blog posts

• The Centerpiece April 2021

  Apr 9, 2021 11:30 am54 views

  The first week in April hails annually as the National Public Health Week where the public health system, practitioners and agencies across the country celebrate and promote public health.  Over the course of the last 15 years serving as a public health practitioner, often times, I remember wanting friends, family and others to better understand public health and my actual professional world.  The majority of those years I spent planning, preparing, and training for public health emergencies and not if but when they would occur.  However, even with experienced public health situations, like H1N1, and knowing the “when” would happen, never did I wish a true pandemic of this magnitude to occur.  What we have now though is a population with better understanding of public health – what it is, why it is important and how the practice of public health impacts EVERYONE.  We need to remember though that public health is more than COVID-19.  

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  The 2022 Midterm Elections and Illinois 13

  Sep 29, 2022 9:00 am204 views

  Election Day is fast approach. This year, many members of the UIS community, those who are registered to vote in Illinois’s 13th congressional district, will have the relatively unique opportunity of electing a new representative to the U.S. House of Representatives.

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  The $195 Billion Challenge: Facing State Fiscal Cliffs After COVID-19 Aid Expires

  May 9, 2022 9:00 am24 views

  Join an exclusive webinar to discuss the forthcoming issue paper:  The $195 Billion Challenge:  Facing State Fiscal Cliffs After COVID-19 Aid Expires, part of the State and Local Budgeting in the COVID Era Issue Paper Series, on Wednesday, May 11, 2022, at 11 a.m. EDT.

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  Thank you to our Veterans

  Nov 11, 2020 9:00 am11 views

  Much can be said to our veterans…but it starts with a simple “thank you” for your service!

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  Thanksgiving 2020: What It Really Means?

  Nov 25, 2020 9:00 am24 views

  I don’t think there is any way to sugarcoat the fact that this Thanksgiving may not be the best Thanksgiving of record for many people.

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  Team Effort – Interns Win!!!

  Dec 16, 2021 9:00 am294 views

  Celebrating a partnership that marries a passion for social work with policy in the Illinois Legislative Staff Intern Program (ILSIP).

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  Taking Stock of Bostock

  Jul 2, 2020 9:00 am159 views

  Last month, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) handed down a 6-3 ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County. The central finding from SCOTUS was that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects employees based on their sexual orientation and/or gender identity. Put more simply, an employer cannot fire an employee simply for identifying as a LGBTQ+.

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  Survival Techniques: Three approaches to overcoming and managing the panic associated with Covid-19

  Apr 13, 2020 11:30 am349 views

  There are a number myths linked with Covid-19 which create fear, panic, and a false sense of security. Myths are dangerously influential during a public health crisis, often obstructing your ability to make reliable informed decisions. 

  Individuals who quickly adapt to their new normal experience less stress and anxiety during the crisis, and make better decisions while continuing to move forward in their daily lives.

  This post will provide techniques that help to identify and avoid the dangerous myths that increase fear, panic and false hope.

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  STUDENT SPOTLIGHT: Jennifer Haegele-Ryterski, 2019 DPA Cohort

  Apr 7, 2022 9:00 am63 views

  Jennifer Haegele-Ryterski is a DPA student in the 2019 cohort who has been working with DPA Associate Director Dr. Sean McCandless on better understanding the experiences of people identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer (LGBTIQ+) in the criminal-legal system, particularly in probation.

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  Stop Complaining, Stop Blaming Others, & Look in the Mirror

  Apr 6, 2021 10:30 am908 views

  You're the cause of many of your own problems in the workplace.  Ouch! It hurts, but it is the truth. You are the cause of many, if not most, of the problems you experience in the workplace. By the way, so am I.

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  Statement of Educational Priorities of the Criminology and Criminal Justice Department at UIS

  Jun 8, 2020 9:45 am515 views

  At UIS, the Criminology and Criminal Justice Department works to prepare our students for the challenges they will face in careers that focus less on social control strategies and military tactics and more on critical thinking and understanding world views beyond only their own.

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  Some Career Reflections as Graduation and Next Steps Lie Ahead for Our Students

  May 12, 2022 9:00 am93 views

  Send us your advice to new graduates on how to start their career.

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  Seven Tips for Crisis Leadership

  Dec 8, 2020 9:00 am26 views

  While a time of crisis is daunting for any team, strong leadership is needed to help the organization move forward well and perhaps even find a few positive outcomes.  In this blog, we will examine seven tips for crisis leadership that may help lead toward positive results.

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  Setting Policy in a World of Science

  Nov 24, 2020 9:45 am38 views

  Since COVID-19 debuted in our world, there has been no end to politicians, pundits, and social media sirens crying out something along the line of “we are following the science” or “because the science says so” as they support one new policy or another or to bring down one political view or another.  As professionals who set, guide, and lead public policy, we need to start asking questions of “show me the science” or “where does the science say this” when we are faced with the never-ending barrage of “because science says so” claims in relation to public policy.

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  September Public Affairs Minute: The Labor Day Blues

  Sep 8, 2020 10:30 am22 views

  The COVID Pandemic has pushed unemployment rates to historic highs (inclusive of swings both up and down).  With sooo many businesses closed or experiencing slowdowns and layoffs occurring across all sectors in response to COVID is this really the time to celebrate Labor Day? Well despite the pain and economic hardships many families are facing maybe there is a reason to actually use Labor Day as a wakeup call to action.

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  Separate and Unequal: PR in the USA Map Amid Covid-19

  May 5, 2020 7:00 am159 views

  Is a USA map complete in 2020 leaving out America’s populated unincorporated territories - Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, United States Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and American Samoa?

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  Saving Local News

  May 26, 2020 8:45 am128 views

  Local journalism was in serious trouble before anyone heard of COVID-19, but amid a worldwide shutdown intended to stem the spread of the dangerous virus, the financial struggles of your local media outlet are even more serious now. So how can we fix this?

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  Returning to work: Here is one way to focus your energy & attention

  Jun 18, 2020 9:00 am491 views

  As you return to work, I want to invite you to wrestle with an important question. Where should I focus my energy and attention right now?  Better yet, there is a different form of this question that you should use as the starting point for rethinking how you work. On whom should I focus my energy and attention right now?

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  Researching the Relationship Between Military Service And Public Service Motivation

  Jun 24, 2021 9:00 am160 views

  As I was preparing to retire from my military career, and focus on my civilian career in Human Resources, I started the Doctorate of Public Administration program at University of Illinois Springfield.  As I began the program and considered potential research topics, I began to focus on a way to leverage my military experience with a relevant human resource-related concept. 

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  Reform: Restoration, Revitalization, and Representation

  Jun 11, 2021 11:15 am183 views

  You are invited to Reform: Restoration, Revitalization, and Representation, the first in a series of webinars on critical societal issues resulting from social determinant factors directly impacting historically marginalized populations.  The series is sponsored by The Illinois Legislative Black Caucus Foundation, the UIS College of Public Affairs and Administration, and the UIS Center for State Policy and Leadership.

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  Reducing the Use of Plastic Bags: Five Lessons from Illinois Communities with Plastic Bag Laws

  Jun 30, 2020 9:00 am1612 views

  This summer, we have been busy interviewing active citizens, elected officials, and public employees in five Illinois communities that have passed laws designed to curb the use of plastic bags to understand why they took an action on the plastic bag issue, how they designed their local ordinances, and what challenges they have faced during implementation.  Our research project is still in progress, but we would like to offer a sneak peek at what we have learned from our interviews - here are five things you should keep in mind if your city is thinking about adopting a plastic bag ordinance.

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  Recollections of Springfield

  May 26, 2021 9:00 am133 views

  Being the politics nerd and longtime Springfield resident that I am, I’m always interested when well-known political figures offer their impressions or memories of our capital city.  Two books I’ve read over the last few months include the Springfield recollections of two people on the national stage – President Barack Obama and former White House press secretary and current Fox News host Dana Perino.

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  Ready for the New Normal: My Research Remote Presentation

  May 14, 2020 9:00 am34 views

  Dr. Crocker's thoughts on virtual conferences, the new normal?

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  Race, Housing and Equity

  Sep 3, 2020 9:15 am222 views

  When we examine housing policy in the United States today, we find huge disparities along racial lines in terms of home ownership, the value of property, and the ability to obtain a mortgage.  These disparities still exist even when accounting for things like geographic location, down payment, and income.

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  Purposefully Connecting and Collaborating Online

  Jun 3, 2021 9:15 am168 views

  Like many people over the past year, I found myself at the kitchen counter with my kindergartener as we peered into his computer screen and listened to his teacher.  Eyes glued to the screen, we watched his teacher move two red cubes and then four yellow, explaining the day’s math lesson.  This was a big change for both of us.  His experience being online was limited to a treasured hour on the iPad each weekend, while my work for the last decade revolved around online degree programs.

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  Protests on the Streets: Seeing From the Lens of Goodness

  Nov 3, 2020 9:00 am132 views

  A beautiful Arabic proverb teaches us that a vessel only spills that which it contains. If a cup of water falls, it will spill merely that which it holds. Our heart is also a vessel of sorts. If it harbors prejudice and hate, what it divulges is simply a manifestation of what was in it. But if it houses compassion and love, then it will accordingly release what it bears.

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  Protecting Youth - World No Tobacco Day Observed

  Jun 1, 2020 9:00 am44 views

  World No Tobacco Day 2020:  Protecting youth from industry manipulation and preventing them from tobacco and nicotine use.  Learn about the impact that tobacco use has on the health of people, the economy, and the environmment, and how you can join the fight against the tobacco epidemic.

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  Promoting Equity through Digital Inclusion

  Oct 6, 2020 9:00 am33 views

  In today’s world where everyone needs to be able to connect through the Internet for school, work, and socialization, it is critical that we prioritize finding equitable ways to connect our urban, suburban, and rural areas.

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  President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law: What State and Local Policy Makers and Practitioners Need to Know?

  Mar 2, 2022 9:00 am59 views

  President Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Job Act is a bipartisan law passed in November 2021 is essentially equivalent to a 5-year capital improvement program financed by the federal government and implemented by state and local governments. 

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  Preparing the Next Generation of Attorneys to Prevent and Remedy Wrongful Convictions

  Mar 24, 2021 12:00 pm99 views

  The legal maneuvers required to free an innocent person after a wrongful conviction are notoriously complex. Yet few criminal law courses address post-conviction law. To help bridge the gap, the Illinois Innocence Project (IIP) serves as an extern site for law schools.

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  Prepare For Pandemics And Transform Yourself Into a Global Public Health Leader with the MPH Program at UIS

  Apr 24, 2020 7:00 am1159 views

  World Malaria Day (April 25) is around the corner. Public health professionals continue to debate the safety and effectiveness of anti-malaria drugs to treat patients with COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2). The challenges in managing this pandemic go beyond developing effective treatment regimens. The necessary public health action plans need strong scientific-based research skills, which you will learn through MPH learning experiences at the University of Illinois Springfield (UIS).

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  Power in Other Places: On Uprisings, Black Lives Matter, and Politics

  Aug 20, 2020 9:00 am195 views

  I have always been drawn to the politics of everyday people who act outside of and against conventional politics. This grounds my interest in the resurgence of Black Lives Matter uprisings. I am interested in those moments when presumptively “powerless” people mobilize and realize other powers than those of the established institutional apparatus of politics, an apparatus which includes the police, prisons, courts, and military.

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  Politics Suck: Can I get an amen?

  Oct 1, 2020 9:00 am109 views

  Now, do I have your attention? Good, but this article is not about Donald Trump or Joe Biden.

  It’s about you. It’s about me. It’s about us.

  It’s about the type of office politics that we all engage in that undermine the health of our workplaces and our own futures.

• Partnerships to Prevent Child Fatalities and Train the Workforce

  Feb 9, 2021 11:00 am29 views

  Next week, the Child Protection Training Academy will mark five years of operation on the University of Illinois Springfield campus.  In February 2016, the first group of newly hired DCFS child protection investigators came to campus to experience the recently launched simulation training model developed in partnership with the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.  The tiny house on the UIS campus was transformed to become a cutting-edge training facility where DCFS investigators could interact with “family members” (Standardized Patient Actors from the SIU-School of Medicine) investigating allegations of child abuse and neglect in a realistic environment.  As a result of the pandemic, the Academy has become proficient in a virtual training format and continues to use technology in areas to improve the training.  The Academy is excited to think about the potential for improvement in critical thinking of all students, especially those who enter into the workforce to advocate for children.  Learning is often limited by thinking ideas are impossible; the Academy dares to achieve the impossible.

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  PAR grad Ray Long talks about Michael Madigan with us on March 17

  Feb 16, 2022 9:00 am136 views

  Ray Long, PAR '81, chronicles Speaker Madigan’s storied legislative career in a new book – “The House That Madigan Built: The Record Run of Illinois' Velvet Hammer”, which comes out March 22.  We’d like to invite you to join us on Zoom at noon March 17 to hear from Long about his book and his career covering Madigan.

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  PAR Alumni Spotlight: Hannah Meisel returns to NPR Illinois

  May 4, 2021 8:00 am115 views

  Hannah Meisel has made a handful of stops on her journalism journey since completing the Public Affairs Reporting program in 2014. But she’s never strayed too far from the Illinois political beat.

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  PAR Alumni Spotlight: Daralene Jones helps reveal truth of Ocoee Massacre

  Dec 15, 2020 9:00 am239 views

  For 100 years, the story of the Ocoee Massacre remained largely untold. But thanks to the efforts of Public Affairs Reporting graduate Daralene Jones and her team at WFTV Channel 9 in Orlando, the truth of what happened to Black residents in Ocoee on Election Day 1920 is being revealed to a new generation of people in Florida and beyond.

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  PAR Alumni Spotlight: Andrea Zelinski hikes 2,193-mile Appalachian Trail

  Feb 16, 2021 12:15 pm181 views

  In the years since completing the Public Affairs Reporting program in 2008, Andrea Zelinski has been covering politics and government for news organizations in Illinois, Tennessee and Texas. But in 2020, she pause her journalism career for a seven-month journey on the Appalachian Trail, the 2,193-mile hiking trail that covers 14 states.

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  PAR Alumni Spotlight: Alex Degman returns to Illinois Capitol

  Mar 31, 2022 9:00 am54 views

  Public Affairs Reporting Director Jason Piscia chats with Alex Degman, PAR '09, who is returning to Springfield after nearly five years with KMOX in St. Louis as an anchor and reporter.

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  Other People’s Money: Married Women and Indebted Husbands in U.S. Law

  Mar 18, 2021 10:45 am108 views

  I am currently writing a book that explores the rights of debtors in the United States in the late nineteenth century.  In the chapter I’m currently revising, I focus on these themes as they related to married women. Under the common law of marriage, married women had no independent legal personality. All of this meant that wives were largely dependent on their husbands’ financial fortunes.

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  Opening the Pipeline to Public Service

  Jul 15, 2021 10:00 am405 views

  A common question we get asked by prospective students in the Office of Graduate Intern Programs is, “Am I guaranteed a job after graduation?”

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  One Last Thought

  Jul 21, 2022 9:00 am329 views

  In August of 2017, I was fortunate to be offered my dream job as Director of the Office of Graduate Intern Programs in the Center for State Policy and Leadership at UIS.

• NPR Illinois is happy to say our newest program, Community Voices, is passing the six-month mark.

  Apr 8, 2021 2:00 pm116 views

  When you’re young, it’s important to announce you’re not just six or seven, but “And a half!” NPR Illinois is happy to say our newest program, Community Voices, is passing the six-month mark. Co-host Bea Bonner and I have enjoyed the start of this new concept in elevating the perspectives and the breadth of our listeners and neighbors. You hear this phrase every episode, “Community Voices is events you might have missed and conversations with neighbors, artists, and area business people.”

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  November Public Affairs Minute - Civility

  Nov 9, 2021 11:15 am139 views

  There is one concept that emerges above all in trying to seek a solution or a way forward in our current divisive political environment and social discord. That missing ingredient is civility.

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  Not Voting is Never an Option

  Oct 13, 2020 9:00 am66 views

  In my role as Dean of a College of Public Affairs, I am bound to the promotion of civic engagement, participation in democratic institutions, and encouraging citizens to vote and participate in our system of government.

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  New year’s resolutions for news consumers

  Aug 17, 2021 10:00 am97 views

  The fall semester begins this week at UIS. To me, this time of year feels more like New Year’s Day than Jan. 1.  So with that in mind, allow me to wish you a Happy New Year and provide you with some new year’s resolutions.

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  News literacy: A lesson for all ages

  Dec 22, 2021 9:00 am340 views

  As the last several months have shown us, misinterpreted or flat-out bogus information about vaccines, masks, the outcome of the 2020 presidential election and much more affects – and polarizes – all ages.

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  New executive orders target climate change, job creation, and environmental justice

  Mar 31, 2021 8:30 am164 views

  A new Presidential Administration brings with it new people, priorities, actions, and policies. Presidents’ approaches to environmental policy, in particular, have oscillated drastically during the last several administrations depending on which party the then-President identified with. This oscillation is so familiar to us it may feel like a given - but it wasn’t always this way.

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  New Academic Year, New Interns

  Jun 17, 2021 9:00 am128 views

  Every Spring, as GPSI says Farewell and Congratulations to a group of graduating interns, we simultaneously go through a process of hiring a new group of graduate interns.  This year, we are celebrating the success of May’s virtual interviews which resulted in 85 new hires for the GPSI program. 

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  My UIS Experience

  Mar 30, 2021 9:00 am192 views

  UIS has been an incredible steppingstone in building my future. UIS encouraged me to be open minded, adventurous, independent, and confident. These qualities led me to become the successful Attorney I am now.