Winter Break is just a couple days away!

Good Morning!

Hope everyone is doing well and not having too stressful of a finals week. This is my last week working as a GA until the Spring semester starts up again, but thanks to Julie, I am able to take advantage of an awesome opportunity writing for a local city's website as they look to update and make it more attractive to residents/businesses.

How bout those finals, eh? I had a budgeting final due Monday, and though there was some procrastination mixed in there, I was able to get it done... it was definitely a challenge so hopefully that turns out okay. Otherwise, I've got Admin Law on Thursday with my (ever-growing) study guide. Should be fun. haha.

By the way, if any one out there is looking for a good book, I recommend Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky. An interviewer once recommended it to me as it's a book about how to effectively community organize/effect social change and has been utilized by Obama, Clinton, and the Tea Party (among others).

Have a great winter break!

The Semester's Almost Over!

Phew. I keep being reminded that the semester is almost over... where did the time go? Pretty soon it'll be time for papers and exams to be due, somehow this semester I got lucky enough to only have exams. Personally, I'd rather have papers so much easier to write than an exam and wonder if I failed or passed.

Is any one else nearing the end of the program? When Dr. Olberding sent out the email about Capstone, another reality set in--I only have one semester left! I've talked with a few people who are finishing the program with me and everyone's still trying to figure out what they'll submit their capstone proposal about. I've been developing my idea for a while now, so I was able to submit my proposal the other day. In the spring, I will be working with a nonprofit that I volunteer for, the Nurse Advocacy Center for the Underserved (NACU), to be developing a standardized emergency management plan that can be utilized by each of the eight non-profit agencies they serve (and who are lacking in emergency management planning).

It's my hope that when I'm done either myself or future capstone students can take the project and work on developing emergency management tools that can be utilized by the underserved populations that NACU and the other nonprofits serve. Many of the underserved individuals do not have immediate access to TV or the Internet, which is where I keep being told to check for disaster planning tips/tools. There's also perhaps the opportunity to take the basic emergency management plan that I'll have created and continuously improve/update it. If this interests you and you're thinking ahead for capstone, feel free to come see me.

And lastly, I promised I'd give a shout out to Paula for always wondering when I'm going to write a new post to my blog. Thanks for the reminder!

Midterms down... What's next?

Hey everyone! Hope your semesters are off to a good start!

Can we go back to fall break? I don't know about you, but those couple of days off were quite nice! Most of us should have finished midterms by now and are eagerly anticipating our grades if we haven't gotten them back already... I can definitely say that the administrative law and budgeting exams were a challenge and I definitely thought I did terrible, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that I did well. Just a hint for anyone taking the courses in the future, don't neglect your readings. Your study guides should definitely focus the most on what the readings have to say about the subject.

Now that midterms are over, I've been helping Dr. Lambert pull casino revenue data to build a database of tax amounts, attendance, casino revenue, and individual payouts for the past 16 years. It's quite a daunting task as every state gaming commission has their own way of conveying the information, but it's definitely interesting to see just how profitable casinos are for municipalities.

Lastly, I just put in my graduation application the other day. It's a scary, yet exciting thought... I'll be graduating this coming May! Time has just flown by in the program, it seems like I just started it yesterday.

Stay tuned for future posts!

-James

Peeling back the covers of those new textbooks…

…Here we are in the third week of school. I don’t know about you, but I’m definitely bogged down with my readings for the semester.  Nothing I’m not used to though. I’m currently taking Budgeting Techniques and Administrative Law, so it’s going to be a pretty busy semester.

As the new graduate student for the MPA office, I suppose I ought to start by introducing myself. My name is James Catchen. I’m in my second year of the MPA program and with the inclusion of this semester, just four classes stand between me and that glorious spring 2014 graduation.

Apart from being the graduate assistant and taking classes, I’m currently developing my own project… thinking ahead for Capstone, I suppose. I’m working with a non-profit on campus, the Nurse Advocacy Center for the Underserved (NACU) to develop disaster management plans or at least a rough sketch of a standard one that can be applied to all 8 of their locations they serve. Each location itself is a nonprofit organization, most of which don’t have any disaster management planning but all utilize NACU’s services. Along the way, I’ve teamed up with the Safety Net Alliance of Northern Kentucky to enlist the help of nonprofits in the region who can guide or possibly collaborate with me as we attempt this project.

If you’re working with a nonprofit, I highly recommend looking into the Safety Net Alliance to see if your organization is a member or if you can become a member. It’s a great way for the nonprofits in this area to band together to help each other as well as network for new possibilities come graduation and beyond.

Anyhow, I hope you all are having a wonderful start to your semester. Stay tuned for further developments and stories from the semester!