Our MPA faculty offer highly-trained academic minds and a wealth of practical experience. Our faculty is a blend of traditional academics, pracademics who combine the doctoral degree with a wealth of practitioner experience, and practitioners who work full-time in the public or nonprofit sector and part-time in the classroom sharing their expertise.

Our Faculty:

• Dr. William M. Harris -values scholarship as the salient tenet of higher education. Professor Harris has published widely in a range of areas including urban planning, race relations, professional ethics, and land use/eminent domain. During his career, he has produced a number of master's and doctoral degree students.
• Dr. Martha H. Ginn - researches judicial behavior in the federal court system. As a doctoral student, her academic specializations were in public law and research methods. She teaches the Quantitative Methods course.
• Dr. Augustine Hammond - an active researcher with interests in adolescents' perceptions of police officers as instructors in programs such as DARE, and in the relationship between food need and food aid flow in Sub-Saharan Africa. Dr. Hammond teaches the Research Methods and Quantitative Methods classes.
• Dr. Randall Miller - current research focuses on leadership, organizational culture and effectiveness. His dissertation research into fire safety in university housing led to passage of a public law in Illinois changing the funding system for fire sprinklers in university housing. Dr. Miller teaches the History, Scope and Practice and Human Resource Management classes.
• Dr. Saundra Reinke - research has been published in a variety of journals including Public Integrity, Public Productivity and Management Review, the Journal of Public Affairs Education , and the Review of Public Personnel Administration. Dr. Reinke teaches the Capstone, Organizational Theory and Behavior, Emergency Management, Introduction to Homeland Security, and Public Policy Analysis courses.
• Dr. Raymond Whiting - primary research has been on the right to die, culminating in the publication of his book, A Natural Right to Die: 23 Centuries of Debate. Dr. Whiting teaches the Seminar in Constitutional and Administrative Law course.
• Mr. Anthony Crosson - responsible for planning, developing, coordinating, and overseeing the day-to-day operations of the CSRA Regional Development Center, a planning and development organization that provides staff support and other services to 13 counties and 39 cities in the east central Georgia area. Focused primarily on economic development, he regularly works with state and local government officials, non-profit organizations, and federal agencies to improve the local economy. Mr. Crosson teaches the Public Budgeting and Financial Management for Nonprofit Organizations courses.
• Ms. Kimberly Gray - responsible for identifying funding sources, training faculty on proposal development and institutional procedures and requirements, providing assistance in proposal development, and providing oversight of fiscal and administrative compliance issues. Ms. Gray teaches the Grant Writing course.
• Ms. Mary Howard - the only ESRI Authorized Instructor in Augusta. She is responsible for managing the county's GIS system, including developing data layers for the county, managing collection of infrastructure with GPS technology, and working with subcontractors in data acquisition and software solutions. She works with all county agencies needing GIS support to help them use the system to improve decision-making. Ms. Howard teaches the GIS course.
• Dr. Carolyn Hargrove - specializes in assessment and development of leadership skills through executive coaching, and the design and delivery of tailored training programs. She has also served as a strategic planning consultant for public, private and non-profit organizations. Dr. Hargrove teaches the Strategic Planning for Nonprofits course.
• Dr. Kathleen Searles - broad areas of research interest include political psychology, political behavior, political communication, methodology, and American politics. I teach courses in American Government, Media and Politics, Statistics, and Research Methods.

The MPA Program Director is Dr. Augustine Hammond. The MPA Director is the academic advisor for students, schedules courses, and handles the administrative work for the program.