From left are Vincent Dopulos, Christine Larsen, and their daughters Phoebe and Katherine

Beginning this summer, the Maxwell School’s Community Geography Program will conduct a comprehensive assessment of community needs and assets among immigrants and refugees in the ���ϲ����� area. That study is being funded by a gift of more than $110,000 from ���ϲ����� Trustee Christine Larsen, her husband Vincent Dopulos and their daughters Katherine and Phoebe.

The pilot study is designed to directly engage immigrant communities and the organizations that work on their behalves, to investigate questions of housing, health, education, recreation and workforce participation. After basic, existing data are assembled this summer, student interns will work through the fall to meet remaining data needs. The students will then create a report to be presented next spring to the refugee and immigrant communities and to organizations that support them. The students’ work will be guided by Jonnell Robinson, associate professor of geography and director of the Community Geography Program, with Jamie Winders, professor of geography, also participating.

Winders says that one of the great benefits of the project is the research opportunities it affords students. “This kind of ‘bottom-up approach’ to engaged scholarship gives our students incredible opportunities to take the skills and perspectives they learn in our classroom into the wider world,” she says. “In this way, they support the missions of the local organizations working with and serving ���ϲ�����’s ‘New Americans.’”

The project also serves Community Geography’s larger purpose: making research capabilities at the Maxwell School available in service of the local community. “Many of the organizations working with immigrant and refugee communities in ���ϲ����� just don’t have the bandwidth or resources to do a deep dive into what they see as the most pressing issues and questions related to these communities,” Winders says.

Larsen says that the gift, given by Dopulos, herself and their children, resulted from family discussions around shared values. The Larsen/Dopulos family has long supported ���ϲ�����-area refugees through Hopeprint, a nonprofit based on the North Side of ���ϲ�����, providing support services to the 12,000-15,000 refugees now estimated to be settled in the city and its environs. The organization is focused on the immediate post-resettlement time period, connecting new refugees with community resources that exist to support them.

“Our hearts are with these new Americans,” Larsen says. “We approached Maxwell to help us create a program that promotes positive connections between the University and this local population.”

Larsen recently retired as chief operations officer of First Data, a position she’d held since June 2013. She led the company’s global operations, overseeing 13,000 employees. She was previously executive vice president at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and a managing director at Citigroup. She is a 1984 graduate of ���ϲ�����’s School of Information Studies (iSchool), with a master’s degree in library and information science. She is a member of the University’s Board of Trustees and chair of its Academic Affairs Committee, and serves on the iSchool’s Board of Advisors. Her daughter, Katherine, is a current graduate student at the iSchool.

Thomas M. Keck

Thomas M. Keck, professor of political science and the Michael O. Sawyer Chair of Constitutional Law and Politics in the Maxwell School, has been named a .

As recipients of the so-called “brainy award,” each Carnegie Fellow receives a grant of up to $200,000, making it possible for him or her to devote significant time to research, writing and publishing in the humanities and social sciences. The award is for a period of up to two years, and its anticipated result is a book or major study. Keck’s Carnegie-funded project is titled “Free Expression and Judicial Power.”

Keck, who joined the Maxwell faculty in 2002, is a leading expert on the Supreme Court, American constitutional development, and the use of legal strategies by movements for social change. He is the author of “Judicial Politics in Polarized Times” (University of Chicago Press, 2014), in which he considers whether judges are neutral legal umpires, unaccountable partisan activists or political actors whose decisions conform to—rather than challenge—the democratic will. His previous book was “The Most Activist Supreme Court in History: The Road to Modern Judicial Conservatism” (University of Chicago Press, 2004), which traced the legal and political forces that shaped the court under Chief Justice William Rehnquist. He has written articles appearing in the American Political Science Review, Constitutional Studies, Law and Society Review, and Law and Social Inquiry.

As holder of the Sawyer Chair since 2009, Keck directs Maxwell’s Sawyer Law and Politics Program, an interdisciplinary initiative devoted to advancing teaching and research in the field of law and politics. He also is currently leading a collaborative, .

Keck, who received a PhD in political science from Rutgers University, is a research affiliate at the Centre on Law & Social Transformation, a joint initiative of the University of Bergen and the Christian Michelsen Institute.

The Carnegie Fellows program is the most generous initiative of its kind, having provided $32 million in grants to more than 160 fellows since the program’s inception in 2015; a total of 32 fellows were named for 2019. The program is a continuation of the Carnegie Corporation’s more than 100-year history of promoting the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding by supporting the work of a host of institutions, causes, organizations and individual scholars.

“Andrew Carnegie believed in education and understood its influence on the progress of society and mankind. The Andrew Carnegie Fellows Program is an integral part of carrying out the mission he set for our organization,” says Vartan Gregorian, president of Carnegie Corporation of New York and president emeritus of Brown University. “Over he past five years, we at Carnegie have been very impressed by the quality, range and reach of our fellows’ work. This year is no exception. We salute this year’s class and all of the applicants for demonstrating the vitality of American higher education and scholarship.”

A distinguished panel of 16 jurors chose the fellows based on the quality, originality and potential impact of their proposals, as well as each scholar’s capacity to communicate the findings to a broad audience. They considered a total of 273 nominations.

John L. Palmer and Stephanie G. Palmer

The Palmers’ planned gift will complete a remarkable legacy of giving by the couple, and giving by others in their honor. It follows a $1-million-plus fund established by members of the Maxwell Advisory Board to honor John upon his retirement from the deanship in 2003; that fund supported assistantships for Ph.D. students across the school. The Palmers’ current, ongoing philanthropy is already providing annual support for many of the same programs targeted by their planned gift commitment.

In recognition of their support, Maxwell recently renamed its career center the John L. and Stephanie G. Palmer Career Center.

“Few people have done more for the students of the Maxwell School than John and Stephanie Palmer,” says Dean David M. Van Slyke. “In its specific emphasis on students and their post-Maxwell trajectories, the John L. and Stephanie G. Palmer Career Center is a fitting tribute to everything the Palmers have done for us.”

John Palmer was dean of the Maxwell School from 1988 until 2003 and was named a University Professor at ���ϲ����� as he retired from the deanship. He is an expert on federal fiscal and social welfare policy, and served two presidentially appointed terms as a public trustee for the Medicare and Social Security programs. He is a former senior fellow of the Brookings Institution and of the Urban Institute, and former assistant secretary for planning and evaluation for the Department of Health and Human Services.

He has published 13 books and dozens of professional and popular articles on a wide range of topics related to economic, budgetary and social policy concerns.

Throughout his career–and during his Maxwell deanship particularly–Stephanie has been a full and vital partner in John’s leadership roles.

Joseph Strasser

The Joseph A. Strasser Endowed Professorship in Public Administration is the first named and endowed professorship specifically focused on public management at the Maxwell School. It will provide a prestigious appointment to a scholar or practitioner who is a leader in public administration, while reasserting Maxwell’s primacy in the field of state and local government management. The gift—which combines generous annual support in addition to a planned bequest—allows the school to name the first Strasser Professor in the very near future.

“Joe Strasser will forever be an important figure in the history of the Maxwell School,” notes David M. Van Slyke, dean of the Maxwell School. “Not only is he among the most generous donors of all time across all areas of our school, but his professional public service as a leader and a manager has helped define the discipline and is a quintessential Maxwell story.”

This generous gift raises Strasser’s total giving to Maxwell to more than $6 million—a remarkable figure for a lifelong public servant. Strasser’s previous gifts have funded a variety of school-wide priorities, including ��upgrades and renovations to Maxwell’s multi-use public events room—renamed the Dr. Paul and Natalie Strasser��Legacy Room in honor of Joseph’s parents. The school’s central atrium, connecting Maxwell’s two main buildings, is named the Joseph A. Strasser Commons. A large study/meeting space for students in public administration and international relations is named the Strasser Academic Village, and he established the Strasser Endowed Scholarship Fund that supports top Maxwell graduate students.

The new Strasser Professorship recognizes Strasser’s significant professional accomplishments and his broader philanthropic commitments. Strasser’s career is viewed as a model for public administration professionals, who are challenged to manage and lead increasingly complex systems of government.

After serving as a finance officer in the U.S. Army during the Korean conflict and then earning a Maxwell M.P.A., Strasser was the first budget officer of Savannah, Georgia, where he was nominated as Young Man of the Year for saving DeKalb County a quarter of a million dollars. He later served the city of Jacksonville, Florida, as budget officer, where, among many other achievements, he introduced civilian, professionally trained fiscal administrators into fire and police departments. Strasser served in various fiscal posts in Jacksonville until he retired in 1996.

Strasser is a member of the board of Tree Hill, a 50-acre nature park in Jacksonville; he has donated funds to renovate the park’s amphitheater (which is named for him), replace its main gate, and provide for operation and maintenance. And he supports First Coast No More Homeless Pets, whose veterinary clinic is now located in the Joseph A. Strasser Animal Health and Welfare Building in Jacksonville. He is a longtime supporter and board member of the Jacksonville Humane Society and Animal Shelter.

Strasser’s early personal story is, in some respects, even more impressive than his professional and philanthropic accomplishments. In the run-up to World War II, his family lived in Austria but fled to France when persecution seemed imminent. In 1940, Strasser and his brother boarded a kindertransport rescue ship and arrived in America, where they were later joined by their father. (Their mother had died of illness in France.) Strasser has often described this escape, and the chance to build a new life in America, as the underlying incentive for his philanthropy and altruism.

Strasser, an honorary member of the Maxwell Advisory Board, is a recipient of the Maxwell School Horizon Award for philanthropy and voluntarism (2011), the first ever Maxwell Award for Public Administration (2006), and ���ϲ�����’s Melvin A. Eggers Senior Alumni Award (2005). This fall, he will receive the University’s top award for alumni accomplishment, the George Arents Award.

“Joe is a true philanthropist, and it’s been my pleasure to work with him for more than 16 years to find meaningful ways for him to have a permanent impact not only on the future of the Maxwell School but also on the future of public service,” says Linda Birnbaum, assistant dean for advancement. “I look forward to seeing Joe’s latest gift begin creating the impact at Maxwell that all of his previous gifts have had. Generations of Maxwell students, faculty and staff will forever be grateful to Joe.”

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About the Maxwell School (@MaxwellSU)

is ���ϲ�����’s home for innovative, interdisciplinary teaching and research in the social sciences, public policy, public administration and international relations. It is consistently ranked among America’s top����(U.S. News & World Report), offering highly regarded����alongside advanced scholarly degrees in the social sciences; and it is home also to ���ϲ�����’s�� across the social sciences. Maxwell scholars conduct wide-ranging research through��, each focused on a topical area within public affairs, such as governance, social and economic policy, conflict and collaboration, public wellness, aging, energy and environment, national security, regional studies, and more. For more information, please visit

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About ���ϲ�����

���ϲ����� is a private, international research university with distinctive academics, diversely unique offerings, and an��undeniable spirit. Located in the geographic��, with a global footprint, and��, ���ϲ����� offers a quintessential college experience. The scope of ���ϲ����� is a testament to its strengths: a pioneering history dating back to 1870; a choice of more than 200 majors and 100 minors offered through 13 schools and colleges; nearly 15,000 undergraduates and 5,000 graduate students; more than a quarter of a million alumni in 160 countries; and a student population from all 50 U.S. states and 123 countries. For more information, please visit��.

Peter Wilcoxen

Peter Wilcoxen, professor of public administration and international affairs, Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professor for Teaching Excellence and director of Maxwell’s (CEPA), will serve as the inaugural Ajello Professor in Energy and Environmental Policy. Wilcoxen, also a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, studies the effect of environmental and energy policies on economic growth, international trade and the performance of individual industries. He has published more than 70 papers and has co-authored books on the design of an international policy to control climate change, on the design and construction of large-scale economic models and on using environmental taxes as part of fiscal reform in the United States.

As Ajello Professor, Wilcoxen will oversee an ambitious array of research projects and opportunities for student involvement in CEPA. Funded initiatives will include interdisciplinary pilot projects connecting Maxwell School faculty with colleagues from across ���ϲ�����, thus linking Maxwell-based expertise in energy and environmental economics, environmental policy and sustainability, climate science, behavioral economics, data integration and analytics, geographic information systems and other areas with University-based expertise in such fields as electricity generation and distribution, renewable energy, cybersecurity, information technology and regulatory law, among many others.

The Ajello Professor will also train graduate and advanced undergraduate students in research methods and involve those students in interdisciplinary projects sponsored by the professorship. Via research apprenticeships for graduate students and undergraduate internships geared to experiential learning, students will play a role in developing solutions to real-world energy and environmental problems.

CEPA will assemble an advisory group of government and industry experts, providing real-world input to Maxwell on energy and environmental issues. These committed experts will provide input and help shape the center’s priorities for energy and environmental research while advising Wilcoxen on skills most needed by students interested in working in the sector.

According to Wilcoxen, the new funding will contribute directly to the strategic plans of Maxwell and the University, which emphasize interdisciplinary research. The Ajello Professorship “not only builds on Maxwell’s strengths in the social sciences, but also goes beyond that to provide resources and support for interdisciplinary work involving the natural sciences, engineering, information technology and law,” he says. Wilcoxen sees interdisciplinary work as particularly important for environmental and energy issues, which are “deeply interdisciplinary, because they occur where social and natural systems meet. It’s impossible to address these issues without understanding them from multiple perspectives.”

James Ajello

The donor, James Ajello, is a retired energy industry executive who, until last year, served as executive vice president and chief financial officer of Hawaiian Electric Industries (HEI). He previously served as chairman of the U.S. Department of Energy Environmental Management Advisory Board; senior vice president of business development at Reliant Energy (2000-09); and in various positions, including managing director for energy and natural resources, at UBS Financial Services (1984-98). Based in Houston, Ajello now serves on the board of directors of American Savings Bank, a subsidiary of HEI, and is also on the Board of Crius Energy in Toronto. He has served for many years as a member of the board of trustees of Hawaii Pacific University.

Ajello says his gift ties back directly to work he had done as a Maxwell student. “About 40 years ago I did research in Harry Lambright’s class on this very topic—multidisciplinary approaches to energy and environmental issues. As I look back on my career,” he says, “virtually every job I’ve had since Maxwell, in the public and private sectors, has immersed me in this very interesting topic.

“Yet there is so much more to learn to achieve an energy efficient and sustainable society,” Ajello adds. “This work is more important than ever, and that is why I am delighted to support training and research at Maxwell in this valuable field.”

“We are deeply grateful to Jim Ajello for his generous, forward-thinking support,” says Dean David M. Van Slyke. “As a school with a deep history working at the intersection of theory, policy and practice, Maxwell is the perfect location for the Ajello Professorship. I cannot think of a better, more qualified teacher and researcher to serve as the Ajello Professor than Pete Wilcoxen.��I look forward to seeing the many great results that come from Pete, our students and from CEPA as a result of Jim’s investment in the mission of the Maxwell School to use research and teaching to inform and advance policy.”

About ���ϲ�����

���ϲ����� is a private, international research university with distinctive academics, diversely unique offerings and an��undeniable spirit. Located in the geographic , with a global footprint, and��, ���ϲ����� offers a quintessential college experience. The scope of ���ϲ����� is a testament to its strengths: a pioneering history dating back to 1870; a choice of more than 200 majors and 100 minors offered through 13 schools and colleges; nearly 15,000 undergraduates and 5,000 graduate students; more than a quarter of a million alumni in 160 countries; and a student population from all 50 U.S. states and 123 countries. For more information, please visit .

The ���ϲ�����/Maxwell School team at the National Model UN��conference in Washington, D.C.

A ���ϲ�����/ team participating in the National Model United Nations (NMUN) conference earlier this month was named a “Distinguished Delegation” (the second-highest award) for its portrayal of the Republic of Finland/Suomi. The conference, held in Washington, D.C., drew more than 1,000 college and university students from across the United States and nine other nations.

To prepare for their simulation of global diplomacy, the SU/Maxwell team members studied the history, economy, politics, geography, culture and foreign policy of Finland/Suomi, the structure and practice of the UN system and the conference rules of procedure (which mimic the procedures of actual UN meetings).�� The students, all juniors or seniors, researched and wrote position papers on a wide range of topics, from climate change to the role of women in peacekeeping. They practiced public speaking, negotiation skills and resolution writing in weekly workshop sessions.

Preparations also included a pre-conference Skype briefing with two representatives from Finland’s/Suomi’s permanent mission to the United Nations; a meeting with Bradley R. Turner ’10, who had completed a one-year Fulbright in Helsinki; and, upon arriving in D.C., a briefing at the Finland/Suomi embassy that included, among others, the embassy’s deputy chief of mission.

There were 11 undergraduate��international relations majors on the team. Katherine Conti, Taylor Dunne and Siddarth Senthilkumaran served as co-head delegates. Other participants were Laurel Bennett, Oloruntobi Dare, Georgia Eisenmann, Michelle Guo, Taylor Krzeminski, Paola Garcia Soto, Delaney Van Wey and Jack Woltman.

During the three-day conference, NMUN staff evaluated delegation participation based on portrayal of the assigned country’s UN representatives, engagement in conference sessions and use of the rules of procedure. Dare won a “Best Position Paper” award and Conti and Soto won “Best Delegate” awards.

The NMUN conference is sponsored by the National Collegiate Conference Association and the United Nations Association of the United States of America. The SU/Maxwell team received support from the international relations program, the Maxwell Dean’s Office, the , the estate of Robert Mowitz ’41 BA/G’47 and generous SU-MAX-MUN alumni. The delegates themselves also participated in fund-raising to help cover conference costs.

A steadfast champion of the Maxwell approach to citizenship education—interdisciplinary, team-taught, and driven by deliberation on current events—Ketcham joined the faculty in 1951 as a graduate fellow and instructor in the original undergraduate citizenship course, Cit 1: Responsible Citizenship. After earning a Ph.D. in American studies at the Maxwell School (1956), he taught briefly at the University of Chicago and Yale University, then rejoined Maxwell in 1963 as a tenure-track faculty member, eventually holding appointments in political science, history, public affairs and American studies. In 1994, he was named a Maxwell Professor of Citizenship and Public Affairs. He retired in 1997, the subject of a colloquium attended by 75 alumni, but continued to teach an annual graduate symposium on Foundations of American Political Thought. Prior to his death, he had made plans to teach that symposium one final time this coming fall.

Though Cit 1 was discontinued in the early 1970s, Ketcham continued to promote team-taught and other innovative approaches to the topic of democratic governance and citizenship. In the 1980s, he was a key member of a faculty team that launched public affairs courses with titles such as Religion and Politics and The Corporation in American Culture, team-taught by faculty members across the University (including Ketcham himself). These courses were viewed as direct precursors to the highly successful MAX Course program launched at Maxwell in the late 1990s. Ketcham was also one of the designers of a New York state high school curriculum about participation in government.

“As much as anyone to have served this school, Ralph Ketcham embodied the mission and unique philosophical province of Maxwell,” says Dean David M. Van Slyke, who served on the faculty with Ketcham for more than a decade. “He was dedicated to dialogue and discussion and a true exchange of ideas—genuine, expansive debate about the meaning and purposes of American democracy and, in actuality, all of public life.”

As a scholar, Ketcham specialized in constitutional and political theory, especially as it emerged and evolved during the era of the first U.S. presidents. Ketcham’s books in this vein included acclaimed biographies of Benjamin Franklin and James Madison (1966 and 1971, respectively), plus “From Colony to Country: The Revolution in American Thought, 1750-1820” (1974), “Presidents Above Party: The First American Presidency, 1789-1829” (1984), “Framed for Posterity: The Enduring Philosophy of the Constitution” (1993), and “The Madisons at Montpelier; Reflections on the Founding Couple” (2009). He edited for publication the papers of both Madison and Franklin. He was also the author of “Individualism in Public Life: A Modern Dilemma” (1987), “The Idea of Democracy in the Modern Era” (2004), and, just two years ago, “Public-Spirited Citizenship: Leadership and Good Government in the United States” (2015).

Recognition of Ketcham’s influence on generations of ���ϲ����� students took many forms—including, in 1987, his selection as national professor of the year by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. He received from ���ϲ����� both an honorary degree (1999) and the George Arents Medal (2003), given to SU alumni to recognize career achievements. Ketcham was an inaugural recipient of the Chancellor’s Citation for Outstanding Academic Achievement (1979). A fund in his honor, the Ralph Ketcham Endowed Scholarship Fund, supports students in history and political science.

“More than an accomplished scholar, Ralph was an engaging, warm, empathetic man,” Van Slyke says. “It is not surprising that he had a truly global impact and following. Maxwell alumni from across generations and around the world—from Tokyo to Washington, D.C.—eagerly describe, with emotion, their involvement with Ralph. His more than 60 years of service to the Maxwell School has had a profound impact on all of us—thousands of alumni around the world, hundreds of colleagues, and anyone else lucky enough to know him.”

Funeral arrangements and plans for a memorial event will be announced at a later date.