Putting the ROCK back in BuROCKracy as Maxwell Welcomes our new MPA students!

Professor Tina Nabatchi welcomes the new MPA students with an engaging session on “What is Public Administration?”

On Wednesday we welcomed the newest class of Maxwell MPA students to Syracuse University.  It is an exceptional class of public service dedicated professionals from around the world and across the United States. Numbering 108 in total, they arrived over the holiday weekend and were quickly immersed in the first class of the program, PA Colloquium.

We were delighted to have our very own Professor Tina Nabatchi engage our new students in an Introduction to the Field of Public Administration Wednesday morning. A video of this session is found on the Maxwell School YouTube Website at this link.

[  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHhG74NXveg&feature=youtu.be ]

This thoughtful and dynamic session is just around an hour long – and provided a comprehensive introduction to the field and an enthusiastic welcome to our new students.

Now about our new MPA students.. as I said, they number 108 and are equally divided by gender. The average age is 27 with 38% at age 24 or younger and 33% at age 30 or more.  A quarter are international students representing:  Australia, Cambodia, China, the Dominican Republic, India, Japan, Mexico, Myanmar, Pakistan, Peru, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Sweden, Taiwan, Tunisia, Turkey and Uzbekistan… of those from the US, 27 different states are represented.

We continue to see solid racial and ethnic diversity with 25% of our US students identifying as a student of color with a number of first generation and New Americans in the cohort.

The most common undergraduate major is Political Science, but that represents just about a third of our incoming students. International Relations; Sociology/Social Work/Family Studies; History; Government/Public Administration and Economics are also well represented. Students also studied: Communications/Public Relations; Engineering; Environmental Sciences/Sustainability; the hard sciences like Biology and Chemistry; English and other languages; Criminal Justice; Management and Finance; Anthropology/Culture/Gender Studies; Music/Theater Management and the Arts; Psychology and Religion/Divinity Studies. Collectively our new students speak well over a dozen languages fluently.

We have a half dozen or more active military, veteran and reserve officers from the various branches of the US military including three past or current military intelligence officers and a US Coast Guard Fellow.  Cumulatively, they have been awarded numerous commendation medals, two Bronze Stars and one Purple Heart.   With this cohort, Syracuse University welcomed its first Pat Tillman Scholar (see prior blog post).

Additionally our new students have worked for all levels of government in the US and abroad, held positions is non-profits and NGOs worldwide, have active records of public service, serving not only in the military (as noted above) but also in the US Peace Corps, Teach for America, Americorps VISTA programs, AIESEC. the Posse Foundation, UNESCO, UNDP programs, Care International and Doctor’s without Borders, just to name a few.  We welcomed government officials from Peru, Cambodia, India, Mexico and Japan among our ranks, as well as a Charles B. Rangel Fellow, several Ronald McNair Scholars, a NYC Teaching Fellow, the coach of an internationally competitive debate team out of China, two published authors, a veteran newspaper reporter, a former employee of the Swedish National Police, a Two-Day Jeopardy champ, the NYS 2016 Mother of the Year (and internationally recognized blogger on all things related to parenting) and a member of the Tunisian National Rugby Team.

And as impressive, interesting and diverse as this group of 108 new students is – the one thing that brings them all together in Syracuse, NY is that they aspire to careers where they can MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE..  And where better to move forward in that journey than the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.

Welcome to Syracuse. Welcome to Syracuse University. Welcome to the Maxwell School and Welcome to our MPA program! We are excited for an amazing year ahead!