Today’s #facultyspotlight is Jeff Holland, who teaches Public Budgeting and Finance in our MPA Program!
What brought you to the City College of New York and to the Colin Powell school for Civic and Global Leadership?
I moved to NYC eight years ago to take a job with the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. A former colleague from the Congressional Budget Office, Mark Musell, was teaching the Budgeting and Public Finance course at CCNY at the time (and helping run the program), but was planning to move upstate. I couldn’t teach during that first year, but he asked again the following year and I said yes.
How long have you been teaching in the MPA Program and what do you like most about it?
It’s been seven great years! I love being part of the MPA community and meeting students with a variety of backgrounds and experiences..
How do you bring real-world public service experience into your teaching?
My years at CBO taught me the value of good writing and clear communication. It’s not enough to be able to analyze an issue, but you also have to be able to have others understand your spreadsheets and point of view. As anyone who has taken this course knows, I always ask the question, “what’s the story?”
What do you hope students take away from your course?
I hope that students leave the course with confidence in their abilities to assess a policy option–to be able to analyze it quantitatively in Excel as well as describe their findings clearly with the support of data and other research. I also hope that they’ll recognize the value in understanding budgets and government finance and will use the information available from public sources to contribute to their own career and interests
What advice would you give to current or prospective MPA students?
For prospective students, take some time in the workforce to determine what you want from your graduate program. For current students, just a reminder that skills such as data analysis and clear/concise writing are important even if you’re not directly involved with a career in budgeting or finance. And make the most of the opportunity to know your classmates, because many of them will be friends for life.
Ready to lead change in public service? Explore the MPA Program at the Colin Powell School:
🔗 colinpowellschool.ccny.cuny.edu/graduate-programs/master-of-public-administration-mpa
