Adrienne Teague, recipient of The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Fellowship for the 2010-2011 Presidential Fellows Program through the Center for the Study of the Presidency, enjoyed networking during the program’s fall leadership conference held recently in Washington, DC.
Teague, who is pursuing the Master of Public Administration with a concentration in Nonprofit Management, said the group discussed current economic climate and budgetary impacts, the future of Congress following the then-recent midterm elections, bipartisan and collaborative goals.
“Most of the students were undergraduates who came from Ivy League schools, private schools and large public universities. Though they were younger, they were truly a group of peers, demonstrating the level of prestige this program has across the nation,” said Teague, who works in the UTC Chancellor’s Office.
Teague is interested in the Serve America Act, recently approved and passed into law by Congress. It has provided needed funding for several government, nonprofit, and educational organizations to help educate and promote the act of public service in the US.
As a fellow, she is required to research and write a paper, and she has chosen to focus on “the need for public service in the United States, how well this policy has been implemented, and a cross-historical perspective comparison throughout other presidencies of similar policies dealing with public service initiatives. This is a very ambitious task, but one that will be beneficial to review and interesting to compare the different thoughts and opinions of our nation’s leaders, and the policies’ purposes and implementations as well as overall impacts of each on our nation.”
She will present her findings at the spring 2011 Presidential Fellows Program leadership conference.
Teague enjoyed a showing of the movie The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. The movie was followed by a Q and A session with Ellsberg himself, via Skype.
Teague also attended a midterm election panel discussion, featuring Dr. Lee Edwards, Distinguished Fellow in Conservative Thought, Heritage Foundation; Celinda Lake, President, Lake Research Partners, Moderated by John Boyer, Director of Congressional Relations, CSPC.