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School of Public and Environmental AffairsAbout the School About the SchoolThe School of Public and Environmental Affairs (SPEA), the nation's largest school of its kind, is a professional school dedicated to applied, interdisciplinary learning combining the study of public affairs and environmental sciences. The interests of the faculty and professional staff typically fall into one or more of the following areas: criminal justice The school's faculty, staff, and students work individually and jointly to solve problems that require SPEA's unique combination of in-depth knowledge in the natural, behavioral, social, and administrative sciences. SPEA, because of its broad program base, offers scientific and technical assistance to Indiana communities from any of the eight Indiana University campuses. The school maintains a wide network of relations with a large number of public agencies at all levels of government. The degree programs offered by the School of Public and Environmental Affairs range from the associate degree, offered primarily on the regional campuses, to the Ph.D. The school offers four professional master's degrees for individuals interested in achieving leadership positions in public, private, and voluntary organizations: Master of Public Affairs (M.P.A.) The M.P.A. is a professional degree structured around concepts and skills essential to public management, policy, and planning activities in the public, nonprofit, and private sectors. The M.S.E.S. provides students with a strong background in environmental sciences while emphasizing the applied aspects of environmental research and management. The M.H.A. provides a broad, balanced foundation of theoretical and practical knowledge and technical skills needed to succeed in health administration and health policy and planning. The M.Pl. is a professional degree that prepares students to address social, physical, and economic problems in a systematic and creative way. Additionally, SPEA's master's degrees may be pursued in combination with degrees in law, nursing, library science, biology, information science, journalism, geography, geological sciences, and degrees offered by a number of area studies centers and institutes. At the doctoral level, SPEA offers: The Ph.D. in public policy is jointly delivered with the Department of Political Science. The Ph.D. in environmental science is delivered by SPEA with the cooperation of the Departments of Biology, Chemistry, Geography, Geological Sciences, and others. Associations and ClubsSPEA Alumni Association Alpha Phi Sigma American College of Healthcare Executives Pi Alpha Alpha SPEA graduate students can qualify for membership by being in the top 20 percent of their M.H.A., M.P.A., M.Pl., or M.S.E.S. class, with a minimum overall grade point average of 3.5, a 3.7 in at least 50 percent of all required courses, and by having completed 50 percent of the required course work (i.e., 24 to 30 credit hours). Any doctoral student who has successfully passed the qualifying examination is eligible. Alumni are eligible if they meet all the requirements of student membership but graduate before induction by the Indiana chapter. Any full-time faculty member of a NASPAA-member institution that offers course work in a public affairs or administration degree program and at which a Pi Alpha Alpha chapter is located is eligible for membership. Honorary membership is available to any person who has achieved distinction in public administration and who has the qualities that Pi Alpha Alpha fosters. SPEA Centers, Institutes, Programs, and ServicesThe School of Public and Environmental Affairs encompasses public service activities that complement innovative academic programs. The school provides a wide variety of services to an equally broad range of federal, state, and local agencies. The Business-SPEA Library is a Bloomington branch of the Indiana University Libraries system. It fulfills the research and study needs of the School of Business and the School of Public and Environmental Affairs. The library has extensive electronic and traditional resources. Detailed information about the Business-SPEA Library can be found at its Web site at www.indiana.edu/~bslib/index.html. The Community Research Institute (CRI), located on the Fort Wayne campus, provides research and assistance for the economic, social, and public sector development of northeast Indiana. Additional information about CRI can be found at www.ipfw.edu/cri/cri.htm. The goals of the Environmental Science Research Center are to promote excellence in environmental science research and to foster increased interdisciplinary collaboration among environmental science faculty on the Indiana University Bloomington campus. The center has no degree programs. The center can be listed as an affiliation of the associated faculty in publications and in correspondence. In this way, the visibility of the environmental sciences at IU Bloomington is enhanced. Activities of the center include seminars, discussion groups, proposal preparation workshops, etc. The center director is Distinguished Professor Ronald A. Hites. The Executive Education Program is one of the most prestigious leadership programs in the nation. Offered through the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, the Executive Education Program works with the government, nonprofit agencies, and the private sector to prepare leaders and managers to meet today's challenges and anticipate tomorrow's opportunities. The Executive Education Program offers graduate-level programs at four sites nationally—Washington, D.C.; Seattle, Washington; and Indianapolis, Indiana, for the United States Navy; and Louisville, Kentucky, for the United States Army Corps of Engineers. Graduate programs include the Master of Public Affairs (M.P.A.), the Public Management Certificate, and the Environmental Management Certificate. In 1985 the Executive Education Program formed a partnership with the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), the leading transportation organization in the United States. Together, they created two institutes to challenge and educate transportation leaders, the National Transportation Leadership Institute and the Graduate Transportation Leadership Institute, two of the most influential leadership development programs for transportation officials. In partnership with the Indiana Hospital and Health Association (IHHA), Executive Education created a ten-course management curriculum leading to a Certificate in Healthcare Management. Through the IHHA Management Institute, managers are equipped with the knowledge, skills, and abilities to help them lead their organizations in a rapidly changing environment. SPEA's Executive Education Program also offers customized leadership and management programs for local, regional, and national clients. The Great Lakes Center for Public Affairs and Administration is a unit of the Division of Public and Environmental Affairs on the IU Northwest campus. The center conducts research and provides technical services to units of government and other institutions in northwest Indiana. The center also focuses on issues in public affairs and administration in the Great Lakes region. The Indiana Conflict Resolution Institute (ICRI) has a threefold mission: teaching, research, and service in conflict resolution and dispute resolution processes. ICRI's teaching mission includes the development of undergraduate, graduate, continuing education, and executive education curricula to foster a deeper understanding and broader use of dispute resolution processes such as mediation facilitation, early neutral evaluation, ombudsman programs, arbitration, partnering, and related consensus-based processes. Its research mission includes evaluation of dispute resolution processes and programs in public and nonprofit organizations with the goal of contributing to continuous improvement in both the processes and our knowledge of their impact on participants and organizations. ICRI's service mission is to provide information and technical assistance regarding dispute resolution for our community and the state of Indiana. Additional information about ICRI can be found at www.spea.indiana.edu/icri. The Institute for Development Strategies, co-sponsored by the Office of Research and the University Graduate School and the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, is a university-wide research program linking faculty resources from various departments and campuses. The institute examines research-related problems in the field of economic development at local, national, and international levels. It focuses on strategies for economic development and conducts research on the causes and consequences of global change. Additional information can be found at www.spea.indiana.edu/ids. The Institute for Family and Social Responsibility (FASR) is a joint effort of the School of Public and Environmental Affairs and the School of Social Work, with its focus on social policy research and outreach activities. The institute's mission is to bring together the resources of citizens, governments, communities, and Indiana University to better the lives of children and families. Ongoing research projects examine the effectiveness of two new e-government methods of distributing child support and the roles of faith-based organizations in the delivery of social services. Prior projects have examined the impacts of welfare reforms, the adequacy of child support guidelines, community responses to the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families legislation, AIDS education for incarcerated youth, the homeless, and battered women. The institute serves as the National Child Support Enforcement Research Clearinghouse. It also administers a university-wide competitive student internship program in collaboration with the Indiana Family Social Services Administration. Further information concerning FASR can be found at www.spea.indiana.edu/fasr/. The goals of the Institute for Research in Environmental Science (IRES) are to promote collaboration in environmental science research by fostering multidisciplinary collaboration among environmental science faculty in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs and in the College of Arts and Sciences on Indiana University's Bloomington campus. The institute has no degree programs. The institute can be listed as an affiliation of the associated faculty in publications and in correspondence. Activities of the institute include seminars, discussion groups, proposal preparation workshops, etc. The co-directors of the institute are Associate Professor Hans-Peter Schmid and Distinguished Professor Ronald A. Hites. The Midwestern Regional Center for Global Environmental Change, located on the Bloomington campus, is one of six regional centers of the National Institute for Global Environmental Change (NIGEC). The Midwestern Center, together with the other five centers, provides research support to the U.S. Department of Energy in the analysis of global environmental change. The other regional centers are located at Harvard University (Northeast), Tulane University (South Central), the University of Alabama (Southeast), the University of California at Davis (Western), and the University of Nebraska (Great Plains). NIGEC supports university researchers developing scientific knowledge of effects of global environmental change associated with energy production on national resources (especially terrestrial ecosystems) with an emphasis on issues at the regional scale. NIGEC presently supports research on three topics: (1) exchange of carbon e.g., uptake of atmospheric CO2 by terrestrial ecosystems; (2) effects of environmental change associated with energy production on terrestrial ecosystems; and (3) development and testing of ecosystem models needed for integrated assessments. Additional information can be found at www.indiana.edu/~speagis/mwnigec/mwnigec.html. The Center for Urban Policy and the Environment at IUPUI is the largest research unit in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs. Center researchers address a wide range of economic, social, and environmental issues that have important public policy implications. Established in 1992, the center has been supported by a series of awards of general support from the Lilly Endowment, Inc., and has worked with more than 100 clients and partners. The center's signature project is a research initiative focusing on investment in central Indiana and the balance of the state. This initiative helps state and local policy makers understand how businesses, governments, nonprofit organizations, and households contribute to quality of life in the region and state. Center scholars, staff, and student research assistants typically work on project teams in partnership with local governments, nonprofit organizations, and private businesses. Recent projects have included studies of local and regional economic development strategies, analyses of regional land use change and policies for growth management, evaluation of welfare reforms, and assessments of the structure of the nonprofit sector. Project sponsors have the included the Ford Foundation; Central Indiana Corporate Partnership; Indiana General Assembly; Office of the Governor; Indiana Land Resources Council; Indiana Port Commission; Indiana Gaming Commission; Indiana Departments of Natural Resources, Environmental Management, and Workforce Development; city of Indianapolis; Indianapolis Neighborhood Housing Partnership; Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library; Indianapolis Museum of Art; and the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland. The center also serves as staff to the Indiana Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations. For more information about the center, visit its Web site at www.urbancenter.iupui.edu. Center for Urban Policy and the Environment Contact The Transportation Research Center was established to coordinate and facilitate SPEA's research objectives in transportation and related areas such as transportation safety, energy, and the environment. The center uses a staff of professional researchers, faculty, and graduate students in performing research projects for federal, state, and local government agencies. Career Services & Alumni AffairsBloomington-based Career Services & Alumni Affairs (CaSAA) provides a wide range of career development services. Students can take a career planning class and a workshop on career choices, as well as get help with job search strategies, obtain an alumni mentor, prepare a resume, include resumes in an electronic resume book available to hundreds of employers, see publications of job and internship opportunities, and receive individual career counseling. CaSAA also has a user-friendly library containing extensive employer and job search information. The office helps students contact employers through on-campus interviews, networking opportunities such as SPEA-hosted receptions in Washington, D.C., and Indianapolis, local and regional job fairs, and an active alumni support group. SPEA requires an experiential component in both the undergraduate and graduate program, and most students fulfill that requirement with an internship. Internships offer students the opportunity to apply classroom theory and techniques to real-life experiences. They are one of the best ways students have to "test drive" a prospective career, network with professionals in the field, and get hands-on experience that will ultimately enhance their job search. CaSAA administers the internship program and helps students identify internship opportunities. Faculty are an important additional resource, as they can help identify opportunities. The internship can be full or part time, paid or unpaid, credit or noncredit, but must always have CaSAA's and the faculty's prior approval. Visit us on the Web at www.indiana.edu/~speacare. Students on any of the Indiana University campuses may seek assistance from Career Services & Alumni Affairs, located on the Bloomington campus: Bloomington Campus For answers to specific questions on other campuses, students may contact: Indianapolis Campus Fort Wayne Campus Northwest Campus South Bend Campus Kokomo Campus
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Last updated: 21 November 2024 08 49 25
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