UT Dallas Professor Wins Best Article Award

The Review of Public Personnel Administration has named an article co-authored by Dr. Meghna Sabharwal the best article of 2013.

The article, titled “Charting Ethics in Asia-Pacific HRM: Does East Meet West, Ethically?” was written by Dr. Sabharwal, an assistant professor of public affairs at UT Dallas, along with Dr. Jonathan West from the University of Miami and Dr. LooSee Beh from the University of Malaya.

The Review of Public Personnel Administration is the flagship journal for human resources in the field of public administration. It is published in association with the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA).

Dr. Sabharwal’s award will be presented at ASPA’s annual conference in Washington D.C..

Pi Alpha Alpha to Host Former Police Chief

Douglas Kowalski, former chief of the McKinney Police Department, will be the featured speaker at the next Pi Alpha Alpha event scheduled for Tuesday, November 19 at Marcus Cafe in Richardson. The meeting, sponsored by the UT Dallas chapter of the public affairs honor society, is slated for 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the restaurant located at 2701 Customer Parkway.

Public Affairs faculty and students are invited to attend the event, which will include a discussion of "Emotional Labor" as well as networking opportunities.

UT Dallas Pi Alpha Alpha Wins National Best Chapter Award

The UT Dallas chapter of the national public administration honor society Pi Alpha Alpha chapter has received the national award for the Best Pi Alpha Alpha Chapter for the 2012-2013 academic year.

The purpose of the Chapter Award of Excellence is to recognize excellence in programming and chapter management in pursuit of Pi Alpha Alpha’s goals of scholarship, leadership, and excellence in graduate education in public affairs and administration. 

Meghna Sabharwal

Meghna Sabharwal, an assistant professor of public affairs and faculty advisor for the group, said the chapter has made tremendous strides in both membership and activities.

“This year, we had 23 students inducted in the honors society, the most we have had so far,” Dr. Sabharwal said. “This is a result of the awareness and interest our society was able to generate this past year through our various activities and events.”

In November 2012, Pi Alpha Alpha sponsored a successful food drive for The Comet Cupboard, the UT Dallas food pantry dedicated to helping students in need.

The honors society also started a Brown Bag seminar and speaker series featuring distinguished alumni and speakers from the community. The events provided a platform for students to network and form a community with other successful students and academics in their field.

For example, one of the seminar speakers offered internship opportunities to public affairs students at the Dallas Office of Evaluation and Inspections (OEI), Office of Inspector General (OIG), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). 

In the spring, Pi Alpha Alpha organized a writing workshop for students to teach skills valuable to public affairs and administration careers. The students provided positive feedback and suggested that writing workshops should be held every semester.

Additionally, for the first time, the chapter sponsored three students who attended the 2013 Policy Solutions Challenge USA. This is a national competition among teams of students from U.S. schools of public policy, public affairs and public administration to develop innovative solutions to the most important policy problems facing the country.

The topic for this year’s competition was: “Responses to Childhood Obesity in the U.S.” The UT Dallas students placed third in the regional competition in Little Rock, Arkansas.

“We are honored by this chapter award, and hope to continue the trend and plan for more fun and engaging activities next year,” Dr. Sabharwal said.

PA and Sociology Students Among Archer Fellows

The UT Dallas Archer Fellows for Summer 2013 are heading back to Dallas after spending the summer months interning in Washington D. C. The Archer Center was established by the UT System in conjunction with Former U.S. Representative Bill Archer as a way to bring highly motivated and accomplished students to Washington, D.C. to participate in varied internships and take part in classes focusing on policy, economics, and politics.

Before leaving our nation's capital, Archer Fellow from UT Dallas' PA and Sociology program joined Dr. Don Arbuckle in the Vice President Ceremonial Office, where they posed for a picture while doing the UT Dallas Swoosh.

Esmerelda Sachez, Applied Sociology; Donald Arbuckle, PA; Laura Gorecki, PA; and Evan Carr, PA.  

The VP's Ceremonial Office is a beautifully restored room which Teddy Roosevelt inhabited  he was Secretary of the Navy. The desk pictured is the one used by Richard Nixon in his hideaway office (in a different part of the building) during Watergate.  In the top of it is a hole that housed the cord of the tape recorder that got him in so much trouble. The center drawer of the desk is autographed by every Vice President since Truman.  

We congratulate all three of our Archer Fellows and look forward to having them back on campus.