College of Public Affairs & Administration

Up there goes, Andrew.

hi, Andrew.

Hello.

Hello.

Sorry, I am late.

No, that's OK. I figured it was tablier stuff. I told him, told Marla. You have one of those.

Yeah.

Hope I hear chipper too.

I was going to say and dog.

OK, I'm back.

Was the Mail getting delivered was barking?

No, he just wanted to come inside.

And he had to grab his Turkey.

Is broccoli were broadcasting?

Why is this?

Away.

I think we have maybe couple people.

I'm going to leave and I'm going to come back.

OK.

OK.

I hope that I'm getting your name right, but hi AXA.

Just.

Thank you so much for joining us, which is going to wait a few more minutes to give people opportunity to come in and then we'll get started.

Oh, it's a queue. OK, so is that access that how I say it.

I just want to make sure I'm getting it right for you.

OK, good.

Well, we will get started. We have a good conversation just couple minutes.

Jill Marla, can you hear me OK?

Yep.

Yeah.

Alright, happens my headphone problems so I'm just here. Just going to make it going to deal with it. Make it work.

No worries.

What are ready? So we are two 18 so I'm going to go ahead and get started. My name is Marla Johnson. I am a admissions counselor here at UISII am going to be introducing you to two of my wonderful colleagues from the College of Public Affairs, an administration we have gioan Andrew. They will be given your presentation if at the end you have any questions, they've let me know that they are open to.

Answering them so Geo Andrew.

Alright well hi everybody. I guess I will go ahead and introduce myself real quick and then I'll let Andrew and we'll get started with our presentation. So my name is Jill I am.

One of the advisors for the College of Public Affairs and Administration, I advise for political science, legal studies, public policy and global studies.

An an I've been at UAS quite a long time so I know a lot about resources and everything so I can help with that too. An Andrew is also been around forever so I will turn it over to him and let him introduce himself.

Thanks, Jill. My name's Andrew Niccol. I'm an advisor with Jill over in the college Public Affairs Administration. My programs, primarily our criminal justice and criminology, environmental studies, and public administration.

If for some reason you need one of us for whatever program you're in, an were not available, the other one can help you, so we do all we do work with both of our programs, so if you need help we can definitely help you. And I have been a UI S for a long time, but not necessarily because of professional reasons. I did go to school at UIS and then I've just hung around for awhile and started back to UI is a couple of years ago, so thanks for having us today.

It's 'cause you IS is so awesome. We just don't leave. Once we get away like stick around work here too you know.

Yep, just can't get out.

Yep, all right. So if you guys want to interact with us in the chat, we love that we'd love to hear from you. If you want to let us know what your major is, what you're planning on studying like dream jobs, anything like that.

Um, so I'll just get started and tell you guys a little bit about the whole college which all those majors that Andrew and I just talked about. That's what makes up the College of Public Affairs and Administration. And one thing that I think is really cool about our college is that the three things I've listed here on this slide, you know, if there's.

You know A cause that you are really passionate about, like say you really care about the environment or you really care about social justice. You really have the opportunity to make a difference in those causes.

No, to be a leader, make changes so you know if you want to be one of those people who's the one out change in the world. Our majors are really going to be good for you.

And.

Yeah.

Then do you wanna talk about the majors that you covered? Andrew should switch over for a minute and then I'll do mine.

Yeah, absolutely.

Kay?

Um, so like I said, I advise for criminology and criminal justice, environmental studies, and public administration to be a little more specific of what those really, what those really mean for criminology and criminal justice. Recently speaking, with the faculty, something they really want students to know is that they are very, very active in social justice. So if that's something that interests you.

Then that's a really good major for you. It's not if you want to be a cop, then if you get the criminology and criminal justice degree, you will be a better cop. But this is not exactly what the criminology and criminal justice degree does. It really makes it where our students can make a difference and really look into all of the.

Social science aspect that comes along with criminology and criminal justice altogether. As for environmental studies, we have three different focus areas for our undergraduate degree. Those are environmental policy law and planning, environmental, social Sciences and humanities, an environmental science. So if there's something that really interests you and you want to be, you know Part B. One of those change agents then, and you want to be on the policy side of it. We've got classes for that. If you want to be.

If you're really interested in the social aspect, may be interested in sustainability or renewable energy sources than our social Sciences section is for you. And then if you're just interested in, you know like political geology or paleoecology, then environmental science section of that is really good for you and then for public administration, it's really.

Management for the nonprofit sector. So if that's something that interests you, then we've got an array of possibilities for you to get in. And that's just on my side. And I know Jill side does a lot more technical because she has more programs, but still her programs do a lot more. And really the college boufares ministration is a fantastic way for you to get to get into those. You know those government agencies or state agencies, or even on the federal level. Our college can really kind of springboard you into that area.

Thanks Andrew and we will talk some of those places that Andrew just mentioned to work. We've got a lot of really cool internships and once once I'm done talking about my majors will skip over to our next slide and that talks about you know some of the cool places you can intern.

Um?

But as far as the majors that I advise for one of the biggest is political science, an honestly, we're probably the best place in Illinois. You can study political science just because we are right in the state capital.

Where the home to all the state legislature.

The statehouse state sending us all right here. We've got lots of established internships with those places, so you really do get a lot of practical experience. Public policy is a major that kind of falls underneath political science, so if you are interested in.

Like actually looking at policy, things like how policy is made, how policy is working, analyzing policy to see if it's working well and making changes to it. That's kind of a division of political science, but that's what that major is all about. And then global studies. Is it similar to both of those at studies political aspects? But it just takes more of a global focus, and it's a really interdisciplinary major an I know interdisciplinary is like this big word that people throw around, but basically.

What that means is you'll take lots of different classes about policy and things like that, but on a global perspective, I just hope the student this morning register for classes for that, and there's some classes like international management Model United Nations. There was a class that we signed a student up for about World War Two and studying that history. So there's history classes. There's economics classes, there are environmental science classes, sociology classes.

But they're all going to have that like global focus, so that's a little bit about our global studies major. We also have.

Our study abroad program, which that's open to everybody, not just students in our college, but for those students who have a passion for globalization and things like that, it's really popular program for students who are in global studies and, you know, I know, we're all you guys are all looking at colleges in the middle of a pandemic and will likely maybe be attending, hopefully toward the end of a pandemic when things start getting back to normal.

Um, but, you know, once things do get back to a little bit normal, our study abroad will start up again and everything so and then the last of my majors that I want to chat about is our legal studies major. And that's a pretty unique major. There aren't many undergraduate legal studies program, so it you really do learn a good foundation about the law and.

It really helps people have a good understanding of that so.

It's not the only route to law school, you know you can major in lots of things if you're going to plan on going to law school, but from talking to our professors in our program, I've learned that when they talk to our graduates who have gone on to law school.

And students who go through our legal studies program have a little less of that shock when they get to law school. They are a lot more prepared. They have a good understanding of the law and it's not quite so overwhelming when they get there 'cause they already kind of have an understanding of what they're going to be studying.

In and I know Andrew talked about public admin. You won't see this listed here, but we do offer several different majors or I'm sorry minors. Sorry, been along day minors within our college and public health is one of those with, you know, public health. It is kind of one of those programs where gotten a lot more attention in the last year or so, with the public health crisis going on. But you would study Epidemiology and trans.

Trans communicable diseases and things like that in that program. So that is a minor that we have as well. And I know Andrew wanted to touch on a couple of the minors that we have that aren't listed here.

Yeah, absolutely. Inside of environmental studies we also have a geographic information systems.

Minor Ann. Right now there's actually we have a lab on campus that uses the geographic information system software and they're using it to actually map like the COVID-19 crisis. So super applicable, but it's not just for mapping things like that. It's also a really good way to see you know what population you know really, really says. So it may just be, hey, this is a very dense, populated area, but what's really find out if there's a lot of people in one area or.

Spread it over the state. It's very, very common for my environmental studies students to be looking into a GIS minor to go along with their degree.

Right, so you know we kind of talked about the benefit of being in the state capital and it really is, you know, kind of that real life lab where we've got all these cool, different places where you can intern. And I know you guys have been through some presentations already today at Discovery UI S button. I don't know if they talked about this, but really every single student at UIS gets the chance to do an internship. If you would like to do 1 not.

Leaders require it, but a lot of them do an even if you're in a major that doesn't require it, you still get to, and that's really invaluable. Those internship experiences, because when you get done with school, that's real experience that you can talk to employers you know it's it's important and necessary to have your degree. But the fact that you can also have that and talk about experience that you've already had.

You know that will help you be, you know, kind of over the top in when they're picking their candidates, so.

And I see that.

Um?

Max, I had a question.

Graduate.

I know.

Let's see if it works.

Typically so we do have to have credentials verified through as an.

We can get you in touch with folks from the admissions office in the records and registration Office that could give you a little bit more detail about that.

Um?

So thank you for your question. I'm sorry I don't have a super solid answer for you right now, but we'll find out for you, OK?

Do you want to chat a little bit about some of the internships that kind of go along with your majors Andrew? And then I'll cover mine.

Yeah, absolutely. So the really awesome part about an internship through our programs is that they don't necessarily have to be related to the field. It can be kind of a subset, so if you wanted to work with the Environmental Protection Agency, you could do that even as like a criminology and criminal justice major or even as a public administration major. So really, you can go a lot of different ways with that. I've had students who have worked with the EPA. They've also worked with the Department of Natural Resources.

Some have worked in conservation, some of my criminal criminology and criminal justice majors have worked with the local police Department's here in the Springfield and surrounding areas. They've done the Innocence Project. They've also worked with with the FBI that's listed on there, but they've also done things on campus with, like our campus police. But some of them are working more so on the criminology side rather than the.

Actual like the criminal justice on the police force side of it so and then really with public administration you can take it anywhere that internship. The internship that comes along with that can be with nonprofit organizations. It can be with the different different state agencies and different things like that. So students really really come into some versatyle majors when it comes for internships is not like Jill said they're not always required, but they are always encouraged.

So you definitely can really tailor it to what you're looking for. An we might have some students right now who are more nontraditional. They might have to be established living somewhere outside of Springfield, so they might not need an intern. Might not be looking to kind of leave the job that they are in. We can always make an internship out of your current job placement if that's something that would fit you and really would work for your degree. The whole thing is to get that kind of real world work experience before your.

Actually in it for our traditional students and then also to, you know to get you credit for when, when you're already doing the work, because why not double dip? Why not get the credits whenever you're able to?

Stay at the job that you're at. The internship is really, really open to interpretation for a lot of our majors.

Yeah.

Yeah, we also have a program for if you have like significant work or life experience. It's called prior learning assessment so you know this may be something that you might be able to workout since you were saying that you already have quite a bit of education. Sometimes you can turn prior work experience into credit hours, so and would count for your internship as well.

Absolutely.

So it's actually called. We call it engagement experience, which means basically, you know, applied. So whether it be an actual formal, traditional internship or you know kind of retroactive where we, you know do some assessment of the work you've already done in your past. We've got both of those things so.

And that's the majority of the information that we have for you today. We'd love to give you guys a chance to answer or ask questions if you'd like, and we're happy to answer those.

And I wanted to take a minute to give you guys our contact information.

Both Andrew and I love to hear from our perspective students. So if you guys have any questions, just want to learn a little bit more those our emails were on them all the time, so we're happy to hear from you. If you do have questions or anything.

Anything else you wanted to add Andrew?

No, I don't think so. Did you have any besides the ones that are listed on that slide? Did you have anything that students internships that they're working on currently?

So I did actually have one that I wanted to mention that I thought of this when you were kind of talking about creative ways to do internships. I have a student right now. Who is she really wants to do legal research like for her career. So rather than doing a formal internship, she is working with her professor, one of the legal studies professors is going to be conducting a big research study over the next year, so the student is going to work very closely with her on that.

Yeah.

She's using it to get her internship credits, so I thought that was kind of a cool one.

And as far as other internships you know we do have the Innocence Project on our campus. Which is it's you think. Mostly it would be of interest to legal study students, but I have lots of criminology students interested in it. Lots of political science students an what it is. It's a program that works to overturn wrongful convictions. So if there is a case where there's a significant amount of evidence that the person was wrongly convicted, they do the legal work to overturn that wrongful conviction.

So.

Again.

Yeah, you mentioned research. That's something that you ISI think does. We're not. We're not like a research first institution, but if students are looking to do that, we have a lot of opportunities for students. One of my public administration students is actually she kind of threw out one of her classes. She was going to take and is doing a semester of research because it really interested. After talking to one of our professors. So we have a ton of opportunity for that. Not saying that our professors don't stay up in their fields, 'cause they definitely do, but we already Teach First institution.

Evernote.

So you're really be able to get that one on one experience with your teachers, if that's what you're looking for, but also they have plenty of opportunities to do research. A lot of them are publishing works or books. I think Jill has a couple professors who are putting out books in the next six months or so, so lot of opportunities to be apart of those studies and that research. If you're interested in that kind of thing.

Yeah, and I think one of the coolest things Andrew mentioned that where a teaching first but all the other research and academic stuff does happen because they are so focused on teaching your professors. Really, they get to know you and they get to know what your specific interests are. So a lot of times I'll have students who you know kind of know they want to work in the public realm. But they're not exactly sure, and I always kind of love when those students start because I'm like, you know, just make sure you use your professors's resources because they.

You know want to help you figure that out and they want to help you hone your skills in your interests and figure out exactly what it is that you love and care about and want to go out and make changes in the world.

So you know, that's one of the things that I always stress to my students. Just, you know, don't just go to class and leave right after you know. Talk to your professors, tell him what you care about and what you love. 'cause they're going to love that, and be excited and want to help you do better in your field.

There's a good chance they might be interested in it too.

Yep.

So that's something I'm finding after working with the faculty over the last couple of months is that I'm like, hey, this is really cool in there like that. I think that's really cool too. I've been working on this and I was like, oh.

Yeah.

I thought I was just weird by myself, never mind.

And then we get nerd out together.

Exactly.

Absolutely.

I think actually is the only one joining us today, so I don't know if they have anymore questions for us. If not, I think I think we're good. Marla, I don't know if you have any questions for us or not.

Oh questions, but just wanted to take the opportunity to thank you for giving this presentation.

Alright.

No OK.

Here's our contact information. So if you wanted to reach out to us, we would. We would love to hear from you. If you've got questions about our programs or what it looks like to be get UI S like I said, you Jill and I have a ton of experience at UIS both as students in undergrad, undergrad and in the graduate level. We've been at US professionally for several years, so we've got a lot of experience and we would love to share that with a. So if you've got questions, feel free to shoot us an email.

One day we'll be back on campus and we would love to chat with you in our offices and see you again.

Yes, I can't wait till I can see people in real life again.

Absolutely, I think marla. I think we're all finished up so have a great day. Thanks for having us an said. If you need us, here's our contact information. We'd love to hear from you.

Thanks everyone.

Thank you.