At the risk of being hated, I will start this message with saying that 2021 was not a bad year for the Department of Public Policy (DPP). We celebrated many alumni achievements. Our dean endorsed and supported our proposal to become a School of Public Policy and we hope to see the Board of Trustees vote in favor of that proposal later this Spring. We hired two new assistant professors who will join us in August 2022. We also enhanced our student services team with a new Outreach Coordinator and a new Director of Engagement.

In 2022-2023, we will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the MPA program – marking five decades of our alumni making a difference in communities in the State of Connecticut and beyond. We formed a committee of faculty, staff, alumni and students to curate a year of celebrations. If you have any ideas about potential events, email Maura Maloney and she will share with the committee.

This Spring, my faculty and staff colleagues and I are looking forward to recognizing our student, faculty and alumni accomplishments later this semester. Please consider nominating yourself or an alumna/alumnus for one of the alumni awards:

• 2022 Distinguished Alumni Award: Recognizes DPP alumni who have made broad career achievements in their field, and have demonstrated strong leadership and influence while maintaining high ethical standards.
• 2022 Alumni Impact Award: Recognizes DPP alumni at any stage in their career who have made a significant recent contribution to their field. Examples may include but are not limited to: driving a meaningful program outcome, contributing to new legislation, innovating a process or program, achieving a fundraising goal, brokering a partnership, etc.
• Nominating someone (or yourself) is very easy: Nomination Form. The deadline to submit nominations is February 25, 2022.

The Department continues to be interested in providing lifelong learning opportunities to our alumni and members of the community. Our team has curated seven workshops as part of the Public Service Executive Leadership Collaborative (PSELC). We hope that our alumni and their colleagues at work will take advantage of these amazing opportunities. These opportunities are open to our alumni and students, but also to all public and nonprofit professionals in our community. Feel free to share with a colleague or an HR director in your organization.

About 90 of our MPA, MASR and MPP students will graduate this year. We look forward to their march on the graduation stage, and to the amazing difference they will make as our alumni. Plans are underway for our annual DPP Ceremony to Honor Our Graduates in May, which is being planned at the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts in Hartford.

We will continue to post all job announcements on our alumni LinkedIn and Facebook pages. Three years ago, we also launched a moderated career listserv as a service to our students, alumni, and regional employers. If you have a position announcement to make, please email it to DPP@UConn.edu and we will forward to the listserv and post to our social media. We would appreciate you letting your HR staff know that we provide this service. Recent alumni are automatically added to the listserv while alumni who graduated more than two years ago can request to be added by contacting DPP@UConn.edu.

I wish you a happy and healthy new year. We are looking forward to a day when we can have more gatherings and events that bring our students, faculty, staff and alumni together.

Sincerely Yours,

Mohamad G. Alkadry, Ph.D.
Professor & Department Head