Continuum

Master of Arts in Public Policy and Administration (MPPA) instructor Greg Wass was recently named on Government Technology’s list of the top 25 doers, dreamers and drivers in public sector innovation. Watch below as Wass, a Senior Advisor in the Illinois Governor’s office, talks about his work in promoting transparency and innovation in government.

Charles Crabtree is no stranger to the challenges facing vulnerable students. Once a non-traditional student himself, he worked as an English teacher in Belarus for several years. He observed severe educational discrimination against the country’s large orphan population and dreamed of one day building a school there. Later, he helped create a policy plan for a Colorado Department of Education teaching endorsement to improve online instruction and founded a computer recycling program aimed at improving digital access for local organizations.

Christine Walker recalls one evening when she was leaving for yet another meeting about Schuyler, her autistic son. Her husband asked where she was going, and she replied, “I’m chasing hope.” Chasing Hope, LLC became the name of a consulting firm Walker formed to serve parents raising children with autism or a mental health condition. “You’re always chasing after solutions—a new school, a new medication, a new therapy. And we’re not the kind of parents who get neighbors bringing over casseroles. There’s social isolation, minimal information and insurance inequities. I want to make it easier for other parents and also drive legislative change.”

Christopher Grimes was not thinking about becoming a filmmaker when he enrolled in Northwestern’s Master of Arts in Public Policy and Administration (MPPA) program in 2005. “I thought the degree would be my best tool to go into a government job on the policy side,” says Grimes, who won the MPPA Distinguished Thesis Award in 2008 for his study of how the U.S. Army reports to families the deaths of soldiers killed by friendly fire.

Distinguished Teacher Award recipient Dianne Rothleder has what it takes.

A teacher who interrupts a European vacation to respond to a student’s email — and apologizes for not replying a few hours sooner — clearly never puts her students out of mind.

There’s probably nothing SCS administrators would rather hear from a job-seeking graduate than “Exactly what I’ve been wanting to do. Success!”

And that’s what the Master of Arts in Public Policy and Administration Program heard from 2011 graduate Theresa Finney Dumais.

Northwestern public policy students work with state leaders to recommend a plan for economic stimulus in Illinois.

Community organizer Gail Schechter adapts her Master’s in Public Policy course for a delegation of Sudanese government officials seeking to improvement government in Sudan.

Thomas Gibbons, dean of the Northwestern University School of Continuing Studies, discusses the birth of online learning at Northwestern.

With years of experience as both a Navy and commercial pilot, David Martak enrolled in the MPPA program online and enhanced his career as an executive in the Department of Homeland Security.