Alumni News UNI

My Former Students from University of Northern Iowa

(Compiled by Jeremy Lewis.) revised 10 Aug. '08

Prof. Michael T. Heaney

News of HC alumni, 1999-

HC Alumni (pre-1996)

My Alumni From UNI, '90-'96:

Bradley Best (MPP program)

Michael T. Heaney (MPP program)

Bill Lemons (BA)

April Shaw (BA)

I enjoy hearing from former students - or, in Mike Heaney's case, discovering him in journals, an APSA conference program and hence on the web. Please feel free to email me with your news.

Bradley Best, UNI, MPP 1996, PhD University of Iowa
Brad Best was my research assistant at UNI, then became a professor at Buena Vista University in northwest Iowa, at Spirit Lake. He spoke to the Liberal Arts Symposium on Justice and to political science classes at HC. He is married to Lisa, a lawyer who teaches the mock trial team. Primarily a teacher and program coordinator, is research is in bureaucracy and policy.

Michael T. Heaney, BA UNI. MPP UNI 1996, MA Indiana University-Bloomington, PhD University of Chicago, Post-doctoral Fellow, Yale University. Michael's research in politics and society has flourished, and he is now Assistant Professor, University of Florida. MIchael was a Steiger Fellow in the US House committee on Energy and Commerce, 2007-08; he won the outstanding faculty award at the University of Florida, and the party politics division award for best paper at the APSA conference. He has researched at the Centennial center of the APSA and at the Brookings Institution. At the University of Chicago, he was the Morton Grodzins prize lecturer and a Poverty Fellow. His research in social movements, parties and lobbying has included case studies in Medicare, feminism, nominating conventions, the antiwar movement and the (alleged) Chicago school of thought.
His web page is http://plaza.ufl.edu/mtheaney and his vitae is found at http://plaza.ufl.edu/mtheaney/vitae.pdf.

Bill Lemons, BA UNI in Political Science
Bill is now with the county attorneys association in Minnesota, which is a non-profit organization. He writes (June 2008) "My position is funded through a federal grant. I work with the U.S. Dept. of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to provide training and resources to local prosecutors in the area of impaired driving and traffic safety."

April Shaw, BA UNI '96, MA Rutgers U. Political Science and Women's Studies
April, one of Dr. Lewis's best students from his previous college, has written with news from Washington DC. The Institute for Women's Policy Research in December 2000 released her reports on women's status across the states and in Tennessee in particular (Alabama was revised in 2002). April earned her MS from Rutgers University in New Jersey in policy studies and (following an internship) evidently put it to good use in Washington!

April came to HC to speak on her research to the freshman Liberal Arts Symposium on Justice.

Here's her bio from the late nineties on the IWPR web pages:

April Shaw, Policy Analyst, april@iwpr.org
April Shaw grew up in Davenport, Iowa. She received her BA in Political Science from the University of Northern Iowa. April earned her MS in Public Policy from Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University. Before going to IWPR, April worked at McAuley Institute, a faith-based, nonprofit housing organization that focuses on women and children. April's research interests include poverty, violence against women, and child care.

In January 2002, Dr. Lewis caught up with her again in Washington, and found her working on more reports on the status of women in the states -- including the Alabama one, which appeared in 2002. April moved on from IWPR in 2005, developing her career in policy analysis. She later worked in Minnesota.