This summer, Maxwell convened Minnowbrook at 50, an anniversary conference on the same hallowed ground. For most who attended, the times seemed no less volatile, and deciding how public administrators and scholars meet an era’s challenges proved anything but simple.

“Our life expectancy is increasingly being shaped by where we live in the U.S.,” says Jennifer Karas Montez, Gerald B. Cramer Faculty Scholar of Aging Studies at Maxwell. It’s tempting to blame lifestyle-related behaviors, but “lifestyle behaviors are not root causes. They are symptoms of the environment and the social and economic deprivation that many parts of the country endure, thanks to decades of policy decisions.”

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) program's reputation and Washington location provide Maxwell students and faculty regular access to a range of leaders and practitioners—to an extent not feasible in Syracuse,” says University Professor and Phanstiel Chair Sean O’Keefe ’78 M.P.A., who is charged with developing opportunities to further nurture Maxwell/CSIS collaboration.

Thanks to the generosity of one “citizen of the world,” dozens of budding scholars have chased far-flung intellectual goals.

The new mayor, Ben Walsh '05 M.P.A., highlights the number of alumni in Syracuse city and Onondaga County government.

Gerry Cramer was the perfect friend of the Maxwell School - generous, visionary, and ultimately trusting. Cramer passed away on February 13, 2018.

Almost a century ago, a Maxwell faculty member turned a top-of-the-head idea into a student exercise in diplomacy—and basically invented Model UN.

At first glance, the new major in citizenship and civic engagement would seem to share a lot with another Maxwell major, policy studies. Both are interdisciplinary, nurture informed citizens, and emphasize action. But the similarities end there.

"We don't want to press our interests in citizenship upon the students," says Amy Lutz, associate professor of sociology, who will be teaching the new MAX course on research methods and civic engagement. "We want them to develop it themselves. We're there as mentors. So it shouldn't be that we give them the Action Plan and they fill it in. It should be initiated by the student's desire to engage with a particular social problem."

Maxwell’s Lerner Center is working with local government to encourage exercise and good snacking habits by students.

Now in her third year as Chapple Professor, Kristi Andersen works with the diverse MAX Course teaching teams to identify the critical issues and debates that will be the focus each year — such as the electoral process, health care reform, education, and Social Security. "One of its goals is to teach students how to be critical consumers of data as citizens as well as potentially as policy analysts or working in some social science-related occupation," Andersen says.

One of the highlights of Maxwell’s 90th anniversary celebrations this year was a school-wide party. Notably, the Passport to Our Past activity invited people to carry a small, informative mock passport to stations at departments, centers, and institutes around the School, thus reminding those “travelers” of all the individual enterprises that make up Maxwell.

The Maxwell Citizenship Initiative aims to identify common interests in citizenship issues among faculty and students throughout the school, and then to provide new avenues and support for sharing ideas and collaborating. “Our goal,” says Prema Kurien, professor of sociology and one of the founders of the project, “is to create faculty clusters based on research interests.”

The Maxwell School changed, grew and celebrated during Dean Steinberg’s five-year term. 

A new faculty scholars program, which recognizes top teachers with a special emphasis on lower-division, team-taught, interdisciplinary courses, is named the Robert D. McClure Professors of Teaching Excellence, named Bob McClure, former associate dean and current professor at the Maxwell School.

Maxwell's new online EMPA is structured to meet the demands of the highly experienced, ambitious students it attracts.