Project Management

Memorial Day weekend was a welcome break from a busy two weeks at my PWE. One of ncIMPACT’s staff members is ill, changing our team’s work flow. Suddenly, an important work product for the social capital project needed support, and it fell on my shoulders to complete a draft of a literature review in just a couple of days. I also picked up other responsibilities on both the social capital and EITC project which required me to attend an additional series of meetings, pulling my time and attention in multiple directions as we worked to complete the review. I felt not only the pressure of deadlines, but also pressure to step up as a new part of a small team and assert myself as an organizational representative.
On Thursday of last week, I was talking to a friend who asked me if I was enjoying my internship. I immediately launched into an explanation of all the Zoom meetings I had, the deadlines I was up against, and the stress I was feeling because of it all. I waxed poetic about the additional stress of COVID-19, and how I hadn’t even had the chance to meet my coworkers because of it. After letting me vent, he said, “Okay, but are you enjoying it?” I paused for the first time in several days to actually think about that question. Sure, I was busy and maybe even a little overwhelmed by trying to adapt to my new role in the team so quickly. But did that mean that I wasn’t enjoying my time with ncIMPACT? Did it mean that maybe I was in the wrong place, at the wrong time?

Despite the stress of last week, reflecting on my experience allowed me to realize that this is exactly where I want to be right now, COVID aside. My supervisor and field instructor supported me both personally and professionally, including letting me flex my hours to work longer on some days so I could leave early Friday for a weekend away. Anita, ncIMPACT’s director, trusted me enough to let me attend an outward-facing meeting with clients as the only ncIMPACT representative because of my performance in earlier project meetings. And research partners valued my input during our interactions that they were responsive to a proposal I made to potentially augment a study design to collect key informant data, since COVID was affecting our ability to collect it from community members in a timely fashion.

Having more on my plate can be, rightfully, a source of worry. However, it really means that I am being allowed to dig in to the content and management of projects, meaningfully contribute to work, and grow as a social worker and public administrator. Being a part of a team that is as invested in my development as they are the outcomes of my work has been invigorating and encouraging. I can’t wait to see what else I’ll get to sink my teeth into this summer.

Making an Impact

ncIMPACT Initiative is an applied public policy team that works with public officials to develop collaborative solutions to North Carolina’s wicked problems. They use an interdisciplinary approach, data driven high-quality analysis, and innovative practices to implement, evaluate, and publicize these solutions while remaining politically and policy neutral.

This is where I’ll be doing my Professional Work Experience.  My introduction  with ncIMPACT is a Zoom call with my new supervisor, Emily, on Monday at 9 AM. It’s the second to last day of exams and I’m still turning in a final tonight, but my MSW-MPA requirements mean I’m working 600 hours this summer; there’s no time to take a week or two and recuperate. The whirlwind of getting onboarded to a new organization coincides with the relief of finishing off an unusual and difficult semester, thanks to the coronavirus.

COVID-19 has blurred the lines between work and life so thoroughly that transitioning from academia to work is almost effortless, at least logistically. I’m still working from home, likely through at least the end of May, if not longer. Instead of Zoom classes, it’s Zoom meetings as I get acquainted with ncIMPACT’s work and the projects I’ll be working on this summer. Part of the SOG, ncIMPACT runs applied public policy and research projects all over the state, building collaboratives in order to implement solutions to complex community problems. I’m curious to see how ncIMPACT straddles the academia-practitioner divide, aiming for direct implementation of research rather than the traditional route of academic publishing.

I’ll be working on at least four different projects this summer: their UNC-TV series, the Opioid Response Project, their federally-funded social capital project, and the EITC in NC project. Run by two different project managers, Emily and Brooklyn, these interesting projects will keep me busy as I work with a variety of staff and clients. I’m thrilled to have found an organization that will allow me to stretch both my social work and public administration muscles, doing research, policy, assessments, interventions, and evaluations of communities and systems.

In my first week, I’m already writing blogs for UNC-TV, attending virtual town halls, and getting involved with a literature review process for the social capital project, plus a variety of meetings to learn more about how I will be contributing to each of the four projects this summer. I can’t wait to see what I learn and accomplish as I look towards my final year of grad school. Let’s get started!

Weeks 6 and 7 at the Urban Institute

This week at the Urban Institute I had the privilege to bond with the other interns and meet other Urban Institute members at the summer check-in. We got to see how Urban recruits its interns and the work that fellow colleagues are currently conducting as full-time research assistants.
One intern from Duke is working on broader social policy and the other intern from Rice University, also in LHP, is working on child care practices for working parents.
During this time, the interns had the ability to sit in on a lunch with the CEO. We learned how health care policy impacted the Urban Institute and effects of the political divide. There was a sensationalized moment in the Fall of 2016 when Congress was passing a health care bill to repeal the Affordable Care
Act. The Urban Institute responded with policy updates and information that informed the decision makers about issues with the policy rhetoric. As the health care bills were being updated, Urban Institute, responded by fact-checking the information and providing updated facts about the health policy. We learned about this during the intern luncheon chat from the CEO herself. It was quite a fascinating discussion and input.
Urban Institute has a history of being a figure for fact checking during pivotal times in American history. It was founded as the special project of LBJ, during a time of rapid change in the suburban and metropolitan US. The demographic shift and reliance on solid research is not too different from today’s age. We are experiencing a divided US electorate and more people questioning policy choices and asking for facts and figures.
The essence of the Urban Institute and its purpose as an organization advancing the policy and learning about ways to respond, is what will promote long-term strong policy and more informed constituents.

Weeks 3 and 4– Urban Institute– Center on Labor, Human Services and Population

 

Weeks of June 3-16.

The quest for knowledge is at an all-time high and well suited at a place like Urban Institute. I immensely enjoy learning more about the Institute and working with Teresa Derrick-Mills, as well as, conversing with my junior buddy and other junior staff during the weekly check-ins. During the staff meetings, I get to learn how each research associate is working towards their goals and meeting expectations. Some have the fortune of being child or family welfare administrators and writing research protocols or requests for budgeting large-scale projects that impact many people. It is fascinating how many tasks and external research the associates are managing at one time. One notable task is working on building stronger fathers in the inner-city neighborhoods in the Bronx to build strong families.

Another special experience was attending the Convening held at Urban Institute by the National Women’s Law Center. The Center and advocates from around the United States met to discuss female and minority empowerment in the work place. They discussed litigation methods and ways to fight discrimination in the work place. The speakers ranged from a PhD in employment litigation, to experts in behavioral analysis and empowerment methods. Some had studied worker representation in the restaurant business, some had studied sex discrimination in the military, some had conducted research on employer retaliation methods and others provided consultancy for workplace inclusivity measures. I found an innate interest in the intersection between human resources and legal compliance within organizations relevant to the Urban Institute as an organization and its research projects.

Finally, the many brown bags offered by Urban Institute include topics from web scraping, to fighting the rising cost of living in poverty and importing data files in R. The opportunities to develop oneself professionally and learn more about American neighborhoods and demographics is so unique.

 

Week 1 at Urban Institute— Center of Labor, Human Services and Population

 

Week 1 at the Urban Institute

 

Day 1 walking into the wide glass doors and spacious marble floor of the Urban Institute located at 500 L’Enfant Plaza in Washington D.C. was impressive. Urban Institute is a non-partisan organization founded by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968 as a response to the need for more equitable social science research to develop urban communities. In their “Next 50” campaign Urban Institute sets goals to attain more progress, more funding and more sustainable impacts on the surrounding communities by improving the policy making process with research. My internship concentration is promoting a more diverse research breadth by recruiting more diverse research associates and interns. The ability of the Urban Institute to retain and gain more diverse employees is crucial to developing policy that is more reflective of urban communities.

The other interns are from universities throughout the U.S. and relocated to the DC area for the summer. They work in centers such as labor, human capital and population, urban development and international development. The interns contribute skills in public policy, international relations, data science, economics and business. Throughout the Urban Institute there is a sense of pride in each intern class and junior hires. They are also proud of the research that the associates and senior staff produce in the long term and contribute to public policy as a whole. I am impressed with the academic and research backgrounds of all my colleagues.

This summer, I am joining UNC MPA alumna, Teresa Derrick-Mills (1992) as she contributes to Urban Institutes efforts to improve the diversity of staff composition, equity and inclusion in workforce culture, and diversity and equity-respectful content and language in the research. Teresa is a principal research associate at the Urban Institute who obtained her PhD in public policy and public administration at George Washington University after using her MPA to support early care and education systems-building efforts in North Carolina for 15 years. She now studies early care and education issues, workforce development systems, juvenile justice, and various human services, and supports research and evaluation capacity building for governments and nonprofits.

Each day is a fantastic opportunity to walk through the DC neighborhoods and see famous sites such as the Capitol Building, Jefferson Memorial and the Wharf District.  It truly is remarkable location and place to be interning this summer.

500 L’Enfant Plaza

Introducing the PWE and our MPA Summer Bloggers!

It’s May! And it has been too long since I’ve posted, but we have been doing so much work to get our Class of 2019 graduated. We had a total of 41 MPA students graduate this May, and we are so proud of them. Most of them have jobs already, and they are solidly equipped with the education and skills needed to go out there and lead! Stay tuned for a later post on what some of them are up to.

Another thing that happens in May is the beginning of Professional Work Experience (commonly referred to as the PWE) for our current MPA students. It is similar to an internship except that this really is about leading and managing some sort of project. These PWE’s are higher level opportunities where you will actually be contributing more than answering phones or filing. And each May, we invite a few of our students who will be taking part in their PWE’s to blog about their experience.

Our PWE Coordinator (and UNC MPA grad), the wonderful Susan Austin completed a brief interview with me to give us a little frame of reference for the PWE and our Summer Bloggers. Read on, and follow the blogs which will be posted weekly. They’ll surely give you an idea for how MPA education is put to work.

Cara: What is your role, and how long have you been with the MPA program at UNC?
Susan: My title is Associate Director of Professional Work Experience (PWE) and Alumni Relations. Whew! One of my primary responsibilities is to work with all students on their required PWE. I started working with the MPA program in 2006 after joining the School of Government in 2001. I’m also an alumna – Class of ’97.

Cara: Can you talk about what the Professional Work Experience (PWE) is?
Susan: The PWE is an opportunity for our students to apply their classroom learning in a real-life setting, develop their competencies, and gain additional professional experience. The PWE is always one of the highlights of their time in the program.

Cara: How many MPA students are enrolled in a PWE this summer?
Susan: There are 23 students completing their PWE this summer. 13 with local governments, 4 in state agencies, 1 with the federal government, and 5 in nonprofit organizations. The ratio of students in different sectors varies with the interests of the students in each cohort.

Cara: Please introduce our student bloggers for this summer and what roles they’ll be taking on?
Susan: I’m excited about our summer bloggers! They are:
• Courtney Cooper-Lewter with the Chatham County, NC Manager’s Office
• Micayla Costa with the Urban Institute in Washington, DC
• Brian Farmer with the City of Salisbury, NC Manager’s Office
• Hallee Haygood with the City of Durham, NC Budget & Management Department
• Sydney Lawrence with the US EPA Office of Air Quality Planning Standards, Policy Analysis & Communications in Durham, NC
• Karson Nelson with the NC Department of Public Instruction Superintendent’s Office in Raleigh, NC

Cara: What do you hope our readers gain from our Student bloggers on their PWE experiences?
Susan: This is a great opportunity for readers to understand the scope of career opportunities an MPA degree opens up for our graduates. For those with an interest in public service, learning about the student experiences provides an inside look into the practical work that makes our communities better places to live.

Cara: Where will you be reading the blogs from this summer?
Susan: Ha! Well I read all of them all summer so that will vary. My favorite place will be at the lake.