Mission 2012 

Written by John Collins, Interim Director, Institute of Public Service

It is with much pleasure that I am once again with IPS serving as interim director for the year, a position I held just prior to retiring 11 years ago.  With the departure of our new director Janelle Wong , the faculty and dean felt I could bring stability to IPS for the year while helping to move the Institute along in some key directions, many initiated by Janelle Wong in her brief tenure here.  Our search for a permanent director who can help IPS move to its next level of excellence is now underway.

Retirement allowed me to participate actively in nonprofit groups in my home town of Port Townsend, serve as an elected local official, and do some extended travels both by sailboat and by bicycle.  The challenge of promoting values-based public service education for both government and nonprofit service has remained for me an inviting task, so I am happy to be able to contribute to the mission of IPS once again. 

Some of my priorities for the year include reestablishing an  advisory committee, obtaining more permanent faculty lines for the MPA program, and enhancing the way we “walk” our mission of: ‘empowering leaders for a just and humane world .’

I look forward to meeting MPA students and alumni during the year and value your views and your ideas. Feel free to contact me at collinsj@seattleu.edu or drop by my office in 201 Casey.

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MPA Connections

Written by Lindsay Ohab, Graduate Program Coordinator

Fall quarter is in full swing, which also means it’s the season for networking!

 The Institute of Public Service, with the support of Career Services, launched this years’ MPA Connections Mentorship program. The program connects MPA students with alumni mentors who are local leaders in the nonprofit and public sectors. The year-long relationship between mentors and students will provide networking and professional development opportunities for students as they begin to think about life after graduation.  

A mentor meet and greet was held on Thursday, October 4th to kick off the program. Participants discussed the value of mentorship, best practices, and program goals. Mentors also shared their insights on important topics facing their fields. Some areas of focus included: staying motivated to work for the social good during difficult financial times, becoming an effective manager, and opportunities for community engagement and innovation.

  
MPA student Andrew Chin and MPA alumnus Deacon Roy Harrington

 
Mentor Match: MPA student Kristen Morgan and mentor Elizabeth Atcheson 
Good luck to our student-mentor pairs as they prepare our MPA students to be the next leaders in our community!

Are you an interested student or potential mentor?  Contact Lindsay Ohab at ohabl@seattleu.edu or 206-296-5437 to find out how you can be involved.

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Alumni and Student News

Maureen Emerson Feit, Acting Director, Nonprofit Leadership program, and Philanthropy NW were awarded a $49,000 grant from the D5 Coalition to research how foundations in our region are increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion.  Visit Three “Insights on Diversity” Grants Awarded to Advance Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion in Philanthropy and reference Study #2.

Maureen was also selected to participate in the Seattle Youth Initiative Community-Based Research Fellows Program for 2012-2013.

Tanya Hayes and Felipe Murtinho, IPS Faculty, were awarded a National Science Foundation grant in Decision and Risk Management Sciences. The grant will fund three years of research on the social, economic, and ecological impacts of a payment for forest conservation programs implemented in peasant and indigenous communities throughout Ecuador. They will study approximately 20 sites in the Andean region of Ecuador. The first stage of their research began this summer.

Olha Krupa, Assistant Professor, published her paper entitled: “An Analysis of Indiana Property Tax Reform” on September 3rd in the “State Tax Notes” (Volume 65, Number 10), a journal for tax lawyers and tax experts. The special report provides a summary of key property tax indicators in the State of Indiana from 1998 to 2010 calculated from the parcel level data. The report describes the key attributes of Indiana’s market value-based system implemented during the 2000s and demonstrates the evidence of the initial improvement, followed by the deterioration of this new market value-based property tax system during the decade.

The three key factors attributing to the deterioration of the property tax administration system are: the decline of the selling prices of properties during the housing market downturn, the continued expansion of the property tax base by township and county assessors during the crisis, and a considerable time lag since the mass reassessment of 2000-2002. The Indiana mass reassessment cycle is 10 years - one of the longest cycles in the United States.

Rich Nafziger, Visiting Assistant Professor, is working on the College Completion Fund under a grant from the Northwest Area Foundation, to study the alternatives for financing college completion for low-income working adults. Research includes a review of factors that lead to college completion, the financial deficit faced by students, and the default rate for students in this population under various scenarios.

In addition, he is working with the Port of Seattle and Seattle Community Colleges to review the employment needs of the shipbuilding industry and the availability of education and training programs in the Seattle area. Rich is also working with WestEd, to review opportunities for improving online public participation in the legislative process. He submitted a proposal to the City of Chicago's Mayors’ office to study performance measures for workforce education programs.

Marie Wong, Associate Professor, was one of 14 participants to speak at the Barkerville, British Columbia Symposium—an event sponsored by the University of Northern British Columbia. The focus of this symposium was to examine the use of material culture to understand development in the Cariboo Region. Her article discusses the settlement of a gold mining Chinatown and will be available in BC Journal in 2014. In July, she completed a book manuscript entitled Sweet, Red Ginger - Home: Pan-Asian Seattle and Life in the Residential Hotels and submitted it to the University of Washington Press. The book will be available by early summer 2013. She is currently working on a book about Japanese American baseball in the Pacific Northwest from 1900-1943.