Cynthia Dungey '93 Works to "Leave a Legacy of Humanity in Human Services"

January 21, 2015

"The director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services grew up poor and hopes to use her experience to help others transition out of poverty," begins a Columbus Dispatch story on Cynthia C. Dungey, a 1993 graduate of DePauw University.

"We need to give people the benefits they need, and then we need to ask what they need to improve their situations," Dungey tells the newspaper. "Services to one person won’t necessarily look like services for another. It needs to be individualized."

Catherine Candisky writes, "That might include help getting a high-school diploma or college degree, training for a job or subsidized child care that doesn’t go away if they get a raise."

A native of Columbus, both of Dungey's parents worked, "but we were poor," she tells the newspaper.

"Dungey excelled in Columbus schools and eventually received a scholarship to attend the Wellington School, a private college-prep school in Upper Arlington," reports Candisky. "Dungey spent 2 1/2 hours on a COTA bus to get to Wellington, but she earned good grades and for the first time began considering college. She was among 32 students in Wellington’s first graduating class in 1989 and went on to earn a bachelor’s degree from DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind., and a law degree from Ohio Northern in Ada. The young lawyer returned to Columbus and got a job in the Ohio attorney general’s office, working in the health-care-fraud and crime-victim-services sections. She has been in state government since, working for the state auditor and the Ohio Department of Medicaid, managing daily operations, before being tapped by Kasich to reshape public assistance."

Cynthia Callender Dungey has a three-year-old son and is guardian to her 62-year-old uncle who has developmental disabilities.

"When I think about personal responsibility, I think about a friend of mine, Cynthia Dungey," Ohio Governor John Kasich said in his inaugural address last week. "She grew up poor. She could have just said ‘It’s not my fault,’ blamed someone, but she didn’t. … She worked hard, earned a scholarship and went on to graduate from college. And then she, of course, earned her law degree. She is someone who always owned her decisions. She kept herself centered on what matters. She now leads a department with a $3.7 million budget whose mission is to help others learn personal responsibility and lift themselves up."

Dungey said the administration plans to recalibrate public-assistance programs to better help the poor transition off public assistance and out of poverty. She declined to give details, saying she didn’t want to get ahead of Kasich’s budget proposal, which will be released in February. The effort comes as welfare and food-stamp caseloads are down, but 1 in 6 Ohioans continues to live in poverty.

For her part, Dungey tells the newspaper, "I would love to leave a legacy of humanity in human services, meaning that we are not widgets, we really are people. I want to make sure everyone understands their value and their worth."

Access the complete article at the Dispatch's website.

Dungey was a sociology and political science double major at DePauw and earned a law degree from Ohio Northern University College of Law. Learn more in this previous story.

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