New Faculty - College of Public Programs

Deepak Chhabra
Assistant Professor, Community Resources and Development

Dr. Chhabra joins the faculty from the University of Northern Iowa , where she was an assistant professor of the sustainable tourism environment program for three years. She earned her master's degree in international tourism and hotel management from Schiller International University, in London, United Kingdom . Her Ph.D. was in heritage tourism from North Carolina State University. She has participated in several studies focusing on the socioeconomic impacts of recreation and tourism. In 2003, she conducted a $93,000 study funded by the Sacramento Municipal Utility District to determine the recreation and tourism impact of the reservoirs in El Dorado County, CA, which were created to generate electricity for the state. She recently completed a study commissioned by the Iowa Legislative Council to determine the impact of gambling on Iowans. Her study received local, statewide, national, and international attention. Her research interests also focus on the authenticity of heritage objects and indigenous cultures. Included in her publications are articles exploring economic impacts and social costs and benefits of various forms of tourism such as, gambling tourism, nature-based tourism, and heritage tourism.

Joanna Duke
Assistant Professor, School of Public Affairs

Dr. Duke received her Ph.D. in urban and public administration from the University of Texas at Arlington. She teaches in the School of Public Affairs' Urban and Metropolitan Studies program, including introduction to urban governance and urban policy. Her research interests include housing and neighborhood studies, particularly with regard to economic and racial segregation. Dr. Duke is also studying housing relocation programs, such as Hope V. Her research focus has been on the receiving end of low income housing developments, and she plans to expand her research to look at other intersections of race and class.

Gordon Shockley
Assistant Professor, School of Community Resources and Development

Dr. Shockley joined Arizona State University in the Fall 2006 as an assistant professor of social entrepreneurship in the School of Community Resources and Development. He is also affiliated with the Arizona State University Center for Nonprofit Leadership and Management. Before coming to Arizona State University, Dr. Shockley was an instructor and assistant professor of Public Administration at Florida International University . He taught a wide variety of government subjects at both the graduate and undergraduate level. He teaches nonprofit organization and management and also will be teaching social entrepreneurship. Dr. Shockley's research themes are “non-market” entrepreneurship (e.g., social entrepreneurship, policy entrepreneurship, philanthropic enterprise) and the sociology, economics, and politics of arts and humanities policy. He earned his doctorate in public policy from the School of Public Policy, George Mason University. His dissertation utilized the case of U.S. federal support for the arts in the 1990s to develop a theory of policy entrepreneurship. He received his master of management in accounting and public and nonprofit management from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University, and his bachelor of arts in Ancient Greek and English Languages and Literature from the University of California, Los Angeles . Professor Shockley also has several years of public service at all levels of government.

James H. Svara
Professor, School of Public Affairs and Director of the Center for Urban Innovation

Dr. Svara's research and teaching focus is on local government politics, management, and ethics. He has a special interest in the roles and responsibilities of elected and administrative leaders in local government. Dr. Svara is the author of numerous journal articles and book chapters, and the books he has written include, Official Leadership in the City: Patterns of Conflict and Cooperation; A Survey of America's City Councils: Two Decades of Continuity and Change; Facilitative Leadership in Local Government: Lessons from Successful Mayors and Chairpersons (editor and contributor); Leadership at the Apex: Political-Administrative Relations in Western Local Government (co-authored with Poul Erik Mouritzen from Denmark); and The Ethics Primer for Public Administrators in Government and Nonprofit Organizations. He is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and an honorary member of the International City/County Management Association. He has served as a member of the National Council of the American Society for Public Administration and chair of its Section on Intergovernmental Administration & Management. He is currently on the board of the Alliance for Innovation and a member of the ICMA Strategic Planning Committee. Dr. Svara has spoken at meetings of the International City/County Management Association, the National League of Cities, and the National Association of Counties, as well as to students and organizations of local government officials in twelve states and five foreign countries. Dr. Svara has served as a consultant to city governments on charter revision in several states and to the Forum for Executive Public Management in Denmark, and he contributed to the drafting of the 7th and 8th editions of the Model City Charter of the National Civic League. He received the B.A. in history from the University of Kentucky and the Ph.D. in political science from Yale University . He has served on the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro where he directed the Public Administration Program, and at North Carolina State University where he was director of the Public Administration Program from 1990-1998 and head of the department from 1998-2005. He was a visiting scholar at Southern Denmark University in 1998 and 2006.

James Herbert Williams
Foundation Professor of Youth and Diversity, School of Social Work

Dr. Williams joins the faculty from the George Warren School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis, where he was the E. Desmond Lee Professor of Racial and Ethnic Diversity and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. He also held a two-year appointment as Special Assistant to the Chancellor for Urban Community Initiatives. Dr. Williams holds a master's of social work from Smith College, a master's in public administration from the University of Colorado, and a Ph.D. in social welfare from the University of Washington. Dr. Williams' primary research and community services are focused on delinquency, youth violence, mental health, health promotion and disease prevention and social issues of the African American community. His current research and community service address health prevention and mental health services for African American children in urban schools, disproportionate minority confinement of African American youth in the juvenile justice system, school safety and violence prevention, and community strategies for positive youth development. Dr. Williams' research is community-based, culturally specific emphasizing a collaborative community participation approach. His many published writings have explored a multiplicity of issues: program evaluation, youth violence, delinquency prevention, models of antisocial behavior, pathways to delinquent behavior, risk and protective factors for delinquency involvement, violence among urban African American youths, health promotion, health prevention, community-based health programming, and African American relationship development and family structure. His writings have been published in Health Promotion Practice, Social Work Research, Annals of Behavior Medicine, Journal of Quantitative Criminology, Research on Social Work Practice, Health Education & Behavior, Violence and Victims, Journal of Family Issues, and Journal of Adolescent Health.