Meg Streams, Ph.D.

Department Chair and Associate Professor
Department of Public Administration

Streams photo

mstreams@tnstate.edu | phone 615-963-7112 | LinkedIn
office | please contact me for a virtual appointment at mstreams@tnstate.edu.

mailing address |  TSU Dept. of Public Administration
330 10th Avenue N, Mail Stop 139
Nashville TN 37203-3401

courses | outreach | publications | conferences | education | bio | cv | blog

full curriculum vitae

courses frequently taught

recent outreach activities

  • Streams, ME. Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, Nashville TN. January 29, 2021. Invited professional development workshop (1.5 hrs.) "A bird's eye view of public finance."
  • Streams, ME. Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, Nashville TN. December 1, 2017. Invited professional development workshop (3 hrs.) "Communicating with data."
  • Streams, ME. Metropolitan Nashville Davidson County Government Data Coordinators monthly meeting, Nashville TN. August 15, 2017. Invited workshop (2 hrs.) "Communicating with data."
  • Streams, ME, Ghosh S, and Roberts J [TSU PhD student]. Tennessee Municipal League Annual Conference, Gatlinburg, TN. "Sustainable competitiveness of the counties and cities of Tennessee: what did we learn from Tennessee local officials?" June 2016.
  • Streams, ME & Frederick, A. [TSU MPA alumnus] (2015, August 18). "Anxieties of Federalism and Common Core: standardization across borders." PA Times Online, publication of the American Society for Public Administration.
  • Streams, ME, Ghosh, S. Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Affairs, Nashville TN. June 11, 2015. Invited presentation on grant project results. "Sustainable competitiveness for Tennessee counties: A collaboration between TACIR and TSU." See also commentary on talk and project by David Connor, Exec. Director of Tennessee County Services Association (p. 2, May/June 2015 issue of Tennessee County News)

recent peer-reviewed publications

recent conference presentations

  • Roberts, J [TSU PhD alumna], Streams, ME. Southeastern Conference for Public Administration, Baton Rouge, LA. September 2019. “Is it all about the money? Local officials’ perceptions of city performance as a function of funding difficulty and community assets.”
  • Streams, ME, co-panelist with Hoffman, K, Howell, M, and Vaughan, S. Southeastern Conference for Public Administration, Birmingham, AL. September 2019, 2018. Panel presentation for doctoral students. "Getting and keeping your first faculty job: understanding the range of academic settings."
  • Lippard, C [TSU PhD alumnus], Roberts, J [TSU PhD alumna], Streams, ME. Southeastern Conference for Public Administration, Birmingham, AL. September 2018. "Regional collaboration, by design: an exploration of mandated collaboration among Tennessee local governments."
  • Roberts, J [TSU PhD alumna], Streams, ME. Southeastern Conference for Public Administration, Hollywood, FL. October 2017. Panel presentation. "Connecting the dots: city officials' perceptions of community assets and collaboration."
  • Roberts, J [TSU PhD alumna], Lippard, C [TSU PhD alumnus], Streams, ME, Ghosh, S. Section on Intergovernmental Administration and Management, ASPA National Conference, Atlanta, GA. March 2017. Paper. "Research meets reality: studying interjurisdictional collaboration in partnership with intergovernmental institutions and local officials."
  • Stanley, R, Streams, ME. NASPAA Annual Conference, Columbus, OH. October 2016. "Process-building for multi-stage MPA competency assessment" (part of panel "Reflecting on the assessment of Universal Required Competencies (Standard 5.1)")
  • Marioni, R, Streams, ME. Southeastern Conference for Public Administration, Raleigh, NC. October 2016. Paper. "Closing a tax gap? State policy responses to employee misclassification"

education

  • PhD in Public Administration, University of Kentucky
  • MPA, University of Kentucky
  • MS, Biology, Pennsylvania State University

bio

Meg Streams joined the College of Public Service at Tennessee State University in August, 2008. She is a 2007 graduate of the Martin School of Public Policy and Administration at the University of Kentucky. Her area of interest is public finance and budgeting, in particular intergovernmental and fiscal federalism questions. Dr. Streams' dissertation focused on issues arising from the joint public finance of K-12 and postsecondary education. Recent funded research includes a grant with co-PI Dr. Soumen Ghosh (Economics and Finance, TSU) supported by the Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, Analyzing factors underlying sustainable competitiveness of Tennessee counties and cities. Dr. Streams also served as a co-principal investigator on the Spencer Foundation grant Teacher Careers in Rural Schools (2009 - 2011) with colleagues at the University of Kentucky and University of Kansas. That project involved analysis of a large, novel administrative dataset for the Kentucky's public school system over a twenty-five year period. Key aspects addressed in this project include the impact of education reform on teacher compensation patterns; rural vs. urban teacher mobility among schools and districts; and rural teacher career trajectories. Dr. Streams has also consulted for the Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority in the area of workforce engagement and data analysis. Her work has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as Public Budgeting & Finance, American Review of Public Administration, Education Finance & Policy, Economics of Education Review, Qualitative Health Research, and Marine Biology. She has served as a reviewer for Public Personnel Management, Public Budgeting & Finance, American Review of Public Administration, and Atlantic Economic Journal among others. She served as President of the Southeastern Conference for Public Administration (SECoPA; 2020-2021). SECoPA serves a 10-state region and has an over 50-year conference history bringing together practitioners, faculty and students in public administration. She is also past president of the Tennessee Chapter of the American Society for Public Administration. Dr. Streams received SECoPA's Donato J. Pugliese Award in 2022 and NASPAA's Leslie A. Whittington Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2023 (NASPAA is the recognized global accreditor of master's programs in public administration and related fields).

Prior to her studies at the University of Kentucky, Dr. Streams received a B.S. and M.S. in biology from Penn State. She has experience teaching undergraduates and graduate students at a range of institutions from her alma maters Penn State and UK to Swarthmore College. At TSU, she teaches in the areas of public budgeting and finance, decision making, public policy analysis, and nonprofit management. Dr. Streams has served as Graduate Programs Coordinator for the department since 2014. Dr. Streams' professional experience is in higher education administration and higher ed/nonprofit budgeting. She consults in the areas of survey development and administration, as well as data management and analysis for decision-making. A native of Pennsylvania, she resides in East Nashville with her husband, John Niedzwiecki, a full professor of biology at Belmont University.


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