PA Alumni Society Update

Thank you to all of our alumni and others who have supported the work this year of the department and the PA Alumni Society! This year has been one of celebration and success on several fronts.

In the past year, the society partnered with the department to recognize the 50th anniversary of our Master of Public Administration program. The celebration at the clubhouse of the Lonnie Poole Golf Course on Centennial Campus drew distinguished alumni and professors from many eras and allowed us to continue to strengthen ties among the department and its graduates.

Our annual fall luncheon continued this growth. Dan Gerlach, the executive director of Golden LEAF, one of the state’s largest charitable foundations, was the featured speaker. He shared his outlook on his work in rural North Carolina and how public administrators can improve the quality of life in small, rural communities. It’s a timely topic and important in a state like North Carolina, which has one of the nation’s largest rural populations.

Finally, thank you to each of you who has contributed this year to the scholarship endowment for the department. Your generosity has allowed us for the first time to award two MPA student scholarships. While the previous scholarship was awarded only to an in-service student, the additional scholarship allowed us to extend this opportunity to a pre-service student. Each scholarship pays roughly half the cost of one three-credit hour class. So, in the past few years the society has moved to offering a single scholarship of $1,300 a year to two scholarships worth a combined $2,600. That’s a wonderful testament to all of you.

We are not done, however. Our goal moving forward is to increase the endowment enough to pay for the full cost of a class for each winner. We would also like to continue building support for various departmental needs. There is much to be done as we continue our mission to help our alma mater educate the future public administrators and leaders of North Carolina. Again, thank all of you for your support of the program and our university.

If you are interested in becoming more involved with the alumni society or just want to connect with a few other alumni, we meet at 5:30 pm on the last Thursday of each month at Players Retreat in Raleigh. Join us if you’re able!

Please reach out to me at wlholmes011@gmail.com if you would like to become more involved with the alumni society, or have any questions.