The Workbench 

Travel around Maine long enough – down the backroads and into the barns, garages, and kitchens of its towns – and you’ll find one thing in common: a workbench. Usually tucked in a corner, well-worn and cluttered, it’s where tools are kept close, problems get solved, and ideas take shape.

At Colby’s Bram Public Policy Lab, we have adopted the Workbench as both name and ethic. It reflects a core belief: governance is not something done to communities, but something built with them. It is a space where people take responsibility for the problems in front of them, improvise with what they have, and improve through practice.

Offered every semester as a credit-bearing course that caps the Public Policy curriculum, the Workbench provides students with sustained, hands-on experience in how policy is developed, implemented, and evaluated in practice. Every project on the Workbench is a work in progress and grounded in the belief that effective policy is shaped not above communities, but alongside them.

Learn more about the Public Policy minor and course requirements