Leading on the frontline
Through work at the Karen Organization of Minnesota, Alexis Walstad is helping immigrants to the United States.
After more than a decade of working with immigrants in the Twin Cities, Alexis Walstad realized that to create lasting change, she needed more than just hands-on experience; she also needed to learn how public policies are made, implemented, and evaluated.
She found the right fit for her needs in the Humphrey School of Public Affairs' mid-career Master of Public Affairs (MPA) program. As an MPA student, Walstad is honing her policy and leadership skills to better advocate for under-resourced communities and drive systemic improvements in the services they need.
Walstad’s career has spanned roles that placed her on the front lines of refugee services in the Twin Cities. She has spent more than 13 years working with the Karen Organization of Minnesota, where she began as a development director and now serves as the organization’s co-executive director.
The organization is the first social services agency in the country founded by Karen refugees from Burma (also known as Myanmar). The nonprofit offers a variety of programs to help refugees transition to life in a new country and achieve their goals by providing resources to this growing community. More than 20,000 Karen people live in Minnesota, making it the largest Karen community in the country.
Helping people on the ground
Throughout her career, Walstad has seen firsthand how policies intended to help low-income immigrant and refugee populations often fall short, due to poor implementation or a lack of attention to the real-world challenges these communities face.
Working in a multi-service hub for refugees and immigrants, Walstad’s position has given her unique insight into how services can both empower and fail vulnerable populations. Walstad and her team have worked with community members to address gaps in the system. These experiences helped Walstad realize that to continue making meaningful change, she needed a deeper understanding of policy creation and its execution.
"I’ve learned so much from my colleagues and the community members we serve about how policy should work, and I wanted to deepen my knowledge of how to make these systems better for people who need them most," Walstad says. "At a certain point, I realized that I wanted more than just on-the-ground experience. I wanted to understand how to shape policy and leadership in a way that could drive long-term change."
Walstad was initially hesitant to go back to school. She completed her undergraduate degree in 2008, and many of her fellow graduates went straight to grad school because of the tough job market at the time. Walstad took a different route, focusing on gaining real-world experience in nonprofit leadership. It was after hands-on work that Walstad felt the need to dive deeper into the research and policy side of the equation.
“I missed the opportunity to dig into policy and research in the way that I could in a graduate program,” she says. “I wanted to learn how policies impact different communities—whether it’s people with disabilities, rural populations, or people navigating economic hardship.”
In her search for the right program, Walstad found the Humphrey School’s MPA program to be the perfect fit. Designed for mid-career professionals, the program allows students to learn alongside peers from various fields. This diversity of student backgrounds, combined with the flexibility of the part-time program, made the Humphrey School a strong match for Walstad’s goals.
"The mid-career MPA program at Humphrey really stood out to me because it was designed to integrate leadership, policy, and research skills,” she says. “I loved the holistic approach the program offers. Plus, the ability to take classes from different departments at the University of Minnesota, like social work, was invaluable."
Applying classroom lessons to her work
Since returning to school, Walstad has applied lessons from the classroom directly to her work. One notable example is research into the "benefits cliff," a phenomenon where low-income individuals and families lose access to essential public benefits as their income increases. That sometimes discourages people from pursuing higher wages or part-time jobs.
Walstad and her cohort studied this issue in depth, examining how policies meant to help people can, in fact, create financial barriers that make it harder for them to improve their situation.
"Being able to research policy issues like the benefits cliff and housing policies has been insightful," Walstad says. "In my work, I see these challenges every day. It’s empowering to know that the research validates what our clients are experiencing and gives us a better argument to advocate for systemic change.”
As Walstad looks ahead, she’s excited to continue her work, armed with new tools and perspectives that will help her drive change for the communities she cares about.
For Walstad, the Humphrey School is more than just an academic experience—it’s a critical step in a career devoted to creating equitable, lasting change for the populations she’s spent her life serving.