The weeklong, intensive leadership and policy training brings together selected legislators to get them up to speed on issues they will face in leadership positions.

Professor Dennis Dresang has been the intellectual powerhouse behind the La Follette School’s involvement with the BILLD program — also known as Bowhay for short. Dresang moderates the entire week, and offering policy modules on political culture, leadership styles, homeland security and other topics.

The BILLD program has been so successful for the Midwestern Council of State Governments that its western counterpart sent observers to study it and now offers a similar program. The eastern office is releasing a request for proposals to schools up and down the East Coast to produce a similar program.

“The Bowhay Institute represents the Wisconsin Idea in its purest form,” Dresang says. “It shows the university reaching out with its resources and ideas to meet the needs of the public, or, in this case, the legislatures of Wisconsin and neighboring Midwestern states and Canadian provinces. And having the powerful partnership of an agency like the Council of State Governments makes it an even better product and result.”

Index to La Follette Notes fall 2004