Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs

NEW BOOK: Janet M. Wilmoth and Andrew S. London, two professors from the Maxwell School’s Department of Sociology, the Aging Studies Institute and the Center for Aging and Policy Studies, co-edited a new book Life-Course Implications of U.S. Public Policies (Routledge, 2021). Professors Colleen Heflin, Madonna Harrington Meyer and Jennifer Karas Montez, along with Ph.D. student Amra Kandic, contributed to the book.

I will never cease to be amazed by students like you: students who kept showing up, and who kept making an effort, all the way to graduation, despite the many challenges thrown your way. The fact that you are here today, graduating a year into the pandemic, is a testament to your ability to adapt and to find a community amidst a great deal of change and uncertainty. Knowing how much you have already managed to overcome, we at SU are so excited to see what you do next. Tessa Murphy, 2021 recipient of the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Award for Teaching and Research #SUGrad21

Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs ranks #1 in the nation for public affairs according to the annual U.S. News & World Report reputational survey. The School also received high marks across a wide range of subspecialties within public affairs, recognized with five subspecialty rankings in the top five. This recognition is a testament to the quality and dedication of our faculty, staff, students and alumni who conduct meaningful research and forge solutions to a breadth of pressing issues unfolding both globally and locally, says Dean David Van Slyke. #BestGradSchools

Your ethics and your principles are invaluable; so is what you have learned here at Maxwell. You have learned to argue but be open-minded. Indeed, you have learned that humankind’s greatest discovery is our own ignorance. As a result, you have learned to ask probing questions and be content with not having complete answers. You have learned to be rigorous in your scholarship but also measured in your conclusions. Most importantly, you have learned how important it is to feel supported and to offer support to others. Dimitar Gueorguiev, 2020 recipient of the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Award for Teaching and Research #SUGrad21

Looking back on these past years, there’s one thing that I found most valuable at Syracuse. Not just the renowned and generous faculty, nor the treasure trove of academic resources or the enviable Syracuse weather in mid-February. No, it’s all of you. It’s the collective experience of being a part of this mosaic that makes the school special. Sharing an experience and learning alongside students from across the world has truly enriched my time here as I hope it has yours. Zachary Krahmer '21 EMIR #SUGrad21

Police in Colombia have been "armed to the teeth" for decades as they fought along the military against guerrillas and drug traffickers, says Gladys McCormick, Jay and Debe Moskowitz Endowed Chair in Mexico-U.S. Relations, noting that has led to a broader culture of law enforcement favoring a hard-line response.. "Many of these officers kind of came of age as a result of that culture, but also they have the weaponry," McCormick says. "So, their go-to response is always to sort of like go hard line and then ask questions later."

We hope we’ve helped prepare you to view the world with a deep appreciation for the measurable ways that we are connected and responsible for each other’s outcomes -- and the great sense of responsibility that comes with that knowledge. Dean David Van Slyke #SUGrad21

WATCH: Dean David Van Slyke discusses the need for government to work with the private sector and help facilitate a multi-faceted approach to triage, mitigate and prevent the effects of climate change in the coming years. "There really has to be a different governance approach to create mutually beneficial outcomes where those different partners can act out," says Van Slyke.

I don't think Biden wanted anything to do with this issue. He wanted to manage it, and by managing it meaning ignore it, says Osamah Khalil, associate professor of history. And now, here it is.

Congratulations to the Maxwell faculty, staff and students honored at this year's One University Awards ceremony!

"The infrastructure plan to me is a down payment," says Professor David Popp. "Without the ‘stick’without some national level policy that puts a cap on emissionsit’s hard to make a credible case that we’ll definitely be able to follow through" on the 50 percent goal, Popp says

Whether it’s about being asked to produce more paperwork for a mortgage or waiting while someone white is bumped to the front of the queue, "waiting is part of the experience of racism in the U.S. says Elizabeth Cohen, professor of political science and author of "The Political Value of Time."

Farhana Sultana, associate professor of geography and the environment, participated in the first phase of a collaborative project between Syracuse University and Rhodes University (South Africa) titled "Race, Space, and the Environment." The project was launched with an international webinar to celebrate Earth Day on April 23, 2021. Watch the video via the link below.

The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University once again ranks #1 in the nation for public affairs according to the U.S. News & World Report reputational survey. For 25 years, since U.S. News began ranking graduate public affairs programs in 1995, Maxwell has held the #1 spot in every survey except one. Among specialty areas, Maxwell remains #1 in Public Management and Leadership and #2 in the areas of Nonprofit Management as well as Public Finance and Budgeting.

Dean David Van Slyke and several Maxwell faculty have issued a statement condemning the President’s Executive order 13957, dated October 21, 2020, and called for its reversal. "This executive order is, in fact, antithetical to our work together advancing the public good through citizenship education, and the development and protection of a professional, apolitical, well-trained civil service for the benefit of all," says Van Slyke. Read the full letter.

Last summer, amid the peak spread of the pandemic in the United States, a team of Syracuse University professors led by Colleen Heflin conceived of a new MAX100 course: Interdisciplinary Perspectives of COVID-19, a cross-disciplinary introductory course for undergraduate students considering a major in the social sciences. The class pairs a different Syracuse University professor and Maxwell alumnus each week to examine an urgent challengefrom food insecurity, to education disruption, to health disparities, to the equitable distribution of resources, to relationships between nations.

SyracuseCoE Faculty Fellows News: The Clean Energy Futures project led in part by Syracuse University College of Engineering and Computer Science Prof. Charles ...Driscoll & Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs Prof. Pete Wilcoxen in USA TODAY's investigative story on the nearly 100 environmental rollbacks the Trump administration has pursued over the past four years to loosen regulations on everything from air and water quality to wildlife. https://www.usatoday.com//climate-change-escal/3668667001/ See more

Trump’s vision of a "Fortress America," where US manufacturers produce everything they need domestically, is unrealistic, says Professor Mary Lovely. "The Trumpers have this idea that we‘re going to bring supply chains back home, and that is not going to happen, so where are we going?" Many Americans "don’t want to deal with a communist country that they don’t understand, with human rights positions they don’t approve of, to put it mildly," she says. "So if we want to reduce our dependence on China, the only other game in town, besides the USMCA [United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement], is CPTPP [Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership]."

"In a threatening environment, Americans reward candidates and parties perceived to hold hawkish positions" and "punish candidates perceived to be dovish," says Shana Gadarian, associate professor of political science.

Back in March, when Maxwell’s enrollment staff learned of the 7,300 Peace Corps volunteers’ and 2,500 Fulbright grantees’ imminent evacuation due to COVID-19, they saw an opportunity for the school to help. The Department of Public Administration and International Affairs waived application fees and GRE testing requirements for its highly regarded professional degree programs, and offered all admitted evacuees a 50% tuition scholarship. Jeremy Gonzalez and Kelli Sunabe, both Peace Corps evacuees, discuss their experience.

"Most Americans do not necessarily view their problems with China as having much to do with their problems domestically," says Yingyi Ma, associate professor of sociology. "I attribute this view to their critical thinking skills despite the Trump narrative blaming China."

A CCE & IR student, Taylor John plans to become a physician and hopes to work internationally with Doctors Without Borders. "I'd like to...piece together my glo...bal mindset and my passion for social justice and civic engagement all in one with an international perspective," she says. https://www.syracuse.edu//taylor-john-our-time-has-come-s/ See more

A Biden administration, analysts say, would deliver a more consistent policy to the Kremlin, potentially enabling the U.S. and Russia to get more done even if his stance or rhetoric is tougher than Trump's. Clearer messaging could mean that "on certain issues, U.S. policy might be tougher than it has been under Trump," says Professor Brian Taylor. "But it also might mean that in certain areas, it's easier to see possible so-called 'win-win' solutions that just aren't on the table now because of how dysfunctional the process has become."

If Biden wins the presidential election, "It's a return back to normalcy, the status quo, the way in which we knew politics to work across the border," says Gladys McCormick, Jay and Debe Moskowitz Endowed Chair in Mexico-U.S. Relations. "It would be a lot less volatile, a lot less, 'who the hell knows what happens' when you turn on the TV."

"I didn’t take it seriously for a long time, but in the last six weeks, it’s become very concerning," says Michael Barkun, professor emeritus of political science. "This idea that the other side winning the election will produce a precipitous decline and the disintegration of institutions is completely at variance with American history."

Gretchen Purser, associate professor of sociology, and Brian Hennigan, PhD student in geography, document how job readiness programsas anchors of the devolved organizational landscape of neoliberal poverty governance in the United Statesendeavor to instill within the poor not simply the virtue of work, but the virtue of thrift, and thus orient them to "both sides of the paycheck." Using a comparative ethnographic study of two community-based, government-funded nonprofit job readiness programs, Purser and Hennigan show that this pedagogic focus on budgeting is central to the overall goal of conditioning clients to embrace and endure a degraded labor market.

"The work of statistical analysis in the world of policy is actually to help us do what can be hard to do on our own: identify trade-offs, recognize the uncertainty, and use (formal) inference to help make a prudent judgment," writes Sarah Hamersma, associate professor of public administration and international affairs. "I delight to think what we can learn if instead of idolizing certainty, we apply a bit more patience and self-control to our use of data. Proper use of statistical analysis does just thatacknowledging future unknowns and conveying even what we learn within careful bounds of uncertainty," she writes.

Chinese students in the U.S. are confronted with the double jeopardy of virus and stigma amid the COVID19. Yingyi Ma, associate professor of sociology, and PhD student Ning Zhan focus on their choice and impact of mask wearing during this pandemic and argue that what Chinese students experience when it comes to mask wearing is an exemplar of how stigma is socially constructed by power.