Director's Corner

Message from the Director of the Executive Education Program

Welcome to the second electronic newsletter for the Executive Education Program in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs (SPEA) at Indiana University. The purpose of the newsletter is to keep you up to date with new initiatives, highlight past accomplishments, and provide you with feature stories on current students, alumni, faculty, and key stakeholders associated with this lifelong learning program for career professionals.

Thanks to the support of NAVSEA and Crane leadership, we began offering a revised curriculum for the Public Management Certificate (PMC) to the new cohorts in January of 2008. The revised curriculum means that the NAVSEA HQ and Crane PMC are better aligned with each other and more consistent with the core requirements of the traditional SPEA PMC. The revised curriculum for the MPA will take effect in 2009 for the new PMC graduates starting and completing in December of 2008. We are very excited about these curriculum improvements for the NAVSEA HQ and Crane programs. For more detailed information on these improvements please see our web site.

We are also very excited about two new customized graduate certificate programs, one that started last fall and one starting later this coming summer. Goodwill Industries has engaged SPEA and our program to offer a nonprofit management certificate (NPMC) to a select cohort of their emerging leaders. This tailored graduate NPMC program is a first of its kind for Goodwill and a major commitment by their current leadership to the development of their future leaders. The recently created Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department (IMPD), a merger of the Marion County Sheriff and Indianapolis Police Departments, hired SPEA and our program to deliver a customized PMC to a cohort of their officers with a rank of lieutenant or above. This new initiative demonstrates a major commitment by the leadership of IMPD to improving its human capital through an innovative partnership with IU, SPEA, and the Executive Education Program. In addition, several seats in the program have been made available to police departments in surrounding communities at the Sheriff’s request to further cooperation and learning among public safety personnel in the area.

The Executive Education Program continues to expand its non credit training initiatives with NAVSEA. We have delivered non credit professional development programs at NUWC Keyport and NSWC Crane in Mentoring/Mentee Training. We also delivered lifelong learning programs at NUWC Newport and Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Presentation Skills and Building an Environment for Success training respectively last November. In the transportation area we conducted an Advanced Leadership Institute for the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials (AASHTO) in Washington, D.C. for more than twenty five transportation leaders from across the nation.

Finally, we hosted our first NAVSEA PMC/MPA Alumni reception in Silverdale, Washington. More than 60 attended the reception on October 10th to socialize, renew old friendships and hear a few words of wisdom from Tom DeCoster and yours truly. It was a great time and we look forward to following up with many attendees about the possible creation of a Pacific Northwest Alumni chapter. We also look forward to holding similar Alumni events next year for Crane and east coast graduates. Stay tuned.

Please enjoy this second edition of our E-Newsletter. Let us know how you think the E-Newsletter and our entire program can be improved. Also, please visit our web site at http://execedspea.iu.edu for more detailed information about the Executive Education Program. It’s a real pleasure and honor to be a part of this great team.

Regards,

Craig E. Hartzer, Ph.D.

Spotlight

Faculty Spotlight:  Dr. C. Kurt Zorn, Ph.D. Economics, Syracuse University, 1981

I have been a member of the SPEA faculty for more than 27 years and have taught many courses to a large number of students during that time. Teaching in the Executive Education Program has always been one of my favorite assignments due to the quality of the participants, their commitment to learning, and their nontraditional profile (older and a number of years of experience in the workforce). I have now taught in the program for almost 15 years.

As many of you know I have taught V517, Public Management Economics to many of you in the NAVSEA Executive MPA program. V517 is a core course in the MPA program and I am certain one of those courses you won’t forget easily. My goal always has been to make economics accessible so you can use it in your everyday life and your job. And, a delightful side effect has been most participants now better appreciate sarcasm.

My research interests focus on state and local finance, transportation safety, and economic development. I have published numerous articles in all three of these areas in a number of journals including Public Budgeting & Finance, Public Finance Quarterly, Growth and Change, Public Administration Review, and the Journal of Transportation Research Forum. In addition, I co-authored a book on Aviation Safety published by Oxford Press in 1992.

I have been fortunate enough to be asked to serve in a variety of service roles during my career. These assignments include Chair of the Citizens’ Commission on Taxes and Director of the Indiana Bond Bank; Chair on the Indiana State Board of Tax Commissioners; Director of State Relations for Indiana University and advisor to the President of Indiana University. This real world experience has been very rewarding and added greatly to my abilities as a teacher and researcher.

Since June of 2007, I have been serving as the Interim Dean of the School of Public and Environmental Affairs. In this new leadership role for the school, I added many new administrative responsibilities but remain committed to the Executive MPA program and intend to continue teaching V517 as my schedule permits.

Please do not hesitate to let me know your thoughts on how we can continue to improve this program. Thanks for your participation in the Executive MPA program and support of Indiana University and the School of Public and Environmental Affairs.

Class Notes

Where Are You Now and What Are You Doing?

This is where you can provide us with information you would like to share with other Executive Education alums, faculty and other people who are interested in our program. Just send us information on a new job, marriage, children, community involvement, etc., and we will include it in the newsletter as space permits.

Please Help Us Locate the Following Alums.

In this area we will feature a few names of alums that we have lost contact with. We are featuring Crane PMC I and MPA I cohorts in this newsletter. If you know their email address, snail mail address or phone number, please let us know so we can include them in our mailings. Send the information via email to ExecEduc@iupui.edu.

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