A new decade is on the horizon 2019 marks the beginning of the eighth year of the School of Public Affairs. Born at a time when demographics, competition and technology began to change the higher education landscape, we have grown despite headwinds in our outreach to our communities, in our education of professionals serving in the public interest, and in the partnerships we have developed. This year saw the culmination of St. Cloud State University’s Sesquicentennial. The School of Public Affairs offered a Winter Institute to study immigration. On a day so cold that the rest of the campus was closed, Winter Institute nevertheless enlightened about 160 attendees plus many more who watched online to hear two economists with very different views and a successful author with her own refugee experience. As I was leaving Ritsche Auditorium I turned back towards the stage. Seated in the front row was our last speaker who had worked very hard for the last 90 minutes. Around him were about a dozen students, all eager to ask questions. When I later asked him how he had enjoyed his day, he talked about that experience. “You have really great students,” he said. It’s a story that replays in every classroom: a professor doing their best teaching after class is done, at that moment when the student asks his question and gets his answer. It’s the purest expression of what we do and what we love. And no amount of headwinds in higher education shakes that. When you see the student “get it”, it’s not just the student that is charged up. Traveling with students to the UK last March was moving to me. You watch students who had just met before the trip connect with each other and become lifelong friends, see a place you’ve been before through their eyes, and it renews you as a teacher or as a dean. We are proud of a new program under development for training land surveyors with a more affordable curriculum, and we are proud of our new partnership with the National Center for Autonomous Technologies. But every picture of a student you see here has a story of their own, and it’s intertwined with a moment outside of a classroom when he or she asked that one extra question, and with a person who explored it with them. Thanks for reading this report and exploring the School of Public Affairs!
King Banaian Dean, School of Public Affairs
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| School of Public Affairs
