School of Public and Environmental Affairs

About the School
Associations and Clubs
SPEA Centers, Institutes, Programs, and Services
Career Services & Alumni Affairs

About the School

The 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
environmental science and policy
finance and economics
health science and administration
law
policy and administration
public safety
urban affairs

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 all 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 three professional master's degrees for individuals interested in achieving leadership positions in public, private, and voluntary organizations:

Master of Public Affairs (M.P.A.)
Master of Science in Environmental Science (M.S.E.S.)
Master of Health Administration (M.H.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. Additionally, SPEA's master's degrees may be pursued in combination with degrees in law, 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:
Ph.D. in Environmental Science
Ph.D. in Public Affairs
Ph.D. in Public Policy

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.

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Associations and Clubs

SPEA Alumni Association
SPEA maintains contact with alumni through the SPEA Alumni Association, a constituent society within the Indiana University Alumni Association. The SPEA Alumni Association publishes the school's magazine, SPEAlumni, mailed two times a year to more than 20,000 SPEA alumni located in all 50 states and in 50 countries. The organization also sponsors annual Indianapolis and Washington, D.C., alumni receptions and alumni gatherings held throughout the United States. Recent locations include Phoenix, Austin, Denver, Dallas, Chicago, Cincinnati, Orlando, Seattle, San Francisco, San Diego, and Boston. SPEA events offer alumni an opportunity to renew old friendships, meet new friends, and visit with faculty. Further, the SPEA Alumni Association has worked to raise money for a scholarship endowment to benefit current SPEA students and hosts annual tailgate parties, tours, and Commencement activities for graduates and their families. The SPEA Alumni Association is governed by an elected board of directors, which meets twice a year.

Alpha Phi Sigma
Alpha Phi Sigma is the national criminal justice honor society with chapters established on the Northwest (Gary), Fort Wayne, Kokomo, and Indianapolis campuses of Indiana University. The society recognizes scholastic excellence by students in the field of criminal justice. It was founded in 1942 and was admitted to the Association of College Honor Societies in 1980. Membership of graduate students is limited to those who have a bachelor's degree in criminal justice or who are currently doing graduate work in this field. A minimum grade point average of 3.4 is required of graduate students seeking membership in Alpha Phi Sigma.

American College of Healthcare Executives
The purpose of the Student Chapter of the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) is to promote an environment conducive to professional, educational, and ethical development of personal and social skills in a manner that will enhance the attainment of effective leadership in health services organizations. One of its major goals is to develop an association with local and regional health services executive groups to enhance academic and career opportunities for students. ACHE sponsors guest speakers who are administrators in group practices, hospitals and health systems, academic medical centers, managed care organizations, and consulting. The leaders of ACHE focus on providing students with interviewing strategies, job search skills, and networking opportunities. Additional information can be found at www.ache.org/.

Pi Alpha Alpha
Pi Alpha Alpha is the national honor society for schools of public affairs and administration. The society acknowledges outstanding scholarship and contributions to these fields. It was founded in 1972 by the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration (NASPAA) to honor those whose performance in public affairs has been distinguished. Indiana's is a charter chapter of Pi Alpha Alpha. Membership in Pi Alpha Alpha is comparable to membership in Phi Beta Kappa for liberal arts graduates. A person evaluating credentials in the various fields of public service should recognize the professional quality such a membership represents.

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.

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SPEA Centers, Institutes, Programs, and Services

The 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) is one of the commitments of the Indiana University–Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW) campus to the growth and development of northeast Indiana. CRI initiates analysis of the northeast Indiana economy and related social issues, and also responds to requests from community and business leaders and others. Information is available from CRI on area educational attainment, employment, unemployment, income, labor, population, manufacturers, and wages. Comparisons with other geographic areas are also available.

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, 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 Distinguished Professor Ronald A. Hites and Associate Professor Hans-Peter Schmid.

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/nigecmwnigec.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 150 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; the Indiana departments of Natural Resources, Environmental Management, and Workforce Development; city of Indianapolis; Indianapolis Neighborhood Housing Partnership; Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library; and the Indianapolis Museum of Art. 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
School of Public and Environmental Affairs
342 N. Senate Avenue, 3rd Floor
Indianapolis, IN 46204-1708

Contact
John L. Krauss, Director
(317) 261-3000
(317) 261-3050 (fax)
jkrauss@.iupui.edu
www.urbancenter.iupui.edu

The Transportation Research Center was established in 1972 as the Institute for Research in Public Safety. Its purpose is to coordinate and facilitate SPEA's research objectives in transportation and related areas, including transportation safety, risk analysis and security, energy, and the environment. The center uses a staff of professional researchers, faculty, and graduate students in performing projects for federal, state, and local government agencies. Additional information on the center and its activities can be found at www.spea.indiana.edu/trc.

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Career Services & Alumni Affairs

Bloomington-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
Career Services & Alumni Affairs
SPEA 200
(812) 855-9639

For answers to specific questions on other campuses, students may contact:

Indianapolis Campus
Career and Employment Services
Business/SPEA 2010
(317) 274-2554
www.iupui.edu/~career/

Fort Wayne Campus
Internships
SPEA: Neff Hall, Room 260
(260) 481-6351; fax (260) 481-6346
Academic Counseling and Career Services
Kettler Hall, Room 109
(260) 481-6595

Northwest Campus
Career Services
Hawthorn Hall, Room 101
(219) 980-6650

South Bend Campus
Career and Graduate School Planning
and Placement
Administration Room 137A
(574) 237-4425

Kokomo Campus
Career Services
Kelley Student Center 200B
(765) 455-9301

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