Category: Uncategorized

This week was my eighth in my PWE, and I have just over a month to go to finish my MSW-required field hours, as well as my MPA program requirements. The School of Social Work field placement system relies on a thorough learning agreement and a mid-year and final competency evaluation that measures my abilities and growth throughout the placement. When completing it with my supervisor and field instructor this week, I was able to reflect on my progress, work products, and experiences with ncIMPACT so far this summer. Although I have been involved in multiple interesting projects that are expanding my hard skills, reflecting this week has allowed me to evaluate my soft skills growth, as well.

The MPA PWE process is meant to place students in outside organizations not only to help us learn about public administration, but also to help us grow as professionals. I have traditionally struggled, in personal, professional, and academic contexts, with saying no and managing my workload so that I have a healthy work-life balance. This summer, being on multiple projects has given me a substantive workload with meaningful tasks, but has also required me to prioritize some projects over others due to deadlines, organizational importance, or other factors. Thankfully, I have had guidance from my supervisor and field instructor as I navigate establishing reasonable boundaries for myself, even if that sometimes means saying no to additional tasks that are unrelated to my main projects.

I have also been able to establish a healthy work-life balance despite the fact that working from home makes distinguishing between the two much more difficult. Encouraged by my team, I have established distinct hours during which I complete my PWE, and off hours where I don’t complete work and usually do not check my email. This is a huge shift from our suddenly remote spring semester, where I struggled with establishing a daily routine while taking classes and working from home. I have also implemented regular self-care, including (mostly digital) time with friends and loved ones, as well as leisure time to unwind. Since COVID-19 is not disappearing before August 10^th, I know that creating this routine during my time with ncIMPACT will assist me in doing the same in the fall semester and beyond.

This week, I was fortunate to be able to attend the NC League of Municipalities CityVision Virtual Summit, their online answer to their normal annual conference, cancelled because of COVID. I was able to hear speakers on diverse topics, including communication and emergency management, economic development for municipalities, and leadership and management during times of transition, fear, and uncertainty. The League did an excellent job of reimagining their conference content in an online format, including Zoom presentations and panels and pre-recorded lunch and learn modules that allowed attendees to learn more about very specific topics.

What stuck with me the most after attending the three-day event was that despite the incredible work that governments are doing to try to mitigate the effects of the virus, there is so much that we cannot control. Certain uncertainty, which Dr. Jim Johnson of UNC Kenan Flagler spoke about, is going to be the state of our society for the foreseeable future. Of course, this is not new; the uncertain is a part of life itself. However, the coronavirus has made this uncertainty more pronounced and powerful.

So how do we cope with this certain uncertainty? There isn’t really a clear answer. There are preparations we can make to avert a similar crisis in the future. There are relationships we can build and priorities we can reconsider in order to determine what our communities need right now. But really, we must learn to be flexible, forgiving, and empathetic in this time of severe, communal stress. And until we can all sit in slightly uncomfortable chairs and watch PowerPoints on projection screens again, at least we have virtual professional support and togetherness, thanks to Zoom and a little imagination.

The Public Administration Leadership (PAL) Challenge was created in 2013 by Master of Public Administration students. The main purpose of the Challenge is to engage UNC-Chapel Hill undergraduates in relevant, community-based issues of public administration in the form of a case study competition for a prize of $1000! Through this competition, the PAL Challenge has three main goals:

• To educate undergraduates about public administration
• Allow students opportunities to learn about careers in public administration, practice research and analysis, and writing skills to solve real-world problems
• To promote the mission of the School of Government and Master of Public Administration programs.

This year’s PAL Challenge: 

This year’s case was centered on climate change resulting in flooding that was negatively impacting a small, fictitious town in North Carolina. As we know with our recent hurricanes from last year, floodwaters can destroy homes, infrastructure, agriculture, and threaten drinking water supplies and public health. This leaves local communities and economies reeling from the potentially catastrophic impacts, and local governments are the ones faced with the costs of recovery and clean up after flooding.  This is a current and relevant issue facing local government administrators.

 The teams were asked to research and consider funding options for mitigating factors that local governments can employ, citizen engagement, health and safety impacts, and peer municipalities to limit some of the negative impacts of flooding on this town.

2020 PAL Challenge Winners:

The 2020 PAL Challenge winners were: The Green Beans! This year’s winning team competed against ten other teams, the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic, transitioning to classes from home, and presenting remotely. 

Congratulations to Abi Blanchard, Olivia Huckel, Aakash Thumaty, and Zachary Walker, who are all seniors at UNC-Chapel Hill! They were a team of diverse backgrounds and majors. We are so proud of them! Want to learn more about our winners, check out this interview of the Green Beans Team and Cara Robinson, our MPA Director of Admissions.

My PWE wraps up this week. Though I am sad to leave my position at town hall, I am grateful to have benefited from working alongside skilled people and gaining practical experience in local government management. Between finishing final papers, preparing presentations, and sheltering in place, I’ve been reflecting about how my experience started. As a final blog post, I am sharing more about how I chose a PWE and the lessons I learned along the way.

While I previously worked in government, I never served at the local level. Given UNC’s highly ranked local government program, a local municipality seemed like a good choice for a PWE. I also interacted each week with a classroom full of Leslie Knopes. As if I needed more convincing, their passion persuaded me that local government would be a great place to work alongside other individuals committed to improving their communities. A few months prior to starting my PWE, I met with an MPA alum for coffee. I wanted to hear about his experience as a graduate of the UNC MPA program living and working in my area. This individual had extensive experience working in private and public positions and multiple levels of government. He explained that he had worked in many rewarding positions but emphasized that “local government is where you can really make a difference.”

Searching for and completing the PWE has been a learning process. The MPA staff shared a list of alumni in my area shortly after my acceptance to the program. Over the next few months, I met with multiple UNC MPA graduates and received some useful advice about surviving the program, finding a PWE, and pursuing a career in public administration. In one of those meetings, an individual recommended someone else who could be helpful in my PWE search. One email later I secured a PWE, just weeks before the spring term started!

I learned two lessons along the way: take advantage of UNC MPA resources and be willing to expand your network. One of the most beneficial resources has been the MPA program staff. (Shout out to Susan Austin, Allison Binkley, and Kristin Pawlowski!) From sharing the list of alumni, to helping tweak my resume, to guiding me through the PWE contract, they offered invaluable assistance throughout the process. I began sending emails immediately after receiving the alumni list, many of whom were gracious enough to meet with me over coffee. During the meetings, I asked for advice and for recommendations of other people I should contact. I also reached out to former coworkers who were incredibly helpful in providing guidance and support. After the meetings, I followed up with a note or email thanking each person for taking the time to share their advice. Those meetings were an important source of information and eventually led to my finding a PWE. Being proactive is not always easy, but (at least for me) it produced great results!