October 12, 2022

Greetings MPA Students,

Welcome to the start of the MPA program’s fall quarter! We hope you had a restful summer and we are enthusiastic about beginning a new academic year with you. We are particularly excited to have the opportunity to offer many more of our courses in an in-person or hybrid format in the upcoming year, while also providing some of our elective options in an online format.

As we begin this year, we want to provide you with some more information on ways the MPA program is updating this year:

1) MPA students in the Tribal Governance cohort will have the option of earning the Tribal Governance concentration by completing two of the five Tribal Governance concentration courses (Path to Sovereignty, Intergovernmental Relations, Tribal Organizations, Tribal Economics, and Tribal Policy) rather than all five courses.  The MPA faculty approved this change last month in order to respond to the tribal consultation process the College undertook last year, which indicated that students working for tribal governments in Washington would benefit from taking a broader range of elective courses than the Tribal Governance concentration permits.  Moreover, this step provides more equity in the requirements across the MPA program’s concentrations.  This change enables the students in the Tribal Governance cohort to take additional MPA elective courses that will count towards their degree.

2) The MPA program has two new visiting faculty joining us this year!  Dr. Spencer Brien earned his PhD in Public Policy at Georgia State University in 2011 and holds an MPP from American University (2006).  Until this spring, Spencer served as a faculty member in public administration with the Naval Postgraduate School, and has served as a faculty member in public administration at Arizona State University. Spencer also brings professional experience as a program evaluation specialist with the Internal Revenue Service.  Spencer adds to our expertise in public financial management, state and local fiscal policy, public procurement, defense budgeting, and public workforce turnover, and is co-author in a recent article in Public Administration Review, “The Timing of Managerial Responses to Fiscal Stress” (2021), among other publications.

Dr. Jeffrey Callen earned his PhD in Public Administration and Policy at Arizona State University in 2013 and holds an MPA from Montana State University (2008).  Jeffrey served as a faculty member with Idaho State University’s MPA and political science programs from 2013 to 2018, and most recently has served as a planner for the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes in Idaho. Jeffrey brings both academic and practitioner expertise in tribal governance, local economic development, digital governance, planning and infrastructure development, public sector ethics, policy analysis, and research methods.

3) MPA Professor Meghan Doughty will serve this year as the MPA program’s Associate Director. In this role, Meghan will share MPA Director duties with Professor Mike Craw. This will enable both Meghan and Mike to take active roles in teaching MPA core courses while also assuring student needs from the program are met. Please feel free to reach out to either Meghan or to Mike when you need academic advice or have questions about the MPA curriculum and requirements.

In addition, MPA assistant directors, Puanani and Marcia, remain committed to helping you with your questions about course registration, financial aid, and other program matters.  MPA staff will generally be available in person at our offices in the Olympia campus Monday – Friday 9 am – 4 pm.  Puanani and Mike will announce in person office hours at Evergreen’s Tacoma building for the fall quarter soon.

You can contact us in the following ways:

We wish you a successful fall quarter, and we look forward to getting to support you as you complete your Master of Public Administration!

 

Michael Craw                                                                                     Meghan Doughty

MPA Director                                                                                     Associate MPA Director