la follette notes

Alumni, friends build social capitalBy the time you read this, I likely will

have met some of you at the recep-tion the La Follette School will be holding in Washington, D.C., on November 4. Every other year the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management holds its research conference in Washington, and many of our

faculty attend to pres-ent research, chair ses-sions and catch up with colleagues from other campuses and institutes.

We take advantage of that gathering to reconnect with alumni and friends who live and work in the Wash-ington area, as well as those who attend the conference. We

look forward to catching up with everyone, hearing about your careers, and learning how you might be applying the techniques and training you received at La Follette to improve the practice of public policy in your jobs.

Gatherings like these are a mutually

Alum John Bryson received the

2011 Dwight Waldo Award from the American Society for Public Administra-tion. The award hon-ors persons who have made “outstanding contributions to the professional literature of public administra-tion over an extended scholarly career of at least 25 years.”

Bryson is McKnight Presidential Pro-fessor of Planning and Public Affairs at

the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota.

Bryson graduated in 1972 from what is now the La Follette School of Public Affairs with a master of arts degree in public policy and administration. He went on to earn a master of science degree and then a doctorate in urban and regional planning from the University of Wiscon-sin–Madison.

Bryson works in the areas of leader-ship, strategic management, and the design of organizational and community change processes. He wrote the best-selling and

Fall 2011 / www.lafollette.wisc.edu

La Follette NotesNews for Alumni & Friends of The Robert M. La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin–Madison

See Bryson Award on page 6

See From the Director on page 8

Public administration group honors Bryson Madison Reception

for Alumni & FriendsFebruary 2, 2012

4:30-7 p.m. Inn on the Park

22 South Carroll St.

Information and to update contact [email protected]

(608) 263-7657

See Music on page 4

John Bryson

From the Director Tom DeLeire

2 faculty receive national recognitionProfessors Andrew Reschovsky and

Donald Moynihan have been honored this fall for their expertise and service.

Moynihan was elected a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administra-tion. Chartered by Congress, the academy is an independent, non-partisan coalition of top public management and organi-zational leaders that advises government agencies, Congress and private founda-tions.

Reschovsky will be honored in No-vember with the 2011 Steve Gold Award, which recognizes a person who has made a significant contribution to public finan-cial management in the field of intergov-

ernmental relations and state and local finance.

“These two national awards showcase the high caliber of the La Follette School’s faculty and the value of the contributions they make to scholarship and to policy-making,” says La Follette School Director Tom DeLeire.

The Gold Award is given annually by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management, the National Conference of State Legislatures and the National Tax Association, in memory of Steve Gold, an active member of all three organizations

See Awards on page 4

’97 grad launches two CDs, one with Madison tunes

Ben Paulos, class of 1997, is proud to announce the much-belated release of

two CDs of music by his band, Bentham.The first, called Miss Wisconsin, taps Paulos’

experiences in Madison while earning a master’s degree in public affairs and policy analysis. He launched Bentham in Boston then

2 / La Follette Notes www.lafollette.wisc.edu Fall 2011

Interest of Every Citizen.’ So, when you walked into the main lobby, you were literally between those two admonitions.

“Successful public management and leadership are found between those two concepts. All pub-lic officials — elected, appointed, civil service — must always struggle to find the public good. And everyone has a civic obligation to pay attention to the public’s business. We fail when either or both parties forget their duties to one another. Whether you’re about to graduate from La Follette and take on public responsibility or whether you’re in the middle of your career and tempted by discourage-ment, you should constantly remind yourself about the noble motives and about the civic duties.” w

Journal publishes article based on student projectA project for the 2010 public affairs course Advanced Quantitative Methods for Public Policy is the basis of a published article written by a student and an alum.

The Electricity Journal published “An Empirical Investigation of Specula-tion in the MISO Financial Transmission Rights Auction Market” by student Dan Molzahn and 2010 alum Corey Singletary in June. The article estimates the profits obtained by specula-tors through financial electric transmission rights auctions.

Singletary works for the Wis-consin Public Service Com-mission. Molzahn is working on a doctorate in electrical and computer engineering and a master of public affairs degree.

The original paper was more focused on statistical analysis than on the results, which the journal article emphasized, Molzahn says. “The journal’s readers are not focused on the statistical technicalities of the study as was necessary to provide in the class project report. We had to eliminate the formulas we used to de-scribe our statistical models because the journal editor indicated that they would likely be more confusing for the intended audience of the article. This was somewhat shocking to me given my en-gineering background; some of my previous engineering publications have sections comprised almost entirely by equations.”

Gifts honor Penniman, Wisconsin’s generosityAs Peter Detwiler reflects on his career and plans his next lecture for his Sacramento State students, Clara Penniman comes to mind. “She was generous with her time and attention,” Detwiler says. “She provided a sympathetic ear when I was search-ing for my professional direction.”

A taxation and public finance scholar, Penni-man started the Center for the Study of Public Policy and Administration in the late 1960s and served as its first director. The center grew into the La Follette School of Public Affairs. She passed away in 2009.

In recognition of what he learned and the mentoring he received from Penniman, Detwiler and his wife, Carrie, have made dona-tions to the scholarship fund Penniman estab-lished at the La Follette School of Public Affairs. “The University of Wisconsin (and Wisconsin’s taxpayers) were generous to me 40 years ago,” Peter Detwiler says. “By waiving the out-of-state tuition and by providing me with modest monthly stipends, I could afford a first-rate master's degree. What better way to honor Clara Penniman's memory than by donating giving back to the University in her name?"

Support the Penniman Fund www.lafollette.wisc.edu/giving

Alum believes government serves public goodLawmakers in California can thank Peter

Detwiler’s experience in Wisconsin for the easy-to-read legislative analyses he prepared for them to summarize what a proposed statute would do, why it was needed, its cost, why certain inter-ests opposed or supported it and the bill’s legisla-tive history.

Detwiler retired in September after 39 years of public service that began in 1972 right after he graduated from the Center for the Study of Pub-lic Policy and Administration at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He spent 29 years as a policy staffer for the California State Senate’s Gover-nance and Finance Committee, a recent combina-tion of the Revenue and Taxation Committee and the Local Government Committee. Detwiler start-ed with the latter as its chief consultant in 1982.

“I researched bill ideas, drafted legislation, ana-lyzed bills, proposed amendments and gave policy advice to the committee chair and members,” De-twiler says. “I’ve worked for both Republican and Democratic committee chairs and tried to avoid the nasty partisan battles when analyzing policy issues.”

When he announced his retirement, Detwiler’s efforts to be neutral drew him praise from Sacra-mento journalists. “Consultants who prepare analy-ses are crucial to the integrity and effectiveness of lawmaking in California,” Sacramento Bee writer Gin-ger Rutland wrote in an editorial. “Peter Detwiler was one of the best, a legend in fact. His analyses were always thorough, well-written and entertain-ing. Most important, Detwiler pulled no punches.”

Detwiler has been shar-ing his experience by teaching public affairs at Sacramento State, which, in turn, shaped his approach to his legislative work. “My teaching forced me to be more thoughtful about the rough-and-tumble world of legislative affairs,” he says, adding that he plans to con-tinue teaching. “I was able to find patterns and broader ex-planations for my daily work.”

Re-establishing public trust through service has been at the forefront of De-twiler’s career. “My first job after leaving Wisconsin was for a local regulatory commission in San Diego County, and our offices were in the county admin-istration building,” Detwiler says. “If you entered from the western side, there was a saying above the portal that read ‘The Noblest Motive is the Public Good.’ And over the eastern entrance, the slogan read ‘Good Government Demands the Intelligent

Clara Penniman

Peter Detwiler

Fall 2011 www.lafollette.wisc.edu La Follette Notes / 3

1990sNews from alumni and friends Montgomery

retires after 33 years with State of WisconsinJohn Montgomery retired in 2010 after

33 years with the State of Wisconsin. He worked 24 years in the Budget

Office in the Department of Administra-tion, including 14 years as deputy budget director. He also spent nine years as a program administrator for the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance.

He graduated from the Center for the Study of Public Policy and Adminis-tration in 1977 and holds a master’s in urban and regional planning.

“Currently I tutor in the Madison public schools and volunteer at the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a gov-ernment watchdog group dedicated to reducing the influence of special interest funding in elections,” says Montgomery, who also works with La Follette School students through the Career Develop-ment Office.

“I was recently honored to be nomi-nated for a Community Shares of Wis-consin ‘Backyard Hero’ award for my work at WDC. My wife and I enjoy traveling to places we haven’t visited yet, and spending more time with charitable causes, sports, politics and our family.

“My memories of the UW La Fol-lette School (though it wasn’t called that when I attended) are fond ones, and I appreciate the education I received there. Every day I’m reminded of the need for all levels of government to attract dedi-cated people who want to work there. Thank you to the La Follette School for helping fill this need.” w

James Burnham, 2002, is now the special assistant to the executive director and chief brand officer of the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center.

Aditya Chandraghatgi, 2007, is a manager within Deloitte’s strategy practice. He works primar-ily within the financial services industry, especially in the area of corporate and customer strategy.

Vivek Bavda, 2004, is running for U.S. Congress in Illinois’s 10th District.

Carrie Traud, 2008, is a research and policy associate at the Mountain Association for Com-munity Economic Development in Berea, Kentucky, focusing on local foods and sustainable forestry. She got married in Lexington in October, and many Bob alumni were there.

Alan Paberzs, 2005, has been promoted to director of development for the Bluhm Legal Clinic at Northwestern University School of Law and was honored as the John F. Chetlain Employee of the Year at Northwestern Law. He was elected president of the Wisconsin Alumni Association’s Chicago chapter and began his term in July.

Ben Winig, 2004, is now a senior staff attorney at Public Health Law & Policy based in Oakland, California.

Chad D. Cotti, 2002, was promoted this school year to associate professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh. He recently had papers published in the Review of Economics and Statistics and the Journal of Health Economics.

The Wisconsin Council on Mental Health has se-lected Shel Gross, 1990, as chair. The governor appointed him to the council in 2010. He is Mental Health America of Wisconsin’s director of public policy.

Susan R. Parker, 1997, has been the town manager of Crested Butte, Colorado, since 2006. She has given several presentations in 2010 and 2011. The most recent was at the Colorado Munici-

pal League in June when she spoke on “Linking Resident Opinion Surveys to Action – What Does It Really Mean?” In March she presented at the Conservation Excellence conference and in August 2010, she spoke at the Public Policy Forum in Crested Butte. Her son, Shane Harris, is a senior at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and her daughter, Morgan Harris, is a sophomore at Winona State University in Minnesota.

2000s

2006 alum returns to budget office after having second baby

After having her second son in April 2011, Karina Silver, 2006, is back full time at the Wisconsin budget office as a senior analyst on the health services and insurance team.

She is a member of the anti-human trafficking coalition SlaveFree Madison and the Wis-

consin Office of Justice Assistance’s Human Trafficking Committee. She serves on the

boards for Creative Learning Preschool and Integrated Community Work Inc., for which

she is treasurer.

Be a Mentor to Public Affairs StudentsEvery year the La Follette School Career Development Office matches about 50 new students with mentors.If you are interested in being a mentor or in meeting on a one-time basis with students, please contact career development coordinator Mary Russell by e-mailing [email protected] or calling 608-263-2409.


continued it in Madison.Asked if any of the 12 Miss Wisconsin tunes are

about La Follette people, Paulos replied, “There are a couple, but I’m not really at liberty to disclose more details. So my classmates will have to be so vain and think this song is about them. … But all the songs on the record are about Madison people, or things that happened when I was there. ‘Let It Go’ is about a fight I had with a landlord. ‘Miss Wisconsin’ is about hanging out in bars — Crystal Corner, Mister Roberts, Mickey’s, the Essen Haus and of course the Terrace. Blonde hair, beer and brats. That kind of sums up Madison youth cul-ture for me.”

Paulos and his Madison band Area Man — the name drawn from many a headline in The Onion — played gigs in Madison and Chicago. “We did a little recording but didn’t finish before I moved to San Francisco,” Paulos says.

With a full-time job and a family, life got in the way of recording, but not songwriting. The second album, Pacific, is a compilation of songs he wrote in San Francisco. “I had a full-time career in ener-gy policy, and it was hard to fit in a second career,” says Paulos, whose daytime gig is director of the renewable power program at the Energy Founda-tion, which promotes clean energy policy in the United States and China. “Then my son arrived;

my wife got cancer and died; I got remar-ried and had another kid.”

He attributes the two albums’ release to his wife, Jess, who encouraged him to get the recording done during the last couple of years.

“It’s not like the world is clamoring for an artist to produce art,” Paulos says. “It’s something I had to do but struggled to find time. My wife really gave me the time to get it done. So here the albums are.” w

Institute for Research on Poverty wins 5-year national grantThe Institute for Research on Poverty, led by public affairs professor Timothy Smeed-ing, was awarded a five-year national Poverty Research Center grant by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

“We are grateful for this vote of confidence in our work and look forward to working with ASPE and the other poverty centers to explain the lives of the poor, and hopefully improve policy and practice to help them better their life situation,” says Smeeding, IRP director and Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor.

The award supports the insti-tute in its research, training and dissemination agenda for studying the causes and consequences of poverty and inequality and evaluat-ing antipoverty policies and programs. It comes on the heels of a U.S. Census Bu-reau report that the number of Americans living below the official poverty line is the highest in the 52 years for which poverty estimates have been published.

whose career and life tragically were shortened by illness.

“I knew Steve Gold, which makes receiving this award even more meaningful,” says Reschovsky, an economist who focuses his research on tax policy and intergovern-mental fiscal relations.

“As a public finance econo-mist, Steve believed his role was to communicate to policymakers about research and analysis,” Re-schovsky says. “His emphasis on the link between scholarship and practice and on policy-oriented work on public finance has very much influenced my career.”

A member of the La Follette School faculty since 1991, Reschovsky teaches the Workshop in Public Affairs, in which students conduct policy analysis and research for real-world clients, includ-ing the City of Milwaukee, Wisconsin state agen-cies and international organizations. This fall he is teaching State and Local Government Finance. He

frequently shares his perspec-tives on state and national economics and public finance with national media, includ-ing the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, Fox News and NPR.

Moynihan joined the school in 2005 and has been associate director since 2009. Moynihan focuses his research on the application of organi-

zation theory to public management issues such as performance, budgeting, homeland security, election administration and employee behavior. In particular, he studies the selection and implemen-tation of public management reforms. He teaches Introduction to Public Management and Perfor-mance Management.

“I am honored to join my colleague David Weimer as a member of NAPA,” Moynihan says. “The organization provides a chance to help pub-lic organizations, and in that respect represents the Wisconsin Idea in action.” w

Awards continued from page 1

Andrew Reschovsky

Donald Moynihan

Ben Paulos released two CDs this year with his band Bentham. La Follette School alumni may find some of the songs familiar.

Music continued from page 1

Don’t wait for American Idol to callShare your story now

[email protected]


DC alumni host happy hour for internsLa Follette School alumni held a happy hour July 19 for students who were interning in Washington, D.C. From left are Kate (Clark) Amoroso, Carolyn Clow, Lilly Shields, Alison Patz, Lindsay Read, Andria Hayes-Birchler, Katherine Sydor, Shane Spencer, Carissa DeCramer, Alexis MacDonald, Paco Fuchs, Jen Winter and Sarah Hurley. Kate Nast took the photo. Christie Enders and Pamela Ritger also attended.

Students honored at graduationThese students were in-ducted into the public affairs honor society Pi Alpha Alpha:

w Jonathan Alfuthw Melissa Bergerw Stephen Collinsw Mariah Duffyw Patrick (Paco) Fuchsw Lael Griggw Sara Kockw Bickey Rimalw Adam Smithw Karen Walshw Peter Whalen

These students won the following awards:

Bickey Rimal won the 2011 Piore Prize, while classmate Karen Walsh was recog-nized for sharing the 2010 Piore Prize with 2010 alum Scott Williams. The prize is given for the best paper in science and public policy.

Kristina Krull won the Penniman Prize for the most outstanding paper.

The Director’s Award went to two students, Patrick (Paco) Fuchs and Lara Rosen for their academic records, ability to apply policy analysis and management skills, and engagement with the La Follette School community.

The La Follette School Student Association gave leadership awards to Melissa Berger and Soumary Vongrassamy.

For Andrew Walsh, receiving the Ina Jo Rosen-berg and Shiri Eve Leah Gumbiner Fellowship

makes possible the endeavor of earning dual mas-ter’s degrees in public affairs and public health.

Noah and Shelley Rosen-berg established the fellow-ship in 2010 at the La Fol-lette School to honor Noah’s younger sister, Ina Jo Rosen-berg, and her daughter, Shiri Eve Leah Gumbiner. They both passed away too soon, Ina in 2002 and Shiri in 2005.

“Receiving the fellowship is a huge morale booster for me,” says Walsh, who started his first semester at the La Follette School this fall. “When the pro-gram awarded me this fellowship, I had renewed confidence that pursuing public health and public affairs is not only something that I can do, but something that I ought to do,” Walsh adds. “All in all, I’m very grateful.”

After Walsh graduated from Bates College in Maine in 2003, he worked, then joined the Peace Corps. In Morocco he worked in community de-velopment and environmental education.

Walsh’s time abroad contributed to his deci-sion to pursue degrees in public affairs and public health. “I think for many people, including myself, being able to live, work and travel in foreign coun-tries really improves one’s ability to think critically

about the issues facing the world and also about culture and systems in one’s native country,” Walsh says. “This process, in turn, made me think about how I could better participate in discussions about health and social issues, which then led me to think about public affairs programs.”

The dual-degree health program and the univer-sity’s resources give Walsh many opportunities to approach health policy from different perspectives. “Health — whether good or poor or the transition between the two — isn’t something that is ever going away,” Walsh says. “I feel that good health is quite fundamental to a well-functioning society, so I am looking forward to working in public health and health policy because it is something that I feel can always be made better.” w

Donation enhances student’s pursuit of 2 degrees

Andrew Walsh

Support the La Follette SchoolInformation on supporting the La Follette School financially via the University of Wisconsin Foundation is available by calling 608-263-7657 or by going online to www.lafollette.wisc.edu/giving.

Online giving is welcome.

Checks payable to UW Foundation-La Follette can be mailed to: La Follette School, 1225 Observatory Drive, Madison WI 53706


An inquiry by La Follette School student Pete Braden led to him and 1999 alum Debby

Anderson Meyer collaborating on a fund-raiser for the Wisconsin Council of the Blind and Visually Impaired.

“When I received his email, I only knew he was a graduate student interested in nonprofits,” says Meyer, the agency’s fund development director. “Not until we met for coffee did I learn Pete was at La Follette. His idea was to hold a Bloomsday event as a fund-raiser for us. I thought, ‘Why wouldn’t we be interested in this?!’”

Bloomsday commemorates June 16, the day on which all events in James Joyce’s novel Ulysses take place in Dublin in 1904. Joyce and Homer, the poet of the original Odyssey (on which Ulysses is based), overcame serious visual impairments, so

collaborating seemed natural to Braden and Meyer.Meyer joined the Wisconsin Council of the

Blind and Visually Impaired in January 2011 after eight years in a similar position with the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. She shared her perspectives on public affairs careers in the nonprofit sector with students this fall in the La Follette School’s professional development workshop.

The Mad City Bloomsday featured readings from Ulysses, hors d’oeuvres and Irish music, and drew about 80 people. “The Bloomsday event was a lovely melting pot of people who love litera-ture and those who have overcome vision chal-lenges,” Meyer says. “One outcome of the evening was a greater awareness by sighted people of how very important it is to provide access to literature for people with limited vision,” Meyer adds. “We raised new funds and awareness — our two goals. Mad City Bloomsday was so successful, another is already being planned for 2012.” w

Yackee advises on limiting ‘capture’ of regulating agenciesProfessor Susan Yackee is advising members of Congress and federal agency officials about legislation to help prevent powerful special interests from “capturing” and controlling federal agencies that regulate their activities.

She met with Senate staffers on Capitol Hill in October, several members of the U.S. House and officials from the Interior Department, Federal Communications Commission and the U.S. Sentencing Commission, as well as Senator Sheldon Whitehouse.

Yackee advised Whitehouse before he introduced the Regulatory Capture Preven-tion Act, which received a hearing in the Senate. The bill would require regula-tory agencies to report to a public web site the name and affiliation of each party who comments on an agency regulation; whether that party affected the regulatory process; and whether that party is an economic, non-economic or citizen interest.

“We know that federal bureaucrats listen to interest groups and tend to favor the dominant side,” says Yackee, an expert on federal agency rulemaking. “Federal agency officials respond when they receive strong, loud and united messages from inter-est groups. The volume of the interest group comments on either side of an issue matters to the content of final agency regulations.”

award-winning book Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations, and wrote with Barbara C. Crosby the award-winning Leadership for the Common Good. He is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.

Bryson has received many awards for his work, including four best book awards, three best article awards, the General Electric Award for Out-standing Research in Strategic Planning from the Academy of Management, and the Distinguished Research Award and the Charles H. Levine Memo-rial Award for Excellence in Public Administration given by the American Society for Public Adminis-tration and the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration. He serves on

the editorial boards of the Public Management Review, International Public Management Journal, Ameri-can Review of Public Administration, and Journal of Public Affairs Education.

From 2004 to 2008 Bryson was associate dean for research at the Humphrey Institute of Pub-lic Affairs, which became a school in 2011. From 1998 to 2000 he was director of the institute’s master of public affairs degree; from 1997 to 2000 he was collegiate program leader for the Univer-sity of Minnesota Extension Service; from 1997 to 1999 he was director of the institute’s Reflective Leadership Center; and from 1983 to 1989, he was associate director of the University of Minnesota’s Strategic Management Research Center. w

Bryson Award continued from page 1

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Alum, student collaborate on fund-raiser

Debby Anderson Meyer


Wisconsin academy names Nichols fellowEconomist Donald Nichols is a 2011 fellow of the Wis-consin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters.

Nichols, a professor emeri-tus, served as director of the La Follette School of Public Affairs from 2002-2006. He is an award-winning teacher, scholar, university leader and public servant. For more than 30 years, Nichols has focused his research, teaching and publications on factors affecting unemploy-ment, inflation and regional economic growth.

Nichols served as economic advisor to Wisconsin Gover-nor Tony Earl, was executive secretary of Earl’s Council on Economic Affairs and served on Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle’s Economic Advisory Council. Nichols staffed the U.S. Senate Budget Commit-tee and was U.S. Department of Labor deputy assistant secretary for economic policy research.

Nichols makes regular contributions to state and national policy debates. In Wisconsin, he is well known for his economic forecasts. His papers on the Wiscon-sin economy have had a profound influence on many policy initiatives.

Wisconsin Academy fellows are elected for their high lev-els of accomplishment in their fields as well as a lifelong commitment to intellectual discourse and public service.

In the summer of 2007, professor Men-

zie Chinn was among those who started to think something was amiss with the U.S. economy.

Mortgage-backed securities were little-understood financial instruments, but Chinn remembers red flags going up as certain measures indicated that the AAA-rat-ed versions of these securities were losing value.

“That was a first and that started people wor-rying,” he says. “From that point onward, it was a slow-motion train wreck.”

As the economy stumbled the next year, Chinn and Harvard University political scientist Jeffry Frieden started trading emails in an effort to make sense why the financial boom had fizzled.

Their emails grew into a book, Lost Decades: The Making of America’s Debt Crisis and the Long Re-covery, published in September by W.W. Norton & Co. A La Follette School seminar Chinn taught

in fall 2009, Policy Responses to the Great Recession, also helped to inform the book. He also teaches Mac-roeconomic Policy and International Financial Regulation.

Together, Chinn and Frieden have more than

50 years of experience evaluating debt crises and studying financial and currency meltdowns in Eu-rope, Latin America, Asia and Russia. They drew on that knowledge to evaluate what happened in the United States in the past decade.

“We have watched country after country lose decades of economic progress to the austere after-math of financial crises,” they write in Lost Decades. “But we never feared that we would see a classic debt crisis in our own homeland. And we never imagined that our country could face the prospect of almost two decades lost to misguided policies, an unnecessary crisis and a daunting task of economic reconstruction.” w

Chinn publishes book, joins CBO advisory panel

Professor Melanie Manion received a Chancel-lor’s Distinguished Teaching Award in April.

For the La Follette School, she teaches Political Economy of Corruption and Good Governance, and the Workshop in International Public Affairs Her areas of expertise include international public affairs, the politics of China, the political economy of corruption, introductory comparative politics and qualitative research methods.

Manion has achieved an unusually high level of excellence with dedication to teaching and innova-tive teaching methods, then-La Follette School di-rector Carolyn Heinrich and political science chair John Coleman noted in their nomination.

“She demands a great deal from her students, but provides them with the support they need to succeed,” they wrote. “She does not teach easy classes or allow passivity in the classroom. She is the type of teacher that students remember de-cades later as exemplifying all that is best about their university education.”

Manion is a thoughtful and caring mentor, and she is credited with playing a critical role in the establishment of core components of the interna-tional studies program in the La Follette School.

“For me, teaching and research are not compet-ing passions, but two sides of the same coin,” says Manion, who is co-editor of Contemporary Chinese

Politics: New Sources, Methods, and Field Strategies and author of Corruption by Design.

“Indeed, the same passion and commitment to rigor-ous work she brings to her research is very evident in her teaching,” Heinrich and Cole-man wrote. “She creates the opportunities and provides the tools for students to think critically, criticize rigorously, and create new knowledge.”

In Manion’s workshop, teams of students work with external clients to offer solutions to real policy problems. Two of the three groups worked with alumni at the Millennium Challenge Corpo-ration (Andria Hayes-Birchler) and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (Farha Tahir) in producing their analyses.

“The class represents the Wisconsin Idea in action, where faculty and students are using their skills to make meaningful improvements in the world,” note Coleman and Heinrich. “Professor Manion’s lasting legacy is that she has challenged students to think critically and introduced students to a deeper understanding of one of the emerging world powers.” w

Campus honors Manion for teaching

Melanie Manion

Menzie Chinn started a two-year term with the Congressional Budget Office’s Panel of Economic Advisors in 2011. Journalists seek Chinn’s opinion frequently. He publishes the Econbrowser blog with James D. Hamilton, an economist at the University of California, San Diego.

La Follette NotesRobert M. La Follette School of Public AffairsUniversity of Wisconsin–Madison1225 Observatory DriveMadison WI 53706

Non-Profit Org.U.S. Postage

PaidMadison WI

Permit No. 658


AOL go offline?Miss the party?wPlease be sure to share and

update your e-mail address.wWe use postal addresses to

generate guest lists for recep-tions — although all alumni and friends are invited. wIf your household is receiving

two copies of La Follette Notes or the La Follette Policy Report, let us know the names and address if you want us to send only one.wUpdate your records by e-

mailing [email protected] or by calling 608-263-7657.wAnd if you’d rather not receive

a publication or other postal or electronic mail, let us know which lists to exclude you from.

Alumni can control their contact in-formation via the Wisconsin Alumni Association, www.uwalumni.com.

beneficial investment of time that builds social capital for all of us. Alumni can re-establish friendships and make professional connec-tions with each other. They can seek advice from faculty and from their former advisors. School staff members and faculty can learn about trends in the field and in hiring so they can better advise students about their degree programs. The benefits of these investments include an increased sense of collaboration among all of us as we all strive to improve the design, implementation and evaluation of public policy and the practice of governance worldwide.

The next reception for alumni and friends is in Madison on February 2 at Inn on the Park. Last year’s gathering drew more than 100 alumni, friends, students, faculty and staff. Our second summer picnic at the school drew more than 70, including children and other family members. We are in the early stages of putting together an event in Chicago that, we hope, will combine a social gathering with alumni and a career development opportunity for students.

The school is able to invest in these rela-

tionships partly because of donations alumni and friends make to the school through the University of Wisconsin Foundation. Dona-tions also can be an investment in current and future La Follette School students. Reduced funding from the state increases our reliance on such gifts. This year we were able to fund three students, one of whom is featured on page 5 of this issue of La Follette Notes.

We are pleased to report that your invest-ment in our students continues to pay off. By the end of September, 38 of our 39 May graduates had reported back to our Career Development Office that they were employed in their field, with two of them pursuing fur-ther study. We are proud of our recent gradu-ates as they navigate an uncertain economic field, and we appreciate our alumni and friends who have helped them with mentoring, sharing job tips and offering internships.

For those of you unable to attend our re-ceptions and other events, please keep in touch via Facebook and LinkedIn. You can subscribe to our news feed directly, and we hope you will share with us news about your own careers, families and achievements. w

From the Director continued from page 1

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