Rutgers SPAA NEWS – Fall 2018 / Winter 2019

SPAANEWS

FALL 2018 / WINTER 2019

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE GIRL SCOUTS HEART OF NEW JERSEY

Fostering Collaboration

SPAA Alumni Network 2019-2020 Executive Board takes oath of office PAGE 3

Leading By Example

SPAA Alumna Natasha Hemmings (MPA'16) helps the Girl Scouts break through barriers PAGE 4

Combating Corruption

SPAA Associate Professor Yahong Zhang takes aim at corruption through research PAGE 6

DEAN’SNOTE By all accounts, fiscal year 2019 is off to a great start.

During the fall semester, SPAA agreed to host two conferences in the summer of 2019 – the Social Equity Leadership Conference in Newark, NJ and the TransAtlantic Dialogue in New York, NY. If any of our alumni are interested in participating or attending the conference, please let us know (contact Sharon Stroye).

We held our very first SPAA MPA Alumni Board meeting as well as our first SPAA Advancement Board Meeting.

Members of both boards were quite enthusiastic about serving and advancing the mission of the school, and we are excited to interact with both boards as we move forward.

I would like to take this opportunity to highlight two of our faculty members. First, René Deida is one of our parttime lecturers who taught the course “Public Service as Responsible Citizenship” this past year. As a part of this course, he collaborated with the Citizen’s Campaign, a New Jersey organization that promotes civic engagement. In so

doing, he partially modified his course to include a full discussion and implementation of the “no blame problem solving model.” The activities of his students culminated in an event where the students presented their work to local public and nonprofit leaders.

Associate Professor Dr. Lindsey McDougle received a grant from the Learning by Giving Foundation (Warren Buffet’s Foundation) for more than $50,000 to continue her experiential philanthropy program in which students distribute the funds to local nonprofit organizations in Newark based on a competitive basis. Upon successful completion of the pilot year, the foundation will draft a contract to provide $10,000 per year for continued support of the program.

As you can see, our staff and faculty continue to engage our community at high levels. If you have ideas or wish to be more engaged in our public service mission, please reach out to us.

– DEAN CHARLES E. MENIFIELD

Rutgers SPAA Workshop Discusses How Utilizing Behavioral Insights Can Improve Public Services and Community Quality of Life

Yuan Huang, Assistant Director of Policy and GovLabPHL for Mayor James F. Kenney of Philadelphia, PA 2 |

RUTGERS SPAANEWS

City officials, public administrators, and nonprofit managers assembled at Rutgers University–Newark on January 18, 2019, for the School of Public Affairs and Administration’s Behavioral Insights for Better Urban Services workshop. Hosted by Professor Gregg Van Ryzin and Assistant Professor Sebastian Jilke of SPAA’s Center for Behavioral and Public Administration (CEBPA), the workshop defined behavioral science and evidence-based policy for attendees and outlined how organizations can use behavioral science to improve public services and community quality of life.

“Given the special demands Newark has in terms of policies it wants to enact and services it provides to its populations, we saw this workshop as something beneficial to Newark and the greater area,” said Jilke.

Two behavioral insights teams, Lab@DC based in Washington, D.C., and GovLabPHL in Philadelphia, led sessions where participants learned about these teams’ operations and processes, their collaborations with local universities and community partners, and practical applications for municipal and organizational challenges.

“At my job, we always look for new and innovative ways to improve our performance and how we relate to the community,” said Aisha Irvis, Senior Coordinator of Corporate Relations at NJPAC. “The event illuminated how we assume rational behavior will dictate decision making, when in fact there are a number of irrational factors that need to be considered – and that’s really helpful in terms of my job and how to relate to different clients and sponsors.”

The 2019-2020 SPAAAN Executive Board, seated, left to right, are Matthew Distaulo (MPA’14), treasurer; Stephen Lyman (EMPA’17), president; Breanna Datesman (MPA’16), secretary; and Oneil Madden (MPA’17), vice president.

SPAA Alumni Network 2019-2020 Executive Board Takes Oath of Office On January 28, 2019, the 2019-2020 Executive Board for the SPAA Alumni Network (SPAAAN) took the oath of office following their election last fall. The newly installed officers include Stephen Lyman (EMPA’17), president; Oneil Madden (MPA’17), vice president; Breanna Datesman (MPA’16), secretary; and Matthew Distaulo (MPA’14), treasurer.

"Our goals while in office are to enhance the alumni network to foster methods of collaboration among alumni, students, Rutgers, and our community," said Lyman. "We want

to engage with the alumni network to determine what we can do to create cohesion at events, professional development seminars, and panel discussions. Finally, we want to encourage participation at not only alumni and Rutgers events but also in each others events personally and professionally."

The new board is encouraging any SPAA alumni interested in creating or joining a committee to contact the Network at spaaalumninetwork@gmail.com.

SPAA FACULTY REFLECT ON STATE OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ON 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF MINNOWBROOK

Left to right, Associate Professor Suzanne Piotrowski, Board of Governors Distinguished Professor Norma Riccucci, and Assistant Professor Sebastian Jilke

The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University recently hosted the Minnowbrook 50th Anniversary Conference. It marked 50 years since the first Minnowbrook meeting, where leading scholars in public administration set out to revolutionize the field, highlighting the importance of the administrative state for democracy. Three SPAA faculty members, Professors Sebastian Jilke, Suzanne Piotrowski, and Norma Riccucci were among the 50 invited scholars to reflect on the field since the first conference and determine, given the current period of global turbulence and uncertainty, how the field of public administration can respond to the political, economic, social, cultural, and environmental turmoil in a way that ensures that the values of democracy, legitimacy, and accountability will be preserved.

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SPAA Alumna Natasha Hemmings (MPA’16) Helps the Girl Scouts Break Through Barriers

Natasha is in,” says Kasanu Kims, leader of Troop 51030, Natasha Hemmings is working to bring the Girl Scouts to which marched with Hemmings. “For the girls to see someparts of the state where the organization has not traditionone like that says a lot and means a lot.” ally had a strong presence – in cities such as Newark, ElizaHemmings became involved in the Girl Scouts in 2000, beth, Jersey City, and Irvington. when she was appointed director of communications of the The new chief executive officer for the Girl Scouts Heart Girl Scouts of Delaware-Raritan in East Brunswick. She later of New Jersey is driven by her own experibecame chief marketing and communicaence growing up in the City of Plainfield. tions officer for the council in 2007, and She never met a Girl Scout in elementary began leading a troop at her two daughschool and the closest she came to learnters’ elementary school in Plainfield a ing anything about the organization was year later. listening to her mother talk about being a Beyond increasing the number of Girl Guide in her native Barbados. troops in urban areas, Hemmings also “It’s kind of hard to be what you can’t wants to introduce Girl Scouts in other see,” says Hemmings, who later became a types of underserved communities. She coleader of a troop her two daughters has expanded a program to create troops joined in Plainfield. for girls living at homeless shelters or Since taking over the top position of transitional housing developments in the council that oversees troops in a Newark and in East Orange that is supseven-county area in northern New Jersey ported through donations to erase any filast April, Hemmings has been working to nancial barriers to participation. increase the number of troops from “We don’t want there to be girls who PHOTO COURTESY NATASHA HEMMINGS 17,000 to 25,000, so that more girls will would love to experience Girl Scouting but have the opportunity to learn about community service and are prevented from doing so because they don’t have the other skills that are part of the Girl Scouts. money to join,” Hemmings said.

“I see the power of the Girl Scout leadership experience In the past six months, Hemmings bolstered an existing and what it’s been able to provide for my own daughters program serving girls and their mothers who are incarcerand the girls who were part of the troop that I led,” says ated at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility in Clinton, the Hemmings, who earned her master’s degree from the only women’s prison in New Jersey. While the program was School of Public Affairs and Administration (SPAA) at Rutpreviously open to girls whose mothers were incarcerated, gers University-Newark in 2016. “I want that opportunity Hemmings broadened it so that girls who have grandmothand exposure for other girls.” ers or older sisters in prison are eligible to join for free.

Hemmings, the first African-American CEO of the North Hemmings is also working to introduce Girl Scouts to Jersey council, has carved one day out of her schedule new cultural experiences. In July, nine girls from a troop in each week to visit Newark, the state’s largest city, and meet Newark visited Paris for a 10-day trip, which they paid for with leaders of civic groups and recreation centers to recruit with proceeds from their cookie sales over the last few adults to lead new troops in the city. years. During their visit, they met with a Paris-based troop As part of her effort to increase the visibility of the Girl of American Girl scouts and planted flags at the gravesites Scouts, Hemmings joined a troop in a three-hour Girls Matof African-American patriots in France. ter empowerment walk in September that snaked through “Some of the girls had never traveled on a plane before,” downtown Newark. “It’s important for the girls to see someHemmings says, “and some of them had never been outone who looks like them and who is in a position that side the state of New Jersey.”

BY SHERRIE NEGREA / RUTGERS TODAY

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RUTGERS SPAANEWS

Hemmings credits her experience at Rutgers-Newark with helping her develop the skills she needed to run the $7 million organization.

“I wouldn’t have had the courage to apply for the job without that degree and the coursework, the experiences, conversations, and projects that led to the degree,” she says.

It’s that experience she is using to improve the community by expanding the reach of the Girl Scouts.

“Research shows that the real outcome of being part of this organization is that Girl Scouts are service-minded,” she says. “Service to community beyond service to self is just a

way of life here. If more of the girls in our country took that on, just think how much better our world would be and how many more community projects would be solved.”

Charles Menifield, dean of SPAA, says Hemmings exemplifies the culture of public service and community engagement that is a key part of SPAA’s curriculum. “Her initiatives with the Girl Scouts are not only exposing new generations and demographics to leadership and empowerment opportunities, they are dismantling barriers faced by people in our own communities such as those who are homeless or incarcerated,” he says. “Those are the kind of real-world solutions that we train our students to create."

ALUMNINEWS SPAA Adjunct Professor MICHAEL DILLARD (MPA’10) was featured on News 12 New Jersey for his annual food drive with the Community FoodBank in NJ where hundreds of SPAA students, staff, and faculty help sort and pack food for families in need throughout the state.

“Sustainable, Resilient and Inclusive Societies through Participation of All."

DANIELLE HOFF (MPA’15) joined the Institute for Defense

SETH MEYER (PhD’18) and REBECCA PENA (MPA’17) won

+ Manoharan published a co-edited book, Innovative Perspectives on Public Administration in the Digital Age.

SPAA Adjunct Professor NORMAN ECKSTEIN (MPA’08) published a co-written article, “Technical Skills and Leadership in the Public Financial Management Profession” in Government Finance Review.

+ Manoharan published “Conceptualizing E-Government from Local Government Perspectives” in State and Local Government Review. The piece was co-authored with Alexander Ingrams (PhD’17).

Analyses as an HR Branding and Communications Specialist in IDA’s Human Resources Directorate.

the 2018 Best Poster Award at the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) Annual Conference for their research: "A Critical Analysis of Community Philanthropy in South Africa.”

ALEXANDER INGRAMS (PhD’17) published “Conceptualizing E-Government from Local Government Perspectives” in State and Local Government Review. The piece was co-authored with Aroon Manoharan (PhD’09).

MELLISSA LONGO (MPA’09) was named general counsel for

TrueCore Behavioral Solutions.

SARMISTHA RINA MAJUMDAR (PhD'03) authored the book,

The Politics of Fracking: Regulatory Policy and Local Community Responses to Environmental Concerns.

AROON MANOHARAN (PhD’09) presented at a Special

Meeting of the UN Economic and Social Council on

DAWN ODOM (BA’16, MPA’18) began a position with

Jumpstart at Rutgers University–Newark under the auspices of RU-N’s Office of University-Community Partnerships.

NICOLE YANCHUCK (MPA’18) began a position at the Center for Supportive Schools as an administrative and program associate in the organization's New Jersey office.

Have news to share? We welcome SPAA alumni news about career,

professional, and educational accomplishments. For more alumni

information and to share updates, visit spaa.newark.rutgers.edu/alumni.

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SPAA Associate Professor Yahong Zhang Takes Aim at Corruption

Associate Professor Yahong Zhang is the resident expert on corruption research at Rutgers SPAA. Prior to 2013, Zhang’s research focused on city government policy-making, management, and leadership, but shifted to corruption studies when she became the director of Rutgers Institute on Anti-Corruption Studies (RIACS), housed at SPAA. As director, she has promoted a widespread dialogue on corruption and anti-corruption research, provided recommendations and solutions on reducing corruption in public organizations, and trained students on conducting research in the field. We sat down with Zhang to discuss her priorities for the center and her perspective on public administration.

As director of RIACS, how would you describe the institute’s primary purpose?

RIACS is a platform for scholarly exchange among researchers and practitioners in the field of corruption and anti-corruption studies. Our primary purposes are to promote research in corruption, provide meaningful suggestions for government to reduce corruption, and train graduate students to develop research in that area.

The corruption issue by itself is important and government integrity is important, because these issues are associated with whether we can preserve fundamental values such as justice, equity, human rights, democracy, professionalism, etc. Our research is about whether the government can serve the public effectively and efficiently. It is about the legitimacy of the government and the public trust.

As a research center, we previously collected lots of educational information about anti-corruption efforts and created a repository of these re6 |

RUTGERS SPAANEWS

sources. We have invited well-known scholars and experienced practitioners to participate in our anti-corruption webinar series, and have invited students to collaborate on our research projects.

Can you tell us about a few of your current research projects?

I am currently working on a few corruption studies. The first one investigates how public employees’ intrinsic motivations and job related opportunities directly and indirectly shape their corruptibility – the propensity to engage in corrupt activities.

The second project explores the extent to which corruption could be a rational choice based on cost and benefit assessment or driven by social values and norms. Both projects are empirical and use large-scale survey data from public servants in China.

I am also working on a project on globalization of higher education with Lois Warner, a fellow faculty member, and one of our PhD students, Hanjin Mao. We’re conducting a comprehensive literature review on educating Asian students in public administration and other social sciences. The purpose of the research is to explore the question of how public administration programs can better accommodate Asian students while maintaining education quality.

What current trends are you noticing in public administration scholarship, and how have these trends shaped your research and teaching?

Public administration scholarship has a history of 130 years. In the past, there was a research focus, or trend, and those trends altered with the changing paradigms of the field. However, in recent years, the foci are not as obvious as they were 20 years ago.

Scholars are contributing to the very diverse discipline with various topics, different theoretical perspectives – many adopted from other disciplines – and many evolving analytical tools in the digital era. Therefore, I would say diversity in topics, perspectives, and analytical methods may become a current trend in public administration scholarship. I think this is just an indication of the maturity of the discipline.

This trend of diversity has really made more resources accessible for research and it’s certainly expanded my research as I keep learning and trying new topics, new theories, and new methods. Also, as I’m teaching research methods to MPA and PhD students, I try to learn something new each year and incrementally update my syllabi in order to catch up with the new technology that is useful for research and direct students to useful data sources. The customized and interactive learning process has been helpful for students.

Despite the rapid changes in the field, what is unchanged is the commitment of researchers, which is to help government, through research, to improve performance by reforms, innovations, collaborations, motivations, etc., and to help government uphold its fundamental values.

ACCOLADES SPAA BA Student DAVID ASAFU-ADJAYE with teammate Ryan Hemnarine earned the Rutgers University–Newark Debate Team the championship at the Kathryn Klassic at USC Fullerton.

MPA student INTASHAN CHOWDHURY (BA’18) was sworn in as the borough administrator for Prospect Park, NJ.

JAMES DAVY, distinguished practitioner in residence, was honored by the New Jersey Municipal Management Association for his 40 years of service as an NJMMA member during the 103rd Annual League of Municipalities Conference.

RACHEL EMAS, assistant teaching professor, re-

ceived a $1,000 Open and Affordable Texts grant from the Rutgers Library to further develop the MPA course “Applied Research Design.”

+ Emas delivered the keynote address, titled “Community Food Systems: Looking at Local Solutions for Sustainability,” at the 4th Annual Acting Locally for a More Sustainable World Conference held by the Northeast Earth Coalition.

Doctoral student CYNTHIA GOLEMBESKI was selected as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Research Scholar.

+ Golembeski was also selected as a Center on Law, Inequality and Metropolitan Equity Fellow.

MADINAH HAMIDULLAH, associate research pro-

fessor, was appointed as the Undergraduate Committee Chair for the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration (NASPAA).

REGINALD LEWIS, assistant professor of professional practice, won Newark Public Library's Community Partnership Award at the library's "Booked for the Evening” in November.

LINDSEY MCDOUGLE, associate professor, received a

grant from the Learning by Giving Foundation for more than $50,000 to continue her experiential philanthropy program for the next five years.

+ McDougle was appointed to the editorial board for Public Administration Review.

+ McDougle was appointed a co-chair for the 2019 American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) Conference.

+ McDougle was appointed as co-chair for the 2019 Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) conference.

CHARLES MENIFIELD, dean, was inducted into the

National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) as a fellow during the academy’s Annual Fall Meeting in Washington, D.C.

MPA students ERIK CRUZ MORALES, DOROTHY THOMPSONWILKES, and FRANCISCO VARGAS received Eagleton Institute of Politics Fellowships.

SUZANNE PIOTROWSKI, associate professor, was

appointed to the Freedom of Information Act Advisory Committee, created by the National Archives and Records Administration to improve the flow of information between the government and the public and increase government transparency.

NORMA RICCUCCI received the 2018 John Gaus

Award and Lectureship during the American Political Science Association’s Annual Meeting held in Boston, MA.

MPA students JOSEPH MAYA RODRIGUEZ (BA’18) and

CLAUDIA SAAVEDRA (BA’18) were selected as Forbes Under

30 Scholars.

MPA student RICKY STEPHENS (BA’18) began a position as a legislative aide to Assemblyman Jamel C. Holley of New

Jersey’s 20th District.

Doctoral student KAREEM WILLIS (BA’16, MPA’17) received

the Rodney Gilbert Award at the Newark PROUD Awards for his contributions, achievements and activism regarding LBGTQ issues.

YAHONG ZHANG, associate professor, was appointed to the

editorial board for the Journal of Public Administration Research & Theory.

+ Zhang was invited to join the Expert Advisory Group to review governance for the Legatum Prosperity Index by the Legatum Institute in London.

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SPAA Kicks Off Community Research Series with Discussion on Open Government

Four experts on open government came together at the School of Public Affairs and Administration on September 28, 2018, for a roundtable discussion titled “Can Open Government Promote Good Governance?” which explored the impact of open government initiatives on the lives of citizens.

The roundtable, hosted by SPAA’s Transparency and Governance Center (TGC) in coordination with SPAA’s Office of Public Engagement, was the kickoff event for a new series that provides a platform for members of the community to critically discuss governments' efforts to promote transparency, collaboration, and public participation. The series is funded by the Pratt Bequest Fund based at Rutgers Law School.

“The purpose of this roundtable was to facilitate a critical discussion on open government and consider the extent to which the way open government is understood might vary according to context,” said Gregory Porumbescu, associate director of the TGC. “To this end, we invited a diverse panel of scholars to share their experiences with this popular reform trend. A central takeaway from this discussion was that while implications of open government may vary according to context, open government initiatives cannot succeed through the actions of government alone.”

Alasdair Roberts, director of the School of Public Policy and professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, moderated the discussion with panelists Mila Gasco, associate research director at the Center for Tech-

PHOTO BY KUANG-TING TAI

Roundtable moderator Alasdair Roberts, left, and panelist Fredline M'Cormack-Hale

nology in Government and research associate professor of public administration at the University of Albany; Tawana Johnson, the acting chief information officer for the City of Newark; and Fredline M’Cormack-Hale, an associate professor of political science at Seton Hall University.

During their discussion, the speakers offered open government case studies from Spain and Sierra Leone, addressed the importance of transparency in mitigating societal ills, and suggested increasing transparency within nonprofits and private organizations.

“My professor taught me about open government just last week and then I saw the flyer so I came over,” said SPAA undergraduate student Anna Agbotse. “It was really worth it because I’m very interested in how the government operates and this was a great foundation to expand my understanding.”

SCHOOL OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS AND ADMINISTRATION (SPAA) RUTGERS, THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW JERSEY 111 WASHINGTON STREET NEWARK, NJ 07102

RUTGERS SPAANEWS is published by SPAA Communications and Marketing in the School of Public Affairs and Administration (SPAA) at Rutgers University–Newark. Story ideas, news, and comments are welcome.

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