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Evans School of Public Policy & Governance

Faculty Expertise: Public Leadership, Management, and Decision-Making

Postsecondary Education in Washington

Washington stands out nationally for its robust network of 34 community colleges and six public universities. The state has also earned recognition as a pioneer in longitudinal data systems that connect education directly to workforce outcomes. Building on these powerful foundations, we collaborate with state agencies, policy innovators, and diverse stakeholders to equitably transform Washington’s higher education landscape. Our dynamic initiatives have tackled transfer pathway redesign, expanded community college baccalaureate opportunities, improved data utilization in CTE programs, and forged strategic partnerships with individual institutions to boost student success.

Publications

Art of Hosting and Harvesting 2024 Cohort

Leading Courageously in Higher Education: The Art of Hosting and Harvesting Conversations That Matter (affectionately called ‘Art of Hosting’) was called for leaders within and partners of the university and by the Evans School to support fundamental systems redesign.

The Art of Hosting is both a methodology and a world view. It is held by an international community of practitioners who share with each other tried and true ways of engaging people in dialogue, understanding complex systems, and designing ways forward together. It is a powerful approach for actually walking the talk and guiding systems change in this era when we are striving to unlearn old practices and become anti-racist leaders of groups, organizations, and institutions.

Throughout the 3-day training, participants learned hands on and participatory methods to explore powerful questions about both our personal leadership and goals for conversations that matter in our work and communities. The training was centered around the following purpose: to grow our capacity to be curious and courageous leaders who strive to make every space and system anti-racist, through our individual and collective actions that put humanity at the center as we navigate complexity. These methods and frameworks can be used to fuel innovation in higher education and public governance, helping us to understand more deeply how to decenter traditional sources of authority and invite in more voices to engage communities authentically.

Grant Blume Publishes Article on Racialized Administrative Power

Evans School faculty member Grant Blume published a new article titled, “‘As Expected’: Theoretical Implications for Racialized Administrative Power as the Status Quo on racialized administrative power” in the Journal of Public Administration Research Theory. In the article, he argues that racialized administrative power results from institutional racism, and offers contributions to the development of public administration theory.

Researcher Highlight: Q&A with Elizabeth Meza

Elizabeth Meza joined the Evans School as a Senior Research Scientist with expertise in workforce development, career and technical education, and community colleges. She earned her Ph.D. in Higher Education from the University of Washington in 2015 and is founder of Apple Meza Education Consulting. Prior to joining Evans, Elizabeth held several research positions focused on higher education both on the UW campus and at several local community colleges. 

Meza Headshot

Currently, Elizabeth is working on several grant funded projects including one that researches student outcomes in Community College Bachelor’s degrees with New America and an NSF funded project with Evans faculty Grant Blume looking at data use by community college faculty. Elizabeth also has a new NSF-funded research Hub entitled, Community College S-STEM Network (CCSN).   

The Evans School took a few minutes to chat about her growing research program and connections to our community. 

Evans School:  Welcome!  Before moving to talk about specific projects – tell us how you developed a passion for higher education policy research.  

Elizabeth: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share! I became interested in education as a Peace Corps volunteer in Bolivia. I got very close with my neighbor who was about 10-years-old at the time. He was one of six siblings and to help the family he would come cook dinner with me almost every night and we would send the dish back to his house. He taught me a lot and we started an extended conversation about how he could get out of the extreme poverty he was facing. Together, we came to the conclusion that getting a good education was his best path forward. When I returned to the U.S. this idea stuck with me and I started working at community colleges. I absolutely love community college students and their stories and worked for many years directly with students as an administrator and faculty member teaching Sociology. My research now focuses as much as possible on practical projects that can directly impact students.  

Evans School: What do you see as the most significant opportunities and challenges facing community colleges in the Puget Sound region today? 

Elizabeth: That’s a great question! With the pandemic the most immediate challenge has been around enrollment although there does seem to be an enrollment pick up now and we’ll have to watch how minoritized and other non-traditional students are returning. One big opportunity I see is with community college bachelor’s degree programs (CCB’s). Our region faces an Opportunity Mirage where we should be seeing lots of opportunities to get bachelor’s degrees in high demand areas like healthcare and IT but in reality, those programs at our university and regional public universities are capacity constrained or students may not be able to access them for a number of other reasons. This leaves community college students and returning students in a bind. They often can’t find the programs they want or they turn to for-profit entities. The opportunity to offer bachelor’s degrees has the potential to be a game changer for institutions and students.  

Evans School: Your work exemplifies how scholars can use a range of research methods to explore pressing policy questions of the day. What has drawn you to mixed methods research? 

Elizabeth: Many of the questions I am looking at are under researched so there is both a “what is happening?” and a “why is this happening?” component. I like to use quantitative and qualitative methods to answer as much as possible.  

Evans School:  Reflecting on our work to date, share with us two or three key insights into higher education that have emerged from your research program? 

Elizabeth: I am now a nationally recognized expert on community college bachelor’s degree outcomes and when I started researching this topic no one really knew much about who takes up CCB degrees, why they do so, or what their outcomes are. My research (along with my excellent colleague and mentor Dr. Debra Bragg and others) has led to us discovering that CCB students look like other students at the community college in terms of demographics but are older, more likely to have dependents, and more likely to be veterans than community college transfer students. So, this is really a different population of students that are entering CCB programs and thus, these programs are extending educational opportunities. We’ve also found that CCB students have similar employment outcomes to students who attend a regional public university in a similar degree program.  

Evans School: Tell us about your new NSF-funded project.  

Elizabeth: That is going to be a great project and I’m excited to share it with you. I’m a Co-PI working with PI Michelle Van Noy from Rutgers, and others from the University of Southern Florida, the Foundation for California Community Colleges as well as colleagues from community colleges including Everett Community College. Essentially, the National Science Foundation has a large grant program called S-STEM where they provide funding to STEM students directly for scholarships, and also funding for colleges to enhance STEM completion through efforts like mentoring, tutoring, or specialized advising among many others. We have won a “Research Hub” to bring together what is known about community college student decision making processes in STEM. I’ll be leading an effort to do a systematic review about what is known about S-STEM in community colleges. The Hub as a whole has lots of components including building a nation-wide learning community so it will be a great opportunity for Evans scholars to become more involved with the community college world.  

Evans School:  We are excited to have your voice and work contributing to our community – thanks for meeting up to talk! 

Elizabeth: Thanks so much! I’d love to share more and learn more about how my work might overlap with others at Evans! I joined just as the pandemic was getting started and work mostly remotely from my home on the Eastside so I don’t know as many people at Evans as I would like, please reach out if you’d like to talk!  

New Faculty: Q&A with Mariko Lockhart

Mariko Lockhart recently joined the Evans School as a Professor of Practice and will teach public service leadership and management courses. Prior to joining Evans, Mariko has been serving as the Deputy Director for the City of Seattle Department of Education & Early Learning and served as the Director of the City of Seattle, Office for Civil Rights for four years.  

The Evans School spoke with Mariko as she settled into this new role within our community. 

Evans School: What drew you to this opportunity at the Evans School? 

Mariko: I was excited to have this opportunity to draw on my experience and lessons learned as a public and nonprofit sector leader and share with Evans students. It feels like the perfect next step in my public service career. The commitment of the Evans School to advance on its journey to becoming an anti-racist organization is very compelling to me and I welcomed the opportunity to support the school in these efforts. My role as Director of the Seattle Office for Civil Rights during the height of the COVID pandemic and throughout the racial justice protests following the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police required adaptation, learning, and growing as a leader. This was also true for us as a city government overall. I am looking forward to engaging with students on the kind of hard questions about how to operationalize anti-racism in government that have been front and center for us at the City of Seattle these past few years. 

Evans School: Of the many different professional experiences you’ve had over your career, which have been most impactful on the leader you’ve become? 

 Mariko: While I have learned and grown from each of my professional experiences, the most impactful and transformative for me was my tenure as Director of the Seattle Office for Civil Rights during the incredibly tumultuous period I’ve referenced. It was truly a time with no roadmap or precedent that demanded adaptive leadership, a willingness to learn and grow, and deep humility. For me, the learning and self-reflection journey toward an anti-racist practice is both humbling and transformational. I was fortunate to work alongside an incredible leadership team and staff. I am a strong believer in collaborative leadership, an approach that is deeply aligned with anti-racist values. We couldn’t have made it through that period without having built trusting relationships with each other and the ability to lean into each other for support. 

Evans School: Which skills and capacities are most needed for those going into public service employment today?   

Mariko: Certainly, excellent communication, organizational, and management skills are the foundational for public service employment, but a strong set of personal and professional values are what will continue to guide you throughout a career in public service. The values that guide my actions are integrity, humility, courage, and compassion. 

Evans School: How will you bring your voice, experiences, and insights into the classroom? 

Mariko: I look forward to engaging with students in the classroom and bringing case studies and scenarios from my own experiences and that of other public sector leaders into my courses for students. Real life scenarios are such an engaging tool to explore ways to confront highly complex and nuanced situations in government and the non-profit sector. I am also looking forward to recruiting guest lecturers from my network of amazing public and nonprofit sector leaders.

Evans School: Which classes will you be teaching this academic year? 

Mariko: I will teach Capstone in the Winter and Spring quarters and Executive Leadership in the Spring. 

Evans School: We are excited to have you join the Evans faculty and community – thanks for chatting! 

Mariko: I appreciate the warm welcome and support I have already received from colleagues and students! 

Research Scientist Elizabeth Meza and Colleague Publish on Policy Landscape of CCB Degrees

Evans research scientist Elizabeth Meza and colleague Debra Bragg publish “Scaling up community college baccalaureates in Washington State: Labor market outcomes and equity implications for higher education,” in Educational Policy Analysis Archives Content. The pair’s research describes the evolving state policy landscape on community college baccalaureate (CCB) degrees in Washington in certain programs previously classified as terminal career-technical education and assesses labor market outcomes for graduates of three high-demand program areas conferring these degrees.

 

Inaugural Zumeta Award Winners

Evans Ph.D. students Matt Fowle and Nicole Kovski jointly received the Evans School’s inaugural William M. Zumeta Doctoral Research Award for the best research paper authored by an Evans doctoral student in the prior two years. The award is named in honor of Evans School Emeritus Professor Bill Zumeta for his contributions to the study of higher education policy and finance, and his dedication to doctoral education and training. Matt Fowle’s submission, Racialized Homelessness in Housing Policy Debate, describes how race and racial segregation shape the prevalence of homelessness within communities of color, and how race shapes the way in which our policy tools attempt to alleviate homelessness in communities of color. Nicole Kovski’s co-authored article on the Earned Income Tax Credit and child maltreatment in Pediatrics, presents compelling evidence that more generous tax credits targeted at lower income households can reduce the prevalence of youth violence downstream.

Evans Faculty Crystal Hall Receives Prestigious Career Service Award

 

Evans Associate Professor Crystal Hall has received the Society for Judgment and Decision Making’s (SDJM) 2021-22 Castellan Service Award. This award recognizes Professor Hall’s many important leadership and professional contributions to SDJM.

Of particular importance is Professor Hall’s service for the past two years as chair of SDJM’s first-ever Diversity & Inclusion Committee. In that role, she has centered equity and inclusion within SDJM’s work to better support scholars from underrepresented and historically excluded backgrounds.

Upon receiving the Castellan Service Award, Professor Hall noted: “SJDM has been my primary academic community. And, despite its interdisciplinary nature, it has historically fallen short in the creation of a diverse community of scholars. I hope some of the deep structural changes we are pursuing as a professional association will result in an inclusive environment that will be reflected in both the nature of our research and the way that research is applied to a wide range of social challenges.”

Professor Hall’s leadership within SDJM echoes her field-leading research and many contributions to the Evans School. Associate Dean for Research and Engagement Scott W. Allard underscored, “Professor Crystal Hall is a singular scholarly voice challenging behavioral science to confront structural racism. Her work within the Evans School also has been integral to our school’s commitments to promote equity, address racial bias, and train the next generation of public service leaders to dismantle systems of oppression.”

Evans Faculty Join Prestigious Journal Editorial Boards

Reflecting a longstanding tradition of Evans School faculty serving on the editorial boards of leading academic peer-reviewed journals, two Evans faculty members recently joined the boards of two top journals in the field of public administration. Professors Seba Bishu and Benjamin Brunjes recently accepted appointments on the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory (JPART) Board of Editors. Professor Bishu also recently joined the Public Administration Review (PAR) editorial board. Much thanks and congratulations to Professors Bishu and Brunjes for their service!