Downtown Chapel Hill – Franklin Street
Downtown Chapel Hill – Franklin Street
Today is October 21, 2019 – this puts us 3/4ths of the way through hurricane season.
Chapel Hill, even though it is pretty inland, has been hit by hurricanes in the past. Just last year, Hurricane Florence hit Chapel Hill bringing more than nine inches of rain over four days.
Weather emergencies pose a unique challenge to local government leaders (often MPA graduates). In times of emergencies, local governments benefit from having an infrastructure to be able to communicate to residents during times of high need. This information includes providing evacuation routes, shelter locations, and weather updates.
DID YOU KNOW…
That the Town of Chapel Hill won an Award of Excellence for Hurricane Florence Communication. The Town was awarded this recognition by the City-County Communications & Marketing Association (3CMA) last month.
We are so proud to be apart of the Chapel Hill community. It’s also good to know that our local government works hard to serve us well in our times of highest need!
See original article here.
Welcome to the MPA team, Krisitin!
Kristin Pawlowski is our new Associate Director of Alumni and Employer Relations for the MPA Program! Kristin is coming to us with great experience and skills, especially after serving UNC students for more than 3 years. We are super excited to have her as an addition to our team. To learn more about Kristin, we decided to do a Q&A with her!
Where are you from? Kristin: I grew up outside of DC in Potomac Falls, VA
What is a fun or interesting fact about your hometown? Kristin: Growing up outside of DC gave me access to all of the Smithsonian Museums and Galleries; however, this resulted in me not realizing until college that it is actually customary to have to pay to gain access to a museum or gallery.
What are you most excited about in your new role? Kristin: Being a part of a service minded community! I am eager to leverage skills and experiences to pave pathways that enable the individuals who comprise our community to serve as the future public leaders.
What is something that surprised you about your chosen career path? Kristin: EVERYTHING! Nothing about my career path has been anticipated. I am fortunate to have been raised by parents who consistently encourage me to reflect on my experiences, embrace change as an opportunity for growth, and confident in following paths reflective of my values. While my path has been serendipitous, my experiences have brought me a lot of joy and meaning.
Who inspires you? Kristin: My parents and the students with whom I engage. You all are doing some pretty inspiring things!
What is the best piece of professional advice that you have ever received? Kristin: Develop and retain a core set of professional mentors.
Any parting wisdom for prospective MPA students? Kristin: Be okay with not having all of the answers; opportunity lies in the uncertainty. Take the time to reflect upon what excites and motivates you, be intentional about the actions/decisions you make; and what something is exciting and totally scary, go for it, as those are the environments in which you will be your best-self.
Thanks so much, Kristin! We can’t wait to continue working with you.
When most people think MPA at UNC-Chapel Hill, they think local government. Rightfully so, we are ranked #2 in the nation for the local government area of study. However, that is not where our knowledge stops.
Like I mentioned a few blog posts ago, the MPA program has many different concentrations (see here). One of our concentrations is non-profit management. We offer courses such as Financial Management of Nonprofit Organizations and Grant Writing and Evaluation.
Click here to see a full list of the courses for our nonprofit management concentration.
Want to know some of the cool, not local government things our alumni are doing?
Check out Wad Khalafalla, a 2018 MPA graduate with a nonprofit management concentration. Currently, she serves as the Deputy Director of Spread the Vote in Virginia! This year, Wad was awarded the Fulbright U.S. Student Program award to teach English in Malaysia. We are super excited to see where life takes you, Wad!
To learn more about Wad’s award, click here.
Check out Ashley Kazouh, a 2019 MPA graduate with a nonprofit management concentration. She currently works as a policy analyst for the Public School Forum. Ashley supports the policy team by monitoring, documenting, and providing analysis of current education policy issues in North Carolina. Talk about impact!
To learn more about Ashley’s role, click here.
Check out Ebony West, another 2018 MPA graduate, who now works at the Triangle Community Foundation as the Programs and Engagement Associate. In her role, Ebony establishes and strengthens relationships with nonprofit organizations and other partners in the region. She provides the Foundation with the community and nonprofit research about systemic inequities. Amazing!
To learn more about Ebony’s role, click here.
These are only some of the options that MPA graduates have. Cara and I are always working to strengthen our relationships with nonprofits so that we can support our students! So much so that yesterday, I went to the Orange County Third Sector Alliance Nonprofit Fair. It was an awesome opportunity to network and connect with nonprofits like the Compass Center for Women and Families, Wonder Connection, the Dispute Settlement Center, and Grow Your World. Needless to say, they were excited to know that MPA-ers are interested in nonprofit work as well!
See you next time!
Did you know that the MPA program offers a few weekend-intensive courses?
They sure do! The weekend intensive courses are called immersion courses. They are intended to allow collaborative learning between our online and on-campus students. You spend a few weeks before your weekend meet date doing preliminary work online, which can include reading, quizzes, and assignments. Then, once your meet time rolls around, you get the opportunity to meet up with online and on-campus students from Thursday night, and Friday and Saturday all day! All of this earns your 1.5 credit hours…crazy cool, I know!
Honestly, I had never heard of this until I came to the MPA program! On a whim last year, I decided to sign up for my first ever immersion course. Last year’s course was on Collaboration and Collective Impact. This year’s course is on Data Visualization. The course title is “Communicating Data for Public Impact.” It will be taught by John Quinterno.
Here are the books that we are using for the course: Effective Data Visualization: The Right Chart for the Right Data by Stephanie Evergreen, Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals by Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic, and Better Presentations: A Guide for Scholars, Researchers, and Wonks by Jonathan Schwabish
According to Quinterno’s syllabus, “Data Visualization has become the catch-all term used to describe the methods, techniques, and tools for organizing and disseminating the kinds of information common in public life in ways grounded in recent scientific insights.” He describes that this will be a skills-based crash course where we will cover how to develop clear messages, design effective visual representations of data, and create more effective oral presentations.
The books, so far, have been informative, light reads. I am excited to expand my skills base in an area that I know will only increase in demand. Plus, I will get to interact with the online MPA students that I don’t get to see very often. And one of the nights, we actually have a dinner/networking session with MPA Alum.
Needless to say, I am pretty excited about what I will learn in this course!
For a general overview of the MPA Immersion, click here.
Welcome back!!!
As I mentioned in my previous post, I am taking on a new role this year! I will be working with our very own Director of Admissions, Cara Robinson. This year, I will serve as the Admissions Research Assistant. This means that I get to post a lot more here and do other fun things to support the School of Government and the MPA program! I am really excited to continue sharing my experiences with you!
So for this blog post, I wanted to talk about some of my favorite things about an MPA degree (more specifically at UNC).
Our MPA program is awesome (which you will probably hear me say a lot!). Three of my favorite things about this program are the concentration options, opportunities for connections with Alumni, and the flexibility of how our degrees can serve us after graduation.
The MPA degree is a generalist degree, so I love that we have the opportunity to pick a more focused track for our educational career through concentrations. For on-campus students, the MPA program offers a concentration in local government, nonprofit management, public management, and community and economic development. For online students, the program offers concentrations for local government, nonprofit management, public management, international relations, and public health! They require that the student take a certain number of credit hours of electives related to the concentration. Once you have completed the requirements and receive your degree, then you are awarded a certificate at graduation. Concentrations allow us to do a deeper dive into a specialist frame of thought.
See: https://mpa.unc.edu/concentrations-dual-degrees
UNC-Chapel Hill is a well-known hub for MPA knowledge. The school has tons of connections! If you are interested in a specific type of work, there is someone on staff that knows someone who does that work. The staff is amazing at connecting students with alumni from the program with similar interests and career paths. The program also offers an alumni mentor program where new students are paired with alumni that have similar career goals/paths. Lastly, we have a staff person that can support our career goals. Allison Binkley is the Associate Director of Career Services. She does a lot of behind the scenes work to ensure that we can make the right connections to get on the right career path! Overall, I feel like this program works really hard to support students’ career goals through faculty and staff knowledge, alumni programming, and career support.
See: https://mpa.unc.edu/alumni
As I mentioned before, the MPA degree is pretty generalist. For me, that was a top-selling point! In true millennial fashion, purpose and flexibility are important to me when I think about my future working career. One of the things that I love about an MPA degree is that you can do many, many things. This degree sets you up to be a leader in various sectors. For example, you could be a grants manager, legislative analyst, public affairs director, community engagement manager, healthcare policy analyst, county/city manager, urban planning, consultant, or a foundation president. The career opportunities for leaders are endless!
See: https://mpa.unc.edu/mission
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed my post! Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions.
Welcome & welcome back!
I am back with the MPA Matters blog! Since the start of the new academic year, I have taken on a new role as the Admissions Research Assistant. I am beyond excited to help recruit the best and the brightest to our MPA program! To kick off my new role, I figured that I would share a little bit about my MPA journey…
My name is Courtney Cooper-Lewter. I grew up in Columbia, South Carolina. For my undergraduate degree, I attended the University of South Carolina at Columbia. Now that I am here at UNC-Chapel Hill, it is safe to say that I have attended both “Carolinas.” In undergrad, I pursued a double major in Spanish and International Studies. Back then, I always thought that I would work in foreign affairs. I was always interested in facilitating conversations about cultural differences and improving global political relationships. It wasn’t until later that I realized that this type of work could actually happen right at home in local government.
I began my professional career working with the Latinx community here in North Carolina as a case manager for unaccompanied children. This work did not incorporate much of foreign affairs, but it did expose me to different avenues of social work. After a little over a year of working as a case manager, I decided I wanted to pursue a Masters of Social Work degree to gain some leverage for upward mobility. As I applied to MSW programs, I realized that I loved working directly with the community members. I also realized that I did not want to become a licensed clinical therapist. When I envisioned my future, I imagined promoting systems-level change by analyzing policy from an equity lens and improving minority connectedness to institutions of political power.
That is when I discovered the dual-degree program with Public Administration! It compiled many of the things I loved into a complimenting degree field; I got leadership, government, and policy. The MPA program has taught me foundational principles and values of public administrators, how to navigate local government, and how to frame issues to elected officials. It has also provided me with the skills to lead and facilitate groups, implement and evaluate programs, and how to view issues and solutions from differing perspectives.
Now, I am in my second year of the MPA program and third year of graduate school. I will graduate with a Masters of Social Work and a Masters of Public Administration in May 2020. I am excited to close out my last academic year by working in UNC MPA Admissions supporting future leaders! In the future, I hope to continue working in local government to improve equity and inclusion across jurisdictions.
I hope you enjoyed learning a little bit about me! Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions about dual-degrees with Social Work or MPA student life. I would love to chat!
Well, it has been a couple of weeks since I finished up my internship with the City of Salisbury, and I can honestly say I still miss this amazing experience (we can pretend that I saved the last post until some time had passed, and not that I left you all hanging because I was enjoying the beach). If you ever get a chance to visit or work in Salisbury, NC, I highly recommend it (like 5 stars on Yelp to those of you who still use Yelp).
And to all those thinking about a career in local government, RUN! Haha, just kidding. Honestly, I would certainly suggest an internship where you can see multiple departments, especially if you aren’t quite sure where you want to start your career like me. Although, I still refuse to admit to a favorite department in Salisbury, no matter how many times they ask – YOU WERE ALL MY FAVORITE!!!!
I sign off ready to finish my last year of the MPA program at UNC and start my hard core, nerdy, local government career. Hope I see some of y’all out there!!!
With still no movement on the budget and little conversation about the continuing resolution from last year’s budget, it is unclear what the General Assembly’s plan is moving forward. The “Medicaid Light” bill as they call it still remains on the House Calendar with no movement, and it is unclear what the GA will do following a federal judge striking down a work requirement on another state’s medicaid expansion bill. Despite the budget inaction, there have been education bills moving this week. Multiple bills passed in the House and were sent to the Senate, including SB 199: Child Sex Abuse/Strengthen Laws,SB 230: NC Military and Veterans Act of 2019, and SB 295: Standards of Student Conduct. All education bills that were on the Senate Calendar this week were withdrawn and referred to the Senate Education Committee.
The Governor vetoed one education bill thus far, which was SB 392: Various Charter School Changes that make changes to the laws affecting charter schools. Governor Cooper’s veto message states his concern about the lift on enrollment caps for virtual charter schools due to the low performance of schools in this pilot.
Two bills I got to do a lot of research on their impacts this week were SB 522: Low Perf. Schools/Stand. Student Conduct and SB 438: Excellent Public Schools Act of 2019.
The bill adds the following provisions:
Finally, it was my last day working full time and I am SOOO upset. I am so thankful for the opportunity and cannot wait to fully reflect on the whole experience. I look forward to staying on part time at DPI and the Superintendent’s Office this school year.
This is my last post for the summer, and it is very bittersweet for me. I have loved working for the City of Durham, and my last day of work this Friday will be an emotional one. I have had the best supervisors (seen below), worked on projects of great interest to me, and have been able to network with more passionate local government employees than I can count.
As a final project, I have two presentations I will be sharing with the Director and Assistant Director of the Budget & Management Services Department. First, I will give a brief explanation of what I have done this summer. And second, I will give an in-depth presentation about the local sales tax research project I was tasked with. After combing through data from 2008-2019 and running a variety of Pivot Tables, I feel ready to present my findings.
We have several local sales tax revenues that come into the City of Durham, which have been designated to us by the state. Articles 39, 40, 42, and 44 give explanations about where the money is coming from, and where it is allocated. One of my charts, explaining how revenues have changed over time, can be seen below. If you want to see more of my charts and tables, feel free to reach out to me.
When I first started my professional work experience, I was desperate for any recommendations people would have for me. So check out my tips for starting a new job or internship!
The rest of my week will be filled with tough goodbyes and several final lunches. But in two weeks I’ll have to get back to school and I am (shockingly) excited about it. I cannot wait to apply what I learned in the field to the classroom. Now I’m one step closer to making change on a local level. Let’s do this thing.
Hello blog readers! I am sad to say that this is my last blog post, so I’m here to say farewell to the EPA.
State and Local Programs Group, AQPD, OAQPS, OAR
I couldn’t have asked for a better summer internship experience, and I am so thankful to have been able to work alongside these awesome people! This week, a co-worker of mine moved to a different division of OAQPS. Although he will still be at RTP (and only one building away), SLPG was very sad to see him leave, and I was reminded of how close this group is.
In addition to saying farewell, the interns participated in a service learning project in the butterfly garden this week. EPA’s campus is focused on maintaining the natural landscape as much as possible, so volunteers and staff help tend to the gardens and ensure a healthy habitat for various plant and animal species. The garden is a part of many “Pollinator Projects” across EPA facilities, which serve to protect pollinator species and increase awareness about their importance and contributions to agriculture.
Leafcutter bee in the pollinator garden at EPA’s RTP campus
I am trying to get back into “school mode” since fall semester is right around the corner. I’ve realized, though, that this is my last time buying textbooks, cleaning out my backpack, and checking the Sakai site for my class syllabus. The MPA program is going by just as quickly as this summer has, and I want to enjoy every minute of it. I am excited for the upcoming year as well as thankful to have had the opportunity to work at EPA. And I can’t wait to see where I go next!
One of my favorite spots at work is this small café nook on the first floor where a quote by Gaylord Nelson, former US Senator and founder of Earth Day, is displayed on the wall–“The ultimate test of man’s conscience may be his willingness to sacrifice something today for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard.”
I hope you enjoyed following along this summer! Thanks for reading!
Sydney