Skip to main content

School of Public Administration Showcases Year in Review

The School of Public Administration at UNO is a nationally-ranked, nationally-accredited program focused on offering an exemplary degree in both our undergraduate and graduate programs.

SPA Annual Report cover

Omaha – As the School continues to grow and evolve, it has experienced retirements, expansion, and new faces. Although the School looks different from what it once did, there is no stopping the exciting new initiatives coming from the tremendous faculty, staff, students, and alumni who make up the School.

The new director, Craig Maher, Ph.D., speaks to the plans ahead, “I am excited about this opportunity to help shape the future of our School with the best set of faculty and staff that I’ve experienced during my career! Future decisions will be based on how best to retain the School’s strong academic reputation and efforts to engage our communities at the local, state, national, and international levels.”

In the 2017-2018 academic year, each Program/Institute in the School has had remarkable achievements.

Future decisions will be based on how best to retain the School’s strong academic reputation and efforts to engage our communities at the local, state, national, and international levels."

 Craig Maher, director

The Aviation Institute will be launching the Unmanned Aircraft Systems concentration and adding Victor Huang, Ph.D., to help oversee the new concentration. The Institute is also expecting record numbers of majors again this year as the demand for professional pilots continues to spur interest in aviation training.

The NASA Space Grant and EPSCoR were awarded over $1.5 million and Michaela Lucas, associate director, was elected to the Board of Directors of Women in Aviation International.

Emergency Management and Disaster Science continues to impress. One of the program’s recent graduates, Hameidah Alsafwani, is employed in the Omaha Mayor’s Office and was admitted into our MPA Program, and Hans Louis-Charles, Ph.D., recently took on the role of director of the program.

The MPA retained its high rankings as a program (28th) and within its concentrations, particularly public budgeting and finance (6th), Nonprofit Management (11th), Local Government Management (15th), according to the U.S. News and World Report Best Graduate School Rankings 2019.

In Professional Programs, Ellen Freeman-Wakefield was nominated as president-elect of the National Certified Public Manager Consortium, and will serve as president in 2019. Former school director, Ethel Williams, Ph.D., received the Distinguished Service Award for her many contributions to the program.

The PhD Program graduated three students and all will be teaching at universities this fall, including Bowling Green State University (Abhishek Bhati, Ph.D.), the University of Alabama (Sungho Park, Ph.D.) and Wichita State University (Junghack Kim, Ph.D.).

The Master of Urban Studies Program graduated one of its largest classes in May and, in partnership with the Nebraska City Managers Association, planned the third annual UNO alumni reception in Baltimore.

Read up on all the exciting happenings from our latest annual report.

“We have much to be proud of. Here’s to another exciting and fulfilling year in the School of Public Administration! Enjoy the read,” says Craig Maher.