O’Neill SchoolBloomington

Senior Academic Advisor and O’Neill Transfer Coordinator Brett Reardon and his advising colleagues in O’Neill’s Undergraduate Programs Office have spent the past several years creating policies and educational opportunities to help transfer students make a seamless transition into the O’Neill community. For their efforts, they were recently honored with an Outstanding Advising Program Certificate of Merit Award by the National Academic Advising Association (NACADA).

“The O’Neill School is a special place, and [Reardon] and the advising team do an incredible job helping students make the most of their time here,” said R.J. Woodring, Associate Dean for Educational Programs. “We offer many resources and programs that can help students thrive, and [Reardon] has demonstrated a unique ability to help students navigate those opportunities – whether they spend four years or just four semesters with us.”

Five years ago, O’Neill’s undergraduate academic advising team adjusted their admissions process to smooth the transition for transfer students. Focusing on the comprehensive transfer experience as well as each student’s specific needs, they set goals to improve their outreach efforts, offer qualified students direct admission, and help students get earlier access to academic advising. They also focused on helping transfers connect to special opportunities within the school, including student groups, internships, and study abroad programs.

From 2017 to 2021, the school saw an increase of 135% in the number of transfer students admitted. O’Neill also experienced an increase in transfer student retention – suggesting that the team’s transfer-focused approach has been beneficial for both students and the school.

“It all happened really fast,” said Rachel Moneta, BSHMP’22.

After a year of taking classes at a commuter campus close to home in northwest Indiana, Moneta woke up one morning and decided to transfer to IU Bloomington.

“Watching all of my friends branch out on different campuses, I realized I was missing key parts of the college experience,” said Moneta. “I talked to my advisor and ended up applying to IU and sending my transcripts over that same day.”

Finding her major

Moneta arrived in Bloomington not knowing what she wanted to study. She had initially planned on becoming a nurse but realized she didn’t enjoy the clinical side of healthcare. On a whim, she wandered into the Walter Center for Career Achievement. An advisor there carefully listened to her explain her interests, then handed her Brett Reardon’s contact information.

Reardon is a senior academic advisor at the O’Neill School and specializes in working with transfer students. When he started to outline O’Neill’s Healthcare Management and Policy major, Moneta knew she’d found the right fit.

Although she worried that coming in as a transfer student might put her behind, Reardon was able to help her map out her goals. “I accomplished everything I wanted to,” said Moneta. “O’Neill was very flexible. [Reardon] always says he’s able to help people graduate when they want to as long as they pick their major by their junior year. I was nervous – but it all worked out.”

Finding her community

Moneta found the social aspect of transferring particularly stressful. On top of being worried about her academic progress, she was nervous that coming in a year behind meant that she’d struggle to break into established friend groups. However, she found that joining clubs like IU’s club gymnastics and frisbee teams were effective ways to meet new people.

She also found a tight-knit community at the O’Neill School. She met friends in her classes and through the Honors Program. She even joined a club for students from her new major.

“I loved being a part of the Healthcare Management and Policy student organization,” said Moneta. “We talked about issues and trends in the field – things like access to healthcare for uninsured individuals. I got a head start thinking about challenges I’ll be facing in the future as I enter the workforce.”

Moneta also appreciated the relationships she formed with her professors. “[They’re] not just here to teach,” she said. “They’re passionate about their fields and also about making sure we do well.”

Moneta met frequently with Prof. Mark Norrell, a former hospital administrator, about her professional plans. “He has hands-on experience in an area where I wanted to have a career, so he became a mentor – not just a professor.”

Finding her path

After graduating, Moneta started a job as a corporate recruiter at Wabash National in Lafayette, Ind.

“After you’ve been in school for years, it can be intimidating to think about moving into the workforce. O’Neill made that less scary by offering a lot of resources to help me transition,” said Moneta. Through the Career Hub, she got help preparing her resume, working on her interviewing skills, and clarifying her sense of professional direction.

She also credits her coursework for helping her develop a versatile skill set. “O’Neill prepared me with real life projects. I took a wide variety of courses, so I wasn’t just learning project management in general, but also finance, strategic planning, human resources – many different sides of my major.”

If you’ve recently transferred to IU or have questions about joining the O’Neill School, reach out to our advising staff today.

Brad Fulton, an associate professor at the Paul H. O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, has received a 2022 Customer Excellence Award from Alteryx, Inc., at its annual user conference, Alteryx Inspire 2022.

Fulton earned recognition in the Impactor category as the best example of using data for good by developing a comprehensive workflow to automate data extraction, cleansing, and matching from multiple sources. The vast volumes of unstructured administrative data often inhibit researchers and practitioners from conducting field-level studies of philanthropic efforts to address social needs. Fulton and his team from the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering’s Data Science in Practice course, including recent graduates Jessi Arthur, David Ross, and Hannah Corso, increased usable data by more than 200 percent, improved data processing speed 16-fold, and optimized match rates. The result is a first-of-its-kind network dataset that links U.S. foundation and grantee data spanning the past 10 years.

“Given that we were competing with Fortune 500 companies for this award, I’m impressed that our team could distinguish itself in providing a high-quality, innovative, and impactful use case,” Fulton said. “I work with a lot of data scientists from around the world and the Luddy students are among the best. It’s great that our efforts to use big data for the greater good received this recognition in a very competitive field.”

By linking U.S. foundation and grantee data, the dataset of more than one million non-profit organizations successfully reveals the flow and distribution of money throughout the non-profit sector to show how funding patterns affect community-level social and economic inequality.

“I plan to use these data to collaborate with researchers, practitioners, and policymakers who are interested in conducting field-level analyses of the entire nonprofit sector or any of its subsectors such as the arts, education, and healthcare,” Fulton said.

Fulton is also in the process of seeking additional funding so that he can make the data and platform publicly available in a plug-and-play format.

“The ability to transform complex raw data into business insights is critical to remain competitive in the current business landscape,” said Matthew Stauble, chief customer officer at Alteryx. “The 2022 Customer Award Winners are shining examples of what businesses can achieve by coupling a culture of analytics that focuses on upskilling employees with the right analytics tools. We are thrilled to recognize their achievements and look forward to seeing how they continue to evolve their programs in the coming year.”

Vicky Meretsky, a professor at the Paul H. O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, and IU Mauer School of Law Professor and Adjunct Professor of Public and Environmental Affairs Rob Fischman are among the authors of “Collaborative Governance Under the Endangered Species Act: An Empirical Analysis of Protective Regulations,” which was judged by the Land Use and Environment Law Review as one of the five best environmental law articles published in 2021.

The piece, which was led by Fischman in collaboration with Meretsky and Matthew Castelli from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, examines how the Endangered Species Act has thrived as a tool to save species thanks partially to collaborative governance, which allows stakeholders and regulators to work together craft best practices that can benefit all.

“The recognition from the legal academy reflects greater acceptance of the empirical approaches that Vicky Meretsky and I have been promoting for many years,” Fischman said. “Our aim was not simply to provide a more comprehensive account of the controversial special rules under the Endangered Species Act. It was also to demonstrate how collaborative governance works in conservation agencies. This scholarship is especially rewarding to me because it involves analysis I could not undertake without Vicky’s expertise in quantitative analysis and conservation biology. Our skills are more powerful in partnership than separately.”

The study was initially published in the Yale Journal on Regulation. The piece underwent two rounds of peer review and was selected from more than 100 articles before receiving recognition.

“As a conservation biologist, I’m delighted that this recognition will raise awareness of the vital role of collaboration in conservation,” Meretsky said. “With biodiversity undergoing threats from climate change and habitat loss, collaborative efforts are increasingly important. Legal scholars are well positioned to encourage laws and policies that support collaborative efforts such as we described that are vital to protect biodiversity.”

Fischman has been an adjunct professor at the O’Neill School since 2007, and Meretsky, who also is an affiliate associate professor at the Mauer School, has been with O’Neill since 1997.

Sanya Carley, an O’Neill Professor at the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, has earned the Tracy M. Sonneborn Award from Indiana University.

The Sonneborn Award, one of the most prestigious honors bestowed by the university, recognizes faculty for accomplishments in the areas of teaching and research. The award is named in honor of late IU biology professor Tracy Sonneborn, who was known as an exemplary researcher and teacher during his 37-year career at IU. Carley, who also serves as the director of the top-ranked Master of Public Affairs program, is the first O’Neill School faculty member to earn the award.

“I’m incredibly honored to receive the Tracy M. Sonneborn Award,” Carley said. “This recognition goes to the heart of what being a faculty member at Indiana University and the O’Neill School is all about. Research is such a critical part of the legacy being built every day at IU, but just as important is the development of the next generation of leaders in the classroom. I’m humbled to receive this award.”

Carley’s research focuses on energy justice as well as on policies aimed at advancing the innovation of low-carbon and efficient energy technologies in both the electricity and transportation sectors. In her most recent projects, she and collaborators are studying the incidence of energy insecurity among U.S. households and the equity and justice dimensions of the U.S. energy transition.

During Carley’s time at IU, she has taught classes for undergraduates, master’s, and doctoral students. These courses focus on energy economics, markets, policy and justice, research design, and project-based capstones. As director of the MPA program, she directs both the online and residential programs, serving up to 500 students and working with over 70 teaching faculty. She is also leading the effort to revise the core MPA curriculum and working with the faculty to expand the represented diversity within their courses and add several more course options on topics of racial inequity and social justice.

Carley also created the Just Energy podcast, a collaboration with students that explores energy justice and injustice, its racial and social dimensions, and how to make future energy policy more inclusive by design

As part of the award, Carley will also be invited to give the university wide Sonneborn Lecture during the fall semester. The Sonneborn Award has been given annually since 1986, and award winners are nominated by members of the campus community.

Ndayishimiye Florence, who recently earned her undergraduate degree in political science from Presbyterian College, is first recipient of the Paul H. O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs-Presbyterian Fellowship.

A native of Tanzania, Florence and her parents survived the Rwandan and Burundian Genocide during the mid-1990s to settle in Dillon, South Carolina. After enrolling at Presbyterian College, Florence became a leader on campus as a founding member and current secretary of PC’s first NAACP chapter and president of the Political Science Club. Her senior research focused on the effects of British versus French colonialism in African countries, combining statistical analysis with case studies. Her honors research project in political science was an extension of that project.

Florence plans to focus on a nonprofit or diplomatic path at the O’Neill School.

“As I’ve grown older, I’ve always wondered why the things my family went through happened in the first place,” Florence said. “That’s how I got interested in politics – finding ways to learn from that experience and affect change. “It starts with individuals. Nothing changes if we don’t change or bring about awareness or make some changes ourselves. If we wait for everybody else to do it, we’re just saying maybe.”

The O’Neill-Presbyterian Fellowship was established in 2021 to provide PC students the chance to pursue their graduate education with the top-ranked public affairs school in the nation.

“This partnership is about developing opportunities,” said Siân Mooney, dean of the O’Neill School. “Our programs equip students with the real-world tools they need to make a difference, and this partnership will only serve to create a positive impact. We’re excited to welcome Ndayishimiye to our school and look forward to future collaborations with Presbyterian College students.”

The O’Neill School is a world leader in public and environmental affairs and is the largest school of public administration and public policy in the United States. In the 2023 “Best Graduate Public Affairs Programs” by U.S. News & World Report, O’Neill ranks first in the country. Additionally, five of its specialty programs are ranked in the top-five listings, including top rankings for its nonprofit management, public finance and budgeting, and environmental policy and management programs.

Two faculty members from the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs have earned Campus Catalyst Awards from Indiana University, which recognizes individuals, departments, and offices that have made a significant difference in the classroom, on campus, and within the community, and that exemplify IU’s continuing efforts to become a sustainable institution and set an example for environmental stewardship and responsibility.

Associate Professor Shahzeen Attari was honored for her Excellence in Teaching in sustainability, while Research Faculty Chip Glaholt was recognized for his Outstanding Mentorship in sustainability. The awards are handed out by Sustain IU, which identifies and promotes sustainable solutions that reduce environmental impacts while supporting an equitable and prosperous IU. Honorees are nominated by their students and peers.

Attari earned her award by developing pedagogy and curriculum which reinforces and advances principles of sustainability through course design and instruction. Her contributions were measured on their impact and level of innovation.

“I feel honored,” said Attari, who earned the award for a second time after having previously garnered the honor in 2014. “This award is dedicated to all my teachers and all my students. These roles commonly switch, and I have learned a lot from my students over the years.”

The Outstanding Mentorship Award focuses on faculty or staff who have made an impact mentoring and guiding a student in addressing sustainability challenges with overlapping and complex ecological, social, and economic dimensions.

“I’m honored by this award and to be nominated by my student is truly heartwarming,” Glaholt said. “The role Sustain IU plays in providing IU the knowledge and ideas to move forward sustainably is critical for IU’s long-term success, and I feel privileged to be a part of this effort. My work with the Sustainable Scholars Program and Co-chair of the Energy in the Built Environment Working Group have been some of the most rewarding campus activities in my 15 years at IU.”

Since 2004, professor Donna McLean has been introducing undergraduate students to the inner workings of the D.C. policy scene through the Washington Leadership Program (WLP). This May, after 18 years leading the program, McLean will retire from Indiana University.

Since WLP’s inception, more than 700 students from IU Bloomington and IUPUI have spent a semester studying and interning in D.C. and many credit McLean for making their program experience special and formative. Joel Riethmiller, BSPA’05, one of McLean’s first WLP students, interned with former Indiana congressman Baron Hill in 2004. Today, Riethmiller is the founding partner for a D.C.-based government affairs firm.

“The Washington Leadership Program opened my eyes to new career opportunities and lifelong friendships. Donna was the consummate guide on how Washington works. I can unequivocally say that I would not be where I am today without Donna and WLP,” said Riethmiller.

Inside the classroom, McLean brought policymaking to life by drawing from firsthand experience. Before forming her own consulting firm, McLean, a transportation policy expert, held different senior positions within the Department of Transportation, served as a professional staff member of the Aviation Subcommittee of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, and worked in the Office of Management and Budget. She also regularly used her connections to bring in senior-level guest speakers to lecture on different policy topics – a highlight for many WLP-ers.

McLean’s steady presence helped students navigate the transition to Washington even through government shutdowns, challenging presidential transitions, and the COVID-19 pandemic. To honor her service, former students—including Riethmiller—and others have created the Donna McLean Washington Leadership Program Scholarship. Those wishing to support the endowed scholarship may make a contribution online, which will help O’Neill students with financial need participate in WLP.

Ushering in a new administration

Adjunct instructor Brian Volsky will step in to lead WLP following McLean’s retirement. No stranger to the program, Volsky is an IU alumnus who spent his WLP semester interning with the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Japanese Affairs.

Like McLean, Volsky brings plenty of firsthand experience to draw from in the classroom. As a senior investigative counsel with the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Inspector General (OIG), Volsky reviews allegations of whistleblower retaliation, administrative misconduct of senior officials, and other areas focusing on broad or systemic issues within the agency. Previously, Volsky was the director of the Whistleblower Protection Unit at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s OIG. A Harvard Law graduate, Volsky also spent several years as an attorney with the U.S. Department of Commerce, where he advised on export control and sanctions law and represented the Bureau of Industry and Security in administrative enforcement actions under the Export Administration Regulations.

Any undergraduate student at IU Bloomington or IUPUI interested applying to WLP can learn more about the program on the WLP webpages.