Maxwell Alumni

Maxwell Alumni News
Couple’s gift seeks to ease the burden of first-generation students
Kenneth ’80 and Mindy Sosne ’81 have pledged $100,000 to establish an endowed scholarship at their alma mater. The Kenneth and Mindy Sosne Scholarship will be awarded to first-generation students at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. “We’ve made a path for ourselves, professionally and financially, and now we want to give back,” says Mindy. “We want to make others’ lives easier.”
10/22/2021

Public housing violence research earns top honor for PhD candidate
Madeleine ‘Maddy’ Hamlin, who is pursuing a Ph.D. in geography at the Maxwell School, was one of 8 doctoral students to have been named an H.F. Guggenheim Emerging Scholar. The $25,000 award supports and recognizes promising graduate-student researchers in their final year of writing a doctoral dissertation.
10/20/2021

US Coast Guard Academy installs alumna Amy Donahue as provost
The U.S. Coast Guard Academy installed Amy Donahue ’96 M.P.A./’00 Ph.D. (PA) as the institution’s first provost in a July 2021 ceremony. Donahue serves as the principal adviser to the superintendent in all matters relating to the academic program and faculty.
9/29/2021

In Memoriam: Joseph Strasser, ‘forever an important figure in our history’
Joseph Strasser ’53 B.A. (Hist)/’58 M.P.A./’20 Hon. was among the Maxwell School’s most generous supporters, having donated more than $7 million to benefit its students, faculty and Schoolwide priorities. He died at age 89 on Sept. 12 following a lengthy illness.
9/27/2021

Alex Lynch '16 credits CCE action plan with shaping his career at NYPD
As a crime analyst for the New York Police Department (NYPD), Alex Lynch ’16, uses the skills he developed in the citizenship and civic engagement (CCE) program in the Maxwell School to help improve NYPD engagement and investigations, as well as improve distribution of vital personal protective equipment (PPE) for frontline workers in New York City during the COVID-19 pandemic.
9/21/2021

MPA grad turned Excelsior Fellow: It’s an honor to work with the state
Ari Epstein ’14 M.P.A. was providing information technology services at a major university when he joined Maxwell’s master of public administration (M.P.A.) program. “I was interested in community-building activities and wanted to get involved in shaping and improving the institutions around me,” he said. “Nothing does that like the government.” He completed his M.P.A. in 2014 and was accepted into New York’s two-year Excelsior Service Fellowship Program.
9/20/2021

Lisa Gordon '90 MPA to be honored at Orange Circle Awards ceremony
After postponing the Orange Circle Awards in 2020, deserving alumni and student groups will be honored during the Orange Circle Awards as part of Coming Back Together 2021, held Sept. 9-12. Lisa Y. Gordon ’90 MPA, president and chief executive officer of Atlanta Habitat for Humanity, is among the 2021 Orange Circle Award winners. Gordon is a recognized leader in transformational real estate development, creating high-quality public and private legacy projects.
9/2/2021

Alumna Kathy Hochul ’80 BA (PSc) is first female governor of NYS
Kathy Hochul ’80 (PSc), New York State’s lieutenant governor and an alumna of Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs and College of Arts and Sciences, has become the 57th and first female governor of New York State.
8/28/2021

Feeding the Next Generation
Catherine Bertini has guided many students to the World Food Programme (WFP), the United Nations organization honored with a Nobel Peace Prize. Meghan Sullivan '17 M.A.I.R. is one of several alumni who found their calling—the place to put their Maxwell theories into practice—through the WFP.
7/27/2021

Compassion for Community - Lia Chabot '21 BS (Econ/CCE)
Lia Chabot ’21 arrived at Syracuse University with a passion for economics, and she’ll graduate with a wealth of experiences that reflect her academic prowess, compassion and commitment to activism. Whether she’s talking monetary policy, crunching data on rental properties, advocating for sexual safety or sharing her love for London, Chabot brings a refreshing perspective to all she does. In the College of Arts and Sciences and the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, she brought her interests together by combining majors in economics and citizenship and civic engagement with a minor in environment and society.
7/21/2021

A Call to be ‘Audacious and Bold’
At a recent Maxwell Advisory Board meeting, member Mary Daly ’90 posed a question—or perhaps it was a challenge. As she recalls, it went something like this: “What can we do that can move the needle, materially change what we see that we don’t like in our society, with regard to inequities? How are we going to literally be able to hand the next generation a better future than what we inherited?” The meeting’s agenda was to give feedback on a draft of the Maxwell School’s strategic plan for improving diversity, equity and inclusion. “It had all the elements that are often in plans that are making progress on this,” she recalls. Yet, to really move the needle, it requires actions that are, “going to be, by definition, audacious and bold,” she says.

7/20/2021

Into the Fray: Bourdeaux ’03 joins congress days before Capitol riot
Carolyn Bourdeaux, who earned a Ph.D. in public administration from the Maxwell School built a career analyzing and teaching public policy. She directed the Georgia Senate Budget and Evaluation Office during the Great Recession, from 2007 to 2010. She served as a professor at Georgia State University’s Andrew Young School of Policy Studies from 2003 until this year. Now she is making policy. Bourdeaux, a Democrat, won her seat in November following a close race with Republican Rich McCormick. Not including two candidates in North Carolina who won seats that were redrawn, Bourdeaux was the only Democratic House candidate in the country to flip a seat previously held by a Republican in the 2020 election.

7/12/2021

Alumna oversees students in NYS Assembly where she once interned
Going to work every day at the New York State Assembly, Vanessa Salman ’17 BA (PSc) is reminded of her time in the Maxwell School. As part of her responsibilities as a staff training associate for the Assembly Minority Conference, Salman oversees students within the conference participating in the Albany semester program. In 2017, Salman was one of those interns. The Assembly Intern Program in Albany gives students the opportunity to work full-time in the New York State legislature. DurSalman found her experience as an intern powerful, and this ultimately drew her back to work full-time post-graduation.
7/8/2021

Laurence promoted to professor of management at the Univ. of Michigan
Gregory Laurence ’04 M.A.I.R. is now a professor of management at the University of Michigan-Flint School of Management. He has also been named director of graduate studies, Center of Japanese Studies, at Michigan’s Ann Arbor campus. Laurence joined the University in 2010 after earning a Ph.D. in management from Syracuse University’s Whitman School.
6/2/2021

Exec Ed grad serves panel on merging mental health, addiction services
Lisa Hoeschele ’03 M.A. (PA), recently served on a statewide committee guiding a merger of New York’s Office of Mental Health (OMH) and Office of Addiction Services and Supports (OASAS). The new entity, the Office of Addiction and Mental Health Services, will integrate mental health and addiction services and streamline procedures and regulations.
5/17/2021

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