La Follette Notes
Fall 2012 / www.lafollette.wisc.edu
News for Alumni & Friends of The Robert M. La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin–Madison
Dresang scholarship
campaign going strong
Alumni, friends,
students picnic
in Madison
D
ennis Dresang, professor emeritus of
public affairs and political science,
made transformational contributions to the
La Follette School, through his leadership,
and to public administration, through his
scholarship. Our alumni report that he is
one of most respected and beloved faculty
members from the La Follette School.
Fund-raising goes well for the scholarship established four years ago to honor
Professor Dresang and his contributions to
the La Follette School, to the University
and to governance around the world. So
far, 46 alumni and friends and two organizations have responded with �gifts ranging
from $25 to $1,000. Those giving $500
and more will be recognized on a plaque
the school will present to Dennis after the
formal campaign closes at the end of 2012.
We encourage you to contribute to the
Dresang scholarship
fund, which will provide support for graduate students pursuing
degrees in domestic
and international
public affairs.
This fall, our
entering class is off
to a great start. Twenty
From the Director students are in the
international public
Tom DeLeire
affairs program, while
36 are pursuing the master of public affairs.
The new students received a warm welcome
at orientation, with the La Follette School
Student Association again providing activities through which students form friendships that continue beyond graduation.
As always, we encourage all of our
alumni and friends to take advantage of
gatherings to renew their own friendships
and connections to the La Follette School.
Some opportunities are outlined on page 4;
others of you gather on your own for lunch,
to run marathons or to celebrate weddings.
We hope you will share with us news about
your milestones. w
Recent alumni enjoy the
Hillside Fest picnic on
the La Follette School
grounds in July. More
than 60 alumni, friends,
students, faculty and
staff attended.
Several ways for alumni
in the Madison area to
gather are brewing.
See details on page 4.
Donors’ generosity aids student’s career,
research pursuits in health policy
A
recommendation from a La Follette
focus on my academic and research careers
School professor led to a possible
without financial worry,” Bakken says.
career direction for Erik Bakken.
Noah and Shelley Rosenberg established
Since he was a junior at the Univerthe fellowship in 2010 at the La Follette
sity of Wisconsin–Madison, Bakken knew
School to honor Noah’s younger sister, Ina
he wanted to go on to graduate school in
Jo Rosenberg, and her daughter, Shiri Eve
public affairs. The
Leah Gumbiner, who
political science major
died in 2002 and
Support La Follette
learned about public
2005, respectively.
School students
affairs as a career path
Staying on the
and programs
from professor David
UW–Madison camWeimer. “I took his
pus meant Bakken
Information available online at
introduction to public
could keep his posiwww.lafollette.wisc.edu/giving
policy course, and that
tion as a project asor call 608-263-7657 or
got me interested,”
sistant with David
email giving@lafollette.wisc.edu
Bakken says. “I also
A. Kindig, professor
knew I wanted to go
emeritus of popuon and get more training, but I didn’t want
lation health sciences, at the Population
to earn a Ph.D. I really liked the applied
Health Institute.
problem-solving aspect of public affairs.”
Bakken started there in January, halfway
A financial award from the La Follette
through his senior year after Weimer alertSchool’s Ina Jo Rosenberg and Shiri Eve
ed him to the open position. “Originally
Leah Gumbiner Fellowship was a factor in
I accepted the job to merely gain some
Bakken’s decision to stay on campus. “The
hands-on research and policy experience,”
fellowship will allow me to wholeheartedly
See Student fellowship on page 5
2 / La Follette Notes
Kock joins S.D.
education department
Alum Sara Kock is back
in her home state of South
Dakota, where she is working
as a management analyst for
the Department of Education
in Pierre.
“I will be
working on
developing and
implementing
Sara Kock
a state
longitudinal data system,”
says Kock, who had been
working in Milwaukee with
the Wisconsin Department of
Children and Families since
graduating in May 2011 with
a master of public affairs.
“The data system has many
potential uses like calculating
student growth, evaluating teachers using student
outcomes and providing feedback to teacher preparation
programs.”
In addition, Kock worked with
professor Karen Holden on
studying gender differences
with supplemental retirement
savings for Wisconsin state
workers. They co-authored
“Increasing Retirement
Savings by Working Women:
Understanding Gender
Disparities in Wisconsin
Deferred Compensation
Program Account Balances,”
which is available online
as a Center for Financial
Security working paper. Out
of that project came several
presentations, including a
paper they wrote that Holden
gave at the Foundations for
International Studies on
Social Security conference
in Sweden in June.
www.lafollette.wisc.edu
Fall 2012
Alum leads Bhutan sustainability effort
W
hen La Follette School
professor emeritus Dennis Dresang welcomed former
student Yeshey Zimba to a dinner
in downtown Madison, they completed a circle begun in the 1970s
when Dresang taught the young
scholar from Bhutan.
Zimba, now addressed with
honorific title of “Lyonpo,” is
minister of works and human settlement of Bhutan, a kingdom in
the mountains between China and
India. He was in Madison in April
to discuss Bhutan’s “gross national Bhutan’s minister of works and human settlement, Yeshey Zimba, left,
happiness” index at an Earth Day and professor Dennis Dresang attend a dinner in Zimba’s honor.
celebration.
After completing his bachelor’s degree in politiking for his country’s pioneering use of happiness
cal science, Zimba earned a master’s degree in pubrather than wealth as a focus for growth.
lic policy and administration in 1976 through the
Bhutan’s king created the concept “gross naCenter for Development, which later became part
tional happiness” to demonstrate the government’s
of the La Follette School’s master of international
commitment to building an economy that would
public affairs degree program.
serve the country’s culture based on Buddhist spiri“It was great seeing him back in Madison,”
tual values. Under gross national happiness, benDresang says, noting that Zimba expressed gratieficial development of human society takes place
tude for learning approaches to public managewhen material and spiritual development occur
ment and financing and to economic development
side by side. The four pillars of gross national hapthat “he has applied in his extraordinarily successpiness are sustainable development, preservation
ful public service career in Bhutan. He also had
and promotion of cultural values, conservation
very fond memories of the informal learning from
of the natural environment and establishment of
other students—international and American—that
good governance.
were facilitated by the environment on campus and
Zimba’s trip to Madison followed a stop in New
in Madison generally,” says Dresang.
York where Bhutan convened a high-level meeting
Dresang says Zimba shared the role of a former
on “Happiness and Well Being: Defining A New
king of Bhutan in adopting a democratic form of
Economic Paradigm” as a step toward a sustainable,
government, despite the desire of the people to
holistic, inclusive, and equitable new economic dehave him continue to rule. And he credited the
velopment paradigm for the global community. w
2003 alum joins aid agency in Cambodia
K
risten Rasmussen, who earned a master of
international public affairs degree in 2003,
started a new job as program coordinator at Danish Church Aid/Christian Aid Cambodia, which
implements a joint program between DCA, the
leading Danish international development agency,
and Christian Aid, a large development agency
based in the United Kingdom.
“DCA/CA Cambodia is quite large; we partner
with 25 local non-governmental organizations to
implement a food security program and gender justice and human rights program,” Rasmussen says.
“Under the food security program, DCA/CA’s
partners work on issues such as access to land and
land use rights and climate
change adaptation,” she adds.
“Under our gender justice
and human rights program,
DCA/CA partners with local
NGOs working on protection
of civil liberties, human rights
and reduction of gender-based
violence. As the only program coordinator at DCA/CA
Cambodia my work is cut out
for me, but I am very excited
about it!” w
Kristen
Rasmussen
Fall 2012
www.lafollette.wisc.edu
La Follette Notes / 3
News from alumni and friends
1980s
Bill Schmitt returned to Afghanistan in June
Elizabeth “Buff”
Wright, 1981, added to
her job title secretary to
the Board of Regents of
the Chapman-KGI School
of BioPharmacy, which will
open in fall 2014. She is
also assistant vice president and secretary to the
Board of Trustees of the
Buff Wright
Keck Graduate Institute
of Allied Life Sciences
(a Claremont College) in Claremont, California. In
addition to her master’s degree in public policy and
administration, Wright has a law degree from the
University of Wisconsin–Madison.
John J. Rohrer, 1987, has been promoted to
associate director/chief operating officer, William S.
Middleton Memorial Veterans Hospital in Madison.
1990s
After heading the World Bank’s urban and water
work in Vietnam for four years, Dean Cira, 1990,
has moved to Nairobi, Kenya, to lead the World
Bank’s urban programs in Africa. “Africa is among
the world’s fastest urbanizing regions, challenged
broadly by weak governance and nascent trends in
decentralization and devolution,” Cira says. In addition, the World Bank gave him this year’s Mentor of
the Year award for his work in mentoring younger
World Bank staff.
Frances HuntleyCooper, 1994, was
Frances
Huntley-Cooper
Future Bob
re-elected in July to serve
another year as Chair of
the Madison College Board
of Trustees. She was
elected to be a delegate
to the National Democratic
Convention and attended
the September 2-6 official
activities in Charlotte,
North Carolina.
2000s
Kevin Luecke, 2009, is a transportation planner
at Toole Design Group in Madison. TDG is a multimodal planning and design firm based in Silver
Spring, Maryland, with offices in Boston, Seattle
and Madison. His work focuses on making communities safe, accessible and attractive for people
traveling on foot, by bike and on transit.
Lucy Clark
Amoroso models
a onesie made
by Alexis MacDonald, 2008, at
a baby shower
for Kate (Clark)
Amoroso, 2007.
The two alumni
are health policy
analysts with the
U.S. Government
Accountability Office in Washington,
D.C. Amoroso reports that Lucy arrived
four weeks ahead of schedule, but that
“other than being on the thin side, her
early arrival hasn’t phased her a bit.”
as the country representative for Catholic Relief
Services. The agency’s program focuses on
community-based education, natural resource
management and agriculture livelihoods in some
of the most remote parts of the country. Schmitt
earned a master of international public affairs in
2005 and joined CRS in 2006. He has served in a
number of countries, including Sudan, Afghanistan,
Indonesia and Haiti.
Mary Reddin retired from Milwaukee County’s
Information Management Services Department
and is starting a photography business with her
husband, photographer Jon Reddin. “We mat and
frame his photos and offer them for sale at art fairs
around Wisconsin,” she says. “Learning how to get
a business going is challenging. You can ‘Like’ Jon
Reddin Photography on Facebook or check out our
website to see how we are doing.” In 2004, Reddin
completed the Wisconsin Women in Government
seminar the La Follette School offers in partnership
with the bipartisan organization of the same name.
Tori Key, 2005, has been promoted to manager
with Grant Thornton’s Global Public Sector practice
based in Alexandria, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C.
Ceri Jenkins, 2003, began a position as a senior
associate at the Center on Wisconsin Strategy this
spring, working on urban policy projects. “I help coordinate the Mayors Innovation Project, a national
policy learning network for progressive mayors,”
she reports.
Ryan Schowalter, 2012, is evaluation manager
Andrew Trembley, 2011, will be among the
alumni and faculty presenting at the Association for
Public Policy Analysis and Management conference November 8-10 in Baltimore. He will present
a poster called “Serving Two Masters: Profits,
Outreach and Size In Community Development
Financial Institutions.” He encourages other Bobs
to stop by his session, 10-11:30 a.m. on November
9. Trembley is a consultant with the World Bank
and works on its education team.
Daniel Bush, 2009, is a data analyst with the
Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, working on school accountability, college readiness and
postsecondary outcomes. He and his wife, Becky,
welcomed their daughter Leah this spring.
with City Year Los Angeles.
Lydia Bi is a sustainability
analyst with InnoCSR, a management consultancy in Shanghai
that specializes in corporate
social responsibility. Bi manages the Fortune CSR Ranking
2013 project, a China-focused
annual ranking of multinational
and Chinese companies based on
their corporate social responsibility
performance that will be published
in the Fortune China magazine in
its March 2013 issue. She earned
a double degree in urban and regional planning and in international
public affairs in 2011.
Alissa Quade, 2012, is now an
Epic health-care software consultant with Vonlay in Madison.
More News on page 4
Anniversary
celebrated
Julia AndersonVedejs and
John Vander
Meer, 2006,
celebrated their
first anniversary in August.
Bobs attending
their wedding
at the Wisconsin Capitol included 2006 alumni Craig
Johnson, Jeff Sartin, Emily Pope, and Karyn (Kriz)
and Rob Dall’Asta; plus Kate Battiato, 2007; and
Jonathan McBride, 2010. Vander Meer is communications director of the Wisconsin Health Care Association
and the Wisconsin Center for Assisted Living.
4 / La Follette Notes
News from alumni
and friends
www.lafollette.wisc.edu
Opportunities abound for alumni to gather
L
policy and budget analyst with the Wisconsin
Department of Administration.
a Follette School alumni and friends get
together frequently to renew friendships, expand their networks and share
ideas about public policies. Several opportunities are available; contact alumni@
lafollette.wisc.edu or 608-262-3581 for
information.
Hope Harvey, 2012, is starting on her doctor-
Networking series set in Madison
2000s continued from page 3
Megan Stritchko, 2009, is now an executive
ate in sociology and social policy at the Kennedy
School of Government at Harvard University.
Jason Kramer, 2012, is a policy and economics
researcher at the University of Wisconsin–Madison
Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention.
Dane County contract
compliance officer
Wesley Sparkman, 2000,
Wes Sparkman
is the new president of the
Madison chapter
of Rotary International.
With 500 members,
the group is the eighthlargest Rotary chapter
in the world.
Holly Bedwell, 2009, is now senior director for
research, policy and strategic planning with New
York City’s Department of Education.
Carly Hood, 2012, is a population health service
fellow at the University of Wisconsin–Madison
Population Health Institute.
2012 grad Nicki Thiher returned to her undergraduate alma mater, Coe College, as a fulltime economics professor. “My official title is ‘visiting assistant professor of economics,’” she says.
“It should be a fun year!”
The Milwaukee Common Council unanimously
confirmed Jennifer Gonda’s appointment in July
2012 to join Mayor Tom Barrett’s cabinet as the
city’s director of intergovernmental relations. She
has been with the city of Milwaukee since she completed her master of public affairs degree in 2001.
Emanda Thomas, 2004, earned her Ph.D. in
educational policy and administration from the
University of Minnesota in the spring. Her dissertation examined the evolving role of state
departments of education as agents for educational
change. She has been a research associate at
WestEd in Washington, D.C., since 2009.
Fall 2012
Alumni, friends, students, faculty and staff
in Madison are catching up with each other
at Policy and a Pint, a monthly after-work
speaker and networking series in downtown Madison.
“Each session features a speaker followed by discussion of the topic or casual
conversation,” says organizer Kate Battiato,
the school’s career development coordinator. “It’s a great way for people with ties to
La Follette to renew friendship and make
new connections.”
In November, alumni and friends can
hear from Craig Gilbert, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Washington, D.C.,
bureau chief and national political reporter.
Fresh from covering the presidential election, Gilbert will share his experiences on
the road with the candidates. The gathering will be November 14, at Brocach, 7
West Main Street in Madison, at 5 p.m.
The October gathering was to feature
2001 alum Jennifer Gonda, the city of Milwaukee’s new director of intergovernmental relations. In September, management
consultant Robin Gates, a 1976 alum, discussed his ideas for transforming government agency leadership.
Annual Madison reception Feb. 7
Alumni and friends of the school can join
faculty, students and staff for conversation
and networking, free hors d’oeuvres and
cash bar on Thursday, February 7, at Inn on
the Park, 22 South Carroll Street, Madison.
Alumni, students gather in D.C.
Alumni in Washington, D.C., held a happy
hour for student interns and other alumni
and friends of the school in August.
“There were about 15 of us, including
two of the interns,” reports one of the organizers, Kate Nast, a 2008 alum. “There
seems to be interest among those of us who
are in living in DC to make a Bob alumni
happy hour a more regular thing.”
The other organizers were Alexis MacDonald, 2008; Lindsay Read, 2009; and
Lilly Shields, 2010. w
Study by alum, professor
3 annual property tax payments reduce delinquency
P
roperty owners are less likely to be late
with their tax payments if they make
three installment payments a year instead
of two, according to an analysis by La Follette School economist Andrew Reschovsky
and 2011 alum Paul Waldhart.
The delinquency rate drops by about
a third if the number of payments is increased from two to three, Reschovsky and
Waldhart find through an analysis of data
from Wisconsin municipalities for 2005
through 2009.
However, Reschovsky says, more than
three installments does not lead to a statistically significant reduction in the property
tax delinquency rate.
“Around the United States, more people
are late with their property tax payments,”
Reschovsky says. “In Wisconsin, the delinquency rate was 2 percent in 2005.
In 2007 it was 2.5 percent, and by 2009
it had risen to 3 percent.”
Of Wisconsin’s 1,850 municipalities,
about 60 allow more than two installments
for real estate taxes, Reschovsky says. These
municipalities are generally larger: of Wisconsin’s 38 municipalities with populations
over 20,000, 22 allow multiple installments.
Collection methods for delinquent payments vary across and within Wisconsin
counties, Reschovsky adds. Some municipalities collect their delinquent taxes, while
others give the county this responsibility.
On average, in fiscal year 2009, local
governments in Wisconsin relied on the
property tax for 65.2 percent of their ownraised revenues. In only six states did local
governments raise a higher share own revenues from the property tax.
Now an analyst with the Wisconsin
Legislative Audit Bureau, Waldhart was a
student in Reschovsky’s spring 2011 tax
policy seminar. w
Fall 2012
www.lafollette.wisc.edu
La Follette Notes / 5
Students win policy challenge with ideas on solar energy incentives
T
wo La Follette School students won
the U.S. Department of Energy portion of the Startup America Policy Challenge with their proposal about how to
make solar energy more affordable.
Sam Harms and Sam Shannon were
in Washington, D.C., in May as part of
the Startup America Policy Challenge announced by the White House in December
2011. The two second-year students talked
with Richard Kauffman, senior advisor to
the secretary of energy, and presented their
ideas to a panel of industry and government leaders in energy, education and
health policy.
“Under our proposal, the U.S. Department of Energy and the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission would establish
a framework to encourage electric utilities to lease solar photovoltaic modules to
businesses and homeowners,” Harms says.
“Customers would pay a monthly fee to
use the electricity produced, which would
make renewable power more affordable.
Utilities would be able to put any excess
onto the grid and apply all generated electricity toward state requirements to use re-
Student fellowship
continued from page 1
says Bakken, who started the master of
public affairs degree program this fall,
“but I have now become highly interested
in the population health field.”
The experience is paying off. In October, Bakken and Kindig had their first publication in the Wisconsin Medical Journal.
“Our research examines the provision of
community benefit from the tax-exemption status of by Wisconsin hospitals,”
Bakken says.
“Although I first looked to study
environmental policy at the La Follette
School, this position has shown me the
link between health and the environment,
and that these fields are not mutually exclusive,” Bakken says, adding that public
affairs’ multidisciplinary nature is what
draws him to the field.
“Ultimately, I am interested in researching the political ecology of changes to the
physical environment that improve health
and of detriments such as the conjunction
of environmental inequity and health disparities,” he says. w
Sam Harms
Sam Shannon
newable energy.”
The two students based the policy
proposal on an idea Shannon had prior
to enrolling in the La Follette School’s
master of public affairs degree program.
“I considered starting a company that
would acquire, distribute and install solar
modules for residential and commercial users,” says Shannon, who worked for healthcare software company Epic in Madison for
three years prior to enrolling at La Follette.
Both students are pursuing master of
public affairs degrees and certificates in
energy analysis and policy.
During their first semester in fall 2011,
Shannon and Harms took the course Introduction to Energy Analysis from Greg
Nemet. Then in the spring, Shannon had
an epiphany. “Why not cut out the middle
man and have utilities directly lease solar
systems to their customers?” he asked himself and Harms.
They shaped their ideas with Nemet’s
help. “He played a pretty big role in helping us develop our proposal after the initial
‘challenge’ went out by making himself
available to consult on our rounds of proposals,” Harms says. “He really helped us
refine and sharpen our idea.”
Solar electricity modules are prohibitively expensive to purchase for most property owners, the students note. “If America
wants to transition to cleaner sources of
energy for electricity to counter local air
pollution and greenhouse gases associated
with fossil fuels, the federal government
must promote the adoption of emerging
technologies,” says Shannon. “Under our
proposal the DOE and FERC would work
to reduce the soft costs (installation, permitting, etc.) of adopting small-scale solar
technology.” w
Where the grads are
Of the 38 May
2012 graduates
seeking
employment,
84 percent
(32 people)
reported by the
end of August
that they were
working in a
professional
capacity toward
their career
goals.
State
32%
Nonprofit or
Education
32%
Local
5%
Private
Of those 32
13%
alumni, 21 are
in Madison,
seven are in the Washington, D.C.,
area, and nine are elsewhere in
the United States. One is working
abroad. Others in the 54-member
class of 2012 are completing joint
degrees and certificates at the
International
5%
Federal
13%
University of Wisconsin–Madison.
One is going to China to study
classical Chinese, and another
is starting a doctoral program at
Harvard University.
6 / La Follette Notes
Yackee becomes
associate director
Susan Webb Yackee is the
La Follette School’s new
associate director, working
with student services staff on
admissions, curriculum and
career development.
An expert
in administrative
rulemaking,
Yackee is
examining
whether
interest
groups indi- Susan Yackee
rectly influence government regulations
by lobbying the president’s
Office of Management and
Budget. Her research and
teaching interests include
regulation, administrative law,
public management and the
politics of policymaking.
She succeeds Don Moynihan, who served as associate director for three years.
w
Feldman joins OMB
Andrew Feldman, who
taught the Advanced Public
Management
course at
La Follette
in fall 2012,
has moved
to Washington, D.C.,
to become
Andrew
the special
Feldman
advisor for
intergovernmental
performance management
in the U.S. Office of Management and Budget. His
focus is on strengthening
evaluation and performance
management efforts at the
state and local levels.
www.lafollette.wisc.edu
Fall 2012
News from faculty and staff
Student services program assistant Mary Mead is now department administrator the design studies department at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Human Ecology.
The La Follette School is one of nine institutions nationwide
to be awarded a grant to provide insights into health reform,
including issues related to state-level implementation of the
federal Affordable Care Act. Director Thomas DeLeire
will lead the project, Planning for ACA Coverage Expansion:
How Insurance Coverage for Childless Adults Will Affect
Utilization. It is funded by a $199,708 grant from the State
Health Access Reform Evaluation, a national program of
the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. In another project,
DeLeire shows that economic opportunity is not the same
for everyone in the United States. While 84 percent of
Americans have higher family incomes than their parents
did at the same age, those born at the top and bottom of the
income ladder are likely to stay there as adults. DeLeire and
co-author Leonard Lopoo of Syracuse University conducted
the study for The Pew Charitable Trusts.
Poverty expert Tim Smeeding has
edited another book, From Parents
to Children: The Intergenerational
Transmission of Advantage, published by Russell Sage Foundation. It
explores how economic inequality in
one generation leads to inequality of
opportunity in the next. The contributors find that inequality in mobilityrelevant skills emerges early in childhood in all of the countries studied.
Tim Smeeding
They use data from 10 countries with
differing levels of inequality. The book
compares whether and how parents’ resources transmit
advantage to their children at different stages of development and sheds light on the structural differences among
countries that may influence intergenerational mobility.
Research by economist Barbara
Wolfe explores the association
between socioeconomic status and
the hippocampus, a brain region
involved in learning and memory
that stress is known to affect. Wolfe
and her co-authors find that children
from lower income backgrounds
had lower hippocampal gray matter
density than children from higher inBarbara Wolfe
come families. The findings suggest
that differences in the hippocampus,
perhaps due to stress tied to growing up in poverty, might
partially explain differences in long-term memory, learning, control of neuroendocrine functions and modulation of
emotional behavior.
David Weimer has been elected vice president and presi-
dent-elect of the Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis, an international group of practitioners, academics and others who seek
to improve the theory and application of benefit-cost analysis.
In a series of presentations, economist Andrew Reschovsky has been addressing the public finance challenges
U.S. cities face, public school financing, the effect of the
housing crisis and the Great Recession on central city
revenues. One analysis finds that although state governments are recovering from the severe budget crises caused
by the Great Recession, city governments continue to face
reduced revenues from the property tax and from state and
federal grants.
Economist Menzie Chinn has
been arguing that inflation is the
best bet for beating the debt crisis
and helping the global economy
recover. He and co-author Jeffry
Frieden of Harvard University have
been making their case in articles
and in media interviews. “Debtors —
households, business and governments — find servicing their loans
Menzie Chinn
easier as prices and wages rise,”
Chinn says. “Once the real burden
is reduced, borrowers can resume their regular economic
behavior, which will stimulate investment and consumption.”
Noting that inflation is very low at the moment, Chinn and
Frieden suggest inflation at a rate of 4 to 6 percent for several years. One option would be for the Federal Reserve to
tie inflation to the unemployment rate. To avoid a decade of
lost economic growth, Chinn says, banks and other financial
institutions need to channel savings into productive projects,
and households and firms need to go back to a more balanced mix of saving and spending that supports growth
and full employment.
Management expert Donald Moynihan won an award
from the American Political Science Association in recognition of the impact his 2008 book has had on public administration scholarship. Moynihan received the Herbert Simon
award for The Dynamics of Performance Management:
Constructing Information and Reform at the annual meeting
of the American Political Science Association. The Academy
of Management’s Public and Nonprofit Division named it
the best book for 2009. Last summer, Moynihan shared his
expertise at three conferences, including a presentation of
his research funded by the National Science Foundation on
how different levels of government, non-profit and private
actors can prepare to respond to crises.
The University of Wisconsin–Madison has appointed political scientist
Melanie Manion a Vilas-Jordan
Distinguished Achievement Professorship. The honor demonstrates
the high esteem in which Manion is
held by the dean and her colleagues
in the College of Letters and Science.
Melanie Manion
Fall 2012
www.lafollette.wisc.edu
As Goodwill executive director, Buron helps
reduce employment barriers in Michigan
A
lum Dan Buron helps to con nect the business community with potential employees who
might otherwise be overlooked.
As executive director for
Goodwill Industries of Southeastern Michigan, Buron oversees
a staff of 120 people who help
people with disabilities and other
barriers achieve full participation
in society by providing vocational evaluation, training, employment and job-placement and
retention services.
“We help prepare the individual to be successful in employment and work with businesses
to understand the ability and
potential of these individuals,”
Buron says. “With the changing 1998 alum Dan Buron became executive director for Goodwill Industries of
Southeastern Michigan after several years as chief workforce development
economic and workforce structure in our country, our work to officer for Goodwill in Grand Rapids.
ensure this group does not get
left behind becomes even more important.”
at La Follette helped him get that first job. “From
Buron became executive director in Adrian in
that experience, I had a great tangible project that
2012, after serving as chief workforce development
I could use to demonstrate my capacity to do
officer for Goodwill in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
complex projects successfully,” Buron says. “That
In that position Buron brought together the
internship was the main reason I was initially ingovernment, business and nonprofit sectors to
terviewed at the national office for Goodwill. The
make the system more effective and seamless. “The
hiring director was interested in the national best
emphasis is on the ‘overlooked’ workforce, which
practices work that I did and how that could work
can include people with disabilities or felony confor Goodwill.”
victions, or people who have had limited or poor
After four years in D.C., Buron decided he
work experiences,” Buron says. “We also help vetwanted a more hands-on job, so he headed to a
erans, many of whom need help translating how
Goodwill in Indiana. “At the end of the day, I was
their military experiences and skills transfer to the
interested in seeing how policy intersected with
private sector.”
implementation at the local level—what impact
He joined Goodwill’s national office in Washwas possible given the constraints of time, resourcington, D.C., soon after graduating in 1998 from
es, and local/national policy,” Buron says.
what was then the La Follette Institute of Public
From there he went to Hawaii and then landed
Affairs. “As a national workforce development conin Grand Rapids in 2007. Throughout his career,
sultant, I supported local Goodwills throughout
the training he gained at La Follette has been inthe country on the implementation of the 1998
valuable. “The quantitative skills courses helped
Workforce Investment Act and other national
me in understanding what could be known, what
workforce development programs,” Buron says.
was not possible to know, and what we needed to
“The broader work at the national office provided
know based on the information available to us,”
a great opportunity to see the workforce developBuron says. “I often run into situations where indiment system at the macro level.”
viduals were making decisions and conclusions that
Buron’s internship with the National Govershould not be made based on the information we
nors Association between his first and second years
had at the time.” w
La Follette Notes / 7
Harris joins Tulane
University faculty
1996 alum and La Follette
School professor Douglas
Harris has joined Tulane University as associate professor
of economics and University
Endowed Chair in Public
Education.
Harris is at the forefront
of research attempting to
identify policies that improve
teacher effectiveness. His
2011 book, Value-added
Measures in Education: What
Every Educator Needs to
Know, was nominated for the
Grawemeyer Award in Education. He has also examined
improving college access
and success, directing two of
the first randomized trials of
college financial aid.
Harris has been the principal
investigator on more than $6
million in research grants and
the results of this work have
been published in dozens
of academic publications.
He consults widely on policy
matters with elected officials,
state departments of education and organizations such
as the National Governors
Association.
Harris
had been
professor
of public
affairs
and educational
policy at
the La
Follette
Douglas Harris
School.
Prior to teaching at Wisconsin, he taught at Florida State
University.
8 / La Follette Notes
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