CHJR Director receives IUPUI award for translating research into practice

CHJR Director Brad Ray earns award for translating research into practice

Posted on July 15, 2019 by Leslie Wells

Brad Ray has devoted his career to better understanding issues involving substance use, mental health, and the criminal justice system. As the director of the Center for Health and Justice Research at the IU Public Policy Institute, he spends most of his time building partnerships to ensure his research impacts the community.

“I can say with certainty that the best research questions I’ve ever answered have come from relationships with my community partners,” he says.

His dedication to building those relationships—and commitment to ensuring his research gets to those who need it—gained the attention of the selection committee for IUPUI’s Bantz-Petronio Translating Research into Practice (TRIP) Award. They selected Ray as the 2019 TRIP Award recipient.

“I feel a great sense of humility getting this award,” Ray says. “Of all the awards I might have received from IUPUI, this one provides the greatest sense of personal accomplishment.”

Each year, the award recognizes outstanding work by an IUPUI TRIP Scholar in translating research into practice and solutions that provide innovative ways to improve lives or the community.

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Nonprofit Governance course helps graduates improve boards and organizations

Posted on July 1, 2019 by Leslie Wells

The Summer 2017 cohort of IU Executive Education's Effective Nonprofit Governance:<br /> Row 1: Blake Johnson, Angie Sander, Andrea Vrobel, Amy Casavant<br /> Row 2: Linda Webb, Shalu Manchanda, Lori Del Vecchio, Amanda Leffler, Andy Black (Instructor)<br /> Row 3: Jennifer Funk, Sara Johnson (Exec Ed), Donna Haggard, Mary Anna Weber (Instructor), Karra Heggen, Margaret Ahearn (Exec Ed), Sharon Springer, Garrett Hedeen — The Summer 2017 cohort of IU Executive Education’s Effective Nonprofit Governance:
Row 1: Blake Johnson, Angie Sander, Andrea Vrobel, Amy Casavant
Row 2: Linda Webb, Shalu Manchanda, Lori Del Vecchio, Amanda Leffler, Andy Black (Instructor)
Row 3: Jennifer Funk, Sara Johnson (Exec Ed), Donna Haggard, Mary Anna Weber (Instructor), Karra Heggen, Margaret Ahearn (Exec Ed), Sharon Springer, Garrett Hedeen
Not pictured: Brandon Lee

The next cohort for IU Executive Education’s Certificate in Effective Nonprofit Governance begins on July 25, 2019. To register, click this link.

In 2017, Nigena Livingston was building Urban Act Academy from the ground up. She had worked as an educator for years, but launching Indianapolis’ newest charter school was unfamiliar territory.

She was beginning to write the school’s charter and establish its founding board, but she lacked clear direction.

“I had been a principal but felt like a novice when it came to being a CEO,” Livingston says. “I needed more information about boards and board management. I wanted to know how to support my board so that we would know we were on track and doing right by our students.”

So she enrolled in IU Executive Education’s Effective Nonprofit Governance certificate course through the O’Neill School. The six-course program includes lessons on the responsibilities of board members, the evolution of a board, how members help with fundraising, and how to best hold CEOs accountable for advancing the organization’s mission.

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Pay gap lessons help student negotiate better salary

Posted on June 17, 2019 by Leslie Wells

picture of Kennedy Jefferies standing in front of IUPUI flag. — O’Neill Civic Leadership major, Kennedy Jefferies, used lessons on the pay gap to help negotiate a higher salary in her first full-time job.

Kennedy Jefferies is only a month into her first full-time job. The O’Neill Civic Leadership major accepted a position as the director of preschool ministries for a large church in Indianapolis.

She now edits youth curriculum and recruits and manages 30–50 volunteers who lead classes for hundreds of children, provide childcare at church events, and work during youth functions.

Jefferies is passionate about volunteer work like this. She knew she wanted to work with a diverse base of volunteers. It’s why she took Marshawn Wolley’s Managing Workforce Diversity class.

“I think we can often be unintentionally exclusive,” Jefferies says. “To overcome that, I wanted to learn how to manage a workforce very different than me.”

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Executive Education helps organizations invest in employees through MPA program

Posted on June 3, 2019 by Leslie Wells

Aerial shot of Naval Surface Warfare Center-Crane Division — IU Executive Education at the O’Neill School works with Crane Naval Surface Warfare Center to help employees further their education through Executive Public Management Certificate and Executive Masters of Public Affairs programs. Photo courtesy: Naval Surface Warfare Center-Crane Division.

In May 2023, 22 employees of the Crane Naval Surface Warfare Center received their Executive Master of Public Affairs degrees from Indiana University Executive Education at the O’Neill School. The graduates spent more than two years working toward this goal and are the latest in a long line of Crane employees to earn their degrees through this unique program.

What makes this path to an advanced degree so different than many others?

“The leadership of Executive Education at O’Neill is very customer-focused,” says Angie Lewis, division technical director at Crane. “They want to understand what’s going on within our environment. They’ve been willing to adapt certain parts of the lessons and update and transform portions of their curriculum to stay current with our challenges and needs. That makes this program especially valuable.”

Executive Education has offered graduate programs for NWSC Crane for more than 30 years. The Executive Public Management Certificate and EMPA programs are Crane’s largest and longest-lasting investment in employee education. Crane covers all costs of the program for employees and has done so for more than 20 years.

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Crowdfunding the arts

Posted on May 20, 2019 by Leslie Wells

This blog is the result of a research partnership between the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs and the National Endowment for the Arts: the Arts, Entrepreneurship, and Innovation (AEI) Lab.

My name is Michael Weigel and I’m a first-year graduate student at the O’Neill School working on my Master of Policy Analysis. When not working on class projects, I serve as a graduate research assistant for Dr. Doug Noonan as part of the AEI Lab. My current focus is on artistic and creative projects financed through crowdfunding platforms such as Kickstarter. I’d love to share some of my initial insights.

For this analysis, our team is utilizing a database with information on every arts-related Kickstarter project hosted on the platform since its founding in 2009 up to October 2016. Each listing contains information on the genre and subgenre of the project, the amount of money requested and pledged, the number of backers, location of origin, and more.

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