May 19, 2006

UIC Professor Heads Local Chapter of Public Administration Society

Sharon Mastracci, assistant professor of public administration at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has been named president of the American Society for Public Administration's Chicago chapter. Her one-year term begins in June.

Mastracci said she hopes to increase the level of participation in ASPA by managers and administrators in government throughout the Chicagoland area.

Mastracci's research and teaching focuses on labor markets for workers without college educations. She also looks at the role of gender, occupational segregation, nontraditional occupations for women, and the impacts of economic change on employment and wages.

Her 2004 book, "Breaking Out of the Pink Collar Ghetto: Policy Solutions for Non-College Women," received national attention for its suggestion that women without college educations should move into the trades, finance, law enforcement and other traditionally male-dominated fields.

Mastracci serves on the faculty advisory board of the UIC Center for Research on Women and Gender and is a faculty affiliate of the UIC Center for Urban Economic Development.

Before joining UIC, Mastracci taught at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, the University of Texas, and Park College. She was an economist for the Ohio Legislative Budget Office, a senior associate in the government consulting practice of Coopers & Lybrand, and a budget analyst for the city of Austin, Texas.

The American Society for Public Administration is a professional association for all sectors of public service. Based in Washington, the society's mission is "advancing the art, science, teaching, and practice of public and non-profit administration."

UIC ranks among the nation's top 50 universities in federal research funding and is Chicago's largest university with 25,000 students, 12,000 faculty and staff, 15 colleges and the state's major public medical center. A hallmark of the campus is the Great Cities Commitment, through which UIC faculty, students and staff engage with community, corporate, foundation and government partners in hundreds of
programs to improve the quality of life in metropolitan areas around the world.

For more information about UIC, visit www.uic.edu.

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