meet a public official from Stamford. Mr. Gerald R. Bosak Jr. has served Stamford as a member of the Board of Finance, the Board of Education, and currently as a Zoning Board Commissioner. He is aspiring to become Town Clerk of the City of Stamford.

Mr. Bosak shared with students how the City’s finance plans are deliberated and how the University negotiated with the City for the new dormitories’ construction. The most heated discussion evolved around the affordable housing issue as well as the overdevelopment of the City’s beach front. Students had a lot of questions for Mr. Bosak regarding cost-benefit analysis’s role in the policy decisions by the Stamford government. All of these public policy issues connect closely with the course curriculum and with the project students are working on in this class.

Mr. Bosak encouraged students to participate in the local government by attending meetings, voicing their concerns and ideas, and volunteering. In the end, the visit not only related the economic concepts of costs and benefits, budgets, deficits and debt to the actual local government functioning. The visit also inspired students to be active citizens in their communities.