ASU School of Public Affairs magazine fall 2015

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school of public affairs | college of public service and community solutions

inside: New research highlights interesting side effects of innovation Professor develops tool to aid in government collaboration

public affairs Can empathy lead to better decisions in water usage?


by the people

participatory democracy, civic engagement and citizenship education

Arizona State University December 3-5, 2015

hosted by the Participatory Governance Initiative, ASU School of Public Affairs

publicservice.asu.edu/democracyconference

executive mpa Ranked No. 16 in the nation by US News & World Report, the ASU School of Public Affairs will be offering its Master of Public Administration program in an online format. This program will be jointly administered with the McCain Institute for International Leadership. The one-year, hybrid program will feature a mix of short in-person courses held on location in Washington, D.C. and Phoenix, Arizona and online courses.


inside this issue fall 2015 Published By Arizona State University College of Public Service and Community Solutions School of Public Affairs 411 North Central Avenue Suite 400 Phoenix, AZ 85004 spa.asu.edu Director, School of Public Affairs Karen Mossberger, Ph.D. Editorial Adrianna Ovnicek editor-in-chief Jessica Smith copy editor

director’s welcome 3

New research highlights interesting side effects of innovation Professor develops tool to aid in government collaboration Can empathy lead to better decisions in water usage? Study sheds light on cost of childcare

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Photography Paul Atkinson Andy DeLisle Christopher Hernandez Charlie Leight Jose Rios Lua Bryan Mok Adrianna Ovnicek Felipe Ruiz

innovation in education Public Service Academy promotes student leadership Starbucks partnership continues to expand

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global reach ASU hosts second class of Mandela Washington Fellows from Africa

Design Bryan Mok Contributors Paul Atkinson Heather Beshears Logan Clark Mary Beth Faller Emma Greguska Andres Guerra Luz Christopher Hernandez Robert Morast Adrianna Ovnicek Samantha Pell Marshall Terrill

research with impact

Students examine urban sustainability in Hong Kong

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engaging the community New center for politics promotes civic leadership Urban management fellowship program celebrates 10th year

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preparing the next generation of leaders Work to help former foster kids garners student prestigious Truman Scholarship Internship helps ASU Native American students thrive

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honors , highlights and awards expanding our expertise selected faculty awards


is co-taught with our Morrison Institute for Public Policy, we are making many new options available for students beyond capstones and internships.

director’s welcome

Director School of Public Affairs Karen Mossberger

We are proud that U.S. News and World Report recently recognized Arizona State University as #1 in the country for its new ranking on innovation. It is the combination of energy and vision that, for me, sets our university apart. ASU has positioned itself as an educational leader through its commitment to developing the model of the New American University, and the School of Public Affairs is at the heart of this commitment. Central to this model are the ideas of research excellence, broad access to education, and community and societal impact. In the following pages, we share some of the most recent examples of how we are contributing to the New American University in practice. Our school and our college embody these transformative values. What are ways in which we are innovating, for excellence, access and impact? The Alliance for Innovation and city management. We have a highly-ranked MPA program that has flourished because of its strong ties to practitioners not only throughout our region, but because of its unique partnership, the Alliance for Innovation. This is a three-way collaboration between ASU, the International City County Managers Association, and a group of upstart city managers formerly known as the Innovation Group. This fall we will meet in Milwaukee to consider with managers and others the “Big Ideas” affecting the field. Our faculty scholarship and our student experience are immersed in the practice of city management through our many collaborations with local goverments and our Marvin Andrews Fellows, who work with the Alliance for a year and then intern with local governments in their second year. It is this partnership with managers on the frontline that allows us to innovate in research and teaching, earning us the #2 spot for city management and urban policy in recent rankings for U.S. News and World Report. Solutions-based learning. As part of the College of Public Service and Community Solutions, we foster solutions-based and project-based learning throughout the curriculum. Some of the stories in this magazine highlight projects such as the MPA and MPP classes that have worked with agencies on the new mass transit master plan. Two master’s classes taught by David Swindell and Erik Johnston assisted authorities with data and simulations that contributed to their planning and strategies. Along with a new “studio” course on program evaluation that

ASU Online, the Starbucks Initiative and broad access to education. This year we are focusing on extending this handson learning to our B.S. in public service and public policy (PSPP) and B.A./B.S. in urban and metropolitan studies. Our undergraduate programs began in 2006, and today we have approximately 500 undergraduates. We are introducing our PSPP through ASU Online beginning this year. Through an exclusive arrangement with ASU Online, Starbucks employees can earn an undergraduate degree free, now including the PSPP. The Starbucks program is just one indicator of our commitment to broad access to education. These “nontraditional” students look much like our undergraduates overall. Through our students and alumni we are developing new leaders who come from diverse backgrounds, making lifelong contributions to communities throughout Arizona, the nation, and the world. Rethinking executive education. We are offering a fresh approach to executive education. Our new Executive MPA program, which begins later this year, is a cooperative effort between the School of Public Affairs and the McCain Institute in Washington, D.C. This creative hybrid program features classes in both Washington and Phoenix, taking advantage of proximity to national and international leaders in the nation’s capital, the ASU faculty, and prominent practitioners in Phoenix. Online classes increase the flexibility of the program for busy executives. Cross-disciplinary collaboration. As part of the broader college, we are engaged in new cross-disciplinary collegewide programs and professorships. With our sister schools of Social Work, Criminology and Criminal Justice, and Community Resources and Development, we are offering several collegewide master’s degrees in emergency management and homeland security, public safety and leadership, and program evaluation. New college-level professors like Brian Gerber and Tony Grubesic have been hired to cross the boundaries of the schools through their research and teaching. Gerber heads the emergency management and homeland security degree, and Grubesic brings with him the Center for Spatial Reasoning and Policy Analytics. Research with impact. As you turn these pages, please note the many projects developing in our 11 centers within the School of Public Affairs. The stories here alone show our research has demonstrated impact – reaching into the White House, Capitol Hill, the United Nations, the media and into local communities around the nation. Within the past few months, ASU faculty Barry Bozeman, Stuart Bretschneider, Eric Welch, and Erik Johnston have secured new National Science Foundation grants. New faculty. We continue to grow, and to add distinguished new faculty. This includes Stuart Bretschneider, Foundation Professor (formerly at the Maxwell School at Syracuse), Brian Gerber, associate professor (formerly at the University of Colorado-Denver), assistant professor Akheil Singla (who completed his Ph.D. at Indiana University), associate clinical professor and associate director Shawn Novak (who worked on the U.S. Senate Finance Committee), and Geoffrey Gonsher, a professor of practice with rich state and local experience. ASU is indeed a leader in innovation within higher education – and in the School of Public Affairs, we apply that innovation to developing the next generation of public leadership and in the interests of the public good.


research with impact #1 university for innovation U.S. News & World Report

#2 #15

#12 global research productivity in public affairs (van de Walle and van Delft 2015)

city management and urban policy nonprofit management

#10 #16

environmental policy and management public finance

#16 overall

— US News & World Report


Photo by Charlie Leight/ASU News

New research highlights interesting side effects of innovation Emma Greguska, ASU News

In the not-too-distant future, it will become commonplace to see a car drive by with no one at the wheel. Or perhaps no one inside at all.

Self-driving cars are coming, and reports are they’ll be safer, lead to less congestion and have a lower environmental impact than the cars we use today. Sounds like a win, right? Not for everyone. Turns out, there are some important players that will be adversely affected by the rise of the semi-autonomous auto: your state and local governments. Arizona State University School of Public Affairs professor Kevin Desouza wrote about the unintended consequences presented by self-driving cars in a recent article for Slate Magazine’s Future Tense blog. Driverless vehicles, he wrote, “will pose surprising challenges to local governments and communities” who stand to lose “deep revenue sources acquired from drivingrelated violations such as speeding tickets and DUIs.” No one likes paying speeding tickets, and of course no one wishes for more inebriated drivers to help fill municipal coffers. But the fact is, collecting fines for improper driving provides a lot of cash to increasingly cash-strapped local authorities. Computer-driven cars won’t make the same mistakes that people do.

“the

That research was the basis for a May 2015 report published by the Brookings Institution. Immigration and income inequality were two areas the team found highly likely to experience negative impacts as a result of advancing technology. As far as immigration, Desouza cites what is already happening in countries like Australia that are using technology to determine what kinds of professionals they need, be they engineers, hairdressers or teachers, and then recruiting them to come to that country. He said more countries need to develop similar technology. “If governments do not know how to build platforms to bring these individuals together, you are going to run the risk of these individuals moving away because borders are going to become irrelevant,” Desouza said. In the same way, the proliferation of drones and artificial intelligence threatens increased job losses due to the technologies replacing humans in delivery positions or factories. And, because those types of positions usually require minimal skill or education, the replaced worker will find it harder to obtain alternative employment, resulting in public an even larger income gap.

sector will have to increasingly become more proactive

It’s an important side effect to consider as technology marches forward. And there are others. Desouza worked with colleague David Swindell to lead a team of doctoral and post-doctoral students in research that explores how everything from self-driving cars to drones and artificial intelligence will affect society in the very near future.

What’s even more alarming, Desouza said, is that the very phenomenon of “exponential technological advancement” that is pushing younger, less-educated workers out of factorytype positions is also used by them (in the form of personal computers, iPhones, etc.) to socialize with people halfway around the world in online communities who are all too ready to take advantage of their disenchantment in order to radicalize them.

“So radicalization and income inequality and the whole online networks where all these messages are spread is very troublesome to me,” he said. “We have a situation where we are still not finding ways to have technology be leveraged to help people get out of poverty.”

So what to do? Desouza and Swindell’s team found that in order for advancing technologies to fulfill their intended purposes without negative consequences, preparation is key. “The public sector will have to increasingly become more proactive when it comes to managing these technologies,” said Kendra Smith, a post-doctoral student who researched the topic with Desouza and Swindell. What that means, Desouza said, is being more open and transparent in terms of innovation. He points to XPRIZE, an open innovation, prize-based competition that invites nongovernmental parties to try their hand at building various technological devices. XPRIZE began as engineer Peter Diamandis’ response to governmental refusal to financially support the development and launch of a new spaceflight instrument. By petitioning the public to build the spaceflight instrument for a monetary prize, XPRIZE essentially changed the mold of how technological advancement can be funded and realized. “While [XPRIZE] paid out only $10 million, the people who invested in building the spacecrafts leveed out more than $40 million. So they got a 4-to-1 return. And now we have this whole private space market,” Desouza said. Another instance where embracing open innovation led to positive results comes from the launch of healthcare.gov. Initially a disaster, the site finally got up and running after a group of techno-enthusiast volunteers in D.C. – who would come to be known as “18F” – offered their services to resolve the issues at a rate that private contractors, who would have traditionally been tasked with the job, wouldn’t have been able to. “I think government is capable,” Desouza said. “It’s just whether it wants to or not.”


Arizona senator Bob Worsley presents a website to attendees of the 16th annual International Digital Society Conference on Digital Government Research. Photo by Adrianna Ovnicek

Technology’s role in tackling problems focus of ASU-hosted digital government conference Paul Atkinson Sascha Meinrath wants policymakers to know that creating community wireless data networks doesn’t have to involve paying telecommunication companies millions of dollars in equipment and costs. He delivered that message to attendees of the 16th annual International Digital Society Conference on Digital Government Research, held at the ASU Downtown campus. The conference drew participants from throughout North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. Nine ASU faculty and students participated in the conference. Karen Mossberger presented the Frederickson Lifetime Achievement Award. “We’re taught that it’s really complicated to create wireless networks because then that allows only proprietary closed-sourced, very expensive systems by the telcos [telecommunication companies] to exist,” said Meinrath. “But that is absolutely untrue.” Meinrath is the founder of X-Lab, a technology and policy think tank based in Washington D.C. During his presentation, Meinrath showcased an alternative to industry-driven digital data networks called Commotion Wireless. He explained how his team worked with community members

of a Tunisian city who had technological expertise to place a series of wireless routers on rooftops in 2013. “We had girls as young as age eight to 12 as our source deployment team and we did it in two weekends of actual implementation work,” Meinrath said, noting how quickly the system was put in place. “We waste an unbelievable amount of time on plotting things out when what we should be doing is just getting out there and implementing.” Meinrath explained the technologies involved in creating an interconnected digital system aren’t as complicated as people have been led to believe. His organization provides downloadable instructions and software to create such networks. “If you can put up a television aerial, you can build a 21st century telecommunications infrastructure,” said Meinrath. “It’s just that simple.” Meinrath says a huge obstacle facing the creation of low-cost community based systems is how ill- informed policymakers are about this technology. He hopes the work of those who attended the conference can help change that. “If we harness the energy, the expertise, the information that people here have—are

working on, are researching, and writing about - that can effect policy. And that can affect change for the better a lot of the decision making happening in Washington D.C. and elsewhere.” Other speakers working on the front lines of digital government included chief information officers Debbie Cotton (City of Phoenix), Jonathan Reichenthal (Palo Alto, CA) and Bill Travis (Human Services, State of New York). Conference speakers also included Arizona state senator Bob Worsley, the founder of Skymall magazine. The Mesa lawmaker showcased a website he helped create called Arizona Voices. azvoices.gov allows some 6,000 users who are registered voters in Arizona to weigh in on proposed laws before the legislature or propose their own law. Traci Morris, director of the American Indian Policy Institute, discussed the issues facing Native American communities and technology. The three-day conference also included numerous workshops on open government data and new data tools for researchers and policymakers. Participants came from 20 different countries to share and discuss their work.

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Professor develops new tool to aid in government collaboration Paul Atkinson

Finding new and innovative

ways to deliver public services is a challenge for city and county managers alike, especially if it involves partnering with another government, nonprofit or company. But a new tool can help public managers determine if a service partnership is worthwhile. It was developed by David Swindell, director of the Center for Urban Innovation at Arizona State University. “The really cool innovations are happening at the local level,” said Swindell. “There could be some efficiencies to be gained by working with other partners through collaborative arrangements and maybe even increases in effectiveness as well.”

The cities of Reno and nearby Sparks, Nevada found it difficult to keep up with the number of abandoned dogs and cats. They were forced to euthanize several thousand each year. In 2002, voters approved funds to build an animal shelter to be run by a new county animal services agency. The Nevada Humane Society contributed $2 million to help build a facility next door, taking in animals that would otherwise go to the animal shelter, costing taxpayers money. The nonprofit also offered low-cost spay and neutering and helped unwanted pets get adopted. Within a few years, more than 90 percent of unwanted and rescued pets had homes, saving the county money, reducing the stress and burnout of staff, and improving public support. “This is a good example of where a county is working in collaboration with a nonprofit agency to both absorb costs and share benefits in a true partnership,” said Swindell. Swindell became interested in the concept of government collaboration after doing an extensive literature review for an article he co-authored with Cheryl Hilvert, director of the Center for Management Strategies at the International City/County Management Association.

Governments have been partnering with each other, with nonprofits and with private businesses for years. But the new assessment tool created by Swindell provides government managers the ability to assess whether collaboration is the right thing to do and what kind of partnership has the best chance of success.

“I’m seeing these patterns that are associated with success or are challenges that communities are running in to,” Swindell said.

The new workbook itself is the result of collaboration among the Center for Urban Innovation, the Alliance for Innovation and the International City/County Management Association. It’s aimed at public managers who are tasked with delivering more cost effective services that exceed the expectations of citizens.

“Asset specificity. And you grade it on a one, two, three scale. In this case, one is high, two is medium and three is low,” explains Swindell. “Contract specification and monitoring, how easy is that? One, two, three—hard, medium, easy. Labor intensity, capitol intensity, the costs associated with it. Management competencies and stability of the administrative team, those are things all wrapped around the services. And you score each on a one, two, three scale.”

“We are trying to provide them a useful tool that’s going to be applicable everywhere,” Swindell said. “If you are a public entity, this framework is something you can utilize to determine whether or not the collaborative approach makes sense for your community.” Swindell points to a public-nonprofit partnership that illustrates the value of collaboration.

He came up with 14 characteristics grouped into two dimensions. The first dimension involves the type of service to be delivered. There are seven components:

The second dimension of characteristics focuses on the community context involved in possible collaborations such as available partners and influencing factors. Are there nearby governments available to collaborate with? What about private or nonprofit partners? What’s the political makeup

of elected leaders and their interest in partnering on services? “Maybe you’ve got a very conservative council that’s pushing small government, no taxes or whatever and that’s forcing the situation,” adds Swindell. Two other elements of community context involve the strength of public sector unions and the degree of public interest. The stronger each is, the more scrutiny a partnership will face. Like the first set of characteristics, these are also scored on a scale of one to three. The higher the overall score, the more favorable collaboration can be for a government entity. “Local government managers know that collaboration is a truly viable alternative for service delivery,” said Hilvert. “And given the economic climate, is one that we have to consider more often. They simply need some help to get the dialogue started on the things that are really important to understand in a collaborative service delivery program.” Hilbert and Swindell are helping get the dialogue started with a workbook that walks public managers through the process. To get them comfortable using the evaluation tool, it includes exercises on evaluating current collaborations underway by local governments. The two will speak about the workbook at national and international conferences. “The tool that David developed will help guide this process, allowing managers to fully understand the service itself and the context in which the services are to be delivered,” Hilvert said. “It will also help to identify the myriad of partners that exist locally in the community as well as nationally, so that partners can be identified beyond the ‘usual suspects.’ All of this will help to make discussions and decisions on collaboration better informed and, hopefully, a little easier!” If a decision is made to partner with another government, nonprofit or corporation, Swindell says one key to success will be to know what’s going on at all times. “One of the things we harp on a lot in this is you gotta stay engaged, you’ve gotta measure what you’re doing,” Swindell said. “If you don’t measure, it doesn’t exist. And these partnerships requiring a lot of networking— you got to have the communication.”


Photo by Bryan Mok

New research might change your mind about ticket scalpers Robert Morast, ASU News

You’ve heard the stereotype

of ticket scalpers – that they’re lone wolves waiting to prey on people with overpriced access to the events we want to see. Pretty accurate, right?

A new study coming out of Arizona State University’s Center for Organization Research and Design (CORD) suggests otherwise. The research found that competing scalpers in Phoenix have developed working relationships that help them move product and assist the people buying tickets by providing a professional environment and prices that are in line with market standards. Yes, scalpers are helping people pay fair prices to enter baseball games. That’s what Barry Bozeman found. The Arizona Centennial Professor of Technology Policy led a team on scalping reconnaissance at Phoenix’s Chase Field, home of the Arizona Diamondbacks.

“I’ve been going to baseball games and buying tickets from ticket scalpers for years,” he said. “I thought, ‘This is really interesting – they’re cooperating with mutual respect but at the same time competing like crazy.’ ” The practice is called co-opetition, and Bozeman, along with CORD senior research assistant Gabel Taggart, studied it outside Chase Field as competing scalpers would argue with each other one minute, then work together to get a customer the seat he or she wanted. “I thought it would be an interesting case study,” Bozeman said. “And it would allow me to go to a lot of baseball games.”

Another interesting discovery: The scalpers don’t fight online ticket resellers such as StubHub; they embrace them. The scalpers, who were casually interviewed by Bozeman’s team as they purchased tickets, said they use StubHub to help determine ticket prices.

i don’t think what we found is an unusual Phoenix syndrome

The friendly business between “clans,” as Bozeman called them, doesn’t just help scalpers sell tickets. The working relationships also set a standard of professionalism that is policed by each clan. For example, Bozeman said during the course of his research he didn’t have any scalpers take advantage of him or treat him in a way that wasn’t courteous and tactful. Various members of the clans admonished rogue scalpers who defied the standards.

Bozeman’s team, which included the Center for Organization Research and Design researchers Kevin Todd and Neil Fowler, checked StubHub after each scalping purchase to verify price trends.The prices were on par with or below StubHub listings every time.

This is good news for Diamondback fans looking to score a seat at the last minute. But what about in other markets outside Phoenix, where scalping might be illegal? “I think you’ll find pretty much the same arrangement,” Bozeman said. “I don’t think what we found is an unusual Phoenix syndrome.”

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Can empathy lead to better decisions in water usage? Mary Beth Faller, ASU News

As the climate in the Southwest becomes hotter and drier, water will become an ever more precious resource, demanded by people with competing interests. Ranchers and farmers could see their livelihoods threatened by urban areas that scoop up more water as their populations swell. Shrinking lakes could mean fewer tourists and loss of jobs. So who wins? An Arizona State University team has received a three-year grant to study how people collaborate — or not — on the complex decision of who gets how much water, and how using technology might affect their reactions. Empathy is the crux of the study. The researchers want to see whether participants can be coaxed into relinquishing power for the greater good. The National Science Foundation awarded $449,000 to the interdisciplinary group in July. The scholars are from the School of Public Affairs, the W. P. Carey School of Business, the School of Social Work and the Decision Center for a Desert City. Erik Johnston, an associate professor in the School of Public Affairs and director of the Center for Policy Informatics, is the principal investigator. About 300 students have taken part in the study so far, he said, and about 500 more will participate over the next three years. They interact individually or on teams using computers, with researchers like Dr. Dara Wald, a post-doctoral fellow in ASU’s Center for Policy Informatics, changing different aspects of the role playing to see what promotes empathy. Each session takes about 90 minutes.

“There are a lot of values at play all the time, which is the heart of governance,” Johnston said.

resources at risk for an outcome,” Johnston said. “We thought ‘This is simple. We’ll get them to walk a mile in another’s shoes.’

The digital platform that delivers the interactive modules was created by Johnston and Ajay Vinze, associate dean for international programs at the W. P. Carey School of Business. Vinze, who studies the role of technology in human interaction, is a co-principal investigator for the study and also associate vice provost for graduate education at ASU.

“But it wasn’t that easy. Everything we tried made the situation worse, with lower empathy outcomes and less likelihood of collaboration.

They then paired their platform with the WaterSim estimator tool created by the Decision Center for a Desert City (DCDC), which set the stage for this work. “We created a mobile version of WaterSim that uses their underlying logic and their scientific reasoning behind it. When people are allocated water choices, the consequences they see have been scientifically derived from the research at DCDC,” Johnston said. Water-use policy is a good example for interdisciplinary study, Vinze said. “These are complex and difficult challenges to address,” Vinze said. “In order to solve the big problems of the world, we need to look at them in an interdisciplinary way.” Empathy is measured at the beginning and end of the sessions using a survey developed by Elizabeth Segal, a professor in the School of Social Work and another co-principal investigator. Vinze said that the interplay of empathy and technology is key. “Empathy is not a new concept, but the notion of ‘how does empathy change if I look through the lens of technology?’ is new,” he said. Vinze and Johnston had already done some preliminary research on that. “If you understand where the other person is coming from, you’re likely to see the other person empathetically. If you feel more empathy, you’re more likely to put your own

“It’s very complex.” The study participants play differing roles. For example, subjects might be a big city negotiating with a small city, with different levels of political clout. The game poses various scenarios for water usage, considering effects on variables such as jobs, sustainability, food scarcity and quality of life. “When the undergrads played, they got rid of all the pools. But they don’t look at the misery aspect of that,” Johnston said. The model computes all the dimensions so participants can see the system-wide consequences of their decisions – a factor that could have profound real-life value, Johnston said. “There’s not a clean answer,” he said. “It helps to focus their attention on where there are conflicts: Do we have more sustainability in the future or more jobs now? Do we invest in food security or community pools? “They get to see the trade-offs between those decisions.” Johnston said the team, which also includes Ned Wellman, an assistant professor in the W.P. Carey School’s Department of Management, hopes that real policymakers can eventually use the models, which would put their decisions to the test. “This is an argument that we’ve been making for a while: What is the notion of professional use of data when everyone can find data that supports their own viewpoint?”


Chris Herbst teaches a class on the downtown ASU campus in Phoenix. Photo by Paul Atkinson

Study sheds light on cost of childcare Paul Atkinson A new report from Arizona State University asks a seemingly simple question: to what extent has the cost of child care in the U.S. increased over the past few decades? Interest in this question has grown considerably in recent years. Many parents and policy makers assume that child care costs have risen to an unsustainable level -- to the point of threatening family budgets. Public anxiety over this perception has led to a series of policy proposals at the state and national levels, all aimed at increasing the generosity of various child care subsidies. Perhaps the most widely cited evidence comes from a Census Bureau report entitled “Who’s Minding the Kids?” which finds that between 1985 and 2011 families’ weekly expenditures on child care rose from $87 to $148 (or 71%). But an analysis of data used to make that claim shows that costs have remained the same or decreased for low-income households over that time frame. The study, by associate professor Christ Herbst, found that while child care costs have increased for high-income families, the percentage of family income spent on child care for all families has remained the same for more than two decades. Titled: “The Rising Cost of Child Care in the United States: A Reassessment of the Evidence,” the new report draws on a large number of data sources to tackle this question from multiple angles.

Analysis of survey data used in “Who’s Minding the Kids?” found the proportion of families that pay for child care declined substantially between 1990 and 2011 -from 37% to 27%. However, there is a lot of variation across different types of families. For example, lowincome families currently spend the same amount or less on child care, while highincome families spend considerably more. Despite this divergence, families at all income levels allocate the same share of income to child care as they did several decades ago (10%). In other words, it appears that child care is no more burdensome today than it was 20 years ago. A detailed analysis of several other features of the child care market that may affect the trend market in prices, including the demand for child care, the skill level of the child care workforce, and child care regulations explained that like the trend in market prices, the demand for child care peaked in the early-2000s--and has been flat ever since. Although the skill-level of the child care workforce increased in absolute terms, it appears that highly-educated women increasingly find child care employment less attractive than other occupations. States’ child care regulations have not become tougher. In fact, several regulatory domains are more lenient now. In addition, results from a formal statistical analysis suggest that tightening regulations is not

consistently associated with higher child care prices. What do these findings mean? The typical family is paying more for child care, but not by much. And the share of family income going toward child care expenses is the same now as it was several decades ago. Meanwhile, the market price of child care has increased modestly throughout the 1990s, but has been flat for at least a decade. For the better part of the past decade, Herbst has done extensive research on federally subsidized childcare- and welfare-related programs, pointing out what works and what doesn’t. One particular study involved scouring thousands of pages of government documents to construct detailed datasets to help analyze a World War II universal preschool program. President Obama made reference to his research in the 2015 State of the Union address. Obama cited its success in calling for expanding preschool subsidies and a two-fold increase in the child tax credit to $3,000 a year. “A lot of that is grunt work. It’s not sexy at all,” said Herbst. “And so when someone other than the researcher decides that it’s useful, particularly when that person is the president, it’s very gratifying.”

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Leading the future of digital broadband School of Public Affairs director Karen Mossberger attended an invitation-only meeting at the White House on September 21 to discuss the recommendations of the Broadband Opportunity Council. The council was formed by President Obama to promote the deployment of high-speed broadband networks, broadband adoption, and the improvement of data collection, analysis and research on broadband.

How would students spend the principal’s money?

participatory budgeting in high school Heather Beshears

The Council has secured commitments from federal agencies to make $10 billion available for broadband projects, drawn from existing infrastructure programs. The White House meeting was convened by the National Economic Council and the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the discussion was led by Larry Strickling, Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Director of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, Lisa Mensah from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Megan Smith, Chief Technology Officer of the United States.

Last year, students at Phoenix Union Bioscience High School were given an unusual opportunity. Principal Quintin Boyce offered a portion of his discretionary budget and asked the high school students to decide how it should be spent.

Representatives of state, local and tribal governments and the technology industry were among those attending. Mossberger is an expert on digital inclusion who has evaluated broadband initiatives, and who is part of a National Science Foundation grant to create a repository of publicly-available estimates of Internet and broadband use at the city and county level from 1997-2012 (before such estimates were available from the American Community Survey).

Cohen and Schurgurensky argue that kids can prioritize and collaborate when their education is at stake. And what better way to learn democracy than by doing it?

International conference addresses digital divide The interdisciplinary Partnership for Progress on the Digital Divide (PPDD) 2015 International Conference brings together researchers, policymakers, and practitioners to strategize actions and catalyze solutions to address digital inequalities in countries around the world. The conference will address multiple dimensions of the issue: “More than two decades of research, policy, and practice have taught us that the digital divide is about gaps in access and connectivity; the skills and digital literacy needed to interpret, understand, and navigate information presented online; effective use by individuals and communities; the impact of socio-economic factors on user behavior; the role of motivation, attitudes, and interests; differences in patterns of usage; the ways in which people use the Internet to create content; and the resulting socioeconomic and cultural effects. But, more than that, when fully assessed and understood, it is evident that the digital divide has now taken its place alongside other long-standing, persistent issues of social equity and social justice.” The School of Public Affairs is the local host for the conference which will be held at ASU SkySong October 21-22.

Matt Cohen, a doctoral candidate in the School of Sustainability, and Daniel Schugurensky, professor in the School of Public Affairs, detailed the experiment in an article featured in TIME.

“This was a historic experiment—to the best of our knowledge, it was the first time that American high school students had used a process called participatory budgeting that we, as scholars of participatory democracy, have studied,” say Cohen and Schurgurensky. At Bioscience, the democratic work began when each grade elected four student representatives to a steering committee. This committee created rules for the process and encouraged their classmates to submit proposals. They committee narrowed the pool to 18 proposals then began a school-wide campaign to vote for the favorites. The campaign included posters, slide presentations, forums and debates—culminating in distribution of ballots. The researchers note that the top three favorites were educational in nature: a display for the school’s courtyard, color ink for a student-built 3-D printer and camera adapter for laboratory microscopes. “Participatory budgeting provides not only a more transparent and accountable way of managing public money but also a means for participants to learn more about their community,” say Cohen and Schurgurensky.

Adapted from original article in TIME by Zocalo Public Square, a not-for-profit Ideas Exchange that blends live events and humanities journalism.


innovation in education More than 60 high-achieving freshmen participate in a leadership retreat at Camp Tontozona in Payson, Ariz. The retreat was the first signature event of ASU’s Public Service Academy, a university-wide initiative designed to create the next generation of leaders. Photo by Paul Atkinson

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Photo by Andy DeLisle/ASU News

First-of-its-kind public service academy promotes leadership and collaboration Logan Clark and Paul Atkinson Arizona State University announced a firstof-its-kind Public Service Academy in March – a specialized program to develop leaders of tomorrow that are prepared to create solutions for society’s biggest challenges through effective collaboration. Wendy Spencer, the CEO of the Corporation for National and Public Service, which administers AmeriCorps, helped announce the new academy at an event marking ASU’s designation by Americorps as a charter Employer of National Service. She was joined by Jonathan Koppell, dean of the College of Public Service and Community Solutions at ASU. “Public service is more than just giving of your time. It’s what skills you bring to the table,” Spencer said. “The academy is going to take students who are engaged in public service to the next level. This is brilliant.” As of its launch in August 2015, the Public Service Academy is the first undergraduate program in the nation to integrate crosssector and civilian-military experiences to develop collaborative leaders of character. The academy accepted over 60 students, aspiring leaders potentially from around the world, for the inaugural class that began in the fall.

“ASU already has forged a new model for higher education; now it is blazing a new path for public service,” said Tom Brokaw, former NBC Nightly News anchor, author and early proponent of the academy. “In an era of global uncertainty, this is exactly the kind of educational initiative our country needs. I hope many more universities start encouraging the desire to serve locally and globally, and to be engaged as citizens.” The program has two tracks: Reserve Officer Training Corps, the existing university-based program to commission officers into the U.S. Armed Forces, and the Next Generation Service Corps, a new program for service-oriented students from all majors to become civilian service leaders.

For the academy’s architects, collaboration is the name of the game. The four-year Next Generation Service Corps experience includes a set of seven leadership courses taken throughout a student’s university career, as well as a series of summer internships in nonprofit, government and private organizations. The program offers annual retreats, service opportunities and shared experiences with ROTC cadets.

academy “the is going to

“The Public Service Academy transforms students’ raw take students commitment to service into focused preparation to affect who are social change,” Koppell said. engaged in “Through courses, experiences public service and internships, PSA (Public Service Academy) students will to the next “We are committed to helping be ready to move beyond the level. this is students prepare for the pathways conventional paths of their peers, brilliant they want to follow after university, forging new solutions through and our charter makes explicit cross-disciplinary collaboration that ASU takes responsibility for – artists working with medical contributing to the public good,” said ASU scientists, environmentalists working with President Michael Crow. “This program engineers, military leaders working with furthers those aspects of our mission by social workers. The academy embraces devoting significant resources at ASU ASU’s mission to to prepare students for to training the next generation of leaders advancing community solutions, no matter committed to public service.” their profession.”


Newly admitted students echoed their generation’s civic-minded drive for hands-on opportunities to make a difference. “There’s no such thing as a simple problem that my generation faces,” stated Eric Arellano, a program participant and Flinn Scholar from Oro Valley, Arizona, who is interested in environmental  entrepreneurship. “Our parents’ generation is proof that it’s not enough to just act through singular means; we need unprecedented collaboration to counter climate change, to guarantee high-quality education for all, to solve water scarcity – to reshape the world how it deserves to be. And the Next Generation Service Corps offers the best medium I’ve found to do just that.” Retired Army Lt. Gen. Benjamin Freakley, ASU’s special advisor to the president for leadership initiatives, emphasized the need for military and civilian leaders to understand each other. “Tomorrow’s increasingly complex problems will require solutions that come from networks and cross sector leaders. Our future leaders will not come from strictly civilian or strictly military sectors but from those who have served or are trained in public, private and non-profit organizations, who are influenced by experiences from the three sectors,” Freakley said. “Our students, in or out of uniform, benefit immeasurably from a broader understanding of the influences that shape the globe so that they are comfortable working in a complex environment where partnerships are essential.” Starting with the academy’s first year pilot program this fall, approximately 100 students per year will be admitted into the Next Generation Service Corps, and the approximately 480 students across all four years of the various ROTC programs will participate.

in brief Graduate students tie academics to community impact A new graduate course in program evaluation gives students the opportunity to develop real world solutions for the nearby city of Glendale, Ariz. Chris Hayter, assistant professor in the School of Public Affairs, is collaborating with the Morrison Institute for Public Policy on a year-long graduate course where students actively learn skills related to program evaluation through dynamic exercises. Throughout the course, students will develop two projects for the city of Glendale and will tackle very different challenges – homelessness and water conservation. Students begin the class by submitting individual proposals to be a part of the team. They evaluated bids from surrounding cities to take on a wide range of projects, ultimately choosing three. While Glendale doesn’t have a systemic challenge with homelessness, it is affected by surrounding areas. City leaders want to know how they fit in to the larger picture, and how to measure the impact of their efforts. The city is also interested in water use. A successful individual homeowner program is in place, but they would like to explore strategies to incentivize business. The city of Goodyear, Ariz. also wants to explore creating a wellness park on a large area of land surrounded by a cancer center and hospital. Students will examine similar projects as a benchmark to make recommendations for sustainability of the park in the long term. Throughout the course of the year, students will gain real-world insight from client interaction and Morrison Institute analysts. Hayter says he aims to expand the excercise in subsequent years.

Starbucks partnership continues to expand The innovative partnership between Arizona State University and Starbucks offering full tuition coverage for eligible Starbucks employees continues to expand.

Contingent on funding, the goal is to have 1,300 students in the two programs annually – approximately two percent of the undergraduate student body.

The School of Public Affairs recently implemented its public service and public policy bachelor’s degree through ASU Online, attracting nearly 100 new students participating in the Starbucks College Achievement Plan.

Spencer’s appearance at the university and designating ASU as Charter Employer of National Service effectively recognized ASU’s full-circle role in developing leaders in public service. The university guides and graduates students who go on to enter public service, and actively seeks employees with national service experience in organizations like AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps.

ASU is gaining national attention for its efforts to increase access to high-quality advanced education. The Starbucks partnership is the first of its kind to open up opportunities for thousands of part-time and full-time Starbucks employees. ASU and Starbucks have developed a model to help working students through dedicated resources including enrollment coaches, financial aid counselors and academic advisors to provide support throughout each student’s college experience.

Employees with national service backgrounds have rare experiences that can benefit corporate, public and nonprofit organizations. ASU actively fosters service as a fundamental part of its charter, and hiring national service alumni, as well as cultivating the next generation of service leaders, advances the university’s abilities to meet the needs of communities locally and globally.

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Photo by Heather Beshears

From baseball to policy: the journey of public administration scholar Barry Bozeman Heather Beshears

The only diploma hanging on the wall in Barry Bozeman’s office is from Palm Beach Junior College.

“My goal was to be a baseball player and the better teams tended to be at community colleges,” he said. Bozeman attended the college on a baseball scholarship. Bozeman was the first in his family to go to college. Today, he is one of the nation’s leading scholars in public administration and the Arizona Centennial Professor of Technology Policy and Public Management in the School of Public Affairs, part of the College of Public Service and Community Solutions. “There was never any point at which I considered that I would not go to college, which was a little odd because no one in my extended family had ever gone to college,” he said. “My parents were both incredibly smart and hard-working but neither had much education.” He went on to attend Florida Atlantic University, where he decided to get more serious about school and made his way from being an average student to a 4.0 academic. “When I got my undergraduate degree, my parents were so proud I thought they were going to burst,” he said. Then he told them he was going to graduate school in political science.

“I’ll never forget that conversation,” he said. “My dad was completely mystified that I was going to keep going to school after attaining the highest accolade possible.” These types of disconnects are not only experienced by first-generation students, but also part of a larger interaction among race, class and gender, Bozeman says. Bozeman has always been interested in students who don’t come from families with a large amount of social capital or any post-graduate education.

organizations that have characteristics and how they relate to one another,” he said. He was one of the first to use the term ‘publicness.’ Bozeman says that publicness is not about government, business or nonprofit, but the extent to which political authority influences an organization and how behavior got my is governed by either public or market mechanisms.

when i “undergraduate

degree, my parents were so proud i thought they were going to burst

“They do run into issues that professors don’t normally think about – such as having families that have never even heard about graduate degrees in social sciences or maybe don’t understand why someone would want to delay getting married or getting a job,” he said.

“If you know what you want to achieve, don’t compromise. What often happens is that people have a real passion for something but think ‘I don’t have a chance to do this,’” he said. Bozeman’s own path led him to public administration – primarily studying organizations and why they do or do not work. “I was attracted to thinking about organizations not just in terms of how we instrument and manage them, but thinking about them theoretically as populations of

Bozeman’s Center for Organization Research and Design at ASU looks at increasingly complex organizational structures, particularly technology- and knowledge-based entities that do not fit the traditional model of public or private.

Their work is focused on the various dimensions of publicness – such as personnel decisions, budget, structure – and how to measure them and the implications for outcomes. His work has practical application for students contemplating a career route. “Don’t choose what you want to do by the formal legal status of an organization,” Bozeman said. “There are good and corrupt organizations in each sector. Be true to what kind of organization you want to be in. Give yourself a chance to do something you really value.”


Photo by Bryan Mok

Certification program sharpens leadership skills for public sector professionals Christopher Hernandez A cohort of more than 50 professionals from the Department of Child Safety recently received their Certified Public Manager credential through a program offered by Arizona State University’s Bob Ramsey Executive Education. Accredited by the National CPM Consortium – which only allows one authorizing body in each state – the program further develops and sharpens the management and efficiency skills of public managers across Arizona and neighboring states. More than 2,000 individuals working for dozens of organizations throughout Arizona have received this credential. “(The program) not only allows you to learn about managing in the public sector, but you learn more about yourself,” Arizona Department of Child Safety unit supervisor Amanda Cannon said. “I was able to teach people I manage to think more independently and to develop plans and strategies.”

Participants must complete a demanding curriculum of learning activities addressing various competencies of management as well as topics and courses such as management in the public organization, decision management, and ethics and management simulation. “The curriculum is a comprehensive leadership and organizational emphasis program” said Sheila Murphy, developer and instructor of the CPM online course. “We configured the program into five courses, each dealing with public management and making it more relevant and more effective.” “The constant communication was extremely helpful,” Department of Child Safety ongoing supervisor Rosette Codner explained. “The feedback was real and authentic, and after every week I was able to pull lessons and put them into practice. Department of Child Safety after-hours supervisor for Maricopa County Jay Chapman recalls the interactions with peers that allowed him to gain perspective on how

the agency is running and where its future should be. “It opens your eyes to the complete running of the entire department and lets you see the difficulties and big decisions made daily by executive level leadership,” said Chapman. One of the program’s main projects involves working in regional teams and selecting a primary issue that would produce good and efficient results in returning children to their families or finding proper placement. “Take this to heart,” advised Sahar Gipson, Department of Child Safety assistant program manager for Pima County. “The quality of your leadership and supervisor skills will improve.”

ASU’s Certified Public Manager program is the second largest in the nation. 15


global reach

School of Public Affairs director Karen Mossberger arranged for Mandela Washington Fellows working on digital inclusion and small business development in Africa to meet with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration at the Department of Commerce, including time with Department of Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker.


City of Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton congratulated the cohort of Mandela Washington Fellows at ASU at the group’s closing ceremonies. Photo by Adrianna Ovnicek

ASU hosts second class of leaders for national Washington Fellowship Paul Atkinson

Twenty-five

young community leaders from Africa recently spent six weeks in Arizona for intensive hands-on education and leadership training with the ASU College of Public Service and Community Solutions.

They are part of the Mandela Washington Fellowship program, created by President Barack Obama in 2010 to help educate the next generation of leaders in Africa. The fellows wrapped-up their stay in Arizona with a formal event in downtown Phoenix in which they gave presentations about the projects they are undertaking in their countries. My goal is to contribute to sustainable development by advocating for STEM

(Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education,” Sie Nyamande told the audience. Nyamande is a scientist and team leader for a nongovernmental organization called Environment Africa, based in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. “I believe that through this initiative we are building a country,” she said. The fellows are addressing some of the most pressing issues facing their communities in Africa: providing education for kids who otherwise have no means to escape poverty; empowering children with HIV to do more than cope; improving learning and employment prospects for people who are disabled; and creating economic opportunities for women where few exist today.

Sallieu Timbo is an assistant program coordinator in Freetown, Sierra Leone, for Restless Development, an international organization that works with youth. His focus is on improving opportunities for girls who have a high rate of dropping out of school, are forced to marry as young as age 13 and can be victims of domestic violence. He wants to change that. “Who will take care of them?” Timbo asked during his presentation. “We must empower these women.” The 25 men and women are among 500 chosen to participate in the annual fellowship program. They were selected from a pool of 30,000 applicants representing the fields of business and entrepreneurship, public management and civic leadership. ASU is

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Fellow Zeinabou Baraze mingles with President and CEO of IREX Kristin Lord at the Mandela Washington Fellows closing ceremony in Phoenix.. Photo by Adrianna Ovnicek

one of 20 universities that hosts fellows and provide learning opportunities. The program is administered by IREX, an international nonprofit that implements leadership and education programs worldwide. Its CEO, Kristin Lord, attended the presentations by fellows and showed her appreciation for the work they do. “For us, we’re so proud to host this program,” Lord told the fellows. “We think it’s hugely important for the future of Africa. But also, we really believe in you. You lift up our staff every day.” Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton congratulated fellows for braving Arizona’s summer heat and for inspiring those who came into contact with them. “Each of you fellows here today represents the hopes and aspirations of your families, your home nation and those of us here in the United States who understand that the future of our world depends on the strength of our relationships among nations — particularly Africa moving forward,” Stanton said. After the event, Stanton talked about the need for Phoenix to expand its dealings with nations in Africa, suggesting increased commerce would benefit the local economy and help the nation overall. “It’s not lost on me or anybody else that the economies of Africa are doing very, very well,” Stanton said. “And it’s not lost on me that our competitor nations like China are putting more time and effort developing those relationships. So it’s incumbent on us here in this country to support programs like this to build those long-term relationships.” ASU hosted its first class of Mandela Washington Fellows last summer and incorporated feedback from that cohort. “We studied their bios very carefully and then selected our very best faculty and community partners to structure those academic sessions so that they were handson, useful and relevant,” said Dana Newell, assistant dean of student affairs for the College of Public Service and Community Solutions. “The program has been fantastic.” Newell credits a dedicated ASU staff and several community partners for making the six-week session worthwhile for the fellows. It included sessions with professors, community leaders and public service professionals. Fellows were also introduced to many cultural attractions, including the Heard Museum and the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix and the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson. They took in a professional baseball game and were given a behind-the-scenes tour by the Arizona Diamondbacks staff, and they experienced the Old West with a trip to Old Tucson

Studios. Although the excursions were appreciated, fellows really enjoyed the opportunity to partner with local nonprofits in Phoenix, Tucson and Flagstaff. The fellows also visited with staff from the International Refugee Committee and met recent immigrants from Africa. They learned about the agency’s efforts with refugee resettlement and discussed issues they both deal with – forced migration, health, education, women’s empowerment and LGBT communities. Staff gave the fellows a tour of a community garden and discussed the committee’s micro-enterprise programs in Arizona. In Tucson, fellows visited the Community Food Bank where they learned about the serious issue of hunger in Arizona and the role food banks play in meeting an important need. They also helped with the packaging of food. The six-week program included a couple of weeks in Flagstaff where they enjoyed cooler weather and the chance to learn from community leaders. A highlight included a trip to the Hopi reservation where fellows learned about the tribe’s culture and watched a Hopi rain dance. Fellows also got to visit the Lowell Observatory and see the Grand Canyon. While in Flagstaff, they learned more about introducing the concept of community gardening to youth with a visit

to local nonprofit Terra BIRDS, while putting in some time in the garden. Emily Rubooga, who works with youth for a nongovernmental organization in Kampala, Uganda, was thankful for the opportunity to visit several nonprofits. She plans on advocating for the creation of neighborhood gardens in the communities she serves. “This is something that I can go back to my country and duplicate,” Rubooga said. “I can use it to teach my children. I can use it to improve our environment, I can use it to bond with my children.” Following their six-week session in Arizona, the fellows will spend a week attending learning and networking sessions in Washington, D.C., where they will be the guests of an event with President Obama. Fellows have the option of taking part in a six-week internship in the United States before they return home. They will also be offered follow-up training and educational opportunities in Africa over the next year.


Examining urban sustainability in Hong Kong Things college students can accomplish in two weeks: sleeping a lot during winter break, writing a research paper for an English class, gaining a pound in muscle mass, identifying and coming up with a solution for a housing crisis in one of the most developed cities in the world. Even though all but the last seem to be realistic goals for a twoweek span of time, two students in the School of Public Affairs’ master of public administration (MPA) program--teaming up with a student from the School of Sustainability and students from the City University of Hong Kong--proved last summer how much college students could do in a short amount of time. On last summer’s study abroad trip to Hong Kong, Jeffrey Ong and Lisset Gonzalez were put into one of five groups who were tasked with identifying a specific problem within their group’s given areas (housing, energy, food waste, land use, or biodiversity) and coming up with a solution that would solve it. Ong and Gonzalez were placed in a group along with Tara Pyts from the School of Sustainability and three other students from the City University of Hong Kong whose task was to take on the housing crisis in Hong Kong. The problem the group identified had to do with the lack of affordable housing for Hong Kong’s “sandwich class,” the informal term for the 31.8 percent in Hong Kong who make too much money to qualify for public housing but not enough money to afford private housing. In a talk given about the group’s time in Hong Kong, Pyts stated the problem members of the sandwich class have is comparable to an American making $1,200-$1,300 a month, but only being able to find housing with rent of $1,600 a month. “There’s clearly a discrepancy,” she said, “and it does not allow any room for other costs of living.” In the short time the housing group had to design a solution, Gonzalez said they constructed a “threepronged approach” which suggested the government “subsidize housing,” “establish a property management association in order to maintain and monitor the [subsidization] program,” and “establish a homeownership savings scheme in order to enable buyers to build enough equity” to afford private housing in the future.

The plan reallocates public housing to be used as housing for the sandwich class and will be implemented over the course of five years, in which time the government can build affordable private housing for the sandwich class. Ong said some of the benefits of their plan come in its feasibility because the plan does not rely on the creation of new housing during the five-year period, so therefore it “[does] not create any expenses beyond [reallocation].” Furthermore, their plan is sustainable because it uses pre-existing public housing and simply redistributes it to members of the sandwich class, so that, when the five year course is over, the housing can be reused by the public housing sector instead of becoming abandoned after fulfilling its use. While culturally eye-opening and fun, the study abroad course to Hong Kong served not only as a travel opportunity for ambitious students, but also as a hands-on learning experience for students interested in sustainable practices to apply their in-class studies to situations in the real-world. Heather Turrentine, a student from the School of Sustainability who also attended the trip, said, “what you read about what’s happening is still different from what’s actually happening on the ground...when we actually started speaking to the people out there we noticed the different nuances that we take for granted.” In attending the trip and learning of those nuances, the students were able to see a more three-dimensional depiction of what they were dealing with in class.

in brief Kapstein presents research at annual DoD/ Minerva Research Meeting Ethan Kapstein presented the preliminary results of his research on investment and violent conflict in Afghanistan at the Annual DoD/Minerva Research Meeting in Washington, DC on 10 September. The multi-year DoD/Minerva grants are awarded competitively to support cutting-edge social science relevant to defense policy.

Kapstein presents research at annual DoD/ Minerva Research Meeting Daniel Schugurensky was a keynote speaker at the First International Conference on Citizen Participation organized by the Office of Democracy, Participation and Community Action of the Government of Colombia (Bogotá, September 23/24, 2015). The impetus for this conference was a new national law on citizen participation that was approved in April 2015. The law includes several articles on participatory budgeting. Schugurensky’s presentation was entitled Participatory Budgeting: Accomplishments, Challenges and Tensions. At the same time that Schugurensky was making his presentation, the President of Colombia and the leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) signed a peace agreement that is regarded as a new model for ending conflicts. After the presentation, a vibrant discussion ensued about the potential of participatory budgeting to contribute to the peace process, particularly in communities that were most affected by the 60-year war. After the conference, Schugurensky met with a group of federal public officials in charge of the implementation of the law to provide advice on the guidelines on participatory budgeting for local governments.

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engaging the community


New center for politics to engage students in civic leadership Paul Atkinson

Ed Pastor retired from a 23-year career in Congress earlier this year, but he continues to push forward to better the lives of Arizonans. Recently, Pastor announced a $1 million gift of unused campaign funds to establish the Ed Pastor Center for Politics and Public Service at Arizona State University. “He is a living example of what it means to use public office to better our communities,” says Jonathan Koppell, dean of the College of Public Service and Community Solutions, which will house the Center. The Center will encourage political engagement among ASU students and the broader community through sponsored events and activities. Students will gain hands-on experience through internships, participation in political forums and meetings with elected officials. A work horse, not a show horse For the majority of his time in Congress, Ed Pastor served as a chief deputy whip for the Democratic caucus — responsible for getting members to vote for bills supported by leadership. The job required having the respect of peers and the ability to persuade others to vote for bills they may initially oppose. It was a task that suited Pastor well. He preferred to work behind the scenes, building relationships across the political aisle. Pastor admits that was easier to do when he was first elected, as members would talk to one another at the dining hall, in the gym or at social events on the weekend. Not so much anymore. “Members don’t spend a lot of time in Washington D.C.,” says Pastor. “They’ll show up the first day of voting and will be on an airplane as soon as the last vote has been cast.” What Pastor did was focus on what he thought was good for Arizona. That meant supporting legislation that would help the state and securing earmarks for projects important to local communities. “It didn’t matter whether or not it was his district,” said Art Hamilton, a former Arizona House minority leader who worked with Pastor on requests by local cities. “He would always give you his ear. And if he could help you, he’d help you.” The congressman had a coveted seat on the House Appropriations Committee, which allowed him to secure funding for numerous projects, including the valley’s light rail system, Maricopa County’s homeless campus, and the restoration of wetland along the Salt River in south Phoenix. “As Arizona’s first Hispanic Congressman, his passion and service to Arizona are reflected in his support for educational funding, the transformation of the Rio Salado (Salt River) into an ecological paradise for South Phoenix and the light rail system,” said Tommy Espinoza,

Congressman Ed Pastor

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The Pastor Center for Politics and Public Service is the first to honor a Latino public official.

president and CEO of the nonprofit Raza Development Fund. “These projects alone stand as testaments to his unwavering service and impact in Arizona.” Pastor was the oldest of three siblings. They grew up in the small mining town of Claypool 90 miles east of Phoenix where their father worked as a miner and served in leadership positions in the local union. Their parents, Enrique and Margarita Pastor placed an emphasis on hard work, education and helping others. Pastor earned a scholarship to Arizona State University where he graduated with a chemistry degree in 1966. He became a high school chemistry teacher at North High School in Phoenix. At night, he taught adult education in Guadalupe, an unincorporated area bordering Tempe and Phoenix. His students were farm laborers. In 1969 Pastor became a deputy director for the nonprofit he taught classes for, Guadalupe Organization. It also ran its own credit union, was involved in community organizing and helped people solve everyday problems. “I basically saw there was a lot of need in my community--need for education opportunities, need for economic development, need for more political participation,” said Pastor. “It’s about how he connected important constituents with the services that they needed,” Koppell noted. “It’s about how he brought together different interests to work together instead of against each one another. That’s the kind of thing that people in politics do. They work to create change through political and government structures that many people never hear about.” The Ed Pastor Center for Politics and Public Service will host election forums and debates aimed at races and issues that may not get the most attention. Last fall, the college hosted a town hall with candidates for Arizona Secretary of State that was also streamed live online. The center will also host post-election forums where the goal is to examine recently concluded elections to learn how they will impact future campaigns and public policy. The center will sponsor campaign workshops in non-election years. Campaign managers and professionals involved in statewide and congressional campaigns will be asked to participate in workshops that explore past campaigns and the latest strategies and tactics employed. These frank discussions will help students better understand the nature of modern elections and what it takes to run a successful campaign. Students will also be introduced to key political and policy figures through a distinguished visiting fellows program. These individuals will be invited to share their knowledge with students in settings that allow for individual give and take. Pastor knows he can play a role in getting noteworthy policymakers to participate.

“I want students to get as many resources — seminars, workshops and internships — so when they graduate, they have a better understanding of how policies affect their careers,” Pastor said. “And hopefully, they may decide to get involved in the political process to make a difference.” Linking college students involved in leadership programs across Arizona will be a goal of the center. Connecting likeminded students and their projects can help maximize their impact on the community and improve their ability to collaborate. The College of Public Service and Community Solutions has achieved this with its Spirit of Service Scholar program where members partnered with Flinn Foundation Scholars to organize seminars and broaden networks. The college will also leverage the links it enjoys with the community of practitioners through the Morrison Institute for Public Policy, Bob Ramsey Executive Education Center and other centers. Students involved in the Ed Pastor Center will have numerous opportunities to learn from experienced public servants and elected leaders.


Urban management fellowship celebrates 10th year Some of the country’s most talented students aspiring to lead local government are honing their skills through the Marvin Andrews Fellowship in Urban Managment.

The 2015 cohort marks the 10th class to join the competitive program which continues to attract students interested in urban management from across the nation.

“Having the chance to work alongside the Alliance for Innovation and Center for Urban Innovation on real challenges that governments face in the 21st century is the best opportunity any student could have in the field of public administration,” said Dominic DeCono, a Marvin Andrews Fellow who graduated from ASU with his undergraduate degree in May. The Marvin Andrews Fellowship in Urban Management is named in honor of Marvin A. Andrews, who served for 13 years as city manager of Phoenix. Phoenix is the largest councilmanager government in the United States and a city many consider the “best run” city in the United States.

Since its inception in 2006, 27 students have graduated from the program. It’s supported with an endowment from the Arizona City/County Managment Association (ACMA), the having the School of Public Affairs and chance to private sector contributors. work on real

“I choose the Marvin Andrews Fellowship at Arizona State University because it is the future of governance,” said Blaise Caudill, a membor of the 2015 cohort studying public administration. “It is the future of service to our neighborhoods and communities,” said Caudill.

challenges that governments face in the 21st century is the best opportunity any student could have in the field of public administration

In the first year, the ‘Marvins’ work as paid interns in the Center for Urban Innovation conducting research for the Alliance for Innovation, a premier networking association for cities and counties commited to innovation.

One cohort of first-year Marvins led a management analysis for the town of Cave Creek, Ariz., examining personnel activities and work allocation. Marvins caught a close-up view inside an organization, ultimately producing a report that was integrated into actual decisions confronting the community moving forward. In the second year, Marvins intern with one of the many fast-growing cities in the Phoenix Metropolitan area.

Andrews was named the best city manager in the United States in 1986 by City and State Magazine, twice received the National Civic League’s “All-America City” award, recieved the 1994 International City Management Association’s Mark Keane Award for Excellence and the National Academy of Public Administration’s National Public Service Award in 1990.

In 1983, Andrews helped usher in a new era in city government when he introduced the council district system and pushed a new heightened focus on neighborhoods. He was also praised for efficiently managing and providing cost-effective city services during the explosive growth years of the early 1980s. Even after he retired in 1990, Andrews remained highly active in city affairs, serving for more than 10 years on the Phoenix Aviation Advisory Board and as chairman of the Sky Harbor Master Plan Steering Committee.

meet the marvins 2015 Marvin Andrews Fellows

Kristen Ayer holds a bachelor’s in business management and entrepreneurship. She chose ASU’s MPA program because of its strength in urban management and the hands-on experiences through internships and mentoring. Blaise Caudill holds bachelor’s degrees in international affairs and French. He chose the Marvin Andrews program as a way to gain experience toward a goal of service in the best interests of the community, and informed dialogue between communities and government. Dominic DeCono holds a bachelor’s in communications. He was attracted to the program because of its impact on local government and what it is doing for the future of city management. Dorian Sanchez Ruiz holds bachelor’s degrees in global studies and political science. She sought out the program because Phoenix prides itself on being the largest councilmanager government in the U.S. Ruiz aims to make a lasting impact in developing cities by implementing innovative practices in local government to improve the quality of life.

Andrews passed away in July of 2004. Phoenix recognized his contribution with the naming of Marvin Andrews Way, an intersection at the Phoenix City Hall Complex.

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ASU Marvin Andrews alum bridges community and government with new app Dominic Papa, a Marvin Andrews Fellow, recently graduated with a master’s degree in public administration. Photo by Christopher Hernandez

Christopher Hernandez

Learning by doing

The greater Phoenix-metro area and its government will soon become a lot more technologically advanced, and Arizona State University alumnus Dominic Papa is helping to usher in this tech transformation.

Papa credits the Marvin Andrews Fellowship program in helping in develop the skills and self-assurance to cultivate this idea as well as presenting it to the councilman.

Papa, who currently serves as council aide for City of Phoenix District 3 Councilman Bill Gates, recently earned his master’s in public administration from the School of Public Affairs, part of the College of Public Service and Community Solutions. His expertise and passion for digital innovation helped spearhead the Phoenix chapter of the “Smart City App Hack Challenge.” In this challenge, aspiring app creators are asked to develop or brainstorm an app that incorporates solutions to five common issues that all major cities share: urban mobility, energy and emission, shopping and retail, culture and tourism, and the collaborative city. “It is ultimately the residents that are going to drive Phoenix into becoming the next smart city,” Papa said. “We want to leverage our city as a platform for bringing people together and help foster in this urban innovation.” Papa’s dedication to the project and its community engagement are what excited Councilman Bill Gates and motivated him to help bring this project to the public. “Our diverse and multitalented residents are the most important and valuable asset the city of Phoenix has,” Gates stated. “Thus, programs such as the ‘Phoenix Smart City App Hack’ are essential to making sure those residents are having their voices heard and are given multiple platforms to take an active role in shaping the future direction of their home city.”

While in the program’s first year, Papa served as an intern for ASU’s Center for Urban Innovation and was involved with the Alliance for Innovation, giving him opportunities to sit in on a network with leading city managers from all around the nation. In his second year Papa got to work day-to-day with the City of Casa Grande to learn how the inner workings of a city function daily. The Marvin Andrews program is a fully funded selective fellowship that combines a master’s in public administration with a management internship. “It allowed me to see all the different kinds of problems and issues cities from all over the nation were facing, and to try to find what the main theme was,” Papa reflected. “ASU and the Marvin Andrews program did a great job in fostering that confidence in us. I would have to credit almost all of where I am today because of it.” He says that the experience also showed him that innovations and solutions for cities should not just be limited solely to one town’s limits which is why the “Phoenix chapter” of the Smart City App Hack is not just limited to those residents. “It’s bigger than just one city/ Any solution we develop here in Phoenix has to be able to work in Scottsdale, Mesa, and all across the valley,” Papa noted. “Transportation and technology are beginning to obliterate boundaries.” “Dom has a knack for entrepreneurship and wants to develop innovative solutions for local governments,” said Kevin Desouza, a professor in the School of Public Affairs who

teaches a public entrepreneurship class that Papa took. “I enjoyed exchanging ideas with Dom on designing smarter cities and public entrepreneurship, especially when it comes to creating international collaborative platforms like the App Hack.

Engaging the community in solutions As the deadline for the Smart City App Hack approaches, both Papa and Councilman Gates agree that the biggest takeaway from this movement is that of collaboration, and that residents across the Valley can come together for the betterment of their own, as well as neighboring communities. Applications for the contest run through Aug. 1 and can be submitted online, with enticing incentives, even for those who do not walk away with the grand prize. Five finalists will be selected from the group of initial applicants; these finalists will then receive mentoring through a series of workshops produced by local companies as well as app development professionals to further develop their app into a fully functional device for market adaptation and development. After this, comes the city finale in which the five finalist (and others who wish to submit fully completed apps) will pitch their apps to a panel of judges. Three city winners will be selected for a cash prize as well as entry into the international contest with the grand prize winner receiving an allexpense paid trip to Barcelona, Spain to represent Phoenix at the international grand finale at the 2015 Smart City Expo. “To have local residents and graduates apply their efforts to improving the lives of their peers that helped get them to where they are now is nothing short of inspiring,” Councilman Gates said. “It speaks volumes to the character and heart that the City of Phoenix’s residents have.”


in brief: local government New tool helps local governments choose service partnerships Finding new and innovative ways to deliver public services is a challenge for many city and county managers, especially if it involves partnering with another government, nonprofit or company. A collaboration among ASU, Alliance for Innovation and the International City/County Managers Association has produced a new decision matrix tool to help public managers better determine if a service partnership is worthwhile. It leverages innovations happening at the local level to reveal efficiencies that could be gained by working with other partners through collaborative arrangements.

Report evaluates community services Kate Hogan, center, with Karen Mossberger and dean of the College of Public Service and Community Solutions, Jonathan Koppell Photo by Bryan Mok

Jim Hogan, an Arizona State University alumnus, and long-time public servant in Arizona passed away last spring, but his legacy lives on through the newly established James A. Hogan Public Master of Public Administration Scholarship.

him to start the call center with no money. That’s who he was,” she said.

Working with staff from 11 of the largest communities in the region, George Pettit, David Swindell, Karen Thoreson and MPA student Craig Dudek are releasing the first Valley Benchmark Cities report evaluating communities on multiple measures throughout several service areas. The report is the focus of a panel presentation at the upcoming ICMA meeting in Seattle. The report is also the focus of an article Swindell co-authored with Scottsdale Deputy City Manager Brent Stockwell. It will appear in the November issue of PM Magazine.

Jim also felt that taxpayers needed to be better informed about where their money went.

Decision tool helps impact on Phoenix transportation plan

“Jim was committed to efficiencies and effectiveness in government,” said his wife, Kate Hogan. “It just made sense to me from Jim’s history and his passion for how he felt government should run, to establish this scholarship to support students who want to make a difference.”

“You don’t just pay taxes to the county treasurer. You pay for the strength of education, for fire departments and other services,” said Kate.

Jim was in the first graduating class of the master of public administration offered through the School of Public Affairs. He later worked in the joint legislative budget committee, the Department of Economic Security and at ASU as associate budget director.

“He was a leader with a heart and a soul and a very good mind,” Kate said, noting that even though Jim had not worked for a number of years, many people from the treasurer’s office and elected officials attended his memorial ceremony.

Remembering a leader, funding the future

“He was a money guy,” Kate said. “But he did it all in government.” He served in the Army during the Vietnam War. He was part of the transition team to help the Vietnamese take back their own governance and country management. That experience led him to be chosen for a position in Saudi Arabia, where he was part of a company that was building a city. His role was to teach the Saudis how to run a government.

Under Jim’s watch, tax bills showed residents a breakdown of spending.

The Jim Hogan Public Administration Scholarship will benefit a student pursuing a master’s of public administration. As a long-time professional in financial aid for higher education, Kate says she knows first-hand the need to support students. She hopes to add to the endowment over time.

Jim came back to Arizona and joined Maricopa County as chief deputy treasurer. Kate notes that he really tried to influence county governance.

“For me, I would want the scholarship to go to someone to enable them to pursue their dream. That’s a financial aid person talking,” said Kate. “I think Jim would want it to be somebody who believed they could make life better for the taxpayer and who wants government to be accountable to the public.”

“He established the first call center for counties around the state. He got elected officials to give him whatever jobs were not filled in their offices, which enabled

“We wanted to use the money for the way Jim lived. I think he would want to be remembered for how he lived. He made a difference,” she said.

An ASU team led by Dr. John Harlow with professors Eric Hekler, Erik Johnston and graduate student Zoë Yeh, collaborated with Phoenix’s Public Transit and Street Transportation Departments and the Citizens Committee on the Future of Phoenix Transportation (CCFPT) in the development of Proposition 104, the recently passed transportation plan for Phoenix. The proposal funds the next 35 years of transportation in Phoenix, with an estimated $31.5 billion raised through a 0.7% citywide sales tax. The bill covers expanded bus service hours, increased bus service frequency, complete streets investments, and new bus and light rail routes. The ASU team established a process that simplified the complexity of producing a 35year, citywide transportation plan into a series of information-rich decisions represented by tactile game pieces. The game was prototyped and refined in two ASU graduate courses in behavior change and public administration. The objective was to create an information-rich decision environment, in which CCFPT members could articulate and explain their perspectives. The overall experience became a central component of Harlow’s Ph.D. dissertation from the School of Sustainability at ASU under the supervision of ASU professors Eric Hekler, Aaron Golub, Erik Johnston, and Arnim Wiek.

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preparing the next

generation of leaders

Public administration student Josue Macias meets with a fellow Spirit of Service Scholar at a reception in Phoenix. Photo by Felipe Ruiz


Frank Smith testified before the Arizona Legislature as part of efforts to create a college tuition waiver for former foster children – kids like Smith himself. The waiver was signed into law in 2013. Photo by: Charlie Leight/ASU News

Work to help former foster kids garners student a prestigious Truman Scholarship Emma Greguska, ASU News When Frank Smith got into trouble growing up, he was made to pay a peculiar penance. “My stepdad would sit me in front of the TV and make me watch the news,” said Smith, now a junior at ASU. Initially, serving this sentence bored the young Smith, which presumably was the intended effect. But then an interesting thing happened. He began to enjoy the news, and it became an important motivator in his life. “That weird punishment is what led me to want to see the world,” he said, “and to influence it for the better.” Smith, who is studying public service and public policy, has taken some giant steps in that direction. He has been awarded the prestigious Truman Scholarship for 2015 for his work testifying before the Arizona House and Senate as part of efforts urging the Legislature and then-Gov. Jan Brewer to pass and sign a bill that creates a college tuition waiver for former foster children. Brewer signed the bill in 2013. “It’s going to open the door so that they can be that public servant, they can be that journalist, they can be that doctor that they want to be,” Smith said of the many former foster kids struggling in Arizona. Smith knows their plight. He spent a turbulent childhood in the foster-care system, suffering abuse at the hands of those who were supposed to be helping him. A native of Mesa, Smith said he was born to a mother addicted to crystal meth and that

he never knew his real father. Things were bad at home. Eventually, he said, his mother fell into prostitution and his stepfather became physically abusive. He and his stepsister were placed in foster care when he was 16 years old. Unfortunately, Smith said, that only made things worse. Smith said his foster parents made him and his younger stepsister walk the neighborhood selling candy to give money to his foster parents. He said they were only allowed showers twice a week and had to wear dirty, ripped clothing. “There was a time when they made me live in the garage, which you can imagine gets quite hot in Arizona,” Smith said. After a particularly brutal episode of physical abuse, Smith said he had had enough. He called the police, and he and his stepsister were eventually removed from the home and placed with a relative, who was appalled when he learned the conditions the two had been living in. Doors were finally opening for Smith, and he took full advantage of them. He was now free to enjoy high school like a normal teenager. “I went to my first dance. I went to football games and was able to apply for scholarships,” he said.

In his sophomore year, Smith was elected the youngest student body president at ASU, and later was re-elected for a second term. He volunteers every Sunday with the Salvation Army and every semester he travels with a group of other ASU students to Mexico to build homes for families in need and distribute food. “That’s really an eye-opening experience,” Smith said of his trips to Mexico. “To see the conditions they’re living in and to see how grateful they are is really rewarding.” Smith is one of 58 Truman Scholars nominated by 297 colleges and universities. Recipients are chosen based on their academic success and leadership accomplishments as well as their likelihood of becoming public service leaders. Smith is thankful for the opportunities the scholarship affords him that otherwise wouldn’t be possible. “I’m excited to reach out to former Truman Scholars, and it’s great not to have to worry about student-loan debt when I graduate so that I can get right to making an impact and leave the world a better place than I found it,” he said. The scholarship also guarantees Smith an internship at the White House in the summer of 2016, where he hopes to work under the Domestic Policy Council to gain some realworld experience.

Applying for those scholarships paid off. Smith was awarded the Armstrong Family Foundation Scholarship to attend ASU, where he is concentrating his studies in urban and metropolitan studies. He is also an Obama Scholar and a Nina Mason Pulliam Legacy Scholar.

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Spring graduates embrace a commitment to help others Adrianna Ovnicek Outstanding graduate Courtney Carter made the transition from military to civilian life after eight years of service in the U.S. Navy. He soon discovered his passion for learning how cities grow and function. “I’m a creature of the city. I grew up in a very cosmopolitan and walkable city. Living in Phoenix and other cities, that interest only got deeper,” Carter said. With a double major in urban planning and urban and metropolitan studies, Carter is delving into the problems facing his community. Through the undergraduate research program, Carter is working on a project that looks at low-income housing in central Phoenix. “We’ve surveyed and investigated some of the tools those families in those neighborhoods are using to overcome some of the nutritional challenges that they have,” Carter said. Carter also interned with the University of Arizona’s cooperative with Maricopa County at PHX Renews, an initiative of Mayor Greg Stanton to transform vacant lots throughout Phoenix into community spaces. Carter is a Spirit of Service Scholar, was involved in meetings leading up to the creation of the Public Service Academy, and

is a veteran peer adviser for the College of Public Service and Community Solutions.

“I had no idea all this time that I was an audio learner,” she said. “I didn’t know the steps I that I needed to take just to help myself along the way during my learning process, but ultimately my instructors helped me figure that out.”

“It’s important that folks with military backgrounds have the opportunity to interact with and shadow and learn from citizens, because the needs and the expectations can be quite different,” whether Carter said. you’re in

Carter is also a council aide for Councilwoman Kate Gallego, where he’s working with the City of Phoenix to improve and expand Valley landscaping and community gardens.

public service or not, public servants impact your quality of life

“Whether you’re in public service or not, public servants impact your quality of life,” Carter said. “Decisions made by public servants impact how you navigate through and outside of the city.” Fatemah Bernard set out to defy the odds against her. “I had very difficult literacy issues growing up. I couldn’t read until I was in the third grade,” Bernard said. “... But really I’ve defied the odds, and I think that that’s the most important thing to do when you have the odds against you.”

Bernard said she overcame her biggest obstacle in college when she discovered her learning style.

Bernard served in the U.S. Air Force as a military police officer for six years before pursuing a degree in public policy at ASU. “I wanted a challenge,” she said. “... Working in that public-servant role is an extreme challenge. There is a lot of sacrifice involved with it, but I just wanted to continue on that path and ultimately make something of myself.”

Among her accomplishments, she takes great pride in her work co-creating the nutrition curriculum for Refugee Focus, a program that provides a foundation for refugee women to take control of their health and the health of their families; and mentoring for New Pathways for Youth, which focuses on children who have been homeless or lived in a shelter. Bernard has been accepted into the College of Public Service and Community Solutions graduate program for public policy, where she plans to pursue her interests of public education policy and municipal budgets.


Meet the Spirit of Service Scholars from the School of Public Affairs Now in its sixth year, the Spirit of Service Scholars program helps prepare young professionals to take leadership roles in public and private nonprofit sectors through scholarships, mentoring and real-world experiences. The 2015-2016 cohort includes four students from the School of Public Affairs.

tessa otero

Tessa Otero is a transfer student from Phoenix College majoring in public service and public policy with a creative city certificate. She is a fourthgeneration Phoenician and a graduate of the Aguila Youth Leadership Institute program.She is also a graduate of the National Hispanic Leadership Institute and the Maricopa Community College District Student Public Policy Forum (SPPF) programs. Otero is treasurer for TRIO Devils and vice president for her sorority, Theta Nu Xi Multicultural Sorority, Inc.

robert ramos

Internship helps ASU Native American students thrive An innovative partnership between Arizona State University and the Heard Museum in Phoenix is giving Native American students the opportunity to gain professional experience before they graduate by interning at the museum. ASU graduate student Mahalia Newmark is one of three students selected for the internship this spring. She has spent at least 10 hours a week planning events, learning about educational program development and delivery, and networking as part of her internship.

“I’ve always known I’ve had a love and passion for the arts and culture and education, and when this internship came up it was the perfect opportunity for me,” said Newmark, who is pursuing a master’s in public administration with a concentration in American Indian studies. Newmark, a citizen of Tulita Dene (First Nation), is working as the education and public program intern. After graduation, her dream job is to work at a Native cultural institution like the Heard Museum that is dedicated to Native American arts and cultures.

“I really enjoy being an ASU Online student because of the ability to engage and network with professionals from across the country, in all stages of their careers. The MA EMHS program has helped prepare me professionally by exposing me to many of the dominant theories and practices in the field. By blending concepts ranging from public policy to technology, the program has enhanced my ability to think critically in field that is always changing.” - Dahmar Wartts-Smiles

Robert Ramos, a native Arizonan from Gilbert, AZ, is a second-year double master’s student in social work and public administration. Ramos’s professional and academic interests include education equality, child welfare, factors surrounding homelessness, and community enrichment and engagement. He has a passion for youth of all ages with diverse backgrounds. Robert’s ambition is to apply his degree and the knowledge he gains toward leadership to create programs that present opportunities for youth to develop and grow to their fullest potential.

timothy reed

Timothy Reed is a second-year master’s student completing a concurrent program in social work and public administration. He is originally from Tucson but has lived in Phoenix most of his life. Timothy is a graduate research assistant at the Southwest Interdisciplinary Research Center (SIRC) and a quality assurance specialist at Sojourner Center, a domestic violence shelter. He is a member of the National Association for Social Workers (NASW) and the Phi Alpha Honor Society. Reed is passionate about public health, primarily focusing on poverty alleviation and domestic violence prevention.

andrew sypher

Andrew Delezon Sypher is a transfer student from Mesa Community College where he was recently recognized as an All-Arizona and All-USA Academic Scholar. He is a junior studying political science in the School of Politics and Global Studies and public policy and public service. Sypher has been actively serving and interning for state political campaigns and community grass-root organizations. He is presently participating as a Fellow—emerging community leaders motivated to advance social justice—in the Leading for Change Fellowship. He is interested in educational reform, higher education accessibility, public advocacy and plans to pursue a career working in higher education administration and elected politics.

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selected

expanding our expertise

faculty awards

new faculty joining the School of Public Affairs

Assistant professor Justin Stritch won the 2015 Best Dissertation Award from the Public and Nonprofit Division of the Academy of Management for An Examination of Personnel Instability in Public Organizations. In his work, Stritch examines managerial succession and collective employee turnover, looking at the relationship with performance, human capital and management. Assistant professor Linda Williams won the award last year.

Between 2006 and 2011, Stuart Bretschneider served as the chair of the Department of Public Administration and International Affairs and was the associate dean for Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. His current research interests include e-government, e-democracy, public management information systems, forecasting and decision making in public organizations, and evaluation of environmental policy.

Barry Bozeman recieved the 2014 NASPAA/ASPA Distinguished Researcher Award

Brian Gerber received his Ph.D from Stony Brook University in 2000. His research specialization areas include disaster policy and management, homeland security policy and administration, and environmental regulatory policy. Gerber has extensive experience performing policy analysis and evaluation work for the state and local government agencies, as well as major national nonprofits engaged in disaster relief and recovery work.

Jonathan Koppell recieved the 2014 Herbert A. Simon Book Award, Public Administration Section, American Political Science Association, Jonathan Koppell Ethan Kapstein recieved the 2014 Don K. Price Book Award in Science, Technology and Environmental Politics Section from the American Political Science Association Linda Williams recieved the 2014 Best Dissertation Award in Public and Nonprofit Division, Academy of Management,

Geoffrey Gonsher joins the School of Public Affairs as professor of practice. He has been teaching undergraduate courses at ASU since 2010 and has served as an Encore Fellow and senior policy advisor for Bob Ramsey Executive Education. Gonsher had an extensive career in municipal and state government as a public policy advisor, cabinet member, agency executive and speechwriter for over 30 elected officials.

Karen Mossberger was named in the 75 most influential articles in Public Administration Review since 1940 Kevin Desouza recieved the 2014 Herbert A. Simon Best Paper Award at the Design Science Research in Information Systems and Technologies (DESRIST) Conference

Shawn Novak joins the School from Boise State University, where he taught in the College of Business & Economics, Boise State University. Novak helped launch Boise State’s master of science in accountancy degree program in 1997. He received his Ph.D in Federal Taxation from the University of Houston in 1991.

Barry Bozeman recieved the 2013 Herbert A. Simon Book Award in Public Administration Section from the American Political Science Association Barry Bozeman recieved the 2013 George Frederickson Award from the Public Management Research Association for lifetime intellectual contributions to the field,

Akheil Singla received his Ph.D. in public policy and management from the John Glenn College of Public Affairs at The Ohio State University. Singla’s areas of specialization include public financial management, state and local government finance, municipal debt and debt management.

Gerald Miller recieved the 2011 Aaron B. Wildavsky Award for lifetime scholarly achievement in the field of public budgeting and finance

.

promotions Professor

Professor

Foundation Professor

Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology

Ph.D., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Ph.D., University of Illinois, Chicago

Expertise: technology policy and environmental policy

Expertise: nonregulatory governance, public policy, sustainable enterprise

elizabeth corley

nicole darnall

Expertise: Policy informatics, strategic information systems, networks, knowledge transfer, innovation policy, globalization, organizational designe

kevin desouza


centers for research, executive education and engagement

29 5 8

Alliance for Innovation Bob Ramsey Executive Education tenured/tenure-track faculty National Academy of Public Administration Fellows

professors of practice, clinical faculty and instructors

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40

editorial positions centers for research and executive education

Center for Emergency Management and Homeland Security Center for Organization Research and Design Center for Policy Informatics Center for Science, Technology and Environmental Policy Studies Center for Social Cohesion Center for Urban Innovation Morrison Institute for Public Policy Participatory Governance Initiative Policy Informatics Network

40 editorial positions in 2013-2015 including Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory (Mary Feeney, book review editor) Public Administration Review (Mary Feeney) Administration and Society (Barry Bozeman)

recent NSF awards

Journal of Public Policy (Karen Mossberger)

Contested Resource Inputs to Science

Administrative Theory and Praxis, past editor, board member (Tom Catlaw)

Biological materials and data are important components for conducing scientific research and are under increasing regulation. Yet there is little systemic research on how policies affect scientific collaboration. Eric Welch in the Center for Science, Technology and Environmental Policy Studies is exploring how data and material sharing and collaboration networks adapt to changing national and multinational policies. The findings will help fill a fundamental gap in science policy and enable policy makers to better identify the levers for managing the exchange and sharing of biological materials and data to advance scientific production.

American Review of Public Administration (Mary Feeney, Zhiyong Lan) Public Performance and Management Review (Mary Feeney, Gerald Miller) Journal of Technology Transfer, co-editor (Barry Bozeman) Research Policy, advisory editor (Elizabeth Corley) Evaluation and Program Planning (Elizabeth Corley) Business and Society, associate editor (Nicole Darnall) Organization and Environment, associate editor (Nicole Darnall) State and Local Government Review (Gerald Miller) Local Government Studies (Karen Mossberger) Municipal Finance Journal (Gerald Miller)

Collaboration Cosmopolitanism and Scientific and Technical Human Capital

Journal of Cold War Studies (Ethan Kapstein)

Past research has shown that greater collaborator diversity and cosmopolitanism favorably impacts productivity and research development among STEM researchers. Barry Bozeman is principal investigator on a study using race and gender as key dimensions to examine changes in collaboartion patterns over time—and the effects on success.

Palgrave Studies and Public Debt, Spending and Review, series editor (Gerald Miller)

Cambridge University Press (Nicole Darnall)

Forecasting the Return Home of Non-US Citizens with US Ph.D.s The number of U.S. doctoral students with temporary visas has steadily increased over the last two decades; approximately half of these individuals stay in the U.S. after receipt of their doctorate. However, the roles of economic, nationalistic or scientific influences on the decision to stay or to leave are not widely understood. Stuart Bretschneider is leading research that aims to provide a baseline count, establish a theoretical framework for why non-US citizens return home and build a model for the decision process to help predict future trends. A major focus is to help inform policy.

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about the school of public affairs The School of Public Affairs is part of ASU’s College of Public Service and Community Solutions, a comprehensive college that is advancing research and discovery of public value, and furthering the economic, social, cultural and overall health of the communities that we serve. Our mission is to understand and address society’s grandest challenges in public management, policy and governance. We seek to maximize our impact through rigorous transdisciplinary research, project-based education, collaborative and inclusive community engagement, experiential learning and innovative solutions.


calendar of events October 20 Colloquium: Grant Blank, Oxford Internet Institute October 21-22 Partnership for Progress on the Digital Divide October 22 Spirit of Service Scholars breakfast October 24 2015 College of Public Service & Community Solutions Day of Service October 28 Fall Career & Internship fair October 28 Colloquium: Manuel Teodoro, Texas A&M November 12 Pastor Center for Politics and Public Service celebration November 19 Public Service Impact Talks: fall series November 20 Morrison Institute State of Our State conference December 1 Public Service Impact Talks: fall series December 3-5 By the People: Participatory democracy, public engagement and citizenship education conference December 15 Fall 2015 convocation ceremony

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