Alumni, Students, Faculty, and Friends of the Martin School,
It has been and appears that it will continue to be a busy fall at the Martin School. One accomplishment that we are proud of is, after several months of University review, is the launching of a new website. This is a work in progress so expect to see some changes and additions in the future. We welcome your thoughts and suggestions for modifications and additions to the site.
A reminder for any of you in the Lexington area that we are hosting a “Alumni and Friends” reception on Wednesday, October 28th at 7:00 PM at the Boone Center (Rose and Columbia). We hope you can come to meet and talk to friends, faculty, and current students and hear more about what’s going on at the Martin School.
I would be remiss if I did not address administration changes in the Master of Health Administration (MHA). A proposal has been advanced to move the administrative home of the MHA from the Martin School to the College of Public Health. This is a year of transition in which administration is being transferred to the College of Public Health though the move has not been officially approved yet. In addition, Sarah Wackerbarth, the previous Director of the program, has moved from the Martin School to the College of Public Health. The Martin School is proud of its twenty years of administrating the MHA program and the outstanding accomplishments of its graduates. We consider you an important part of the Martin School and hope you continue to be involved with us. The Martin School faculty will continue to teach in the program and health policy remains an important part of the Martin School’s research mission.
As always, we appreciate all the past support of the Martin School from its alumni and friends and look forward to opportunities to meet and work with you in the future. If you want to become more involved in any way in helping the Martin School in its mission please contact me.
Sincerely,
William Hoyt
Director, Martin School of Public Policy and Administration and Professor of Economics
423 Patterson Office Tower
University of Kentucky
Lexington, KY 40506
whoyt@uky.edu
859-257-2518
New Additions to the Martin School
We are pleased to announce the arrival of new faculty member, Nicolai Petrovsky. Nicolai is a political scientist from Texas A&M who recently spent two years at Cardiff University in Wales. His research and teaching interests are in public management and performance.
This August the Martin School admitted 26 students to its MPA program with a total of 59 enrolled. 10 students were admitted to our MPP program making a total of 15. We have 10 new Ph.D. students making a total of 25 for this program. Of our 99 total students, one-third are out-of-state and 15 are international.
Student and Alumni News
Gao Liu (Ph.D. 2009) has had his paper selected as the ABFM (Association for Budgeting and Financial Management) Best Student Paper and winner of the 2009 Curro Award. The winning paper is a chapter from his dissertation and Gao will be receiving the award at a luncheon on September 25 in Washington DC during the Association for Budgeting and Financial Management conference. Gao has started as an assistant professor at the University of New Mexico this fall.
Jennifer White (MPA 2009) has been selected to receive the Robert Kline Award for the best MPA student paper at SECOPA (Southeastern Conference on Public Administration). The paper is Jennifer’s capstone project: “Medication Therapy Management: Patients' Willingness to Pay for Pharmacy Services.” The award will be presented at SECOPA. Jennifer is the 9th Martin student to win a best paper award at SECOPA since 1993.
Jennifer Price, (MPP 2009) has been given the best Master’s paper (Pi Alpha Alpha) award by the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration (NASPAA) which is also our accrediting organization. Jennifer is the 9th Martin School student to win this award since 1995. No other school has had more than five winners. Jennifer is currently at the Social Security Administration in Baltimore having won a prestigious Presidential Management Fellowship this spring.
Alum Natalie Gibson, the System Director for Cultural Diversity with the Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTS), and current student MPA student and former UK football player Robbie McAtee are spotlighted on our website – check them out.
Recently Defended Dissertations
Genova, Stefka | 2009
Policy Innovation, program Maintenance, and Enrollment: The Case of State Medicaid Buy-in Programs. Edward T. Jennings, Jr. Advisor. Lecturer, Technical University, Frankfurt-am-Maine, Germany.
Kim, Ae-Sook | 2009
Policy Innovation, Diffusion, Reinvention, and Evolution in State Medicaid Managed Care Programs. Edward T. Jennings, Jr. Advisor. Assistant Professor, Northern Indiana University at Ft. Wayne.
Kimsey, Linda | 2009
How Efficient are Military Hospitals? A Comparison of Technical Efficiency using Stochastic Frontier Analysis. J.S. Butler and Eugenia F. Toma, Co-advisors. Research Analyst, Center on Naval Research, Bethesda Maryland.
Liu, Gao | 2009
Three Essays on Municipal Bond Insurance. Merl Hackbart and Dwight V. Denison, Co-Advisors. Assistant Professor, University of New Mexico.
Winter, Sandra | 2009
An Empirical Analysis of the Utilization Patterns of Within Facility and Secondary Healthcare Services by Kentucky State Inmates. J.S. Butler, Advisor.
IPPMI
I write this after a week in South Korea working with Dr. Doo–Oak Kim, our Director of the International Public Policy and Management Institute (IPPMI), on development of this new program for the Martin School. The Institute is a new year-long training program developed by the Martin School for mid-career public managers from other countries. Our first class of five trainees from South Korea came to Lexington in August. They have been busy attending lectures by Martin School faculty, hearing from speakers in public and not-for-profit agencies throughout the Commonwealth, and participating in field work in public agencies. This upcoming January a group of fifteen additional trainees will arrive in Lexington. While the program is currently directed at South Korean public agencies, Dr. Kim is working on agreements with agencies in Japan and China as well. We are excited about the possibilities this program offers and hope to build on it to expand our international ventures.
Workshops
Last spring the Martin School launched a regular weekly research workshop series meeting on most Wednesday afternoons during the semester. The workshop is a mix of presentations of research from Martin School faculty, faculty from other departments on campus, and researchers from other institutions in the U.S. and world. This semester we have or will have presentations from Martin School faculty members Josh Cowen, Nicolai Petrovsky, J.S. Butler, and Eugenia Toma. From UK we have presentations from joint faculty member David Freshwater from Agricultural Economics, David Hamilton from History, TK Logan from the Center for Drug and Alcohol Research and Behavioral Science, and Tom Ahn and Jim Ziliak from the Department of Economics. We are pleased to have Thomas Buchmaeller from the Department of Business Economics and Public Policy at the University of Michigan and Per Fredriksson from the Department of Economics at the University of Louisville present in the workshop as well.
Conferences and Publications
Martin School faculty, students, and alumni have been busy participating in numerous conferences this fall.
The Association for Budgeting and Finance Management (ABFM) had its 2009 conference in late September in Washington, DC. Dwight Denison was the conference coordinator and is chair-elect of ABFM. Martin School students presenting at the conference include Jacob Fowles, Margaret Sloan, Jay Song, John Foster, and CB Mamari. In addition, numerous alumni of the Martin School presented as well: Gao Liu (New Mexico), Wie Yusuf (Old Dominion), Wes Clarke (Georgia), Wenli Yan (Indiana), Michael Moody (Kansas) and Nick Grinstead (Georgia). In addition to the large presence of those affiliated with the Martin School, it was also a sponsor of the conference.
The Southeastern Conference on Public Administration (SECOPA) had its annual meeting in Louisville from September 30th to October 3rd. Program committee co-chairs were Edward Jennings and Martin School alum Jo Ann Ewalt (Eastern Kentucky University). William Hoyt and JS Butler presented papers at the conference and as did Martin School students Emily Bedwell, Jay Song, Jennifer White, Nathan Phelps, and Amie Goodin. Alums Ae-Sook Kim (IUPU-Indianapolis), Julie Olberding (Northern Kentucky), Wie Yusuf (Old Dominion), Jennifer Price (Social Security Administration), Ashley Moore (Bluegrass Area Development District), Margaret Sloan (Moorehead State), Cleopatra Charles (NYU), Yongbeom Hur (Appalachian State), Len O’Connell (UK), and Jeremy Hall (Texas-Dallas) also gave presentations or participated in panels at the meeting. Martin School joint faculty Jeffery Talbert, Karen Blumenschein, and Joe Fink (UK Pharmacy) and adjunct faculty Mike Clark, Greg Hager, and Ginny Wilson served as panelists.
November brings the Association of Public Policy and Management (APPAM) meetings, also in Washington. Martin School faculty presenting include Josh Cowen, Genia Toma, J.S. Butler and Ed Jennings as well as current student Jacob Fowles. Alums Megan Streams and Jeremy Hall (UT-Dallas) are also presenting.
In addition to these conferences, Martin School faculty are presenting at numerous other conferences in the fields of political science, economics, and educational policy. New faculty member Nicolai Petrovsky has been particularly busy presenting at the American Political Science meetings in early September in Toronto and at the National Public Management Research Conference later that month in Columbus. Josh Cowen presented at the School Choice and School Improvement National Invitational Conference at Vanderbilt this past weekend. Dave Wildasin will be presenting at the National Tax Conference meetings in Denver and William Hoyt will be presenting at the Southern Economics Association meetings in San Antonio later this month.
Past Director's Updates: