News from Rutgers School of Public Affairs and Administration

SPAA Faculty Address Implications of the Trump Presidency

Ariane Chebel d'Appollonia (Professor), Stephanie Newbold (Associate Professor), Alan Sadovnik (Board of Governors Distinguished Service Professor), and Frank Thompson (Board of Governors Professor) focused on the future of public administration and policy under the new administration at a Feb. 7 Roundtable titled "Whither Public Policy? Implications of the Trump Presidency." The session was moderated by Dante Arnwine (MPA Student and President of the Public Administration Graduate Student Association). MORE >

+ Immigration Policy and the Trump Administration: Q&A with Ariane Chebel d'Appollonia MORE >

+ Federal Court/Supreme Court Nominee Neil Gorsuch: Q&A with Stephanie Newbold MORE >

+ Education Policy/Secretary of Education Betsy DeVo s: Q&A with Alan Sadovnik MORE >

+ Healthcare/Obamacare Repeal: Q&A with Frank Thompson MORE >

RU-N Debate Team Ends Season With Back-to-Back National Championship Tournament Wins
in Historic Run

The Rutgers University-Newark Debate Team, housed at Rutgers SPAA, has become the second team in U.S. collegiate debate history to win both the Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) National Tournament and the National Debate Tournament in a single season. MORE >

SPAA Heavily Represented at 2017 Annual American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) Conference in Atlanta, GA – March 17-21

At least fifty attendees at the 2017 annual conference were associated with Rutgers SPAA: faculty, doctoral grads, doctoral and master's students, and staff.

ASPA awards were given to: Marc Holzer (University Professor); Alumni Tia Sherèe Gaynor (MPA ’05; PhD '11), G.L.A. Harris (PhD '03), Alex Ingrams (PhD '17), RaJade Berry-James (PhD '99), and Patria de Lancer Julnes (PhD '97); and doctoral students Dongyoen Kang, Huafang Li, Josh Osowski, Shilpa Viswanath, and Srinivas Yerramsetti.

SPAA faculty participants and presenters included: Cleopatra Charles (Associate Professor), Rachel Emas (Assistant Teaching Professor), Madinah Hamidullah (Associate Research Professor), Marc Holzer (University Professor), Jiahuan Lu (Assistant Professor), Stephanie Newbold (Associate Professor), Gregory Porumbescu (Assistant Professor), Norma Riccucci (Board of Governors Distinguished Professor), Jongmin Shon (Assistant Professor), Frank Thompson (Board of Governors Professor), Gregg Van Ryzin (Interim Dean; Professor), James Ward (Visiting Associate Professor), Lois Warner (Assistant Teaching Professor), and Yahong Zhang (Associate Professor). MORE >

SPAA's Center for Applied Appreciative Inquiry Certifies Second Cohort

In its second year, the Center for Applied Appreciative Inquiry (CAAI) at Rutgers SPAA, directed by James M. Davy (Distinguished Practitioner in Residence), has certified two individuals after their completion of the eight-month program. MORE >

SPAA Faculty Members Assume Editorship of Noted Public Administration Journal

Marc Holzer (University Professor) and Stephanie Newbold (Associate Professor) have assumed editorship of the American Review of Public Administration (ARPA). MORE >

Appointments | Achievements

Yahong Zhang (Associate Professor) was elected to a one-year term as Chair for the Section on Chinese Public Administration in the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA). MORE >

Wen Wang (Associate Professor) was elected President of the China-America Association for Public Affairs (CAAPA) for a two-year term. MORE >

David Jancsics (Post-Doctoral Associate) was appointed Assistant Professor of Public Administration (tenure track) in the School of Public Affairs at San Diego State University (beginning Sept. 1, 2017).

Alex Ingrams (PhD ’17) was appointed Assistant Professor in the School of Politics and Public Administration at Tilburg University, Netherlands. MORE >

Nancy O'Keefe Hamstra (MPA '09), Chief Operating Officer at Newark's University Hospital, earned a top healthcare management credential by becoming a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE), the nation's leading professional society for healthcare leaders. MORE >

Grants | Gifts

Suzanne Piotrowski (Associate Professor) and Gregory Porumbescu (Assistant Professor) have been awarded an $8,000 grant from the Center for Global Advancement and International Affairs (GAIA Centers) at Rutgers University. The grant will support collaborative research between SPAA and the Utrecht School of Governance at Utrecht University, Netherlands, that seeks to determine the relationship between transparency and trust in government, and the role of transparency in fostering democracy.

Rachel Emas (Assistant Teaching Proferssor) and Jiahuan Lu (Assistant Professor) were each awarded a $1,000 grant from the Rutgers University Libraries' Open and Affordable Textbook Grant Taskforce to help provide free and reduced-cost textbooks to SPAA students. MORE >

Tia Sherée Gaynor (MPA '05; PhD '11) was awarded a $150,000 grant from the National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice, for her project "Intersectional Subjection and Law Enforcement: Examining Perceptions Held of LGBTQ People of Color in New Orleans, LA." MORE >

Publications | Research | In The Media

Rutgers SPAA – with Marc Holzer (University Professor) and Lois M. Warner (Assistant Teaching Professor) as Co-Editors and Dan Bee Lee (PhD Student) as Associate Editor – and the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration (NASPAA) have released the fourth edition of the Teaching Resources Guide for Public Affairs and Administration. The publication – available for free download – brings together a broad array of teaching and learning resources in public policy, affairs, and administration and makes each available via a web link. MORE >

PhD Students Andrew Ballard and Javier Fuenzalida are current columnists for the PA Times, co-authoring monthly articles on behalf of the National Center for Public Performance at Rutgers SPAA for which they serve as Managing Director and Assistant Director, respectively. Columns – which have included "Political Influence on Organizational Performance" and "Do Legislatively Mandated Performance Reforms Work?" – are available at both the PA Times and the NCPP blog. MORE >

Marc Holzer (University Professor), as Editor-in-Chief, along with Janice Flug and SPAA PhD Students Seth J. Meye r and Chengxin Xu as Co-Editors, have released The Public Administration Gateway: A User's Guide which provides up-to-date resources that cover disciplines related to the field and materials collected from practice. The publication acts as a companion guide – and is available for free download from – the Public Administration Gateway, a free online resource portal initiated and managed by Rutgers SPAA with the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA). MORE >

Cleopatra Charles (Associate Professor) recently shared a few insights with WalletHub just in time for tax season in their blog post "2017's Tax Rates by State." MORE >

David Jancsics (Post-Doctoral Associate) authored "From Local Cliques to Mafia States: The Evolution of Network Corruption," a chapter in Twenty-five Sides of a Post-Communist Mafia State, with Balint Magyar and Julia Vasarhelyi, editors, and published by Central University Press. His chapter discusses corrupt elite networks in contemporary Hungary as a case study for a larger phenomenon of complex and organized corrupt structures that have become the guiding principle of governance for many Central and Eastern European countries. MORE >

James D. Ward (Visiting Associate Professor) served as Co-Guest Editor for Public Administration Review's (PAR) symposium on policing and race alongside Charles Menifield, SPAA's newly appointed Dean. The symposium, which appears in the March/April 2017 issue of PAR and is now online, has a primary objective to help bring attention to one of the most highly salient issues facing American public policy, and to offer solutions and approaches to address the issue more appropriately. MORE >

Marc Holzer (University Professor), Aroon P. Manoharan (PhD '09), Jongmin Shon (Assistant Professor), SPAA PhD Students Eunmi Choi and Hyuk Yang, and MPA Students Minsung Kang and Sungyoon Lee, authored Rutgers SPAA's Seoul Metropolitan Government's (SMG) E-Governance Policy Study which analyzes SMG's major exemplary cases in the e-governance area and assesses strategies and policies for the adoption and utilization of these policy cases for international municipalities.

Alan Shark (Associate Professor of Practice) served as executive editor and contributing author to the revised/second edition of CIO Leadership for Cities and Counties – Emerging Trends and Practices published by Public Technology Institute (2016), writing chapters about the role of CIOs, cyber security, and digital ethics. Marc Holzer (University Professor) and Aroon P. Manoharan (PhD '09) also contributed a chapter on what CIOs need to know about the performance measurement of E-Governance.

Presentations | Guest Lectures | Conferences

Ariane Chebel d'Appollonia (Professor) presented a guest lecture titled "The Utility of Violence" at the Fondation de la Maison des Sciences de l'Homme (FMSH) in December 2017.

+ Chebel d'Appollonia presented a guest lecture titled "Religion and Migration in the Mediterranean and Europe" at Tufts University, Fletcher School of Law/Institute for Human Security in January 2017.

+ Chebel d'Appollonia presented "Violence in America" as part of SPAA's PhD lecture series in February 2017.

+ Chebel d'Appollonia presented a guest lecture titled "Why are immigrants perceived as a threat?" at Princeton University in March 2017.

Lois Warner (Assistant Teaching Professor) presented "The Virtual Museum of Public Service: A Resource for Teaching Public Administration in a Multimedia World" at the Rutgers Online Learning Conference in March 2017. MORE >

Sebastian Jilke (Assistant Professor) presented "Administrative Responsiveness and Racial Discrimination in Access to Public Programs" at a workshop organized by the National Seoul University, in New York City in January 2017.

+ Jilke presented "Public-Private Differences in Frontline Discrimination among Belgium Elderly Care Organizations" at a seminar series of the LaFollette School of Public Affairs, University of Wisconsin-Madison, in February 2017.

The National Center for Public Performance (NCPP) at Rutgers SPAA spoke with the Young Government Leaders Association in New York City on March 7 on performance management reforms and recommendations for the new administration.

+ NCPP has announced its annual Public Performance Conference will be held Sept. 28-29, 2017 in Boston, MA. Keynote speakers for this year are Gov. Martin O'Malley and Dr. Donald Moynihan. MORE >

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