Maxwell School News

"During my senior year, I was accepted to an internship in the office of Assemblywoman Pamela Hunter (D-Syracuse)," Daniel Cordial, a current E.M.P.A. candidate, says. "After that internship was over, they called me up and offered me a job that had a flexible schedule so that I could continue school."

“The goal of simulations is to keep the negotiations going and make small incremental wins,” says Joshua Kennedy, associate director for public administration and international affairs. “There aren’t always huge transformational moments. Sometimes the best solution might be that we agree to another conference.”

“Online students benefit from the flexibility of being able to complete their coursework on their own schedule from the comfort of their own home, and while the connections they make with their peers and faculty are valuable, the value of place and institutional community that comes from being part of a school can be lacking,” said Nell S. Bartkowiak, director of the Online E.M.P.A. Program.

“I realized I can do anything I want to link my personal history to public service,” said Thompson Scholar Debah Tiah, a refuge from Liberia who is pursuing an MPA at Maxwell.

 “To be a Tillman Scholar means I get to be a part of an outstanding network of some of the best and brightest future leaders in the country," says E.M.P.A.student Katy Quartaro, after being named a 2019 Tillman Scholar.

This is a boom time for undergraduates at the Maxwell School—new majors, expanded research programs, diverse experiential opportunities, enhanced advising, and more. It all builds on a tradition of undergraduate education that goes back to Maxwell’s beginning. There has never not been a “Maxwell undergrad.”

A new program helps veterans convert their sense of community investment to civic engagement and political office.

The way Roza Vasileva sees it, the future is data: in particular, data gathered by governments—local, regional, national, international—and shared with citizens to make their communities, and their countries, better. Roza’s desire to make the world a better place drove her to study in the United States as a Fulbright Scholar and to launch a career spearheading open data in more than a dozen countries. What made that happen, more than anything, were her experiences at the No. 1 ranked Maxwell School of Syracuse University.

Beginning this fall, for the first time ever, students planning to major in the social sciences applied and were admitted directly to the Maxwell School. Prior to this, students applied to A&S, and they became a Maxwell student only if they declared a Maxwell major, usually sometime around the end of their sophomore year.

Peer to Peer reflects the diverse professional experience and interests of Maxwell’s midcareer professionals, says Margaret E. Lane, Executive Education's assistant director. “Our students are leaders of organizations and agencies from around the globe who are dedicated to public service and have insights to share,” she says. “In sharing their insights, they enrich us all.”

Cynthia Wang, who holds a BA in International Relations from Maxwell, has been selected as a recipient of the prestigious Critical Language Scholarship and will study Azerbaijani in Azerbaijan.

“We enjoy working with students from Kazakhstan because they are so appreciative of their opportunity to study at the Maxwell School,” says Steve Lux, director of the Executive Education program. “Every one of them are eager to apply what they have learned to the challenges facing their country."

Maxwell always served undergraduate social science students. But, for this fall’s incoming class, admission to Maxwell is direct and the “Maxwell freshman” is official.