Welcome to the Wayne State MPA Community!

Lent Upson Keynote Speaker and Panelists

Rob Henken
President, Public Policy Forum

                  

Rob Henken is the President of the Public Policy Forum, a 102-year-old non-partisan think tank dedicated to fact-based public policy research on key issues facing Southeastern Wisconsin. Prior to becoming PPF President, Henken worked in Milwaukee County Government for nearly 10 years, serving as Director of Research for the County Board, Director of Health and Human Services, and Director of Administrative Services. In addition to leading the Public Policy Forum, Henken is an adjunct associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s School of Architecture and Urban Planning. He also is President of the Governmental Research Association, which includes nearly 30 research organizations from 19 states. 

Henken has a Bachelor’s Degree in History from Brown University and a Master’s in Journalism and Public Affairs from American University. 

Eric Lupher
President, CRC

Eric Lupher has been President of CRC since September of 2014. He has been with the CRC since 1987, the first two years as a Lent Upson-Loren Miller Fellow, and since then as a Research Associate and Director of Local Affairs. Lupher is the immediate past president of the Governmental Research Association. Lupher holds a B.A. in International Relations from James Madison College at Michigan State University and a Masters in Public Administration from Wayne State University. He works out of the Livonia Office. He was also the recipient of the 2008 Graduate Program in Public Administration Distinguished Alumni Award.
 

Earl Ryan
Former President, CRC

Earl M. Ryan retired from the Citizens Research Council of Michigan (CRC) in October 2009 following 15 years as its president.  Prior to that, he was the first president of the Indiana Fiscal Policy Institute (1987-94) and was president of the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana (1984-87). Ryan received the Distinguished Achievement Award from the Wayne State University Graduate Program in Public Administration in 1991 and its Distinguished Alumni Award in 2009. He received his B.A. in political science from the University of Michigan in 1964 and his M.A. in political science from Wayne State University in 1968. 
 

New Alumni Community Page
We're on LinkedIn Groups!

In an effort to connect and build relationships with our esteemed Alumni, we have created a LinkedIn group. Invitations to join have been going out periodically to alumni, current students and faculty. The group provides community networking, community discussions, program updates and program event notifications. We hope to elicit more communication between all members of the Wayne State MPA Community. If you have any questions, please contact the MPA Director at mpa@wayne.edu. 

Graduate Program in Public Administration Establishes Practitioner Advisory Council 
PAC helps integrate practitioner perspectives into MPA program

Students pursuing their MPA degree at Wayne State have long benefited from the involvement of practicing professionals in their education. Such involvement has traditionally involved teaching one of the required Professional Development courses, notifying the program of internship opportunities, and mentoring students during their internships. 

Based upon feedback from the accreditors and the MPA Community, faculty concluded that a more structured vehicle for integrating practitioner perspectives into the program was desirable. In 2014, a Practitioner Advisory Council was established. The PAC meets semi-annually to discuss a wide range of issues related to the mission of the Wayne State Graduate Program in Public Administration. Roughly half of the membership of the PAC consists of practitioners who earned their MPA degrees at Wayne State. The members of the committee are pursuing, or have pursued, careers in the public or not-for-profit sectors. Members are appointed by the MPA Director. They serve two-year staggered terms and are eligible for reappointment. The terms of half of the current membership of the PAC will expire in June 2016. 

Below is the list of current PAC members:

Alumni News and 

Robert Blumenfeld, MPA '07
Accepted the Chief Executive Officer position at JARC, an organization that provides innovative and high-quality community-based residential and support programs. Mr. Blumenfeld was previously the Chief Executive Officer at the Children's Center.

Robert Bruner, MPA '04
Published a response piece in the Public Administration Review, the highly respected professional journal for public administration research, theory and practice. The original article can be found here. To read Mr. Bruner's response, click here.

Kimberley Coy, MPA '15
Has been appointed to the position of business analyst in the budget unit of the Washtenaw County Department of Finance.

Phil Ghilcrist, MPA '13
Has been named the Executive Director of The Anton Art Center in Mt. Clemons. Previously working as their Grants Coordinator, Mr. Ghilcrist began his new role in October 2015.

Carrie Leach, MPA '09
Is currently a Research Associate for the Wayne State University Institute of Gerontology and a doctoral student in communications. She has done extensive work in the field of need assessment, a specialty that began while an MPA student working with Dr. Jered Carr.

Theresa McArleton (Kolly), MPA '08
Was recently named the Director of the Department of Parks in Recreation for the City of Berkeley, Michigan. Theresa served as the assistant to the Berkeley City Manager for four years before becoming the deputy director of the Department of Parks and Recreation in 2012. 

Melissa Sweda, MPA '14
Is now an Academic Advisor with the Wayne State University - Mike Illitch School of Business. She was formerly a Student Assistant in the Graduate Programs Office.

Dana Gingrich, MPA '15
Became an Alumni and Donor Relations Officer with the Wayne State University - Mike Illitch School of Business. Ms. Gingrich previously served as the Alumni Program Officer with the Wayne State School of Medicine.

Jennifer Mahn, MPA ' 15
Has been named the Director of Quality Improvement and Risk Management at Wayne County Healthy Communities. Ms. Mahn previously served on the board of WCHC and as the Translational Research Program Manager in the Department of Pharmacy Practice at Wayne State.

Samantha Mariuz, MPA '15
Has been named the Director of Authorities with the City of Auburn Hills. She is responsible for the city's three economic authorities. Ms. Marius was previously a Management Assistant with the city.

Program Faculty Activities

Assistant Professor Alisa Moldavanova’s chapter, “Sustainability, Institutional Capital and the Social Value of the Arts,” has been published in The Organizational and Business Ethics Imperative edited by J.H. Westover (Champaign IL: Common Ground Publishing, 2015). Her article, “Two Narratives of Intergenerational Sustainability: A Framework for Sustainable Thinking,” has been published in The American Review of Public Administration. 

Emeritus Professor Richard Elling has had two co-authored pieces of research published recently. “Toward Inter-local Collaboration: Lessons from a Failed Attempt to Create a Fire Authority” - with William Hatley and Jered Carr - was a chapter in the volume Municipal Shared Services and Consolidation: A Public Solutions Handbook (2015). The chapter explores how and why an initially promising effort by five contiguous Detroit suburban communities to establish a multi-jurisdiction authority to deliver fire and emergency medical services collapsed after much time and effort. The article,” What Should We Do? Public  Attitudes about How Local Government Officials Should Confront Fiscal Stress’” - coauthored  with Kelly Krawczyk and Jered Carr - and initially published in Local Government Studies in 2013, has been selected for inclusion in Local Government Studies Virtual Special Issue on Budgeting. This volume is available here.

Current Faculty and Alumni Research

Assistant Professor Moldavanova Conducting Research on Sustainability of Arts Organizations
Assistant Professor Alisa Moldavanova's research, "The Public Purpose of the Arts: Social Connectedness, Survival, and Sustainability of Arts Organizations", is an inquiry into the theme of survival and sustainability of organizations located in revitalizing urban environments. Focusing on public and nonprofit cultural organizations located in the Detroit Metropolitan Area, this research investigates the relationship between the social connectedness of organizations and their institutional sustainability. The project employs a quasi-experimental research design to test propositions regarding community-based sustainability strategies in culture and arts organizations. The project contributes to the public administration and organization theory literature by researching an understudied dimension of sustainability, and by further advancing and testing the concept of organizational social capital in the context of public and nonprofit cultural organizations.

Dr. Robert Heuton and Professor John Strate Conduct Research on Fiscal Austerity and Urban Innovation: Canadian Municipalities in Global Context 
Dr. Robert Heuton, MPA ('98), PhD is conducting research seeking to determine how Canadian municipalities respond to fiscal constraints and austerity. MPA Program Faculty member Dr. John Strate is consulting on this research. The study compares the findings from a national survey of municipal administrators conducted in the early 1980s with the findings of similar studies in 2008-09 and 2014-2015. On the one hand, the study finds that administrators are making greater use of more innovative budgeting techniques in recent years. However, these administrators continue to rely heavily on more traditional tools of ‘cutback management’ such as hiring and wage freezes, reducing travel expenses and eliminating overtime in order to cope with fiscal stress. 

Support the Residents of Flint
Resources from the Michigan Municipal League

Thank you to alumna Sarah Craft (MPA '13) for sharing pertinent information on how to help the residents of Flint. For more information and ways you can help, please go to http://www.mml.org/advocacy/Flint-water-crisis/.

Following his retirement from his 35-year career as a member of the Department of Political Science - and the core faculty of the department’s Graduate Program in Public Administration - Professor Emeritus Richard Elling established the Elling Fund for Public Administration Educational Enhancement. One element of this fund is a matching grant challenge. Through 2018, Dr. Elling pledged to match the first $3,000 in annual contributions by others on a dollar-for-dollar basis. During the first 16 months of the Fund’s existence, alumni, current students, faculty and friends of the Graduate Program in Public Administration responded by contributing more than $8,000.
 
Monies contributed to the Elling Fund can be used to support the day-to-day operations of the Graduate Program in ways that enhance the educational experience of students in the program, to support the recruitment of new students, and to build and maintain relationships with alumni of the program. 
 
The expenditure of Elling Fund dollars commenced in the Fall of 2015 with the hiring of current MPA student Kaitlin Schaefer as the assistant to program director Dr. Brady Baybeck. Ms. Schaefer works with Dr. Baybeck on a range of activities designed to enhance the quality of education that the program
provides to its students.
 
If you wish to contribute to the Elling Fund you can do so by mailing a check to: