Rate My Professor Tara Bryan

Tara Kolar Bryan is an Associate Professor at the Howard H. Baker Jr. School of Public Policy and Public Affairs at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where she joined as faculty in 2024 and serves as Director of the Online Master of Public Administration (MPA) program. Her specialties include strategic management, nonprofit and public organizations, civil society organizations in Central Europe, and community-engaged research and teaching. Previously, she held the position of Associate Professor and Chair of the MPA program at the University of Nebraska Omaha School of Public Administration. Bryan earned her Ph.D. in Public Administration and Public Affairs from Virginia Tech in 2011, her Master of Public Service Administration from Texas A&M University in 2004, and her B.A. in Political Science from St. Mary's College.

Bryan's research examines organizational capacity, evaluation practices, learning processes, and effectiveness in nonprofit and public sector organizations, with a focus on philanthropic foundations' roles in capacity building. Key peer-reviewed publications include 'Conducting and utilizing evaluation for multiple accountabilities: A study of nonprofit evaluation capacities' (Nonprofit Management & Leadership, 2021, with Robbie Waters Robichau); 'Toward a Contingency Model for the Relationship Between Capacity and Effectiveness in Nonprofit Organizations' (Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 2019); 'Building social capital through nonprofit capacity building programs: The case of Omaha Community Foundation' (Journal of Nonprofit & Public Sector Marketing, 2022); 'Multilevel Learning in Nonprofit Organizations' (Journal of Nonprofit Education and Leadership, 2017); 'Capacity for climate change planning: assessing metropolitan responses in the United States' (Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 2016); and 'A collaborative pedagogical response to pandemics and civil unrest' (Journal of Public Affairs Education, 2022, multi-author). She was awarded the Fulbright-Masaryk Scholar Fellowship in 2021-2022, serving as Visiting Professor at Masaryk University in the Czech Republic to research NGO management. Her scholarship has advanced understanding of nonprofit resilience, evaluation utilization, and capacity development in public administration.