Professor balances full life
From teacher to researcher to writer, Patria de Lancer Julnes, a professor in political science and public administration at Utah State University, is making her mark in modern-day academia.
Julnes is originally from the Dominican Republic. She stayed in her native country until after her first year of college when she accompanied her mother in a cross-national move to New Jersey.
Once in New Jersey, Julnes enrolled at Rutgers University. There she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in marketing with a minor in economics. Julnes went on to receive a master’s degree in public administration from Fairleigh Dickenson University and returned to Rutgers for a doctorate in the same subject.
After receiving her doctorate, Julnes taught at FDU and spent one year teaching at Illinois when her husband’s career steered her toward Utah.
When George Julnes was asked to interview for a position with Utah State University’s psychology department, he e-mailed Randy Simmons, head of USU’s political science department, to see if there were any job openings available for his wife. The department head said there were no openings but that she was free to send in her résumé, she said.
“A few days later we got an e-mail from Randy asking me to come with George when he went out for his interview, and that even though there were no available positions, we should talk,” Patria said.
Subsequently both Patria and her husband began teaching at USU in the fall of 1999.
Patria teaches research methods, public policy and is the coordinator for the Masters of Social Sciences in Public Administration, which is currently a distance education program.
In addition to teaching, Patria is involved in research and public administration throughout the world. Last summer she received a new faculty grant and was able to return to her native country, the Dominican Republic, to study public administration reform.
She has since presented her paper on the study and is currently working with a colleague on a comparative study of the public administration reforms in both the Dominican Republic and Argentina.
Patria is involved with the International Network of Public Administration Education, which tries to promote such education in Latin America.
In addition to working with such organizations, Patria has traveled throughout Latin America researching, lecturing and advising.
“I visited Argentina and a month later their government collapsed. Last week Venezuela’s collapsed. I’ve been to Guatemala and things don’t look good there either. So, public administration reform is very important right now,” she said.
Patria has also remained very busy here in the United States studying her main area which is performance measurement. Patria’s dissertation article won Best Article by an Academic and also the Best Performance Article of the Year last year.
Besides excelling professionally, Patria is a kick-boxing enthusiast and the mother of three boys.