Full Name: Maria Kelley
Title and Organization: Policy Fellow for the Commission on Women, Children, Seniors, Equity, and Opportunity (CWCSEO) and the Office of the Child
Advocate (OCA)
SPP Degree and Graduation Year: MPA, 2025
Maria is a UConn graduate student earning a Masters of Public Administration (MPA). Through the UConn BOLD Women’s Leadership Network, she serves as a Policy Fellow for the Commission on Women, Children, Seniors, Equity, and Opportunity (CWCSEO) and the Office of the Child Advocate (OCA). Her passion in child welfare policy and law are fulfilled in her consultant role with Youth Collaboratory, and fellowships with the Jim Casey Foundation and the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute. She aspires to cultivate her lived expertise, love for learning and community, to foster equitable impacts across generations.
The Morton J. Tenzer Fellowship Fund
This award is given to an incoming student with undergraduate academic excellence and the potential to succeed in the program. The fellowship was established in 1993, the year Professor Morton Tenzer retired from the University of Connecticut. It is intended to be used to assist in recruiting high-quality in-state and out-of-state students.
Professor Morton J. Tenzer devoted more than 40 years to the development of public administration programming in academia at several nationally recognized universities. For many years, Tenzer headed the University of Connecticut’s Institute of Urban Research while providing consulting services to numerous cities and towns. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Connecticut in 1953 and his master’s from Yale University in 1954. Tenzer’s work experience includes consulting for USAID on urban development in the Philippines and for USIS on health administration in Sri Lanka. Throughout the years he has traveled as a visiting professor and instructor to several international universities and has co-authored many articles and reviews in public administration educational training.