Biden School Staff and Faculty Represent at CUPSO Annual Conference

Three faculty and staff members represented the University of Delaware’s Joseph R. Biden, Jr. School of Public Policy and Administration at the Consortium of University Public Service Organizations (CUPSO) annual conference hosted from April 3–5, 2024, at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

With a theme of "Preparing for the Future of Public Service," the CUPSO Conference brought together academic public service centers from across the nation to identify and address common challenges and share innovative approaches for improving policy making and public administration practices and developing government and nonprofit leaders.

Stephen Metraux, Biden School associate professor and director of the Center for Community Research and Service (CCRS), presented his work on homelessness and housing needs in Delaware as part of a panel titled “Public Service Research and the Affordable Housing Predicament: Problems, Options, and Solutions.” Panelists discussed methods to evaluate policy options at the federal, state, and local level to identify community-specific solutions. Metraux emphasized the challenges inherent to translating research into policy change, providing examples from his work in Delaware that could be applied more generally.

Alaina Robinson, policy specialist II at the Institute for Public Administration (IPA), presented a poster titled “Improving Pre-K-12 Education in Delaware.” Robinson used her educational research and policy work with the Redding Consortium for Educational Equity as a case study for CUPSO attendees to learn more about improving policymaking through evidence-based research and evaluation.

Established in 2019, the Redding Consortium is a mandated state body that recommends policies and practices to the Governor and Delaware General Assembly that will improve educational outcomes for all Pre-K to grade twelve students in Wilmington and northern New Castle County, Delaware. Robinson’s poster highlighted the Redding Consortium's efforts to retain high-quality educators and other eligible school staff in public schools and charter schools across the city of Wilmington by establishing a state-funded scholarship program. Robinson described how IPA’s education services team supports the Redding Consortium by providing project management, administrative and staffing support, and policy research and analysis. 

​​Sarah Marshall, IPA associate policy scientist, moderated a panel titled “Collaborative Approaches to Intractable Challenges,” with panelists from the University of Missouri’s Institute of Public Policy and Michigan State University’s Cooperative Extension.

This breakout session discussed how university public service centers collaborate with government and nonprofit partners to address grand challenges through convening community conversations, providing training for public servants, and developing and implementing program evaluation tools. Marshall highlighted IPA’s Grant Assistance Program as a national model for a state-university partnership for providing technical assistance while expanding government capacity.

CCRS and IPA are research and public service centers in the Biden School.​