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Press Release: Clinton School Inaugural Class Announced


French film writer-director, State Department Fellow from Arkansas, University lecturer from Tanzania, Hawaii Farm Worker among 16 Chosen.
 
 

Former President Bill Clinton and Dean David Pryor released the names of the inaugural class members of the new University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service in Little Rock on Monday. The class includes 16 men and women with diverse academic and service backgrounds from around the nation and the world. Students will begin coursework in August.

The students were chosen after more than 75 interviews with selected applicants to the presidential school following an extensive candidate review process.

“The students in the first class of the Clinton School of Public Service are exceptional people who have already demonstrated a commitment to improving the lives of people in their communities and the world,” President Clinton said. “The diversity of their backgrounds and experiences will contribute to what I believe will be an outstanding educational environment.”

UACS Dean David Pryor said, “We could not be more pleased that this outstanding, talented class includes five students with Arkansas ties. Some of these Arkansans, among the state’s best and brightest, have left the state for opportunities elsewhere, but they’ll be reconnecting with their state while earning their master of public service degrees. We expect great things from all the students in the class.”

Pryor formerly served as an Arkansas lawmaker, governor, U.S. congressman, and U.S. senator.

Inaugural class members are:

 

  • Joseph D. Ballard, 25, of Washington, D.C., who graduated from Creighton University in Omaha, Neb., with a degree in cultural anthropology and justice and society. He is completing his third term of service as a Support Team Leader for the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps in Washington, D.C. Ballard also has designed, developed and implemented an after-school program for Sudanese children ages four to 14 in Omaha, Neb. He is originally from Kansas City, Mo.
  • Jean-Pierre Bekolo, 38, a citizen of Cameroon, a film writer-director for Quartier Mozart Films in Paris, France. He received a master in communication degree from the Institut National De L’Audiovisuel, and has taught film courses at the University of North Carolina, Duke University and Virginia Polytechnic Institute. In 1995, he was a workshop director for UNESCO Project Southern Africa Zimbabwe. His bachelor’s degree is in physics from the University of Yaounde.
  • Scott M. Curran, 28, of Chicago, an Illinois native who practices corporate law in a Chicago law firm. He received his juris doctor degree, with honors, from Chicago-Kent College of Law at the Illinois Institute of Technology. His bachelor’s degree in speech communication was from the University of Illinois. His past public service experience includes youth drug prevention and serving as pro bono legal counsel to several nonprofit and charitable organizations.
  • Vivian Flowers, 35, of Pine Bluff, Ark., an associate with Vivian Wright & Associates consulting firm and a former executive director of the Arkansas Legislative Black Caucus. A political science and rhetoric and writing major at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, she is a former staff member of the Arkansas Bureau of Legislative Research. She worked on political campaigns of former ambassador and U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois, as well as those of statewide office holders.
  • Malcolm E. Glover, 22, of Tallahassee, Fla., a director of public relations in the university honors program at Florida A&M University, a historically black institution. He initiated fundraising efforts that sent a student delegation and funding to poverty-stricken areas in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and is developing a service project that will allow Florida A&M students to send humanitarian aid to the working poor in Sao Paulo. He is a broadcast journalism major originally from Bowie, Md. He formerly served as an intern on the MSNBC program “Hardball.”
  • Erika Hall, 28, of Ledyard, Conn., who manages a business in southeastern Connecticut, and is a graduate of Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., majoring in sociology and English. For two years, she was a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer in Jamaica. She wants to prepare for a career in public policy and administration, with an emphasis in environmental resource management.
  • Amber Holloway, 23, of Austin, Texas, ombudsman in the president’s office at the University of Texas at Austin. A native of Rogers, Ark., she has been part of UT-Austin’s honors program in the College of Liberal Arts. From 1998-2000, she was an AmeriCorps member who worked at Travis High School in Austin, and she also has served as an operations coordinator for the Teach for America Summer Institute in Los Angeles.
  • Wayland “Greg” Holyfield, 30, of Washington, D.C., a legislative assistant to U.S. Congressman Bart Gordon. A native of Nashville, Tenn., he earned a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Georgia, then worked in the Peace Corps in Mali from 2000-2002. Because of his concern about public servants’ impact on service, Holyfield has possible political aspirations as well as interest in international non-governmental organizations. He is the son of Arkansas native Wayland Holyfield, who wrote the official state song, “Arkansas, You Run Deep in Me.”
  • Dawn M. Jaycox, 24, of Vermillion, S.D., the AmeriCorps*Vista (Volunteers in Service to America) coordinator with the Interdisciplinary Education and Action Program at the University of South Dakota. As a community-based learning coordinator, she promoted and expanded the service-learning office and coordinated events such as service trainings to students and regional community agencies. A graduate of the University of South Dakota in biology and social work, Jaycox also has worked with the Orphan Foundation of America and the South Dakota Independent Living Program to increase educational opportunities for foster youth. She grew up on an impoverished Indian reservation in South Dakota, and is interested in health care reform, particularly in rural areas, and foster youth advocacy.
  • Gervas M. Kolola, 36, of Morogoro, Tanzania, an assistant lecturer in public administration and management in Mzumbe University in Morogoro. He has a master of philosophy in public administration and organization theory degree from the University of Bergen in Norway. He is interested in participating in public service reforms in Tanzania.
  • Erica G. Lawlor, 25, of Maui, Hawaii, a biodynamic farm worker who previously worked as a team leader for AmeriCorps in Denver. She is originally from Massachusetts and has a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Westfield State College in Westfield, Mass. She is interested in self-sustaining communities and analyzing food needs, as well as increasing youth voter turnout.
  • Nancy C. Mancilla, 28, of San Diego, who has a master’s degree in international relations from the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Originally from Houston, she grew up in Las Vegas and earned a bachelor’s degree in international relations/environmental studies at United States International University in San Diego. Her service experiences include field work in the former Yugoslav state of Croatia, where she helped analyze post-conflict developments related to accession into the European Union. She is an American Red Cross disaster assessment volunteer and speaks four languages.
  • David N. Morrissey, 35, of Overbrook, Kan., a United Way center manager with an interest in disabilities, HIV/AIDS and public health services. A Kansas native, he received a bachelor’s degree in English from Washburn University in Topeka, Kan. Currently promoting volunteer opportunities of more than 135 nonprofit and charitable organizations, he is interested in resource allocations and underserved populations.
  • Alisa M. Rosales, 29, of Lincoln, Neb., law clerk with the Nebraska Commission on Public Advocacy with an interest in women’s issues, ethnic diversity in the legal profession and nonprofit legal clinics. A native Nebraskan, Rosales has a bachelor’s degree in Latin American Studies and Spanish from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and is expected to receive a law degree in May from the University of Nebraska College of Law.
  • Katherine G. Snodgrass, 25, of Oxford, Miss., a manager at one of the nation’s best-known independent bookstores, Square Books, and formerly a campaign manager and an executive assistant to the mayor of Oxford. A Bismarck, Ark., native, she attended the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College in the University of Mississippi and received a bachelor’s degree in English. She is interested in working in the public sector to address issues of literacy, affordable housing, growth and development, and ethnic, religious and racial reconciliation.
  • John D. Spears, 28, of Washington, D.C., who entered the U.S. Department of State as a Presidential Management Fellow in 2002. A native of Fort Smith, Ark., he earned a bachelor’s degree in history from the Honors College at the University of Arkansas, and a master’s degree in U.S. foreign policy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Boston. He looks forward to continuing his public service career with either the Foreign Service or nongovernmental organizations worldwide, and is interested in the strengthening of communication consensus among Americans about foreign policy issues.

The class size is consistent with inaugural class sizes at other presidential schools such as the Lyndon Baines Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, Clinton School Associate Dean Tom Bruce said.

“The LBJ School began with fewer than 15 students and the Kennedy School began with 24. The LBJ School now enrolls approximately 300 students, and the Kennedy School has about 900 students in its many courses and programs,” Bruce said.

The Clinton School of Public Service offers a 36-credit hour Master of Public Service (MPS) degree, with courses being offered at historic Sturgis Hall, formerly the Choctaw Railway Station, adjacent to the William J. Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock. The Roy and Christine Sturgis Trust in Dallas gave $4.5 million to renovate the 1899 train station.

The students will arrive early in August for an intensive week-long introduction to the program. Classes will begin Aug. 22 and will be held at Sturgis Hall through the fall. Students will carry out a group public service project in Arkansas the following spring. A subsequent summer internship will give them an introduction to national or international public service, and they will conclude their master’s degree program by carrying out individual public service or capstone projects that are designed to begin the next phase of their leadership careers.

During their studies, students also will take courses at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, which are all parent campuses for the School. Likewise, the Clinton School will offer educational enhancement to the three campuses through speakers who appear at the School and other programs. Faculty from all three campuses have cooperated extensively in planning the School’s curriculum and activities.

Beginning in 2006, the School plans to offer a 13-hour Certificate in Public Service, and it also will offer a series of conferences, workshops and seminars for targeted audiences and for the general public throughout the year.

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