Volume 1, Number 1 - Fall 1997

Table of Contents

New faculty

	Brian L. Fife is associate professor of public and environmental affairs at IPFW. He received a B.A. in political science (cum laude) from the University of Maine in 1985; an M.A. in political science from the State University of New York at Binghamton in 1986; and a Ph.D. in Political Science from SUNY at Binghamton in 1990. He was an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Ball State University from 1990-94 and an associate professor from 1994-97. He joined SPEA in 1997. His teaching interests include public policy, public administration, and law and public affairs. His research is focused on education policy, and he is the author of School Desegregation in the Twenty-First Century: The Focus Must Change (1997, Edwin Mellen Press) and Desegregation in American Schools: Comparative Intervention Strategies (1992, Praeger) as well as several articles. Fife was born in Maine and resides in Fort Wayne with his wife, Melissa, and his two sons, Sam and Jack.
	David C. May is assistant professor of public and environmental affairs. He will receive a Ph.D. in sociology with emphasis in criminology from Mississippi State University in December 1997. He has published in Deviant Behavior and has presented research papers at numerous regional and national conferences. His primary areas of research and teaching include fear of crime, firearms and crime, public opinion concerning legalization of prostitution and other crimes against the moral order, and juvenile delinquency.
	Andrew H. Stevenson is an assistant professor in the Division of Public and Environmental Affairs. His educational background includes a Ph.D. in sociology from Indiana University Bloomington, a J.D. from the University of California-Hastings College of the Law, and a B.S. in economics from Miami University. His primary areas of teaching include introduction to criminal justice, criminal law, and criminal procedure. His research interests include juvenile delinquency, the causes of juvenile crime, social control, issues relating to the relationship between law and society, and self-control theory.

Director's Notes

by William G. Ludwin

Welcome to the premier issue of SPEAking of..., a newsletter for students, alumni, friends, and colleagues that we intend to publish twice a year. It contains information we think you might be interested in. Tell me if we're right, and tell me what else you would like to see in your newsletter. I would appreciate your help, your suggestions, comments, and criticism will help us make SPEAking of... more interesting and useful.

As you can see, we have three new young and dynamic faculty members who bring strong academic credentials from across the country: Brian Fife from Maine and New York, David May from Alabama and Mississippi, and Andrew Stevenson from Ohio, California, and Indiana.

In this issue, you'll also find reports from Ginny McCaskey, winner of a prestigious Presidential Management Internship; Kent Kiracofe, a current participant in SPEA's Washington Leadership Program; and Tom Bartholomy, chair of our Community Advisory Board and president of the Better Business Bureau of Northeastern Indiana. He won this year's Teaching Excellence Award, presented by SPEA at IPFW, and the Outstanding Associate Faculty award, presented by the full-time faculty at IPFW.

Check for your name or the names of your friends on our Honor Roll of students; see who won awards.
SPEAking of... has the information you need to stay in-the-know with the School of Public and Environmental Affairs.

PMI: Experience built in

by Virginia McCaskey, M.P.A. '97
Presidential Management Intern
Social Security Administration

As graduation from the Master in Public Affairs program approached, many of my friends asked me what I planned to do with my degree. I would shrug and say I wasn't sure. It was hard to imagine what my life would be like when I no longer had to study on top of working full time. Thanks to a program called the Presidential Management Internship, I now have a better answer to that question.

The Presidential Management Internship (PMI) Program was established 20 years ago, when the federal government became aware that many college graduates were shunning careers in public service in favor of business and industry due to comparatively low wages and lack of opportunity in government jobs. The program is one of a number of methods the federal government uses to recruit highly qualified college graduates.

The PMI program solicits applications annually in the fall. Students who will graduate from master's and Ph.D. programs within the year are eligible for nomination by their dean. The selection process is competitive, and varies from year to year. However, it always includes a screening of applications and attendance at an assessment center, where the applicants' skills in the areas of writing, policy analysis, and leadership are evaluated.

Those who are selected as finalists in March or April are eligible to interview for internship slots within numerous federal agencies. Each agency budgets for the number of PMI positions they would like to fill. This year, approximately 30 federal agencies hired PMIs, including Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Justice, and the Office of Management and Budget. Almost all of the PMI positions are in federal agency headquarters in the Washington, D.C., area. There are a limited number of positions in some agencies in field and regional offices.

The Office of Personnel Management, which coordinates the PMI program, facilitates the selection process by hosting a job fair in Washington in the late spring. They provide a listing of available positions, and give agencies the resumes of finalists. Finalists have until the end of the calendar year to find a position.

PMIs start the two-year internship as a GS-9-level employee of the agency, and are offered many opportunities for development and training, including rotations within and outside the agency. The Office of Personnel Management also hosts training activities. PMIs usually have a mentor who helps them write an Individual Development Plan. The purpose of the plan is to ensure that PMIs refine their career goals and gain the experience they need to move into a leadership position in the agency.
I started my internship late last summer at the Social Security Administration (SSA) Office Of Disability (OD) Division of Employment and Rehabilitation Programs (DERP). (Fluency in acronyms is required of all government employees). I work in a department that prepares grant and contract announcements for research and projects to help disabled individuals return to work.

During my two-year internship, I hope to spend some time in the department that handles SSA work-incentive provisions and to do a rotation at the Health Care Financing Administration.

I would encourage anyone in the program who thinks they might be interested in the PMI program to inquire at the SPEA office. I would be happy to talk personally with anyone who would like to hear more about the program. I can be contacted through SPEA.

People have already started to ask me what I plan to do after the internship. Once again, I find myself shrugging. But, in the meantime, I'm learning a lot and having a great time.

1996-97
SPEA Honors

The following SPEA students were recognized at the 1997 Honors Convocation on Oct. 5 for attaining semester honors, Dean's List status, or both, for one or both semesters of the 1996-97 academic year.

Semester honors students have earned at least 6 credits that are included in the graduation GPA and achieve at least a 3.5 semester and 2.0 graduation GPA. The Dean's List requires that a student have at least 12 credits included in the graduation index, have at least 6 credits included in the semester GPA, and achieve at least a 3.5 graduation and 3.0 semester GPA. We extend our hearty congratulations to these students:

The following faculty and students were honored at the SPEA 25th Anniversary Reception on May 2, 1997:

Teaching Excellence Award-Full-Time Faculty: Carol S. Steinhaus
Teaching Excellence Award-Associate Faculty: Thomas M. Bartholomy
Distinguished Alumni Award: Linda Buskirk, M.P.A. '94, director, Board of Public Works, City of Fort Wayne
Outstanding Student Award-undergraduate: Karen Morris
Outstanding Student Award-graduate: Virginia McCaskey
Community Achievement Award: Kenneth Watson, executive director, Youth Services Center

Pi Alpha Alpha

The 1997 Pi Alpha Alpha inductees were also honored at the the SPEA 25th Anniversary Reception. They are: undergraduate Karen Morris and graduate students Pamela Brookshire, Lenore Hammerbacher, and Virginia McCaskey. Pi Alpha Alpha is the national honorary society for schools of public affairs and administration. Senior and second-semester juniors are eligible when they are in the top 10 percent of their class with a minimum GPA of 3.50 in at least 15 credits of SPEA courses and overall GPA of 3.0. SPEA graduate students who have completed one-half of their graduate course work qualify for membership by being in the top 20 percent of their class with a minimum GPA of 3.5.

Criminal Justice Honor Society

SPEA is rejuvenating interest in the criminal-justice honor society, Alpha Phi Sigma. Students must have a cumulative GPA of 3.20 and a 3.50 major in criminal-justice courses. If you qualify for this honor society and have not been contacted regarding membership, please contact David May or Jane Loomis at SPEA.

Leadership Program

by Kent W. Kiracofe
B.S.C.J., December 1997

The Washington Leadership Program has been a very interesting and challenging experience. The program, based in Washington, D.C., consists of two components: the classroom and the internship. This semester, the classroom portion includes V472 The Public Policy Process in the United States, V450 Contemporary Issues in Public Affairs, and E400 Topics in Environmental Studies. The classes are taught by Professor Emeritus Philip Rutledge. Each week several areas of public policy are discussed by Professor Rutledge and a variety of guest speakers. Guest lecturers have included Emerson Markham, consultant for the National Academy of Public Administration; Robert Knox, deputy director, Office of Environmental Justice; and Dona Wolf, executive director, American Consortium for International Public Administration.

The classroom setting is unlike traditional settings in that the lectures are very interactive. Text for the class provides a background for discussion while the lecture and other sources, such as the Washington Post, provide the bulk of the learning experience. Other experiences have included field trips to the EPA, Capital Hill, Department of Energy, and the Department of State. Classes meet every Friday morning and one evening a week.

The internship component of the program varies among most of the 35 participants in the program. Internships include positions at House and Ways Means Committee, Department of State, Council of State Governments, Office of Personnel Management, Department of the Navy, Federal Aviation Administration, American Health Institute, and Senator Lugar's office.
My internship is with the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, otherwise known as the COPS office. The COPS office was created under the 1994 crime bill. It has the responsibility of granting the money necessary to fund the 100,000 additional police officers authorized by the bill.

I work in the Program/Policy Support and Evaluation division. The primary responsibility of the division is to implement and evaluate various COPS programs. Currently the PPSE is working on the Problem Solving Partnership or PSP. The PSP includes 450 agencies nationwide. The goal of this partnership is to fund policing agencies and community-based organizations that collaborate to respond to a persistent community problem.

My job with this program has been to code and enter into a database responses from evaluation forms that grantees have submitted so that queries can be easily performed. I then determine whether the evaluation needs further review. I also perform literature reviews of materials on different subjects in the criminal-justice field. In addition, I was given the opportunity to attend the National Crime Prevention Conference. At the conference I met and listened to several interesting persons, including James Calhoun, director, National Crime Prevention Council; Erik Wish, director, Center for Substance Abuse Research; and many police chiefs from around the country.

The Washington Leadership Program provides a great opportunity to network in the D.C. area. It can also help you find a job in the public-policy field, or with the federal government. I would encourage anyone who is interested to apply.

SPEACAB

This year's winner of the longest acronym award goes to... Seriously, SPEACAB (School of Public and Environmental Affairs Community Advisory Board) is a group of SPEA M.P.A. alumni appointed by William G. Ludwin to provide the division with a more-external vision of what SPEA should accomplish in northeastern Indiana.

To that end, the board has been reviewing, and providing input on, SPEA's plans and goals as well as the overall mission of the division. This is not your normal, lifeless mission statement, but a highly proactive vision for what SPEA needs to achieve in this marketplace. I will keep you updated on our specific progress in future issues of this newsletter.
You may recall that SPEACAB contacted all alumni last year regarding the SPEA Community Achievement Award. The board nominated five very deserving individuals and the alumni selected the winner: Ken Watson, executive director, Youth Services Center. This year will be a little different. We are going to ask alumni for the nominees and then ask them to, once again, select the winner. Nomination forms will be mailed soon.

So, who comprises this SPEACAB anyway? Current members are: Jim Anderson, Fort Wayne Children's Zoo; Linda Buskirk, City of Fort Wayne Board of Public Works; Ron Buskirk, City of Fort Wayne Police Department; Bruce Hamilton, Lutheran Hospital; Stacy Hartman, Parkview Hospital; Karen Goldner, City of Fort Wayne Economic Development Division; T. Neil Moore, former City of Fort Wayne Chief of Police; Nelson Peters, County Council Member; Tom Bartholomy, Better Business Bureau.

Feel free to contact any of us with your comments- it is your school and we can make a difference.

Tom Bartholomy, M.P.A. '86
Chair, SPEA Community Advisory Board
President, Better Business Bureau of Northeastern Indiana, Inc.

Healthcare Courses

SPRING 1998
SPEA H322 Principles of Epidemiology/ SPEA H517  Public Health Epidemiology will be offered Thursdays 6-8:45 p.m. by Carol Steinhaus. No prerequisite.

SPEA H422 The Social Epidemics:
AIDS, Violence and Substance Abuse will be taught Tuesdays and Thursdays 9-10:15 a.m. by David Whiteis.

SPEA H455 Topics in Public Health: Cross-Cultural Issues in Healthcare Delivery will be offered Tuesdays and Thursdays noon-1:15 p.m. by David Whiteis.