Last month was a proud moment for me, two years in the making: I graduated from the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy program “Academy for Excellence in Local Government”. 🎉🎓
The Academy is a program administered by UMSPP designed to equip local elected officials with a breadth of municipal knowledge to enhance their effectiveness in carrying out their duties.
It covers nine Core Classes: Structure of Government, Municipal Budgeting, Basics of Risk Management, Conducting Effective Meetings, Consensus & Team Building, Employment Issues, Ethics, Open Meetings, and Public Information Act.
And five Elective Classes, which for me were: Inclusive Workforce; Continuity of Operations; Municipal Gov’t, Social Media, & 1st Amendment; Cybersecurity Risks; The 5P’s for AI Change Management.
I also ended up taking additional courses along the way even though they didn’t directly go to the certification.
And it was a pleasure, too, to be joined by two of my colleagues in the graduation ceremony: Councilwoman Kyla Clark and Councilman Jeff Mills – both have also worked hard to complete the required coursework for graduation this year. Communications Director Natalie Williams also completed her studies for the certification and we all joined for smiles and additional acknowledgement at the September 28 Council Meeting.
To me, education and actively seeking out new ideas is part of my commitment to bring the best thinking and quality to our City – To that end, I’ll actually be attending the National League of Cities annual conference next month and am signed up for courses related to commercial redevelopment and how to build transit systems around people: Looking forward to bringing that learning here for Laurel!
