Doctoral Alumna Receives Research Award

Beth Gazley (PhD 2004) has co-authored a research article that has been selected by the Public and Nonprofit Division (PNP) of the Academy of Management as the best journal article published last year in the field.  The article, coauthored with Jeffrey L. Brudney, is entitled "The Purpose (and Perils) of Government-Nonprofit Partnership" and appeared in the September 2007 issue of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly.  Beth is Assistant Professor in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University.  This is the second time Beth has received recognition from the Academy of Management PNP Division: she also received the PNP  Division's William H. Newman nomination in 2006 for best conference paper based on a dissertation.

MPA Students Recognized as Outstanding Teaching Assistants

MPA students Aaron Mertz, William King, David Adams, Mallory Myers, and Danielle Atkins have been selected as outstanding Teaching Assistants for the Spring 2008 semester.  They assisted in delivery of the undergraduate introduction to American government course in the Department of Political Science.

Four MPA Students Named Presidential Management Fellows

Current MPA students Taryn Anderson, Courtney Bell, Josh Bull, and Mary Ellen Wiggins have been awarded the prestigious Presidential Management Fellowship (PMF) and will be attending the PMF Job Fair in late April in Washington, DC. The PMF is the new name for the highly regarded Presidential Management Internship program. Since 1977, the PMF program has served as a fast-track for admittance into employment in the federal government. Taryn grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio and earned her undergraduate degree from The Ohio State University in strategic communications. She is studying both Public Policy and Nonprofit Administration in the MPA program. Courtney was raised in Vestavia Hills, Alabama. She attended Presbyterian College and majored in English. For her MPA coursework, she is specializing in Public Policy. Josh was born to parents who were both missionaries and later worked for the United Nations. He has lived in Israel, Haiti, Ecuador, and Argentina but calls Atlanta, Georgia home. He attended Georgetown University and majored in International Politics. He is currently specializing in Nonprofit Administration in the MPA program. Mary Ellen Wiggins grew up in Decatur, a suburb of Atlanta, and graduated from Wellesley College with a Bachelor’s Degree in Urban Studies. Her specialization in the MPA program is Public Policy.

MPA Student Janelle Williams named one of UGA's "Amazing Students"

Janelle Williams, a soon to be graduate of the MPA program, was recently named one of the University of Georgia's Amazing Students.

See her complete profile here.

2008 Getzen Lecture given by Lee Hamilton

The annual Getzen Lecture on Government Accountability was given by Lee Hamilton on Wednesday, April 9th, at 2:00 p.m. in the Chapel. A reception followed in the lobby of Candler Hall. Mr. Hamilton's remarks were titled "Making Government Work Through Accountability."

Lee H. Hamilton is president and director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and director of The Center on Congress at Indiana University. Hamilton represented Indiana’s 9th congressional district for 34 years beginning January 1965. He served as chairman and ranking member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, chaired the Subcommittee on Europe and the Middle East, the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran, the Joint Economic Committee, and the Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress. As a member of the House Standards of Official Conduct Committee Hamilton was a primary draftsman of several House ethics reforms.

Hamilton was appointed to the National War Powers Commission, a private, bipartisan panel led by former Secretaries of State James A. Baker III and Warren Christopher, to examine how the Constitution allocates the powers of beginning, conducting, and ending war. Hamilton was named co-chair of the Iraq Study Group, a forward looking, bi-partisan assessment of the situation in Iraq, created at the urging of Congress. Hamilton served as Vice-Chair of the 9/11 Commission and co-chaired the 9/11 Public Discourse Project, established to monitor implementation of the Commission’s recommendations. He is currently a member of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, the President's Homeland Security Advisory Council, the FBI Director’s Advisory Board, the CIA Director’s Economic Intelligence Advisory Panel, the Defense Secretary’s National Security Study Group, and the US Department of Homeland Security Task Force on Preventing the Entry of Weapons of Mass Effect on American Soil.

David Bradford appointed to Busbee Chair in Public Policy

The Department of Public Administration and Policy is excited to announce it has appointed Dr. W. David Bradford as the first holder of the George D. Busbee Chair in Public Policy. Bradford will fill the position in fall 2008. Bradford has served as the director for the Center for Health Economic and Policy Studies at the Medical University of South Carolina since 2002. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Louisiana State University and has focused his research on health economics, industrial organization, and microeconomic theory.

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Kickin' it for Kids Fundraiser

This year's service learning project for Dr. Wilkins' Public Administration and Democracy class was a kickball tournament to raise funds for the Triple Play Foundation. The Triple Play Foundation is a non-profit organization that was established in order to help strengthen underprivileged communities by raising funds for youth sports in communities in the Atlanta and Athens areas.

The tournament took place at the UGA Intramural Fields on March 28th, from Noon-5:00. This outdoor festival featured a 16 team kickball tournament and all proceeds will be donated to the Physical Education Department of Fowler Drive Elementary School in Athens.

AB/MPA student featured in Time Magazine article

The February 11, 2008 issue of Time Magazine featured a cover story called "Why Young Voters Care Again". Our own AB/MPA student, Nick Solari (left), appeared in the article, representing the University of Georgia.

Nick is in his second semester of the AB / MPA program, and is interested in pursuing a specialization in non-profits. He is currently completing his undergrad major in Political Science, and a minor in Spanish. He is executive director of the Young Democrats of UGA & Athens-Clarke County.

The Atlanta correspondent from Time Magazine had a round table discussion about the upcoming election with members of the Young Democrats, as well as the College Republicans, and featured both in the cover story.

The AB/MPA program allows undergraduate honors students to simultaneously complete a master of public administration degree while completing their undergraduate degree.

Doctoral Grad Receives Best Article Award

Sung Min Park, a recent doctoral graduate of the department, will receive the Best Article Award from the Review of Public Personnel Administration (ROPPA).  The article,  “Antecedents, Mediators, and Consequences of Affective, Normative, and Continuance Commitment: Empirical Tests of Commitment Effects in Federal Agencies,” has been selected for the award for the best article in ROPPA for 2007.  Dr. Park, who received his Ph.D. in 2007, worked on the article while completing his doctoral work.  The findings reported in the article were part of the findings for his doctoral dissertation.  He will receive the award at a ceremony at the 2008 Annual Conference of the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) in Dallas, Texas.  As part of the recognition that accompanies the award, he and his coauthor on the article will present the article in a special panel session at the 2009 ASPA conference, with a roundtable panel to discuss the article.  Dr. Park is now Assistant Professor of Public Administration at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.  Public Administration & Policy professor Hal Rainey co-authored the article. 

Right: Dr. Hal Rainey and Dr. Sung Min Park

Two MPA Students receive Jerry R. Griffin MPA Scholarship

Association County Commissioners of Georgia (ACCG) announced the availability of the Jerry R. Griffin Master of Public Administration Scholarship for the 2007-2008 academic year at the association’s fall board retreat in September. Under the program, ACCG has bestowed two scholarship awards to University of Georgia MPA candidates Bernice Butler and Andrew (Drew) Curtright. The announcement was also made at the fall board retreat of the ACCG Board of Managers.

The scholarship, named in honor of ACCG Executive Director Jerry R. Griffin in recognition of his long and influential career with the association, pays $1,000 to an outstanding MPA student who is committed to a career in government management.

Read the full article here.

Left: Drew Curtright and Bernice Butler appeared on the December 2007 issue of Georgia County Government Magazine

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