Maxwell School News and Commentary

"When I saw Syracuse was offering an executive master’s program in conjunction with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, I knew this would be a great opportunity to work on the theory around the intersection of national security and human rights," says Heather Fischer, senior advisor for human rights crimes at Thomson Reuters Special Services.

A group of 12 midcareer professionals seeking to make first-ever campus memories and connect with new faces participated in the Maxwell School’s Online Executive Master of Public Administration (E.M.P.A.) Immersion Weekend, which took place during Orange Central.

Zuleika Rivera ’15 B.A. (PSc/PSt) is the LGBTI program officer for the D.C.-based International Institute on Race, Equality and Human Rights. "It was through her [Gladys McCormick] that I discovered there are careers in the human rights field,” says Rivera.

”It was the partnership with Maxwell and CSIS that took me over top as far as picking a graduate program. It is in person, working in conjunction with a well-respected think tank, and it’s nonpartisan,” says Ashan Benedict, executive assistant chief of the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department.

Dominic Chiappone is making the most of his undergraduate experience. A member of the Renée Crown University Honors Program, he is a double major in history at the Maxwell School and College of Arts and Sciences and broadcast and digital journalism at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. 

Students in the program complete coursework to earn an executive master of public administration degree from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs and a master of business administration degree with a concentration in business analytics from the Martin J. Whitman School of Management.

The scholarship, funded by the Obama Foundation, provides $25,000 a year for two years toward education expenses, $10,000 for research/service travel between junior and senior year (Summer Voyage), $20,000 in travel funding for the next 10 years, and leadership training.

Yilin Hou, professor of public administration and international affairs, is among those who conceived of the idea to address challenges faced by institutions that offered the graduate degree program. 

"America’s dark harbingers; a genealogical analysis of self-disposing right-wing subjects during the pandemic," authored by Ph.D. student Austin McNeill Brown, was published in Culture, Theory and Critique.