Dr Mirabella & MPA Students Help Immigrants  

This semester, Dr. Roseanne Mirabella is leading a group of Master of Public Administration practicum students in a creative partnership with the YMCA of Somerset Hills, New Jersey. The ultimate goal of the partnership is to help provide resources and assistance to immigrants in the Somerset Hills community.

As a member of the YMCA Board of Directors since 2007, Dr. Mirabella now heads the YMCA’s Diversity Task Force, whose goal is to reach out to the various minority populations of Somerset Hills and create a stronger and more diverse YMCA and community at-large. Dr. Mirabella decided to get MPA students involved in the Diversity Task Force to provide them the opportunity to put the skills they have learned in the MPA classrooms to use in a real world situation.

The community of Somerset Hills has recently experienced a large influx of Central American immigrants. Many of these immigrants are young people who might benefit from the social and recreational services provided by the local YMCA. This rapid increase in the young Latino/a population, led to the decision of the YMCA Board of Directors to create a Diversity Task Force. The goals of the Diversity Task Force are threefold:

1) provide and improve local immigration services
2) provide and improve services and assistance for the immigrant youth population
3) provide and improve health and wellness services

The students in the practicum class, under Dr. Mirabella's students are working to find ways to practically implement and fund programs such as municipal ID cards, tutoring services, health fairs, and mobile vaccination units.

With so much political tension, particularly at the national level, around the issue of immigration, Dr. Mirabella said that “It is the world we live in” and that students need to be prepared to face it in their careers. She went on to express that the public and nonprofit administrators of tomorrow need to be able to analyze situations and implement effective solutions that may not always be popular. Students in the practicum and Dr. Mirabella are hopeful their plans will be accepted and implemented by the Somerset Hills YMCA and make a difference in the lives of the community.

The Master of Public Administration Program at Seton Hall University is housed under the Department of Political Science & Public Affairs, within the College of Arts & Sciences.