March – May 2011 Activities
- Faculty member Eric Zeemering (also President of the Bay Area Chapter of the American Society for Public Administration) celebrated Public Employee Recognition Week by writing a public opinion article entitle, “Public Employees are Your Friends, Neighbors and Allies.” The article was published by the San Jose Mercury News.
- Student Katerina Nikolova has just (May 2011) accepted a position as Executive Assistant to the General Manager of Human Resources for Chevron Corporation at its San Ramon headquarters.
- MPA student Jenny Cohen was just selected (May 2011) for the summer internship with the San Francisco office of the Multistate Tax Credits and Incentives group of Deloitte and Touche. Our student selected for last summer’s internship (Lesley Miller) was offered a full-time job after completing the program.
- Melissa Lee (a student currently studying policy abroad in Amsterdam) has been selected for the IRS Exempt Organization Summer 2011 Graduate Internship Program with the Customer Education and Outreach Department– Exempt Organizations of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. Congratulations to Melissa as she returns from Amsterdam and begins this interesting internship.
- Christine Lias (current student) is now Fund Development & Community Relations Assistant at the Alameda Point Collaborative.
- The Department recently reconnected with Phillip Vance (Class of 1986); he is now City Manager in Martinez. He has also been City Manager in Moraga.
- Student Christine Hoffman is now Human Resources Analyst II at the Dublin-San Ramon Services District and loves being at a small agency.
- PA faculty member Sheldon Gen was recently an invited speaker at San Antonio’s “Great Cities Dialog,” a community engagement effort hosted by the City of San Antonio and the University of Texas at San Antonio. His talk was based upon a research paper he wrote with recent MPA graduate Erika Luger on public outreach. They are sending their paper to a journal for publication.
- MPA faculty member and Department Chair Genie Stowers has been selected to serve as co-chair of the Executive Committee of the Pacific Mountain Region of the American Friends Service Committee.
- On March 3rd, Dr. Eric Zeemering was invited to present an overview of special districts to a joint hearing on “California’s Special Districts: Efficiency and Alternatives” before the California Assembly Committee on Accountability and Administrative Review and the Assembly Local Government Committee. This followed a February 15th presentation by Dr. Zeemering at the University of California Sacramento Center on sustainability and cities.
- The Department hosted a delegation of government officials from Xiangfan in March and April as part of a public administration training program. All faculty participated by conducting interactive training sessions with the officials in their own areas of expertise. In addition, the group visited San Francisco’s City Hall and the cities of Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C.
- Professors Sheldon Gen and Jennifer Shea have both been awarded special grants to attend advanced statistical analysis workshops this summer. SF State’s Office of Research and Sponsored Programs and the Research Methods Learning Community have granted them registration and travel funds to study new techniques such as social network analysis and how to get the most out of special data collections on education topics.
- MPA grad Lesley Miller (‘2010), the recipient of last year’s (and the first) internship with Deloitte Touche was offered and accepted a position as an Analyst with their San Francisco Office in the State Taxation section.
- The SF State Chapter of Pi Alpha Alpha met up with the San Jose State Chapter to bowl for charity in early March, 2011. As can be seen by the pictures on our Flickr site, a good time was had by all. The money that was raised went to the Make A Wish Foundation. Thanks to Amit Raikar and faculty advisor Eric Zeemering for organizing the event.
- Professor Sheldon Gen’s PA 776: Environmental Policy class went to a wastewater treatment plant as one of their class activities.
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