Carr Transitions PPMA Headship to Carroll
Jered Carr didn’t expect to stick around for so long. As leader of the Department of Public Policy, Management, and Analytics for the past nine years, Carr has shepherded the Department through a myriad of changes, most recently its renaming from the Department of Public Administration last year.
Professor Deborah Carroll, who will replace Carr at the start of this semester, likens the transition process to a relay race, one in which she’s “grabbing the baton from Jared and trying to maintain the momentum and the great foundation that he's leaving me,” Carroll suggests that she’s confident that so much of the success of the department lies in what’s already present within it. Carr is equally effusive in his praise of Carroll as the right person to jump into the position in this moment, someone who thrives on taking on big changes and making them work well.
“She may be new to this particular role, but she's not new to leadership roles at multiple institutions,” Carr says. “She brings that perspective of being at different places where we can kind of get the best things from all of them.”
Over the past near-decade, Carr has presided over considerable changes and challenges within the department. Among his major goals for his tenure, Carr emphasizes the following as key accomplishments: catching up the department’s public policy emphasis “where the field had been for quite a while,” including the creation of an undergraduate program; expanding recruitment of international students; “an increased emphasis on data management and coding and analysis” for both graduate and undergraduate students; and, with that increasing focus, the creation of the Masters of Science and Civic Analytics and undergrad Minor in Civic Technology programs, offering students an opportunity to be at the forefront of these issues. Across these many commitments, Carr credits everyone in the department for a dedicated spirit of collaboration, one that’s ensured continued success.
“I certainly feel extremely grateful that we've got, to a person, every person [in the department] has been committed to excellence and support of our students, our programs and their own research,” Carr says.
Likely the biggest shift that occurred under Carr’s tenure was the renaming process, which was completed last year. Becoming the Department of Public Policy, Management, and Analytics was a lengthy, thought-out process that required the efforts of countless people across the department to weigh in. Carr says that the new name “[put] that full stamp on that we were a much more comprehensive operation in terms of our research and teaching,” reflecting the many new degree programs, research departments, and more within the department. Carroll says that the new name is something that excites her: as someone who came to CUPPA in 2021 in part to lead the Government Finance Research Center, the many changes happening within the department offer exciting possibilities for more growth to come.
“I consider myself kind of a change agent, and I find things to be really exciting and really motivating,” Carroll says. “I'm looking forward to that in terms of where we are, where we've come from, and where we're moving to, and I’m really excited to have an impact there.”
For her part, Carroll says she’s ready to apply the lessons from her previous roles to the work of leading the department. Having previously taught and led research programs for 10 years at the University of Georgia, a traditionally more conservative, standard public affairs program, and then five years at the University of Central Florida, which takes a more experimental approach, she says she’s eager to blend the approaches and take the best lessons from both. Having served as director for the Government Finance Research Center over the past two years, she’s familiarized herself with the inner workings of the department, and looks forward to taking on the bigger task of leading more than just one research body.
Of course, the last several years of pandemic have had a significant impact on the department, in some ways testing its effectiveness. One area where the pandemic has offered the department new opportunities is the implementation of a fully-remote option for the Master’s in Public Administration program, the first asynchronous program of its kind, set to launch in January. The certainty that the department faculty and staff could offer quality education to remote students, a hard lesson forced over the last few years, is now an exciting opportunity that the department is set to embrace, one that’s especially appropriate in a state that has so many government bodies.
“Illinois is just such a great context, because we’ve got the greatest number of local government units in the country,” Carroll says. “The opportunity to prepare students for those roles to become public servants is really exciting to me.”
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For his part, Carr is excited to see what Carroll can do with the department, while taking a well-earned break after so many years in supporting his colleagues, including taking the last year to support the transition of new the new dean, Stacey Swearingen White.
“I’ve been trying to find the exit door for a while, and now I finally have,” Carr jokes.