To do:
1 paper
3 exams
The last month has been a whirlwind! I'm sorry I have not written. My days, and nights, too, have been filled with meetings, long hours at the library, and CAFFEINE! Although, I shouldn't complain too much because I did get to spend a week in Florida over Thanksgiving :)
In terms of end of the semester work, I've survived three presentations and turned in two papers. I'm almost there! For our group project in Volunteer Management, my partner and I got to reconnect with the Crossover representative we worked with and show her what we've put together for their organization. She was very appreciative and seemed to really like it. In all three classes, its been really interesting to hear about all of my classmates projects and the research they've done. Well done, everyone!
In PASS news, we'd like to welcome Lauren Stieritz to the leadership team! Lauren has offered to serve as secretary for 2012, thanks, Lauren! We have plans in place already for a service event on MLK day in January and a social at a Cyclones game in February. We also have a lot of great ideas about guest speakers, so be on the lookout for more information! We're very excited about our plans for PASS this year!
On a related note, I attended my first ASPA (American Society of Public Administrators) event last Friday, which was a networking social. About half of the group was from NKU, but I also met some new people and we had very interesting discussions. I'm already looking forward to the next event in January!
Another highlight of the past month was the Mayerson Awards Ceremony. Our class presented the grants Toyota had awarded to local nonprofits based on our recommendations. It was very exciting and I got to reconnect with Anne Gunkle from Cincinnati State, who I met on our site visit. There were other classes there as well who had worked with the Mayerson Foundation in other capacities such as direct giving models, or providing some kind of research or other service. Some of the speakers were really captivating! It was a great event and I really enjoyed hearing about everyone's experience.
So, six more days and I'll be on winter break! While I'm really looking forward to the time off, I hope to be semi-productive, as well. We'll see.. HAPPY HOLIDAYS, EVERYONE!
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Brillianaire
It's that time of the semester, things are getting exciting! (Read: Hectic!) So much has happened in the past two weeks. I survived my second and final midterm of the semester. Now just three papers, three presentations, and three finals to get through before the semester ends. Is that all??
In Foundations, I presented an article on policy implementation last week. Public policy is my favorite topic that we've covered and I think I may have actually discovered my dream career: working at a public policy think tank! Note: If anyone reading this has any information or connections in this field, I'd love to talk to you! I'm going to apply for summer internships over winter break, and ideally I'd find one at a think tank. How cool would that be??
In Volunteer Management we submitted out grant application evaluations and, as a class, voted on our recommendations to Toyota for funding. Several of my classmates will be going to Toyota tomorrow to present and discuss our recommendations. I'm very excited for them and can't wait to hear about their experience! We also had a follow up meeting with Crossover to discuss our volunteer program overview and plans for the term project. Originally, my partner and I had thought about a volunteer handbook, but after talking to the Crossover representative we're taking a different approach. Instead, we will be putting together a leadership plan for their team leaders who oversee the volunteer members. We have a lot of ideas and I think it's going to come together nicely.
Last week, I attended the Criminal Justice Career Fair where I helped provide information on the MPA program. I also squeezed in a little time to talk to the representative from Big Brothers Big Sisters (an MPA grad!) and the representatives from the FBI! Both were very interesting and informative. The Criminal Justice department has also been interviewing candidates for a new professor and I've gotten to talk to a few of them, all very intelligent and interesting people.
And last, but not least, perhaps the highlight of these two weeks are two updates on PASS. One, I will be serving as President for the 2012 year! I'm very excited about putting together some great events for the next two semesters. Special thanks to VP Stephanie Marston for offering to help. And second, we had an amazing guest speaker at our last event, April Gillepsie. April discussed personal branding, networking, and personal development. Some highlights: The #1 thing employers are looking for is differentiation, put your best foot forward on Linkedin, and her best piece of advice she had to offer was to talk to two new people each day. She also gave us a great reading list, sites with free resources, names to check out. If you're interested, comment below and I'll forward these on to you! I was so inspired by April's talk, I connected with her after the presentation and we went out for coffee this week. I conducted a pretty informal interview with April so I can write a piece on her in the upcoming MPA newsletter, and had a chance to glean some knowledge from her to apply to my own personal development. She also set me up with more people I might like to connect with, I am very appreciative!
One more thing! Thanks to everyone in the MPA department for the happy birthday wishes, and especially MPA Program Coordinator Beth DeVantier!
In Foundations, I presented an article on policy implementation last week. Public policy is my favorite topic that we've covered and I think I may have actually discovered my dream career: working at a public policy think tank! Note: If anyone reading this has any information or connections in this field, I'd love to talk to you! I'm going to apply for summer internships over winter break, and ideally I'd find one at a think tank. How cool would that be??
In Volunteer Management we submitted out grant application evaluations and, as a class, voted on our recommendations to Toyota for funding. Several of my classmates will be going to Toyota tomorrow to present and discuss our recommendations. I'm very excited for them and can't wait to hear about their experience! We also had a follow up meeting with Crossover to discuss our volunteer program overview and plans for the term project. Originally, my partner and I had thought about a volunteer handbook, but after talking to the Crossover representative we're taking a different approach. Instead, we will be putting together a leadership plan for their team leaders who oversee the volunteer members. We have a lot of ideas and I think it's going to come together nicely.
Last week, I attended the Criminal Justice Career Fair where I helped provide information on the MPA program. I also squeezed in a little time to talk to the representative from Big Brothers Big Sisters (an MPA grad!) and the representatives from the FBI! Both were very interesting and informative. The Criminal Justice department has also been interviewing candidates for a new professor and I've gotten to talk to a few of them, all very intelligent and interesting people.
And last, but not least, perhaps the highlight of these two weeks are two updates on PASS. One, I will be serving as President for the 2012 year! I'm very excited about putting together some great events for the next two semesters. Special thanks to VP Stephanie Marston for offering to help. And second, we had an amazing guest speaker at our last event, April Gillepsie. April discussed personal branding, networking, and personal development. Some highlights: The #1 thing employers are looking for is differentiation, put your best foot forward on Linkedin, and her best piece of advice she had to offer was to talk to two new people each day. She also gave us a great reading list, sites with free resources, names to check out. If you're interested, comment below and I'll forward these on to you! I was so inspired by April's talk, I connected with her after the presentation and we went out for coffee this week. I conducted a pretty informal interview with April so I can write a piece on her in the upcoming MPA newsletter, and had a chance to glean some knowledge from her to apply to my own personal development. She also set me up with more people I might like to connect with, I am very appreciative!
One more thing! Thanks to everyone in the MPA department for the happy birthday wishes, and especially MPA Program Coordinator Beth DeVantier!
Group shot at the PASS event with April Gillepsie
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Boo!
The open house was a success! I was impressed with the number of people who stopped by the MPA table. It was great to talk to so many people interested in the program and I've even been in touch with a few since then. I'm always happy to answer questions about the program or life as a student, so if you have any, post them below!
The week after the open house I had my first midterm of the semester in Foundations, and my first in-class exam of grad school! Hint: The study group was worth it. If nothing else, it's helpful to identify what information goes with what question, make sure you have the all the material, and are clear on it. After that it was a lot of reviewing and quizzing for me. Like I said, it paid off and I'm happy with the grade I earned. I have an online, open-book midterm tonight in Managing a Nonprofit. It will consist of a case study of a nonprofit with issues and in three essays, we'll apply what we've learned thus far. Wish me luck!
Last week we had Fall Break, which was a nice two day respite from classes. It gave me some time to catch up (on reading and sleep!) and look ahead at the rest of the semester.
As usual, there's a lot going on in Volunteer Management! We turned in our Volunteer Program Overviews last week and are awaiting feedback. We also did our site visits to the nonprofits applying for grants from Toyota. Although I cannot mention names, I can say the visits were both informative and inspiring. It is going to be tough to make recommendations when all of these organizations are doing wonderful things for the community. Toyota's criteria will help though and I'm excited to get further into the process.
Last weekend PASS invited MPA students to attend the Newport Gangster Tour at half price! I already had plans to return to Wittenberg for homecoming, but it sounded really fun! On November 2nd PASS is sponsoring a guest speaker and holding elections for the upcoming year. I'll keep you all posted!
The week after the open house I had my first midterm of the semester in Foundations, and my first in-class exam of grad school! Hint: The study group was worth it. If nothing else, it's helpful to identify what information goes with what question, make sure you have the all the material, and are clear on it. After that it was a lot of reviewing and quizzing for me. Like I said, it paid off and I'm happy with the grade I earned. I have an online, open-book midterm tonight in Managing a Nonprofit. It will consist of a case study of a nonprofit with issues and in three essays, we'll apply what we've learned thus far. Wish me luck!
Last week we had Fall Break, which was a nice two day respite from classes. It gave me some time to catch up (on reading and sleep!) and look ahead at the rest of the semester.
As usual, there's a lot going on in Volunteer Management! We turned in our Volunteer Program Overviews last week and are awaiting feedback. We also did our site visits to the nonprofits applying for grants from Toyota. Although I cannot mention names, I can say the visits were both informative and inspiring. It is going to be tough to make recommendations when all of these organizations are doing wonderful things for the community. Toyota's criteria will help though and I'm excited to get further into the process.
Last weekend PASS invited MPA students to attend the Newport Gangster Tour at half price! I already had plans to return to Wittenberg for homecoming, but it sounded really fun! On November 2nd PASS is sponsoring a guest speaker and holding elections for the upcoming year. I'll keep you all posted!
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Week 7, check.
This has been a big week in the MPA Program! On Tuesday
night we were joined by MPA alumni for the Fall Reception. It was a laid back
affair with light refreshments and plenty of time for socializing.
Introductions were made, including new professors and new MPA alumni President
Anita Hurst-Southwick. Dr. Julie Olberding made a few MPA announcements and
Anita imparted some words of wisdom to current MPA students. It was a very
enjoyable time and there was a great turnout. Two hours later, I was off to my
shortened Tuesday night class. Additionally, the MPA Program will participate
in the Graduate Open House this Saturday from 10 AM-noon. If you’re in the area
and interested, stop by and see us!
Classes are moving along at a steady clip. I’ve been working
really hard to stay abreast of my reading assignments. Unfortunately, I know
all too well from firsthand experience, that once you get behind on any reading
it just snowballs and it seems like you’ll never catch back up. So I have
learned to treat it just like an assignment that has to be turned in at the
beginning of class and make sure it gets done. Speaking of assignments, I
turned in two proposals this week for research paper topics. In Managing a
Nonprofit I’ll be researching the CEO turnover at The American Red Cross and
examining whether it was due to Human Resource, Governance, or image issues. In
Foundations of Public Administration I decided to go along with my initial topic
of privatizing education and taking a closer looks at the voucher option. I
have already found and reviewed several very good articles for this assignment
and I’m really looking forward to continuing this research. Next week I have my first midterm in
Foundations. Our class organized a study group for this Saturday. I’m planning
on putting in a good amount of time studying Friday (so I can be a productive, contributing group member Saturday!), then review with a classmate Sunday. Whew. Big plans for
the weekend!
In Volunteer Management I got to meet the representative we’d
be working with from Crossover. They are already doing a lot of really great things
and we were able to pinpoint a few areas where my classmates and I may be able
to help them operate more efficiently. It looks like the two groups will be
divided between compiling a volunteer handbook and creating a
volunteer skills and interests survey and conducting a subsequent pilot study. Both options
sound interesting to me and I am excited to be working with Crossover. The next
week we were assigned our sites for the Toyota grant application evaluations.
My group and I will be doing site visits in two weeks. Since we’ve been
discussing volunteer motivation in class we took a Volunteer Functions Inventory,
where I learned that I am motivated by values, enhancement, and career.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Hello, readers!
As I write this I am beginning my fifth week of classes. I can't believe we're already one third of the way through the semester! So far I've mainly been focused on keeping up with the reading, but I better start spending some more time thinking about those term papers and projects.
This week in Managing Nonprofit Organizations we're discussing Managing the Governance Function (the board) and up to this point we've covered Managing the Revenue Function (fundraising and budget). In Foundations of Public Administration we're continuing our readings on bureaucracy. Last week I wrote a praxis and gave a mini-presentation on Max Weber's theory of bureaucracy. Looking ahead, I've been thinking about my research paper for Foundations and I'm leaning toward researching privatizing education.
Friday night I attended the PASS social event at Hofbrauhaus in Newport. PASS (Public Administration Student Society) is the MPA student organization. Their goal is one social event, one service event, and one guest speaker each semester. It was a great opportunity to talk to classmates and meet other people in the program. I had a really good time and I'm already looking forward to the next event!
Tonight I am looking forward to visitors from Toyota and CASA of Kenton County (Case Appointed Special Advocates for Children) coming to our Volunteer Management class. We are working with Toyota on the Mayerson Student Philanthropy Project as part of the "indirect giving" model. We will review and evaluate grant applications submitted to Toyota by nonprofits and as a class, we will make funding recommendations to Toyota. The other visitors are part of our service learning two-part project which consists of a volunteer program overview and volunteer management proposal. The class has been divided into small groups by organization preference and there are four different organizations involved: CASA (tonight), Friends of White Water Shaker Village (last week), Future World Productions and Crossover (both next week). I will be working with Crossover, an outreach program of Crossroads Church addressing human trafficking in India. This summer I went to the Freedom Center’s exhibit on modern day
slavery and human trafficking and I was so overwhelmed and saddened by
this injustice, but I couldn’t even imagine how to get involved. So I am really excited about this opportunity to work with Crossover.
This week in Managing Nonprofit Organizations we're discussing Managing the Governance Function (the board) and up to this point we've covered Managing the Revenue Function (fundraising and budget). In Foundations of Public Administration we're continuing our readings on bureaucracy. Last week I wrote a praxis and gave a mini-presentation on Max Weber's theory of bureaucracy. Looking ahead, I've been thinking about my research paper for Foundations and I'm leaning toward researching privatizing education.
Friday night I attended the PASS social event at Hofbrauhaus in Newport. PASS (Public Administration Student Society) is the MPA student organization. Their goal is one social event, one service event, and one guest speaker each semester. It was a great opportunity to talk to classmates and meet other people in the program. I had a really good time and I'm already looking forward to the next event!
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