Indiana Climate Fellowship provides sustainability partnership

Posted on August 23, 2021 by Leslie Wells

Written by: James Boyd, O’Neill Bloomington, Director of Marketing and Communications

Growing up in Greenwood, Indiana, Ciana Sorrentino didn’t know what she wanted to do when she grew up, but she knew she wanted to help her community, not sit in a cubicle for eight hours a day.

The third-generation Hoosier spent this past summer as an Indiana Climate Fellow, helping the Kentuckiana Regional Planning and Development Agency develop key assets in nine different Indiana and Kentucky counties to develop a hazard mitigation plan.

Sorrentino was a triple-major as an undergraduate in the Kelley School of Business—business management, human resources, and international business, in case you were wondering—but joined the O’Neill School at IUPUI to pursue her MPA in Policy Analysis. During one of her courses, she was assigned a group project that paired her with Danni Schaust.

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Diplomacy Lab helps O’Neill graduate students make a difference in Kosovo

Posted on August 16, 2021 by Leslie Wells

As O’Neill students return for the fall 2021 semester, those in O’Neill Senior Lecturer Bill Foley’s J-531 National and Homeland Security in America course will get the chance to contribute to the U.S. Department of State’s policymaking process. For the seventh time in as many years, Foley will lead his students through a Diplomacy Lab project, a research opportunity allowing students to dive into complex foreign policy challenges proposed by State Department officials.

For fall 2021, students will evaluate the effectiveness of social and cultural exchange programs for improving the United States’ image, messaging, and foreign relations with various nations.

“The Diplomacy Lab project gives students a chance to engage the international dialogue in a way that no other embedded government project can do,” Foley explains. “Our students actually become the research arm of the U.S. Department of State.”

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Report examines drivers of probation revocations and how to reduce them

Posted on August 2, 2021 by Leslie Wells

man in handcuffs sitting at desk signing paper

Written by: Miriam Northcutt Bohmert & Leslie Wells

The Center for Health and Justice Research at the IU Public Policy recently released its latest project, focusing on probation revocations in Monroe County, Indiana. O’Neill Associate Professor Eric Grommon and IU Associate Professor Miriam Northcutt Bohmert worked with George Mason University’s Evan Lowder to examine what causes probations to be revoked and how to reduce those revocations.

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Understanding homelessness in Indianapolis

Posted on July 28, 2021 by Leslie Wells

closeup picture of hands holding a survey device

Read the 2021 PIT Count policy brief at this link

For more than a decade, the IU Public Policy Institute and the Coalition for Homelessness Intervention and Prevention have worked with local organizations to conduct Marion County’s annual Point-In-Time (PIT) Count. The PIT Count provides a critical glimpse into Indianapolis’ homeless community and serves as a resource for policy makers and leaders to learn about the people who make up this population.

Yet, as with so many things, the 2021 PIT Count was different. In previous years, it was conducted on a single night in January, surveying people who live in both sheltered and unsheltered situations. This year, research teams needed to modify their approach to safely gather the information—both for surveyors and for the people they met.

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For nonprofits, moving forward requires looking back

Posted on July 19, 2021 by Leslie Wells

woman with glasses wearing green blouse — O’Neill Assistant Professor Marlene Walk

New research on COVID-19’s impact on the nonprofit sector finds that if organizations want to find a way forward, they must first look back at how they have weathered the pandemic thus far. While the past 15 months have been a challenge for every sector, O’Neill IUPUI assistant professor Marlene Walk is optimistic about the future of nonprofits.

“It’s very interesting how nonprofits rose to the challenge while still serving those in need,” Walk says. “For many smaller nonprofits, this was a survival situation for both their clients and them as well.”

After analyzing data and examining trends, Walk has three pieces of advice for nonprofits as they navigate the return to work and the future of their organizations:

Ask employees their opinions, for instance, of remote work and whether it can/should continue.
Determine what organizational practices can be improved upon.
Evaluate which new technologies adopted during the pandemic can be institutionalized.

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