by Michael Craw, MPA Director

November 20, 2020

Greetings from Evergreen’s Master of Public Administration (MPA) program. As we look back on the summer and fall of 2020, I am happy to be able to say that our MPA program continues to meet its mission of helping a new generation of students to “be the change.” In September, the MPA program welcomed its 40th cohort of students. Though the coronavirus pandemic has prevented us from meeting students in person, our faculty and students have transitioned in creative new ways to remote instruction formats, using Zoom and new forms of asynchronous instruction. We are learning much about how to teach and learn well in this new environment, finding that Zoom introduces a bit of our home lives with our peers. We have also been finding that this new form of learning has created better bridges between our students in Olympia and in Tacoma, allowing them to share more completely in courses with each other. We are excited about the possibilities these discoveries open for us as we plan on our instruction for a post-covid world.

Thanks to the contributions of many of our alumni and to the efforts of Tina Kuckkahn-Miller with Evergreen’s Longhouse, I am happy to say that the John McCoy Scholarship Fund met its fundraising target over the summer. We are in the process of making this award to two outstanding students in the MPA program’s Tribal Governance cohort. We are looking forward to making an official announcement in the near future. In the meantime, if you would like to find out more about this award or make a contribution, please see this link. 

The MPA program’s 5th annual Summer Institute convened in July. This year’s institute brought together 23 MPA program alumni, community partners, and MPA faculty to discuss how the MPA program can best incorporate lessons from the Black Lives Movement and adapt to the new challenges posed by Covid-19. Our discussions brought a number of insights that are guiding the MPA program as we review our curriculum.

Finally, the MPA program has opened its admissions portal for the Fall 2021 cohorts in Olympia and Tacoma. The MPA program’s Assistant Directors, Puanani Nihoa and Marcia Zitzelman, are hosting information sessions for potential applicants for the program. Please feel welcome to let people in your life who are pursuing a career in public service know about our program.

We hope that this newsletter finds you well and we wish you the best in the upcoming holidays and for 2021!