MASTER OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

Cincinnati Cultural Heritage Project

As MPA students, Rosie Polter and Joe Ewald developed and implemented a very creative project – the Cincinnati Cultural Heritage Project – in their Capstone class.  

Cultural heritage is an expression of how people live and what they value, and it is developed and maintained through objects, beliefs, traditions, practices, artistic expressions and significant places.

Rosie and Joe focused on three Cincinnati neighborhoods: Walnut Hills, Price Hill, and Camp Washington. They collected data around cultural heritage by engaging residents in pop-up exhibits and storytelling nights at establishments in these neighborhoods. They recorded this information using an inventory form developed for the Cincinnati Heritage Project (CHP).  Altogether, they completed 15 of these inventories.  Examples of cultural heritage artifacts are the Walnut Hills Street Food Festival, the Palm Room in Walnut Hills, Union Baptist Cemetery in Price Hill, Sebastian’s Greek Restaurant in Price Hill, and Camp Washington Chili.

Please consider liking the CHP's Facebook page and following its progress.

Also, the CHP was selected for Artists Lead!, which was developed by ArtPlaceAmerica to support "creative people with great ideas for collaborative solutions to community needs." Artists Lead! enables crowdfunding of creative placemaking projects, and it matches donations dollar-for-dollar up to $15,000. Check out the CHP's page.

American Red Cross Internship

MPA student, Dennia Palmer, served as a Recovery Casework Team Member Intern with the American Red Cross Greater Cincinnati-Dayton Region in 2020.  

In this role, Dennia provided mass care shelter recovery casework to families who were displaced by natural disasters and conducted follow-up casework to guide clients through the recovery process. She also completed mass care trainings to qualify for deployments during natural disasters. After hurricane Laura made landfall in Louisiana on August 27, Dennia was deployed as part of the American Red Cross relief effort.

Dennia's internship is a perfect fit with her academic pursuits in the NKU Master of Public Administration. She is working toward three "stackable" credentials -- the Disaster Readiness micro-credential, the Emergency Management graduate certificate, and the MPA degree.

She came to our MPA program from Los Angeles, where she earned a bachelor's degree in political science and government at California State University.

Photo Credit: Cincinnati Business Courier

MPA Alum named Hamilton County Health Commisioner  

The Hamilton County Health Board voted in July to approve Greg Kesterman (MPA 2015) as Hamilton County Health Commissioner.  

Greg had served as interim commissioner since February 1 at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I can’t image a more difficult scenario in which to begin, and Greg has handled it superbly. He has energized his team and is leading a comprehensive and complicated response to a novel pandemic that we haven’t seen in more than 100 years. The Board of Health could not be more pleased with Greg’s leadership,” said board president Mark Rippe.

Hamilton County Public Health (HCPH) serves about 480,000 residents of Hamilton County in 45 political jurisdictions other than the cities of Cincinnati, Norwood and Springdale (which have their own health departments). The agency has 105 employees and a $17 million budget.

HCPH's work includes control of diseases (such as COVID-19 and tuberculosis), immunizations and epidemiology, and inspections of various public facilities including restaurants, groceries, schools, swimming pools, and campgrounds.