Rick C. Dennie, M.P.A.

Three years after marching in the commencement ceremonies, I finally received my official graduate degree, a Master of Public Affairs from Indiana University South Bend. It's a long story, but the director of the graduate program took soooooo long to finally sign off on my completing the requirements. There had been an issue of one class and whether or not I needed to take it. It turns out I didn't, but he had me submit a research proposal, which started out as being just a couple pages and finally ballooned into about 15-20. So we kept going back and forth, back and forth on how much more I needed to do. I would submit a draft, then wait a long time and hear nothing back. I'd contact him, make some more changes, then wait some more.

Finally, this past spring, I found out the director was going to retire, so I pushed again. Finally, he gave the authorization for me to graduate. So today, rather unceremoniously I walked over to the Registrar's Office and picked up my diploma. Three years after the fact, but now I can finally put that MPA designation on my business cards.