To highlight the La Follette School’s Fall 2025 Eat & Greet networking series, we are featuring alumni and students with impressive careers in their respective fields. Students and alumni will come together for our Local Government Eat & Greet on October 24 from 3:30 to 6 p.m. at Steenbock’s on Orchard in the Discovery Building.
Local government lives in our schools, neighborhoods, and cities, serving as the most immediate layer of our democracy. Employees of that system are public servants, often with deep-rooted care for their communities and a passion to impact tangible local policy – much like that of a La Follette student.
Numerous La Follette alumni and students hold positions in local government, like current student Travis Austin (MPA ’26), who serves on the City of Madison Ethics Board. “People might not realize that they interact with local government every day: through their roads, water, libraries, police, or local bars,” explained Austin. “Local government is also the place where a single voice can have some of the greatest impact. If you are not making your voice heard, someone else certainly is, and decisions are made by those who show up.”
Alum Theola Carter (MA ’91) serves the local Madison community in the Dane County Tamara D. Grigsby Office for Equity and Inclusion as the manager of policy and program improvement. She has a storied career of public service, serving in a variety of roles, from an analyst for the Aid to Families with Dependent Children to the bureau director of housing at the State Department of Administration, and much more. “The one thing about policy is that every profession uses them to govern procedures and in order to meet goals and objectives,” she says. “Every department, city, county, and municipality uses policy to govern the workplace and work to be done.”
La Follette coursework is geared toward preparing students to excel as evidence-based leaders in these local government positions. “Public policy, at its core, is about the good of the workplace, the community, the people,” Carter says. “You understand that the “P” in public and policy stands for people/individuals, and this includes yourself as the writer, administrator, or enforcer.” La Follette ensures students are well-equipped with the knowledge and skills to equitably and accurately address policy issues before entering the workforce.
Experiential learning by addressing real-world problems is central to this type of teaching at La Follette. Graduate courses like PA 881 Cost-Benefit Analysis and PA 869 Workshop in Public Affairs and undergraduate courses like PA 360 Workshop in Health Policy and PA 369 Workshop in Public Policy allow students to produce real-world policy recommendations for local communities. We have worked with local governments throughout Wisconsin, including this semester’s partners: the City of Madison, Milwaukee County, and Jackson County. Through these courses, students live out The Wisconsin Idea, a principle that states research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison can and should improve the lives of people in Wisconsin and elsewhere. Carter too embodies this idea, cultivated at La Follette, in her work today. “As a Fighting Bob, the Wisconsin Idea is totally immersed in all that I do,” she says. “We all benefit when we come together to work out an issue or create a program.”
Join our Eat & Greet event
In this spirit, La Follette continues to expand the popular Eat & Greet networking series launched in the Spring of 2024. These gatherings are dedicated to connecting current students with policy experts working in a related field. To highlight employees in local government, La Follette is partnering with UniverCity Alliance to host a Local Government Eat & Greet on October 24 from 3:30 to 6 p.m. at Steenbock’s on Orchard in the Discovery Building. A career panel will share their experiences in the field and elevate opportunities for students to get involved. Panelists include Inga Cushman, Drake Daily (‘15 MPA), Michael Luckey (’23 MPA), and Reese O’Malley.
In addition to the Local Government Eat & Greet, La Follette hosted a State Capitol Eat & Greet last month, and will host a Higher Education Eat & Greet on November 14. These events are supported by the Ascendium Education Group.