Policy Partners: Meet Some of SPP's Alumni Couples!

The last possible moment of our final semester, I worked up the courage to approach Ashley. I’d gone two years seeing her in the Van Munching hallways, assuming there was no way this gregarious and gorgeous policy pro would want anything to do with my random sad Drake, Esperanza Spalding, and Coltrane playlists.

Shout out to Christina Beal (c/o 2012) who organized the happy hour where I shot my shot.

Turns out we fell in love at an Esperanza Spalding concert, listen to Coltrane in our new Atlanta home, and haven’t needed the sad Drake playlists since.

We owe a lot to SPP. Ashley’s doing incredible work as the Director of Health Equity at the American Cancer Society after stints at the Center for Global Policy Solutions and the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in DC.

After creating a startup in the Treasury Department, I work at UiPath, an automation company that helps nonprofits, the bulk of the Fortune 500, and governments around the world free us all from manual and repetitive work.

College Park instilled an instinct to seek out the policy implications of whatever we’re working on, and lessons learned from Chris McGoff’s tech policy “Primes” come up at least weekly.

We met the first day of school because we were both in the same class (1985)--which was quite small since the School was still very new. We had all our classes together and spent most of our waking non-class time together studying. By Halloween of our first year our friendship crossed over to romantic and we had our first official date on Nov. 2, 1983 at The Red Sea, an Ethiopian restaurant in Adams Morgan. We've been together ever since! After graduation, we were both fortunate to find work in Washington, DC. We married in April 1988, living first in Silver Spring and buying a home in Bethesda in 1992 just as our first of three children was born. Bethesda continues to be our home.

Our UMD School of Public Affairs (now SPP) education led us both into successful and fascinating careers. We are both still working in careers associated with our public policy education. In fact, Pat is about to retire from the Department of Commerce, International Trade Administration where he started his career after graduating from SPA/SPP 37 years ago. Karen has had a career at the intersection of public and private tax policy--switching from consulting to government about 5 years ago. We have both traveled extensively around the world through our work but SPA/SPP has also grounded us to the DMV where we have lived and raised our three children.

We met in August 2012 in the Adele Stamp Student Union at the graduate student welcome lunch. Aurin worked at the Office of Multicultural Involvement and Community Advocacy at the Stamp and Jazz was in his first year as an MPP student and graduate assistant at the Office of Multi-Ethnic Student Education. We connected over our mutual experience and advocacy focused on helping minority students in college and supporting them to ensure they graduate college in 4 years. After we realized how much we had in common, we decided to spend more time together to learn from one another. We fell in love with how passionate and aligned we were in our values. 

Public Policy has played a huge role in our lives given our professional journey. There are social causes that we both feel connected to, but we have approached the solution from different ways. Jazz is directly influencing policy through serving in Maryland's General Assembly as a State Delegate since 2017, has served as Chair of the Democratic Caucus for the House of Delegates, and he is currently a Candidate for Congress in Maryland's 4th District. Aurin has approached policy solutions through the financing community development and her board memberships. We also volunteer in our community to have direct connection with folks who need the village to show up for them, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic. Ultimately our policy degrees have helped us realize that action is required but we also need to follow the data to ensure our resources are actually addressing the outcomes we want to see in our community. 

We met at an SPP Christmas party after having a few classes together. Matt came up to me and said "I know where you live" (classic icebreaker), but then quickly explained he lived a block away from me in College Park and had seen me out and about. So we became SPP and neighbor friends over time, had our first date at Shagga, and have been dating for over 5 years now.

Matt works for the Government Accountability Office, and I work for a nonprofit organization called the National Center for Family Philanthropy. We're both involved in issues related to what we studied at SPP. Now, with both of us still working at home (in the same room), we get to hear a ton about what the other is doing in their own field.

I believe our SPP love story began in January 2017 during the Women's March in DC. Nothing like a landmark protest to spark a love interest! This was a challenging time to be a policy student but we grew closer sharing our thoughts on the future and really discovering what each other's interests and passions were. I think back to this time, particularly during the Women's March, and thinking this is someone who is willing to stand up for what they believe in and someone who's willing to be heard when times are challenging. 

I think public policy has helped us make sense of some crazy and frustrating times in the world following graduation, through COVID, and helped us try to better understand people with differing opinions and treat them with civility (mostly). It has also made us insufferable DMV people (lol).  Both of our policy focus areas have in many ways become more prominent in recent years and this has allowed us to to be better listeners, better communicators, and more empathetic of how each other feels. We've both gone into policy-related jobs, with some of us maybe devoting ourselves a little too much to public service and then taking a breather by becoming soulless consultants.

We actually met while working for a nonprofit organization, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, in 2014. Brendan was a Grants & Awards Coordinator, and Norah was a Development Coordinator (or as Brendan jokes, she raised the money and he gave it away). Brendan left the organization in 2015 to pursue his MPP at Maryland, his alma mater, and Norah accepted a job in fundraising at UMD in 2016. During Brendan's final semester, he inspired Norah to take PLCY689Y (Nonprofit Fundraising) with him, where they learned from Professors Grimm and Sheehan. After Brendan's graduation in 2017, Norah decided to stay on to pursue a part-time MPM.

We both feel a commitment to advancing the public good, both in our professional and personal lives. We specialized in Nonprofit Management and Leadership, and believe nonprofits play a vital role in creating a social safety net, advocating for policy change, and delivering public goods for our society.

Also, while not intentional, Professor Joyce's class taught us how to budget for our wedding. 

We met in Spring 2017 when I (Nicole) was fretting over what courses I wanted to take the next year when a mutual friend mentioned/brought over Dylan who had a similar specialization to provide some insight as he was about to graduate and taken several courses I was interested in. After that moment, we kept running into each other in Van Munching where we continued to get to know each other. It was during the 2017 Spring Policy Prom where we realized how much we liked each other and have been together ever since!

Our shared policy interests in graduate school was what originally connected us! Now, we are both still education policy wonks and are pursuing that passion in our current careers. Dylan works for the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Migrant Education. I work for the Montgomery County Council as a legislative and budget analyst and serve as lead analyst on Montgomery County Public Schools and Montgomery College.