Student Profile: Nina Levine, MPP Class of 2023

Born in Arizona, Nina Levine moved around a lot before settling in Chicago, where she attended a private Jewish high school in North Shore. “During my high school years, I gained a stronger understanding of Judaism,” said Levine. “The expectation in Judaism—as I’ve experienced it—is that you really wrestle with the status-quo. You wrestle with what ancient authorities have declared and manifest philosophy and practices that combine Judaism with your own modern values.”

This expectation, she said, forms the foundation and reasoning behind enrolling in the Master of Public Policy program at Harris—"and that approach,” she noted, “has been applicable to my coursework at Harris. My Analytical Politics course has been a great example, because we talk about normative frameworks without declaring one or another to be the ‘right’ one.”

Academically, Levine had originally considered a law career, pursuing medical malpractice issues. “My older brother and my mom are both lawyers, so law school has always been in the back of my mind," she said. "While I may pursue that avenue further along the way, I feel like the MPP is much more impactful and hands-on: with policy, you can make broader, more direct changes, as opposed to arguing for individual cases.”

Levine's interest in policy was also fueled by her undergraduate studies at the University of Chicago. "I earned my bachelor's in linguistics with a minor in Spanish language and literature, and I was struck by the policy implications of some of my undergraduate classes.” She cites one course in particular as especially influential. “In my Languages in the Iberian Peninsula course, we learned about different minority languages and the effect that the predominant culture and language policies have on their vitality. Often when a linguistic community lives under a government that does not give their language official status or recognition and accommodations, the community itself becomes marginalized and practically forced to assimilate in order to simply survive. Language policy is social policy, and I think it can intersect with every policy area,” Levine said. “There will always be people who are bound to policies that do not know the language these policies are originally written in, so policymakers need to consider how to maximize everyone’s understanding and overcome language barriers so that we can have a well-run society and the policies we create are executed/followed effectively."

Thus far, Levine said she has been gaining experience with stats to support her data analysis skills. "Statistical evidence is crucial to evaluating how and where to allocate resources and to locate/analyze communities that are affected by language barriers.”

Levine connects the goals she is pursuing at Harris with the philosophical essay “The Lonely Man of Faith” by Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. “As Soloveitchik suggests in this essay, you need to have that sense of feeling like you are very capable and powerful and you can make a personal impact, but also remember to have that other side where you're a servant to the world.”