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And listed above are some class work artifacts from my MPA courses
that reflect my academic progress and success in this study.
I feel that these classes have well-prepared me in accomplishing my
goals. For example,
Valdosta City Grants Administrator, Kathy Brunot, with whom
I took classes in Public
Budgeting & Finance and Grant-writing and Management,
provided
wonderful insight into the issues of governmental economics and
local politics in the realm of public funding and fiscal
methods. A unique class trip to participate in Valdosta
city's council budget hearing
gave me an excellent
opportunity to experience the interesting considerations and
demands of a small, but growing, city. Creative
technological solutions to reducing crime were presented by the
Valdosta Police Department. A keen budget for historic
preservation of the heritage of Valdosta's very-own Sunset
Cemetary was proposed. Financial housing subsidies for
seniors, minorities and poorer Valdostans were protected.
With every item addressed on the agenda, I gained hands-on
insight into the inner workings of a city's administration and
their relationship with the
community, its growing population and the development of a civil
society.
Other classes such as
Industrial and Organizational Psychology,
Democracy & Public Administration, and Information Management,
also helped me become aware of and understand several important
issues of public administration and public management.
However, my favorite classes of all were Labor Law and
Organizational Theory and Behavior, taught by Dr. Lee Allen,
arguably the smartest professor at VSU and the main reason why I
chose to enroll in this program. By presenting different,
but refreshing, perspectives of the law, and offering his
complex, but always expert, views of organizational politics, he
challenged us to rethink and reorder this life and this world.
He taught us how to think of public policy as more than just
administrative bureaucracy, beyond the daily problems and
pressures that we knew, encouraging us to envision a future open
with creative possibilities.
(Illustration
of Plato's Cave Allegory)
And surely enough, we did see! The
solutions to the world's most imminent crisis were not in
government installations or public policies -- solutions were in
ourselves, which was more empowering than we ever thought or
dreamed. All it took was a renewed mind, ready to respond,
adapt and change, and we would be in a powerful position to help
redefine the institutions of our lives.
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