Ljubinka Andonoska

Assistant Professor, Master of Public Administration

Dr. Ljubinka Andonoska came to UTEP in 2013; she teaches in the Master of Public Administration program in the College of Liberal Arts. 

Dr. Andonoska's MPA and Ph.D. degrees are from Arizona State University and her specialties include state and local government, and government budgeting, and financial management.

The subjects she teaches:

I teach graduate Public Administration classes, including Public Budgeting and Financial Management, MPA’s Capstone, Urban Administration, Intergovernmental Relations, Urban Development, Managing Change in Public Affairs, and others. I have taught most of these classes in online and face-to-face formats. I also teach undergraduate courses with a minor in Public Administration.

Where her passion comes from:

Prior to academia, I worked in Public Administration, in a national-level Budget Office. My non-academic professional experience taught me that public service and public servants play major roles in the lives of the people. I feel educating current and future public administrators is important.

I also think that many people have this negative stigma about public administrators. Teaching public administration courses, I believe is important for people to understand the complexity of public service.

Her proudest accomplishment and biggest challenge as an online instructor: 

My proudest accomplishment as an online instructor is (still) the continuous feedback that I receive from many students (who know me only from my online classes). Many have said they know how much I care about their success. Some have said I inspired them. 

My biggest challenge as an online instructor is some (although not many) students either dislike or have fear of the online format; it is difficult to find the appropriate approach to motivate them. In addition, one challenge of asynchronous online classes is effective communication and making sure that students understand what is required from them. Some students do not have basic knowledge in Blackboard and that poses an additional challenge for them.

I record lectures in asynchronous classes, in addition to providing other materials. I also record short videos to describe the syllabus and the expectations from students.

On what makes a successful online student:

A successful online student is the online student who is involved in the learning process. He or she is a student who is aware that an online class is just as demanding as a traditional face-to-face class.

In order to foster active learning, among other things, I engage my students in team work by including mechanisms to prevent free riding. For example, there is a deadline for individual meaningful contribution to group forums and if the student participates after the deadline, he or she does not receive credit for the team work.

One piece of advice she has for her students:

I actually have two pieces of advice:

• Know that your professor is always there for you. Just because you don’t see her face, that does not mean she does not care about your success.
• Ask questions when in doubt—always!