CPPA is honored to host a talk by Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse on Sept. 27 at 4 p.m. in the Cape Cod Lounge of the Student Union.
On Jan. 3, 2012, at age 22, Morse was sworn in as the youngest mayor in Holyoke’s history. He has spent much of his time since then working on early childhood literacy; building a local economy around art, innovation and technology; supporting community policing initiatives; and marketing Holyoke as a great place to live, work and recreate. During his visit to UMass, Morse will talk about his historic election and how he is working to revitalize his hometown both economically and socially.
Morse was born and raised in Holyoke and is a proud product of the city’s public schools. When he graduated from Brown University with a degree in urban studies, he became the first in his family to finish college. While Morse was at Brown, he spent three years working closely with former Providence Mayor and current Congressman David Cicilline. He has worked for four years as a youth career counselor at CareerPoint in Holyoke.
CPPA is the hub of interdisciplinary public policy research, teaching and engagement at UMass Amherst. Its faculty and alumni are effective policy leaders, from the local to the global levels, in addressing topics such as family and care policy, environmental issues, emerging technologies, social inequalities and governance. The CPPA program is the 2011 recipient of the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration’s Social Equity Award, created to honor a public administration, affairs or policy program with a comprehensive approach to integrating social equity into its academic and practical work.