University of West Georgia — 2017–2021

Professor and Chair, Department of Political Science (2017–2021) Director, Office of Civic Engagement and Leadership (2020–2021)

The Situation in 2017

The University of West Georgia is a regional public comprehensive university in Carrollton, Georgia, serving approximately 13,000 students with a strong commitment to access, community engagement, and the University System of Georgia's online education mission. When I arrived as Chair of Political Science in July 2017, I inherited a department of sixteen full-time faculty, five part-time instructors, two staff members, and more than 400 students across in-person and online programs — a significantly larger and more complex operation than I had previously led.

The department had real strengths: an accredited Master of Public Administration program, a growing online presence through the University System of Georgia's eMajor platform, and a faculty with genuine scholarly productivity. It also had real gaps: undergraduate enrollment had plateaued, the MPA was underenrolled relative to its NASPAA-accredited capacity, the curriculum had not been systematically assessed, and the gender composition of the faculty — one woman among sixteen full-time members — did not reflect the students the department was trying to serve.

Four years later, undergraduate enrollment had grown from 115 to 284 students, the MPA had reached its NASPAA-maximum enrollment of 75, the faculty included five women, faculty research productivity had increased 15 percent, and the department's score on UWG's EngageWest faculty evaluation of chair effectiveness had risen from 3.6 to 4.2 on a five-point scale. That last number — a measure of whether faculty felt their chair was supporting their success — is the one I am most proud of, because it reflects the relational work that makes everything else possible.

Enrollment and Program Development

The enrollment growth from 115 to 284 undergraduate majors was not a single initiative — it was the cumulative result of a comprehensive overhaul of how the department recruited, welcomed, and retained students. That work included a complete redesign of departmental marketing materials and web presence, coordinated with UWG's Enrollment Management and Admissions offices to unify messaging and establish the department's identity within the university's broader enrollment strategy.

On the graduate side, the MPA's growth from 18 to 75 students required more than recruitment effort. It required rebuilding the program's operational infrastructure — transitioning the degree to a fully online delivery model, creating the first dedicated standalone budget the program had ever had, hiring additional faculty to support the expanded enrollment, and navigating a successful NASPAA reaccreditation cycle that validated the program's quality improvements. The MPA accreditation renewal was not simply a compliance exercise; it was an opportunity to document and demonstrate a program that had genuinely improved, and to build the assessment systems that would sustain that improvement over time.

I also launched a fully online Bachelor of Science in Organizational Leadership within the University System of Georgia's eMajor platform — a new program designed to serve working adults and place-bound learners who needed a flexible, career-oriented credential. That program expanded the department's reach beyond its traditional residential student base and demonstrated the kind of market-responsive program development that a college-level administrator needs to be able to execute.

Faculty Development and Hiring

The transformation of the department's faculty composition was among the most consequential work of the UWG years. Intentional revision of search committee processes, job description language, and candidate outreach strategies produced a faculty that grew from one to five female members over four years — a change that altered the intellectual culture of the department, improved our ability to serve a diverse student body, and modeled for students what professional possibility in political science looks like.

Beyond hiring, I mentored four assistant professors through their pre-tenure phases and supported two associate professors in successful applications for promotion to full professor — a faculty development record that spans the full range of career stages. I also advocated successfully for two new faculty lines, connecting the requests directly to enrollment data and accreditation requirements rather than asserting departmental need without institutional justification.

Faculty research productivity increased 15 percent over my tenure — an outcome that reflects both the new hires I brought in and the cultural investment I made in protecting faculty time for scholarship, including travel support advocacy and a restructured governance load that reduced the administrative burden on research-active faculty.

The EngageWest faculty evaluation score — the rise from 3.6 to 4.2 on a five-point scale measuring faculty confidence in their chair — represents the relational foundation beneath all of the programmatic accomplishments. Faculty who feel genuinely supported by their chair work harder, collaborate more willingly, and engage more constructively with the shared governance processes that determine institutional direction. Building that trust required consistent communication, genuine follow-through on commitments, and the daily practice of treating every interaction with a colleague as an opportunity to either strengthen or undermine the relationship.

Student Success and the Truman Scholar

The most distinctive individual student success story of the UWG years was Rickia Stafford's selection as a Truman Scholar — only the second in UWG's institutional history. Truman Scholarships are among the most competitive undergraduate awards available to students intending public service careers, and producing a winner requires more than identifying a talented student. It requires sustained mentorship, strategic guidance through the application process, and a departmental culture that takes student achievement seriously enough to invest real faculty time in it. I directly mentored Rickia through the application process and coordinated the institutional support that surrounded her candidacy.

More broadly, I redesigned the department's recruitment and retention strategies to systematically identify and support students pursuing competitive awards including the Rhodes and Truman Scholarships, reassigning faculty time to create a structured mentorship pipeline for high-achieving students.

Fiscal Stewardship

The financial management of the UWG department involved several initiatives that went beyond routine budget administration. The most significant was identifying system-level online revenue that had been flowing past the department and successfully leading an effort to reclassify those funds to support faculty directly within the departmental budget — a reallocation that required navigating University System of Georgia administrative structures and making a compelling institutional case for why the revenue belonged closer to where the educational work was being done.

I also created the MPA's first dedicated standalone budget, which transformed the program's financial management from an undifferentiated line in the departmental ledger into a transparent planning tool that served both program management and accreditation documentation. And I secured more than $40,000 in external funding and in-kind support for civic engagement programming — including grants from the Students Learn Students Vote Coalition, the Ask Every Student program, the Council on Foreign Relations World 101 initiative, and Collaboratory — building an external revenue portfolio for a function that had previously relied entirely on internal allocation.

Institutional Leadership

At UWG I served simultaneously on the College of Social Sciences and Division of Academic Affairs leadership teams, contributing to decisions that extended well beyond the Political Science department. I chaired the university's Chairs' Council from April 2019 through June 2020, convening and facilitating the collective deliberations of department chairs across the institution — a role that required exactly the coalition-building and perspective-taking skills that distinguish department-level leadership from college-level leadership.

I also served on the Carnegie Foundation Community Engaged Classification team from 2019 to 2020, contributing to UWG's successful application for that designation — a classification that reflects an institution's genuine commitment to community engagement as a core element of its academic mission, and one that requires comprehensive documentation of how engagement is embedded in curriculum, research, and community partnerships.

Director of Civic Engagement — 2020–2021

In July 2020 I took on the role of Director of the Office of Civic Engagement and Leadership within University College. That dual appointment — managing a sixteen-person department and building a new institutional office simultaneously, in the middle of a global pandemic and one of the most consequential election cycles in Georgia's modern political history — was the most operationally demanding period of my career to that point.

In a single year in the role I created the Center for Civic Impact and Leadership from the ground up, developed a civic engagement curricular certificate program, supervised a team of civic engagement leaders, managed on-campus polling site operations, coordinated voter registration and education efforts across the institution, organized early voting shuttle programs, and directed runoff election engagement during Georgia's January 2021 Senate runoffs — two elections that determined the composition of the United States Senate and drew national and international attention to the state.

I also secured more than $45,000 in external funding in that single year — grants and in-kind support from the Campus Elections Engagement Fellowship Program, the Students Learn Students Vote Coalition, the Ask Every Student program, and Collaboratory — demonstrating that the office I was building had national credibility and external support from the moment of its founding.

The UWG civic engagement directorship is the clearest preview in my career of what college-level administration looks like. It required cross-unit coordination, external relationship management, real-time operational decisions under pressure, budget development, and the cultivation of a campus culture around a priority that not everyone initially shared. It produced a functioning office, a funded portfolio, and a recognized institution — in twelve months, while I was simultaneously running a department of twenty-one faculty and staff.