Truman School of Government and Public Affairs

Somewhere there is a gap between what we think the world should be and what policies can actually effect positive change. Bridging the two is something that TSPA student Michael Gawlick dedicated himself to as a Public Policy Fellow for the Urban Leaders Fellowship this past summer. The fellowship was centered on facilitating systems-level change, a harmony between problem-solving and an understanding for how such policy affects a broader community. A core philosophy of the Urban Leaders is “to impact real and lasting change, creating smart policy is not enough.

In the summer of 2018, ruman School graduate Zedilson Almeida became an Obama Leader. One of 200 Leaders from 44 countries throughout Africa, Almeida is Angola’s sole representative and will participate in a year of high impact problem-solving sessions, workshops, and serve in activities aimed at addressing local and international crises.

Political Science major James Bohnett was in the first class of Kinder Scholars and is currently working on his honors capstone. His achievements in the classroom and on the basketball court were recently featured by MU Student Affairs.

As I begin searching for my first career out of graduate school, I was interested in networking with other professionals in the field. I received the opportunity to assist with the initial development of a new nonprofit in northeast Iowa called Camp Bangarang. Camp Bangarang is a fun, empowering, and completely free camp experience for children with life-threatening illnesses and their families.

In IPP news this week, the Women’s Foundation released new research conducted in partnership with the Institute of Public Policy that supports proposed legislation to expand Earned Family and Medical Leave to all Missourians.  Last March, Gov. Greitens signed EO 17-09, granting executive branch employees up to six weeks of parental leave following the birth or adoption of a child.  Several measures are now under consideration to extend Earned Family and Medical Leave to all Missourians.

Ed Goldring received a place on the Institute for Far Eastern Studies’ (IFES) summer program in 2017. IFES is a research arm of Kyungnam University in South Korea, whose scholars focus on research relating to peace and unification on the Korean Peninsula. Ed conducted research for two months over the summer in Seoul, including interviews with North Korean defectors, policy, and media professionals.

Dictators and Their Secret Police by Assistant Professor Sheena Greitens has been named a co-winner of the 2017 Best Book Award from the American Political Science Association Section on Comparative Democratization.  The selection committee was “deeply impressed with the rigor of [the] comparative analysis and the magnitude of [the] book’s theoretical contributions to our understanding of coercive institutions.”  The book was recognized at the September APSA conference in San Francisc