Below are the two candidates running for Chair of the APPAM Institutional Representatives seat on the APPAM Policy Council. The chair will serve until April 2023 and is responsible for representing the interests of all institutional rep members on the APPAM Policy Council. The Institutional Reps Chair also serves on the APPAM Executive Committee.
All institutional members are encouraged to vote for their choice for chair by Friday, April 9th. The link to vote was sent to the institutional rep member APPAM has on file. Each institutional member receives one vote. The winner will be announced in mid-April.
Questions? Email Tara Sheehan, tsheehan@appam.org.
Heather Campbell, Claremont Graduate University
The Institutional Members of APPAM are the trunk of the APPAM membership tree that has branches and leaves coming and going but needs a solid pillar to maintain it. Both types of institutional members—academic and non-academic—contribute importantly to this pillar and, if elected to serve as Chair of the Institutional Representatives, I will work with both to use the different insights all can provide, and enhance the value to all. At this time, one concern of both many Institutional Members and the Policy Council is the relative lack of diversity. Some committees have been working on this, but more needs to be done, and I would also work to move this forward.
Background: I have a PhD in Public Policy Analysis and APPAM is my primary professional organization and has been ever since I found out that it existed. I’ve brought the universities where I’ve worked into the APPAM Institutional Member fold. I am currently Chair and Professor in the Division of Politics and Economics at the Claremont Graduate University. My research focuses on race- and ethnicity-based environmental injustice. Because I strongly value APPAM, I have long contributed to it. The following is only a partial list: member of the Institutional Representatives committee (including serving as vice-chair when there was one), representative of the Institutional Members to the Policy Council, host of the second annual Western-region APPAM Student Conference, student mentor, sub-section leader for the conference committee, dissertation award committee, and I presently serve on the Editorial Board as Book Review Editor. This upcoming year I hope to continue contributing as Chair of the Institutional Representatives committee. And this year in particular I will have time because I will be on sabbatical. Thank you for your consideration and your own contributions to APPAM.
Heather MacIndoe, University of Massachusetts, Boston
I’m an Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director in the Department of Public Policy at UMass Boston. I would like to chair APPAM’s institutional representative committee for two reasons. First, I would like to support student constituents of institutional members. As a Graduate Program Director, I am very involved in mentoring master’s and Ph.D. students. I have seen and experienced the role that professional organizations can have in furthering student research and entry into professional positions in the academy and beyond. I feel APPAM could do more, and that the institutional members committee might be a place for this to start. We could hold virtual writing events for dissertating students, panels on the job market, host various student paper competitions and perhaps a student-led conference.
Second, I would like to hold events and increase participation for institutional members. During the pandemic, we’ve all gotten more comfortable with engagement in the virtual world. While I hope that we will soon be back to face-to-face modalities, we could organize virtual Institutional Member Forums on relevant and timely policy topics like the racial wealth gap, or the challenge of climate change. In the past (the last one was in 2019) these events were physically hosted at various D.C. area universities and other locations. Holding these events virtually could facilitate broader outreach and participation by institutional members and their constituents.