Jessica Sowa
"The Master of Public Administration program helps students understand how to address pressing problems that are facing communities like ours and gives them the skills, competencies and values they need to make the world a better place.
"When you think about the M.P.A., it's really about teaching people how to lead in the public service. It's helping them see how to run organizations and deliver public policy on the ground, but also how to appreciate the broader responsibilities that come from serving the public.
"When you work in public service, you—through your actions—are constructing government for citizens. The choices you make and how you interact with a citizen tells them their value in society, which is particularly important in a place like Baltimore, where we do have inequities."
Jessica Sowa is an associate professor for the School of Public and International Affairs within the University of Baltimore's College of Public Affairs. She serves also as director of both the Master of Public Administration and th M.S. in Nonprofit Management and Social Entrepreneurship programs.
Sowa received her Ph.D. in Public Administration in 2003 from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. Her research focuses on public and nonprofit management with an emphasis on the management of human resources in public and nonprofit organizations, organizational effectiveness and collaboration.
Her work has been published in a number of public and nonprofit journals, including Public Administration Review, Administration and Society, Public Personnel Management, American Review of Public Administration, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly and the Review of Public Personnel Administration.