Long-distance learning: Public Policy and Administration
A lifelong learner enhances her global education
Kim Kelaita is dressed and ready for her virtual Foundations of the Nonprofit/NGO Sector course with Ricca Sloane. There's just one thing.
"Kim, isn't it 3 AM for you?" one of her classmates asks. Kelaita, a longtime reporter and producer who freelances for CNN’s Abu Dhabi hub, lives in Dubai. After a year of doing nearly so many things virtually, she craves a little human interaction and doesn't mind setting her alarm. “I’m enjoying the ‘face-to-face’ with a fabulous teacher with an amazing background,” she explains. "I wake up at 2:45, I jump on at 3 and I'm on until 4:15. Then I stay up until 7:00, get the kids off to school, go back to bed till about 11:00 and then start work. I'm used to keeping odd hours."
Kelaita is pursuing her Master's in Public Policy and Administration online at Northwestern University, a program grounded in a philosophy that policy challenges are fluid, interconnected, and global terms that could also apply to Kelaita's career.
Raised in Chicago and Skokie, Kelaita attended DePaul University and later joined the competitive NBC Page program in New York, where she worked stints at Saturday Night Live, The Today Show, and even The Phil Donohue Show. After NBC, she reported on-air for NY1. Around that time, she started dating a man who worked for the United Nations. He asked her if she'd join him in Dubai for a year. "I said, 'I don't know where that is'" she says. Kelaita decided to give it a shot, freelancing with CNN, a parent company of Time Warner Media, the same company who owned NY1. "I turned it into a 25-year career."
Kelaita built a reputation for securing high-profile interviews, including CNN's first exclusive sit-down with Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum. Over the years, she diversified, cofounding real estate startups and becoming involved in nonprofit work. She serves as a board member at INARA, an organization aiming to bring better medical services to refugee children. She is a founding member of the UN Women Empowerment Principles in the UAE, promoting sustainability and gender parity in the private sector. Amid that, she also raised three children, now 19, 15, and 11 years old.
A few years ago, interested in professional development, Kelaita explored getting an advanced degree in journalism from Northwestern when Medill gently let her know she was overqualified “I was gutted as attending Medill was always a dream for me” but directed her to master’s programs at the School of Professional Studies.
Kelaita realized the program, which emphasizes both policy and administration, would be a perfect fit. “I love public policy, I love public administration, and I'm interested in global policy," she says. "I live in the global world, working on INGO’s. People don't even know how these countries operate." When she read about the NGO course, she thought, "That's going to help me be a better board member, to be a bigger part of INARA, to grow it." Seth Payton's public finance course helped her with her role overseeing INARA accounts (when given the job, she warned her colleagues, "You realize I'm a journalist.") She even hired one of her classmates, Charlotte Donnelly, as an INARA intern. “Charlotte first started out as my study buddy as she is based in California, so our time difference is 12 hours which suits us both, she quickly turned into a great friend.”
A "30 minutes on, 30 minutes off" system helps Kelaita juggle her many jobs and time zones. After being away from a classroom for over 30 years, she's grateful for courses like Andy Sharma's research methods class and resources like the Writing Place to give her feedback on her work. "I email them at 3 AM. Two seconds later, I check, and somebody sends something back."
Kelaita's experience in the program has her looking ahead to the next new thing, perhaps working as a spokesperson for an organization like the United Nations or World Food Programme — or maybe teaching. “I love learning, I love education, and I love helping people,” she says. “I think it’s important to give back the way people gave back to me when I was starting my career.”