fall 2007/winter 2008 volume 13, no. 3/4...

Fall 2007/Winter 2008 Volume 13, No. 3/4

Flagship Journal of the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration

National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration1029 Vermont Avenue NW, Suite 1100, Washington, DC 20005

202-628-8965 fax 202-626-4978 www.naspaa.org

The Journal of Public Affairs Education (JPAE) is the flagship journal of the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration (NASPAA). Founded in 1970, NASPAA serves as a national and international resource for the promotion of excellence in education for the public service. Its institutional membership includes more than 250 university programs in the United States in public administration, policy, and management. It accomplishes its purposes through direct services to its member institutions and by

• Developing and administering appropriate standards for educational programs in public affairs through its Executive Council and its Commission on Peer Review and Accreditation;

• Representing to governments and other institutions the objectives and needs of education for public affairs and administration;

• Encouraging curriculum development and innovation and providing a forum for publication and discussion of education scholarship, practices, and issues;

• Undertaking surveys that provide members and the public with information on key educational issues;

• Meeting with employers to promote internship and employment for students and graduates; • Undertaking joint educational projects with practitioner professional organizations; and • Collaborating with institutes and schools of public administration in other countries

through conferences, consortia, and joint projects.

NASPAA provides opportunities for international engagement for NASPAA members, placing a global emphasis on educational quality and quality assurance through a series of networked international initiatives, in particular the Network of Institutes and Schools of Public Administration in Central and Eastern Europe (NISPAcee), the Inter-American Network of Public Administration Education (INPAE), and the Georgian Institute of Public Affairs (GIPA). It is also involved locally; for instance, directing the Small Communities Outreach Project for Environmental Issues, which networks public affairs schools and local governments around environmental regulation policy issues, with support from the Environmental Protection Agency.

NASPAA’s twofold mission is to ensure excellence in education and training for public service and to promote the ideal of public service. Consistent with NASPAA’s mission, JPAE is dedicated to advancing teaching and learning in public affairs, defined to include the fields of policy analysis, public administration, public management, and public policy. Published quarterly by NASPAA, the journal features commentaries, announcements, symposia, book reviews, and peer-reviewed scholarly articles on pedagogical, curricular, and accreditation issues pertaining to public affairs education.

JPAE was founded in 1995 by a consortium from the University of Kansas and the University of Akron and was originally published as the Journal of Public Administration Education. H. George Frederickson was the journal’s founding editor. In addition to serving as NASPAA’s journal of record, JPAE is affiliated with the Section of Public Administration Education of the American Society for Public Administration.

JOURNAL OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS EDUCATION

JPAE

Journal of Public A

ffairs Education

Vol. 13, N

o. 3/4 Fall 2007/Winter 2008

Teaching Leadership in Public Administration Lloyd A. Blanchard and Amy K. Donahue

Radical Pedagogy: Lessons from the “Africa Book” Project Sarah E. Ryan

The Institutional Design of Courses: Insights from the Rhetorical and Strategic Study of Credibility Holona L. Ochs and Andrew B. Whitford

Practicing What We Preach: Approaching Praxis Through Classroom Governance Peter J. Balint

Accountability, Ethics, Evaluation, and Governance in Nonprofit Management Trends and Treatment Angela L. Bies and Amy S. Brimer Blackwood

The Inter-University Case Program: Challenging Orthodoxy, Training Public Servants, Creating Knowledge

Ryan Yeung

Policy Mapping: A New Framework for Teaching Policymaking and Policy Design Through Case Studies

Lelia Helms and Selden Biggs

Capstone for Political Science Majors: The Content is the Service Cheryl A. Brown and Robert W. Behrman

Can Student Philanthropy Help to Address the Current Nonprofit Identity Crisis? A Multidisciplinary Project at Northern Kentucky University

Shamima Ahmed and Julie Olberding

Connecting Neighborhood Councils and City Agencies— Trust Building Through the Learning and Design Forum Process

Pradeep Chandra Kathi and Terry L. Cooper

The Status of Doctoral Programs in Public Affairs and Administration Marc Holzer, Hua Xu, and Tiankai Wang

Economic Development Specialty Tracks: A Survey of MPA Programs Edward P. Murray

Guy B. Adams, University of Missouri-ColumbiaDanny L. Balfour, Grand Valley State UniversityFrances Stokes Berry, Florida State UniversityGeert Bouckaert, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Stuart Bretschneider, Syracuse UniversityJonathan Brock, University of WashingtonJeffrey L. Brudney, University of GeorgiaJohn M. Bryson, University of MinnesotaN. Joseph Cayer, Arizona State UniversityRobert E. Cleary, American UniversitySteven Cohen, Columbia UniversityGlen Hahn Cope, University of Missouri–St. LouisRuth H. DeHoog, University of North Carolina– GreensboroJo Ann G. Ewalt, Kentucky Legislative Research CommissionClaire Felbinger, National Academy of ScienceIrwin Feller, The Pennsylvania State UniversityJane Fountain, Harvard UniversityLee S. Friedman, University of California-BerkeleyMary Ellen Guy, Florida State UniversityCynthia Jackson-Elmoore, Michigan State UniversityPhillip Joyce, George Washington UniversityPan Suk Kim, Yonsei UniversityMarieka M. Klawitter, University of Washington

Dale Krane, University of Nebraska-OmahaDavid Landsbergen, Ohio State UniversityKuotsai T. Liou, University of Central FloridaLaurence E. Lynn, Jr., Texas A & M UniversitySteven R. Maxwell, Edison Community CollegeCurtina Moreland-Young, Jackson State UniversityKathryn E. Newcomer, George Washington UniversityDorothy Olshfski, Rutgers University, NewarkSonia Ospina, New York UniversityLaurence J. O’Toole, Jr., University of GeorgiaHal G. Rainey, University of GeorgiaT. Zane Reeves, University of New MexicoMitchell Rice, Texas A & M UniversityAnn-Marie Rizzo, Tennessee State UniversitySaundra Schneider, Michigan State UniversitySally Coleman Selden, Lynchburg CollegePatricia M. Shields, Texas State UniversityShui-Yan Tang, University of Southern CaliforniaThomas Vocino, Auburn University at MontgomeryCharles W. Washington, Clark Atlanta UniversityBarton Wechsler, University of Missouri-ColumbiaDavid Weimer, University of WisconsinLouis Weschler, Arizona State UniversityHarvey L. White, University of PittsburghSamuel Yeager, Wichita State University

JPAEMario A. Rivera, Editor-in-Chief, University of New Mexico

Nicholas Giannatasio, Managing Editor, University of North Carolina-PembrokePatria de Lancer Julnes, Associate Editor for International Education, Utah State University

Jennifer C. Ward, Production Editor Juan de Dios Pineda, Editorial Associate

National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration

Kathryn Newcomer, PresidentKathleen M. Beatty, Vice President

Daniel Mazmanian, Immediate Past PresidentLaurel McFarland, Executive Director

Journal of Public Affairs Education is published quarterly by the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration. Claims for missing numbers should be made within the month following the regular month of pub-lication. The publishers expect to supply missing numbers free only when losses have been sustained in transit and when the reserve stock will permit. Subscription Rates: Institution, $100; Individual, $45; Student, $35; Non-U.S., add $20 to applicable rate. Change of Address: Please notify us and your local postmaster immediately of both old and new addresses. Please allow four weeks for the change. Postmaster: Send address changes to JPAE, National Associa-tion of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration, 1029 Vermont Avenue NW, Suite 1100, Washington, DC 20005. Educators and Copy Centers: ©2007 National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration. All rights reserved. Educators may reproduce any material for classroom use only and authors may reproduce their articles without written permission. Written permission is required to reproduce JPAE in all other instances. Please contact Jacqueline Lewis, NASPAA, 1029 Vermont Avenue NW, Suite 1100, Washington, DC 20005, phone: 202-628-8965, fax: 202-626-4978, email: [email protected]. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. JPAE is abstracted or indexed in Book Review Index, ERIC’s CIJE Clearinghouse, Public Affairs Information Service, Sage Public Administration Abstracts, Education Index, and Education Ab-stracts. ISSN 1523-6803 (formerly 1087-7789).

Board of Editors

Journal of Public affairs Education

Editors’ CouncilH. George Frederickson, Founding Editor, University of Kansas

James L. Perry, Indiana University-Purdue University-IndianapolisEdward T. Jennings, University of Kentucky Bruce J. Perlman, University of New Mexico

Marc Holzer, Senior Consulting Editor, Rutgers University-Newark

Journal of Public Affairs EducationFall 2007/Winter 2008 Volume 13, No. 3/4

From the Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .ii

Information for Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii

ArticlesTeaching Leadership in Public Administration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .461Lloyd A. Blanchard and Amy K. Donahue

Radical Pedagogy: Lessons from the “Africa Book” Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .487Sarah E. Ryan

The Institutional Design of Courses: Insights from the Rhetorical and Strategic Study of Credibility . . . . . . . . . . . . .499Holona L. Ochs and Andrew B. Whitford

Practicing What We Preach: Approaching Praxis Through Classroom Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .509Peter J. Balint

Accountability, Ethics, Evaluation, and Governance in Nonprofit Management Trends and Treatment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .519Angela L. Bies and Amy S. Brimer Blackwood

The Inter-University Case Program: Challenging Orthodoxy, Training Public Servants, Creating Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .549Ryan Yeung

Policy Mapping: A New Framework for Teaching Policymaking and Policy Design Through Case Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .565Lelia Helms and Selden Biggs

Capstone for Political Science Majors: The Content is the Service . . . . . . . . . . . .585Cheryl A. Brown and Robert W. Behrman

Can Student Philanthropy Help to Address the Current Nonprofit Identity Crisis? A Multidisciplinary Project at Northern Kentucky University . . . . . . . .593Shamima Ahmed and Julie Olberding

Connecting Neighborhood Councils and City Agencies— Trust Building Through the Learning and Design Forum Process . . . . . . . . . . . .617Pradeep Chandra Kathi and Terry L. Cooper

The Status of Doctoral Programs in Public Affairs and Administration . . . . . . . .631Marc Holzer, Hua Xu, and Tiankai Wang

Economic Development Specialty Tracks: A Survey of MPA Programs . . . . . . . .649Edward P. Murray

Cover design by Mario A. Rivera

From the Editor

This issue of the Journal of Public Affairs Education is the second to be made available electronically to NASPAA member schools, institutional and individual subscribers, and contributing authors. It is also the second double issue published in sequence. The challenges of the current transition have made it necessary to combine four quarterly issues (Spring, Summer, and Fall 2007, and Winter 2008) into two. JPAE will resume quarterly publication with the Spring 2008 issue.

It is hoped that coupling electronic access with print production will make the journal much more widely available. Reader response has been very positive to date, as the journal becomes more accessible and gains broader dissemina-tion. Both the move toward electronic availability and the shift toward a larger, national and international platform have been key elements of JPAE’s strategic positioning under its current editorship.

In keeping with the recent practice of organizing each issue thematically, this issue is concerned with the treatment of substantive, normative, and ethical concerns through various forms of pedagogy. Articles span such topics as gov-ernance and accountability; public ethics; trust-building; radical pedagogy; the use of case studies; community-based education and service learning; and hybrid teaching methods. Also in the issue are two significant articles based on national surveys—on the status, respectively, of doctoral programs and specialty tracks relating to economic development.

In a similar vein, the forthcoming Spring issue will be a symposium centered on questions of diversity, equity, ethnicity, and race, the second such symposium over the last two years. It will be led by an important contribution by JPAE Founding Editor George Frederickson.

Yet in prospect for JPAE is the expanded use of the electronic format, to in-clude links to author Web pages and to sources of data or analysis not included in print articles. Also possible will be conjoint online projects with other leading journals. While moving toward multiple formats, the journal will continue to lay significant—though certainly not exclusive—emphasis on a defining set of issues. These include diversity and equity in the professoriate and classroom, ethics, comparative and international administration, and global perspectives on public affairs pedagogy.

The views of our readership are most important during this transition, as are those of the Editorial Board and of NASPAA generally. This is particularly so as both journal and association strive to address anew a number of fundamental challenges surrounding accreditation standards and the accreditation process in general.

—Mario A. Rivera, Ph.D., Editor in Chief

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Journal of Public Affairs Education iii

Information for Contributors

The Journal of Public Affairs Education (JPAE) is dedicated to advancing teach-ing and learning in public affairs broadly defined, which includes the fields of policy analysis, public administration, public management, and public policy. JPAE pursues its mission by publishing high-quality theory, empirical research, and commentary. The core values of JPAE are rigor, relevance, clarity, accessibil-ity, and methodological diversity.

Articles: JPAE welcomes contributions from all public affairs educators who seek to reflect on their professional practice and to engage JPAE readers in an exploration of what or how to teach. JPAE articles are intended to influence experienced educator-specialists but also to be comprehensible and interesting to a broad audience of public affairs teachers. Articles appropriate for publication in JPAE include comprehensive literature reviews and meta-analyses, carefully con-structed position papers, critical assessments of what we teach and how we teach it, thoughtful essays about commonly shared teaching challenges, experimental and quasi-experimental assessments of students’ learning, evaluations of new cur-ricula or curriculum trends, national and international/comparative disciplinary and pedagogical developments, and field studies of particular teaching methods.

In addition to articles, the editors welcome proposals for symposia. Proposals that are accepted will be announced in the journal and will be accompanied by a call for papers. Submissions for symposia will be considered through the normal review process.

Decisions about the publication of all articles are based on the recommenda-tion of members of the editorial board using a blind review process. Substan-tive content, writing style, and length are all relevant to a decision to publish a manuscript. Depending on the type of manuscript, the review process takes into account the following criteria:

• Research-based: adequacy of theoretical grounding; reliability and va-lidity of findings; significance of the topic; significance of the findings.

• Interpretive, reflective, critical, theoretical: significance of the topic; quality of the argument; quality of the supporting evidence.

• Creative pedagogy: creativity of the approach; soundness of the expla-nation; evidence of effectiveness; utility for faculty.

• Case studies: pedagogical value; scope of potential use; clear teaching purposes.

• In all cases, writing quality is an important consideration.

Manuscripts that are obviously inappropriate or insufficiently developed will be returned without formal review. Interested authors can better understand the journal’s audience and its expectations for content, quality, and focus by examin-

iv Journal of Public Affairs Education

ing what JPAE has published in recent years or by contacting members of the editorial board or staff.

Manuscripts submitted should not have been published and should not be un-der consideration elsewhere. Papers presented at a professional conference qualify for consideration; in fact, the submission of manuscripts that have been thor-oughly revised following presentation at a professional meeting is encouraged.

In general, authors are strongly encouraged to have their work reviewed and evaluated by colleagues prior to submission for formal review in order to facili-tate the editorial process.

Manuscripts should be sent to [email protected]. Only electronic submissions sent to this email address as Microsoft Word attachments will be considered. Any accompanying message should be addressed simply to “Editors,” not to a particu-lar editor.

In order for manuscripts to be reviewed as quickly as possible, authors are asked to observe the following requirements:

• Ensure that the manuscript is anonymous by leaving off your name and putting self-identifying references in a separate Microsoft Word file and as a separate attachment.

• Use margins of one and one-half (1-1/2) inches at the left, right, top, and bottom of the page.

• JPAE uses the in-text parenthetical reference system with all references at the end of the text in alphabetical order. Notes are to be kept to a minimum. See the Chicago Manual of Style for guidance.

It is important that you identify the type of manuscript you are submitting: (1) research based; (2) interpretive, reflective, critical, or theoretical essay or position paper; (3) creative pedagogy; or (4) teaching case study.

Creative Pedagogy: The purpose of Creative Pedagogy is to feature innovative approaches to teaching specific public affairs subjects or concepts. The goal of this feature is to present experimental exercises, simulations, role plays, or other creative teaching technologies in a format that colleagues can readily use. Sub-missions are peer reviewed.

Contributions to Creative Pedagogy must include substantive details (e.g., text for the case, role descriptions for a role play exercise) and a narrative discussion about how the pedagogy is used, student response to it, suggestions for instruc-tors who may wish to use it, and results associated with its use. The presentation of the pedagogy should be thorough and lively so that teachers reading the article will be stimulated and able to use the information.

Submissions for Creative Pedagogy should be sent to Editors, JPAE, at jpae@uncp. edu, as indicated above.

Review Essays: Reviews will commonly use a cluster format in which several books, videos, software programs, cases, CD-ROMs, Internet sites, or other

Journal of Public Affairs Education v

instructional materials will be compared and contrasted in an essay. Review es-says should offer a point of view but should seek to treat each item in the cluster fairly. Essays could be structured around a comparison of related resources, re-sources related to the public affairs education enterprise, or resources that directly or indirectly have something to say about public affairs education. Review essays should strive for clarity, brevity, and timeliness. Inquires about review essays should be sent to Nicholas Giannastasio, Managing Editor, at [email protected].

Copyright Notice: Manuscripts will not be published unless a copyright trans-fer agreement has been signed by all the authors of a manuscript and has been received by JPAE. Copyright transfer forms are sent out by the NASPAA office. Educators may reproduce any material for classroom use only and authors may re-produce their articles without written permission. Written permission is required to reproduce JPAE in all other instances.

Journal of Public Affairs Education 461

Teaching Leadership in Public Administration

Lloyd A. Blanchard, Louisiana State UniversityAmy K. Donahue, University of Connecticut

AbstractGraduates of public administration programs regularly find themselves in roles

accorded substantial responsibility and authority. It is therefore crucial that these programs provide effective instruction that helps students develop leadership skills and attributes. The dilemma is that leadership concepts are not susceptible to traditional didactic instructional approaches, which are cognitively based. Leadership learning is best accomplished in the affective and behavioral domains as well as in the cognitive. We present a pedagogical model that we believe is more appropriate for teaching leadership in public administration, public policy, and public affairs. This model marries the key competencies of effective leaders with suitable teaching orientations. We illustrate how this model may be applied by describing a graduate leadership course we have developed and taught.

The title of this paper conjures the well worn nature versus nurture debate: Are people born to lead, or can they be taught to lead? We submit that this ques-tion is moot for teachers in public administration/policy/affairs (PA) programs, particularly at the graduate level. Our graduates regularly find themselves in roles accorded substantial responsibility and authority. Yet prominent scholars of leadership have claimed for over two decades that our society faces a “crisis of leadership”—that we lack competent, responsible leadership (Gardner, 1990; Burns, 1978). Therefore we must teach leadership; we can’t afford not to! As Behn (1998, 1) claims, “Leadership is not just a right of public managers. It is an obligation.” Leadership is an important part of PA curricula, and teaching it is one of the more difficult responsibilities that PA faculties face. Thus, a more ap-propriate question may be, “How should we teach leadership?”

Although a plethora of writing on leadership exists, scant advice on how to teach it to PA students is available. The recent symposium on leadership educa-

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tion in the Journal of Public Affairs Education (Vol. 11, No. 3), the special issue in Career Development International (Vol. 4, No. 3) focusing on leadership in man-agement, and the book Dynamics of Leadership in Public Service: Theory and Prac-tice (Van Wart, 2005) are notable exceptions. Whether students can be taught to become good leaders will likely depend on the conception of leadership on which their instruction is based. Moreover, different models of leadership require different pedagogical strategies. For example, traditional teacher-led sessions may be appropriate for trait-based models of leadership, while simulation-based pedagogical methods may be appropriate for transformational leadership models (Denhardt and Campbell, 2005). Finally, if a leader’s capacity rests principally on managerial or analytic expertise, then PA departments are well-suited to teach these skills. If, however, effective leadership requires such attributes as intuition about the people being led, a sense of how to navigate subtle moral dilemmas, and an instinct about when and how to move beyond the bounds of formal au-thority to impel organizations to act in new ways, it becomes less clear whether PA departments are as well-equipped. This is not to say that PA faculty lack these qualities themselves; it is to say, however, that our professional training and curricular structures rarely prepare us to tackle such topics in our classrooms. How can we overcome this shortcoming?

Bloom et al. (1964) explain that when learning takes place in the cognitive domain, one acquires knowledge and intellectual skills. Learning in the affective domain, on the other hand, requires that one address attitudes, emotions, and values associated with the phenomena under study. Lessons in leadership likely require learning that surpasses the cognitive domain and move into the affective and behavioral domains. Our sense is that PA programs are adept at the former, but less so at the latter. Thus we argue that traditional classroom-based instruc-tional approaches are inadequate to the task of teaching leadership. For students to be able to assimilate leadership lessons, we must create broad experiential learning environments that involve a variety of pedagogical styles.

In this paper, we explore how teachers of leadership in PA can adopt an instruc-tional strategy that allows students to learn about leaders and their attributes, as well as to internalize the emotional dimension of leadership as it implicates feelings, values, attitudes, and behavior. We proceed from the assumption that a leadership curriculum can be successfully delivered to the extent that a teacher effectively matches his or her teaching methods with the various domains of learning required. Existing pedagogical approaches applied to this topic vary from a traditional lecture format to immersion in simulations or role-playing exercises. We argue here that more traditional approaches have limited utility on their own, and that leadership lessons become powerful when we put students in situations that exercise them affectively and behaviorally as well as cognitively.

To be sure, teachers of leadership have plenty of choices for the leadership mod-els on which they might focus. In our leadership course, we expose students to a



broad range of leadership models, but we find that one model in particular is use-ful for our purposes: the competing values framework of Quinn and Rohrbaugh (1981), Quinn (1984), and Quinn et al. (2003). This model is useful for two primary reasons. First, it provides a parsimonious synthesis of the disparate lead-ership models and competencies. Some studies have found the competing values framework useful in organizing the leadership literature (Faerman, Quinn, and Thompson, 1987; Quinn, 1984; Carrier, 1984), while others have found empiri-cal support for components of the model (Buenger et al., 1996; Carrier, 1984). Moreover, it is intuitive and practical, and it focuses on skills associated with organizational effectiveness.

Second, the competing values framework highlights the tensions between politics and administration, which is a core theme in our MPA curriculum. On one hand, the internal process and human relations models represent the control-based (i.e., administrative) and flexible (i.e., political) requirements, respectively, of the internal challenges of leadership. On the other, the rational goal and open systems models represent the control and flexible requirements, respectively, for the external challenges of managerial leaders. Matching and balancing the ap-propriate leadership skills with the situation at hand is an important tactic we emphasize, and is a natural result of the competing values framework.

Of course, other leadership models can be chosen and applied in developing a particular pedagogical strategy, but the competing values model is comprehen-sive in capturing the main tenets of the leading leadership theories in the scholar-ly literature. Therefore, it is not only a useful model to teach, it is also as a useful basis on which to develop leadership pedagogical strategies.

This paper is organized as follows. We first review the literature on leadership to identify its dimensionality. We also examine the conditions the literature sug-gests are necessary for students to be able to appreciate its nuances fully. We then develop a pedagogical framework that matches leadership skills from the compet-ing values framework with the components of a well-known model of learning by Bloom et al. (1964). We use this framework to suggest instructional strategies for teaching leadership. Finally, we discuss the practical challenges one might face in implementing a leadership course derived from this strategy by drawing on our experience developing and executing a simulation-based capstone course for the MPA degree.

Literature on Leadership Concepts and DevelopmentLeadership is generally understood to refer to the process of persuading people to

act in a particular way or to a particular end. Given our interest in how to teach lead-ership in PA programs, our concern is with the exigencies of leadership in the public sector, and with what is often termed “managerial leadership.” We understand mana-gerial leadership to be leadership that operates in an organizational context. It focuses on influencing the behavior or actions of organizations to achieve specific goals.



In fact, though, the concept of leadership is characterized in widely differing ways, making it difficult to study systematically. As Burns (1978, 3) notes, “lead-ership is one of the most observed and least understood phenomena on earth.” Myriad treatises and a growing body of empirical research have been written on the subject. Many authors affirm the disparate nature of the leadership literature, however, and also note that empirical findings about leadership are inconsistent (Fernandez, 2005). Much writing focuses on leadership in PA by din of high-lighting the lives, character, actions, or influence of presidents, senators, military officers, and other notable public officials. Scholars have also worked to develop typologies and theoretical frameworks to characterize public sector leadership (for example, see Fernandez, 2005; for a review, see Van Wart, 2003) and to charac-terize effective leadership in PA and policy (for example, see Riccucci, 1995).

It is beyond the scope of this paper to review the literature on leadership itself comprehensively. We focus our attention in two areas. First, we consider work that tries to identify generalizable leadership traits and behaviors, as these may be the substance of what we hope to inculcate in our students. We draw heavily on the excellent historical review by House and Aditya (1997) to summarize this literature. Second, literature on teaching leadership in PA is nearly nonexistent, but there is a literature on leadership development that appears largely in busi-ness management and applied psychology journals. In summarizing this work, we are particularly informed by Day (2001) and Fiedler (1996).

Leadership TraitsHouse and Aditya (1997) provide a comprehensive review of the history of

social scientific study of leadership, focusing on those prevailing theories that benefit from empirical support. They discuss the classical theories that meet this criterion and chart the evolution of more recent leadership theories, many of which evolved directly from the classical ones. The classical theories include those focused on the importance of traits, leader behavior, and contingencies. More recent ones include a focus on leader-member exchange, implicit leader-ship, and neocharismatic leadership.

The leadership trait paradigm is perhaps the first to gain widespread currency in the study of leadership. This research, however, is atheoretical, as it concerns itself with searching for those individual characteristics that separate leaders from nonleaders. Prominent in the mid-1900s, trait research produced such inconsis-tent results that scholars reached consensus only about the futility of finding uni-versal traits. Problems stemmed from the dearth of personality theories to guide the trait search, the lack of trait measurement validity to permit generalization, and the failure to account for the contingent nature of demands on leaders (House and Aditya, 1997).

This field began to correct these deficiencies by the 1970s, with new work about how and when traits are likely to explain individual behavior (Bern and



Allen, 1974; Mischel, 1973; Schneider, 1983; House, Shane, and Herold, 1996). These studies consistently identified traits such as intelligence, pro-social as-sertiveness, self-confidence, energy-activity, and task-relevant knowledge. A meta-analysis of 35 of the early studies found that intelligence, dominance, masculinity, and adjustment were all traits significantly associated with follower perceptions of leadership (Lord, DeVader, and Alliger, 1986).

Leadership BehaviorsA major problem with the trait research is that it implicitly assumes that

leaders are born with the traits said to make them leaders. To the extent that the important traits are immutable, this research becomes less useful for leadership development and training. Given the lack of satisfactory results from the empiri-cal trait research, leadership scholars turned to theories that focused more on the processes by and the conditions under which persons become leaders or leaders become effective. Four such theories enjoy some empirical support: McClelland’s (1961) achievement motivation theory; McClelland’s (1975) Leader Motive Profile; House’s (1977) charismatic leadership theory; and Kenny and Zaccaro’s (1983) leader sensitivity and flexibility theories.

From this behavioral perspective, it is not so much what leaders are as what they do that defines good leadership. This literature categorizes leader behaviors as task-oriented or person-oriented, based on the assumptions that universally effective behaviors exist and that we can observe them. This research is similar to the trait research in its atheoretical approach, however, and consequently empirical analyses still produce inconsistent results. And like the trait work, it fails to consider the specific role demands on leaders, the context in which they function, or differences in the dispositions of leaders or followers (House and Aditya, 1997).

Contingent TheoriesFive contingency theories were advanced to reconcile differences among the

findings concerning leader behavior: Fiedler’s (1971) contingency theory of lead-ership; the path-goal theory (House, 1971); Hersey and Blanchard’s (1982) life cycle; the cognitive resource (Fiedler and Garcia, 1987); and the decision process theories (Vroom and Yetton, 1973). These are all situational theories that focus variably on the factors that mediate leadership effectiveness. Given our interest in teaching leadership, the cognitive resource theory’s empirical findings are espe-cially interesting. Fielder and Garcia (1987) found that under low stress, intelli-gence is positively correlated performance, while experience is negatively cor-related. They found that the opposite is true under high-stress situations, where experience can be helpful and intelligence can be harmful. Thus, leadership under high-stress situations may require a different set of skills than under low stress situations. As our students will need to perform in both sorts of circumstances, this is important pedagogical guidance.



As with the trait and behavior paradigms, empirical support for the contingen-cy theories are mixed at best, but they did lead to the development of better the-oretical constructs. These include the neo-charismatic leadership, leader-member exchange, and the implicit leadership theories, each of which add important new dimensions to our characterization of leadership. The leader-member exchange theory focuses on the relationships between leader and follower, as opposed to the leader’s traits and behaviors. Likewise, the implicit leadership theory relies on the perceptions of the followers to define leadership (Lord and Maher, 1991). In this framework, a person might exhibit leadership traits and behaviors, but it is the followers who decide whether to follow this person as a leader.

The neo-charismatic is perhaps the latest dominant paradigm in the literature, capturing what Bryman (1993) calls the “New Leadership” theories. These in-clude theories of charismatic leadership (House, 1977), transformational leader-ship (Burns, 1978; Bass, 1985), the attributional theory of charismatic leadership (Conger and Kanungo, 1987), the visionary theories (Kousnes and Posner, 1987; Bennis and Nanus, 1985; Sashkin, 1988; Nanus, 1992), and the value-based theory of leadership (House et al., 1996). These are similar in that they seek to explain how corporate, political, and military leaders have overcome long odds in moving their organizations successfully toward an intended goal. They focus on the leader’s often extraordinary ability to motivate followers and gain their re-spect, admiration, and loyalty. These models are similar to those of the behavioral paradigm, but with attention to the symbolic and emotive behaviors of lead-ers and how those prompt similar behaviors in followers. This suggests that the power of leadership lies in the expressive forces it engenders in those being led and that the relevant traits and behaviors of leaders are most important in terms of how they are applied.

Leadership DevelopmentWe now look to the leadership development literature to understand how or-

ganizations cultivate leaders and leadership skills in individuals. Individual-level leader development is traditionally aligned with the trait and behavior literature. Programs tend to focus on intrapersonal competencies of personal empowerment, knowledge, and trustworthiness (Day, 2001), and seek to nurture skills such as self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-motivation often associated with effective leadership (Zand, 1997). Others (for example, Day, 2001) see leader development as predominantly relational in nature, focusing on commitments, mutual respect, and trust. Here interpersonal competencies are valued, and associated with skills such as social awareness, conflict management, team-building, and change facili-tation.

To develop inter- and intrapersonal skills, various strategies are employed in PA practice, including coaching, mentoring, 360-degree feedback, networking, on-the-job training, and project-based action learning (Ingraham and Getha-Taylor,



2004). Fiedler (1996) asserts that most leadership development and training pro-grams like these are “untested and, at best, of uncertain value.” However, in their systematic evaluation of 70 management training studies, Burke and Day (1986) concluded that two training methods had been validated empirically: Sorcher and Goldstein’s (1972) behavior modeling approach, and Fiedler and Chemer’s (1984) leader-match training program.

Although these practices are well known in the world of human capital devel-opment, they are rarely incorporated in PA curricula, perhaps because they are not viewed as congruent with instruction modes typically employed in profes-sional graduate programs. Nevertheless, some PA programs do incorporate them into their curriculum—the Humphrey Institute at the University of Minnesota is notable in this regard (see Crosby and Bryson, 2005)—and many others are cur-rently considering whether leadership should be included in their core curricula, according to a recent survey by the National Association of Schools of Public Administration and Affairs (NASPAA). Coaching and mentoring do occur to the extent that students and faculty make the effort to build relationships, but these practices are difficult in a program that might contain more than 100 students. Thus, the challenge for PA departments is to find a way to teach the intra- and interpersonal competencies of leaders in the context of their programs and cur-ricula. One way in which PA departments avoid this challenge is to rely on their admissions processes to select applicants who demonstrate that they have already developed these some of these competencies. Nevertheless, PA departments might consider innovative ways, either in their beginning program orientation, case studies, or in practicum-based courses, to impart leadership lessons. The next section presents a strategic framework that we believe will help PA depart-ments think about how to develop instructional strategies for effective leadership teaching.

A Strategic Model for Teaching LeadershipThe leadership literature tells us that there is no universally successful leader-

ship trait or behavior, that leadership effectiveness depends on how the leader’s personality and abilities match the circumstances and are perceived by potential followers, and that leader control over process and the stress and uncertainty they face are important mitigating factors. In short, the literature on leadership development tells us that “we know very little about the processes in leadership and managerial training that contribute to organizational performance” (Fiedler, 1996). Thus, to answer the question of how one should teach leadership, these literatures offer a resounding “it depends.”

It is clear to us that people have different skills, dispositions, and aspirations as well as different abilities and approaches to learning. Although the literature advises us that the relevant skills will differ by situation, it is beyond the scope of this paper, and indeed, of most teachers, to identify the myriad situations in



which leaders might find themselves. An ideal strategy for teaching leadership might start with matching required competencies to some range of likely con-tingency types, and it appears that the successful training programs identified in the literature do just that (Day, 2001). However, the literature does not spend much time on how people come to learn various skills and competencies. Thus, we develop a strategy for teaching leadership that attempts to match components of well-established learning theory with the requirements that emanate from the leadership literature reviewed above.

To do this, we draw upon the learning theory of Bloom et al. (1964), whose “taxonomy of educational objectives” is very useful in distinguishing general learning styles. They develop a model that comprises three domains of learning: cognitive, affective, and psychomotor. This last category refers to the physical attributes of learning, not unlike how athletes and artists learn their crafts. Katz and Stotland (1959) develop a similar tripartite description of attitudes, claiming that attitudes have three components: cognitive, affective, and behavioral. We apply Bloom’s construct but adopt Katz and Stotland’s behavioral nomenclature to emphasize the notion that action is required for effective learning. Each of these learning domains contains lower and higher levels, or orders, of learning, as presented in Table 1.

In academic settings, we most typically call on the cognitive domain. This do-main involves the attainment of knowledge and the development of intellectual skill. The lowest (i.e., simplest) levels of learning in this domain are information acquisition and comprehension, while the highest (i.e., most complex) levels are

Table 1. A Taxonomy of Learning ObjectivesDomain of learning

Cognitive Affective Behavioral

Level of learning (development of intellectual skill)

(development ofemotional intelligence)

(development ofphysical prowess)

Low Knowledge Receiving Perception

Comprehension Responding Set

Application Valuing Guided response

Analysis Organization Mechanism

Synthesis Internalizing values Complex overt response

Evaluation Adaptation

High Origination

Adapted from Bloom et al. (1964)



synthesis and evaluation. The affective domain deals with emotional intelligence, or the emergence of attitudes, values, and feelings associated with the phenomena being taught. Receiving and responding to these phenomena are at the lowest levels of learning, while organizing and internalizing values associated with the phenomena are at the highest levels. The behavioral domain involves learning that requires physical activity, like the learning that would take place at basket-ball or dance practice. Lower levels include perceiving or observing the activity being taught, while the higher levels include adapting the skill and origination (think of a spectacular basketball move or an improvised dance).

The goal of comprehensive educational programs should be to help students at-tain the highest level of learning possible across all domains. When we argue that traditional classroom lectures are inappropriate for the teaching of leadership, we are essentially arguing that leadership development requires more than cognition, and, within the realm of cognition, more than information acquisition. Indeed, the competencies and skills summarized in the literature point to those that are intra- and interpersonal. In other words, they are aptitudes that appeal to the heart rather than the head.

For example, one thing that leaders are routinely expected to do is to build consensus. A cognitive approach to teaching students how to build consensus would inform students about what consensus is, when it is appropriate, what techniques are available to facilitate it, and even what difficulties are likely to arise. But apprehension of this knowledge alone is unlikely to constitute in the student a true capability to build consensus in a real-world decision-making con-text. To develop this facility, students would need to recognize and cultivate the values and feelings engendered by consensus-building processes and to practice the interpersonal interactions involved in consensus-building. These learning requirements are affective and behavioral. Thus, a purely cognitive instructional method would not address the entirety of the learning domain required for the content of interest.

It should now be clear that teaching leadership effectively will involve all three learning domains. In the cognitive domain, students gain an understanding of the various leadership concepts and models. In the affective domain, students recognize what values and attitudes are required for good leadership and come to terms with their feelings about leaders and leading. The behavioral domain is important, too. Students must actually attempt to motivate people to act in some beneficial fashion to appreciate the complex and nuanced nature of such interper-sonal interactions. Likewise, good communication skills are important for good leadership, but developing these skills often requires practicing a speech or pre-sentation at a podium. For this skill, the student must go beyond having a strong understanding of the topic; she must also be able to deliver the presentation in an effective or persuasive manner.



Our strategy for teaching leadership pursues a multi-dimensional approach that can allow greater assimilation of desired content by explicitly identifying the corresponding learning domain(s) and identifying appropriate instructional methods. In formulating our strategy, we group a comprehensive set of leader-ship competencies by the domain that we believe is most relevant for learning the competency. We then propose instructional methods that appeal to the domain-competency match. We draw the relevant leadership competencies from Quinn et al. (2003), who developed a “competing values” framework that assembles the broad and disparate theories of leadership, motivation, and decision-mak-ing found in the literature and uses them to specify eight roles that leaders can find themselves playing (as shown in Figure 1), with three key competencies for each role. These roles are organized along two dimensions that define the organi-zational environment in which leaders must operate. The first dimension is the organizational focus (internal or external). The second dimension refers to the level of flexibility and control required. Thus, like much of the literature, the Quinn framework assumes that leadership effectiveness is contingent and situ-ational, but unlike the literature it demonstrates that an effective leader’s style also changes with the situation.

We now bring together the learning and leadership frameworks represented in Table 1 and Figure 1, respectively, by asking which domain is most appropri-ate for learning each role. We can generally distinguish the more flexible models from the control models by the types of roles a leader must play in each. Being a mentor, facilitator, broker, and innovator require the sort of interpersonal skills discussed above in the leadership development literature. On the other hand,

Figure 1. Leadership Roles within the Competing Values Framework

Flexibility

Mentor Broker

Facilitator Innovator

Internal External

Monitor Director

Coordinator Producer

Control

Source: Quinn et al., 2003



being a monitor, coordinator, director, and producer appear to call more upon cognitive skills, although emotions remain important here.

Gagne and Dick (1983) surveyed the research on matching instructional meth-ods to educational objectives and identified some strategies that have been found to be effective in certain areas. Weston and Cranton (1986) summarized their lessons by suggesting that instructor-centered methods are efficient at conveying information when the objective does not include the student using the informa-tion. If the objective is to have the student interact with the educational mate-rial, more interactive and experiential methods are required. Moreover, lectures, programmed instruction, and modular instructional methods are listed as appro-priate for the lower levels of learning in the cognitive domain, while independent projects, simulations, role-playing exercises, and field experience are appropriate for higher levels of cognitive learning. We synthesize these findings by counting the number of teaching methods Weston and Cranton (1986) listed as appropri-ate for each level of learning in each domain. Table 2 organizes these frequencies by domain and four classes of instructional methods: instructor-centered, interac-tive, individualized, and experiential. The various teaching methods for each of the four classes are also shown.

Four patterns emerge from Table 2. First, the instructor-centered methods ap-pear to be appropriate when the learning objectives remain at a low level, regard-less of the domain. As the level of learning required increases, one must consider methods that are less instructor-centered. Second, interactive methods appear to be appropriate for higher levels of learning, but only when the learning objec-tive targets the cognitive and affective domains. Third, to the extent that the behavioral domain is the target of the intended lessons, experiential instructional methods are likely to be the appropriate choice. Finally, individualized and expe-riential instructional methods appear to be appropriate for most levels of learning regardless of the domain being targeted.

We now apply this framework to the teaching of leadership. For each of the 24 leadership competencies identified in the Quinn et al. framework, we first denote competencies as task-based and people-based and assume that the former can be taught using any instructional method while the latter requires methods that force students to interact with other people. We then identify the class of instruc-tional method that best matches the content (the competency listed) in terms of likelihood of increasing the level of learning. The individualized instructional methods are assumed to be helpful when the study of a competency can be self-directed and does not require interpersonal interaction. Finally, given the pat-terns suggested in Table 2, we assume that the interactive and experiential meth-ods might be helpful in all cases except where individual instruction is required for higher learning. We find no instance of this for the purpose of leadership.

The result of this process is summarized in Table 3. Although the assump-tions we make largely drive our findings, some insights about teaching leader-



Table 2. Matching Instructional Methods with Learning Domains

Instructor- centered

Interactive Individualized Experiential

Instructional methods

Domain

Lecture, questioning, demonstration

Class discussion, discussion groups, peer teaching, group projects

Programmed instruction, modularized instruction, independent projects, computerized instruction

Field and clinical, laboratory, role playing, simulation and games, drill

Cognitive

Knowledge 1 1 1

Comprehension 1 2

Application 1 2 3

Analysis 1 1 1 4

Synthesis 1 1 3

Evaluation 1 1 2

Affective

Receiving 1 1 1 1

Responding 1 1 3

Valuing 2 1 3

Organization 2 1 1

Internalizing 1 1

Behavioral

Perception 1 1

Set 1 1

Guided response 1 4

Mechanism 4

Complex overt response 2

Adaptation 1 2

Origination 1 2

Source: Adapted from Table 3 in Weston and Cranton (1986). The numbers in the cells of the table represent the number of instructional methods in the second row of the relevant column that are said to be appropriate.



ship emerge. First, the leadership competencies associated with the more flexible models appear to require interactive and experiential instructional methods. The mentor and facilitator roles are similar to the broker and innovator roles in that they all require deploying interpersonal skills. Second, our analysis sug-gests that the effectiveness of instructor-centered methods may be limited to the competencies associated with control-oriented perspectives of leadership –being a monitor or coordinator and being a director or producer. Third, individualized instruction may be useful in certain cases in which interactive and experiential approaches are not available or feasible to use. And finally, to the extent that the affective domain is not suggested by interpersonal activity, instructor-centered or individualized instruction may serve as reasonable alternatives to interactive and experiential instructional methods.

Finally, we attempt to draw from these disparate frameworks to summarize what success might look like. Referring back to Table 1, if we aspire to the high-est level of learning possible, success in learning leadership in the cognitive do-main requires analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating the material being taught. Success in learning leadership in the affective domain requires the organization and internalization of values. Finally, success in the behavioral domain requires adaptation and origination. In Table 4, we take our cues from this framework and the respective competency to posit standards for success. This is not a compre-hensive set of success criteria but is simply indicative of what we might expect to see if leadership lessons had been effectively delivered.

Clearly, multiple instructional strategies could be deployed to effectively teach the competencies associated with the roles above. In general, we believe that leadership concepts can be learned from a cognitive perspective, but internalizing these concepts requires a deeper appeal to the affective and behavioral domains. We believe that small-group discussions, role-playing, and simulation-based ex-ercises are instructional methods that are more likely to appeal to these noncog-nitive domains of learning. Instructional methods that allow students to carry a project from development to evaluation appeal to the behavioral domain in ways that are also appropriate for effective learning of leadership. On the basis of these conclusions, we now turn to describing an MPA leadership course in which we have operationalized these general principals with some success.

Teaching leadership in PA: A Course ExampleAs we have argued, part of the dilemma with teaching leadership effectively is

characterizing it in a way that permits identification of appropriate educational approaches. In our discussion so far, we have identified the fundamental prin-ciples of a pedagogical strategy for teaching leadership. We now consider how instructors might employ these principles in the classroom. To demonstrate our propositions, we present a case example from our own experience grappling with teaching leadership that describes how we have approached structuring a course.



Table 3. Matching Instructional Methods with Leadership Competencies Instructor-centered

Interactive Individual-ized

Experiential

Mentor 1. Understanding self and others (p) a a a

2. Communicating effectively (p) a a

3. Developing employees (p) a a

Facilitator

1. Building teams (p) a a

2. Using participative decision making (p) a a

3. Managing conflict (p) a a

Broker

1. Building and maintaining power base (p) a a

2. Negotiating agreement & commitment (p) a a

3. Presenting ideas (t) a a a a

Innovator

1. Living with change (p) a a

2. Thinking creatively (t) a a a

3. Managing change (p) a a

Monitor

1. Monitoring individual performance (t) a a a a

2. Managing collective performance/process (p) a a

3. Critically analyze information (t) a a a a

Coordinator

1. Managing projects (t) a a a a

2. Designing work (t) a a a a

3. Managing across functions (t) a a a a

Director

1. Developing/coordinating vision (t) a a a a

2. Setting goals and objectives (t) a a a a

3. Designing and organizing (t) a a a a

Producer

1. Working productively (t) a a a a

2. Fostering productive environment (p) a a

3. Managing time and stress (t) a a a a

(t) denotes task-based competencies, and (p) denotes people-based competencies.



We do not present this as a finished product but rather as a work in progress that we refine each year as we strive to improve our strategies. Following this discus-sion, we also offer some more tactical advice for implementing a leadership course that adheres to the framework developed in this paper and generates a positive response from students.

Strategic Design ChoicesFor decades, the Master of Public Administration (MPA) program in the

Maxwell School at Syracuse University has culminated with the capstone course, “Executive Leadership and Policy Politics,” an intensive three-week program designed to bring alive the exigencies of managerial leadership in the complex context of policy imperatives and political interests. Generations of students can recount war stories from their Executive Leadership experience. The course has taken many forms over the years, but its enduring objective has been to allow MPA students an opportunity to learn and experiment with leadership strategies, decision-making techniques, and tactics for influencing the actions of others in the face of competing values, challenging issues, and multiple objectives.

Table 4. Standards for Success in Learning Leadership Roles

Roles Indicators of high level of learning

Mentor Evaluate self and others, internalize value differences, adapt behavior in self and others, sustain message synthesis, value-based appeals, and organize values

Facilitator Obtain goal synthesis, evaluate decision alternatives, organize dispa-rate values, adopt hybrid approaches

Broker Synthesize positions and support, analyze disparate ideas, organize disparate values, adopt creative solutions

Innovator Evaluate alternatives, appeal to values, originate new approaches, organize disparate values

Monitor Analyze and synthesize information

Coordinator Analyze and synthesize information, adopt new processes

Director Synthesize and evaluate information, internalize and organize values in others, adapt change in others

Producer Analyze and synthesize information, internalize and organize value of productive inputs, adopt productive practices



Our course design rests on two overarching assumptions that we articulated in the first paragraph of this paper. The first is that leadership is directly relevant to MPA education. MPA graduates are likely to engage in policy debates that affect all levels of government and crosscut all sectors of society and the economy. We already train our graduates to perform careful, reasoned analyses of problems and to develop convincing policy options. But the achievement of results depends on garnered support for preferred solutions across a multitude of constituencies with vested, but conflicting, interests that must be resolved through an intricate process of tradeoffs. Success in this process is the essence of leadership: develop-ing a common understanding of objectives, achieving consensus about a course of action, and orchestrating implementation of solutions. Our course targets this challenge explicitly, using contemporary policy issues to replicate the complex managerial and political environment leaders face as realistically as possible, and placing our students in situations designed to develop their ability to operate as leaders in this context.

Our second assumption is that leadership can be taught. Attempts in the litera-ture notwithstanding, it is hard to generalize about leadership—to characterize leadership prospectively and to identify attributes of success. In fact, leadership is typically identified and understood after it occurs because it is so contingent; that is, the match of a particular person, their unique aptitudes, and the specific nature of circumstances may collude to generate a circumstance in which success-ful leadership is demonstrated. One thing we do learn from the literature is that many different valid and potentially successful styles of leadership exist. Accord-ingly, we seek to create an educational context that prompts leadership to emerge naturally.

Predicated on these assumptions, the course’s mission is to help students ap-prehend the challenges of leadership and develop personal strategies for meeting them. As we have discussed, such strategies hinge on a range of task-based and people-based competencies, each of which is more susceptible to some teaching methods than others. Therefore the course employs multiple instructional meth-ods that range from instructor-centered to experiential (as shown in Table 3).

The core course convenes each weekday for five to six hours with the entire cohort of over 100 MPA students in attendance. Assignments (generally short reflective essays) and class preparation require additional time from students, so that the total course commitment is full-time for three weeks. Historically, the format had been lectures and case studies in the first week, with the remain-ing two weeks dedicated to live simulation activity, thereby incorporating but segregating instructional activities directed toward the cognitive and behavioral domains. We have modified our approach over time and now integrate a vari-ety of instructional activities in each week so that the course is more balanced and continuous in its appeal to all three domains of learning. Today, the basic



structure of the course involves two major components that operate concurrently throughout its three-week period.

The first component varies between strongly instructor-centered and very inter-active, to target cognitive and affective learning. We use lectures and classroom discussions to facilitate exposure to and understanding of leadership concepts from a cognitive standpoint, and we supplement this with case studies, guest speakers, panels, and films to add context to the contemporary principles and is-sues of policy, leadership, and management, appealing more to students’ affective domains of learning. Substantively, this part of the course singles out core con-cepts with sessions on integrity, ethics, accountability, conflict, diversity, change, and crisis management. It brings these alive through current policy presentations and discussions that vary depending on what is happening in the world that year.

The second component is individualized and experiential, targeting affective and behavioral learning. Here we assign a series of goal-oriented, role-playing activities that explicitly evoke leadership principles and practices. Many of these are derived from published leadership exercises and assessment tools. We also im-merse the students in a two-day simulation to encourage leadership performance in live action within the context of a crisis. We have devised our own scenarios in the past, and we currently use a proprietary exercise. Always, though, the simula-tion model is guided by an overarching political and bureaucratic scenario with budgetary constraints and requires the assignment of roles (e.g., congressman, cabinet secretary, budget analyst, governor, mayor, etc.) and specific policy tasks. The students then play out their simulation roles in pursuit of their respec-tive tasks and organizational and policy goals. Consistent with the target of the leadership literature, the instructor’s attention is on the interpersonal and inter-group behaviors and on the incentives and group dynamics that lead to these behaviors. In addition, the smaller role-playing exercises vary in the level of stress they engender, while the simulation is configured as a high-stress exercise, so that students can appreciate how the skills required and their own aptitude vary ac-cording to the urgency of the task environment.

Admittedly, students usually begin the course somewhat reticent, feeling as if they are guinea pigs in their mad professor’s experiment, particularly during the exercises and simulations. Whether the students vigorously engage their roles depends on the character of the class and the cues given by the classmates who tend to be the social and academic leaders. Frankly, some years are better than others–a hazard when instructional methods are heavily dependent on student engagement. What becomes evident to the students very quickly, however, is that the more stressful exercises and simulation overwhelm them with informa-tion with which to make decisions, and they realize then that they must behave strategically to be effective. They then begin to develop organizing protocols for themselves and eventually find a rhythm of interaction that is comfortable and begin to improvise their roles in colorful and creative ways.



To summarize so far, we purposefully seek cognitive, affective, and behavioral learning in our course through an instructional strategy that relies heavily on in-teractive and experiential methods. Ideally, drawing on the Bloom et al. typology (Table 1) the best learning on a given topic takes place when leadership behaviors are synthesized and evaluated in the cognitive domain, mentally organized and internalized in the affective, and adapted and originated for use behaviorally. Applied to leadership, this suggests that the best learning takes place when the students understand the various leadership concepts, identify with a set of leader-ship characteristics, and develop effective leadership approaches that fit their respective competencies and styles.

As we have mentioned, we find the competing values framework helpful in integrating skill-based lessons learned in various domains. Table 2 tells us that experiential methods are perhaps best at integrating learning across the three do-mains, and Table 3 provides guidance on how to approach teaching task-oriented skills versus people-oriented skills. From Table 3 we see that the latter skills set are not likely learned through individualized and instructor-led methods, pro-viding further support for the use of interactive and experiential instructional methods. Again, any leadership model can be applied in Table 3; the key is to match the associated skills with the instructional methods most likely to maxi-mize learning.

These instructional vehicles create learning conditions under which students can acquire knowledge of the principles of leadership (the cognitive domain), can appreciate the challenges of leadership and recognize their own innate leadership potential (the affective domain), and can cultivate and practice useful leadership skills (the behavioral domain), as follows:

1. Cognitive. The course explicitly provides a conceptual grounding in the basic themes, principles, and institutions of leadership and politics. This provides new knowledge and helps to fill knowledge gaps that may persist even after comple-tion of MPA coursework. Following the guidance in Table 2, this aspect of the course is handled in a mainly didactic format, providing students an opportu-nity to think rigorously about the behavioral dynamics in institutions facing the challenges—both expected and unexpected—of governance in a constitutional democracy. In the classroom, students engage the leadership and management issues that arise as public officials pursue a multitude of conflicting goals and confront variegated constituencies. Formal treatment of these topics may occur sporadically elsewhere in a student’s coursework, but typical MPA courses rarely give substantial attention to the responsibilities and methods of public sector leadership under these conditions. For this reason, careful classroom attention to concepts and principles is required to support the students’ experiential learning.

In particular, this course looks at both organizational and policy leadership. With organizational leadership, it helps students to identify the challenges inherent in guiding deliberative decision-making. At the same time, it promotes



systematic examination of important dimensions of public policy making—what the appropriate role of government is, how policy problems are defined, how analysis facilitates the choice among policy alternatives, and how we can know whether policies will achieve the desired ends—and demonstrates how each of these dimensions is inherently political. This didactic component of the course forms the substrate on which the practical component rests.

2. Affective. Through extensive and intensive exercises, the course provides students direct personal experiences with leadership—as leaders and as follow-ers (or even dissenters). The experiential activities recreate the public policy process within a competitive setting, highlighting the politically charged nature of resource and policy decisions. It generally involves a series of live exercises and simulations during which students each take on the role of an actor in the policy-making process. Our experience has been that students readily see that analytical skills and reasoning are necessary to sort through possible policy solu-tions, but they often notice for the first time the emotional challenges that attach to such a value-laden process. They come to realize how public administrators must balance a multitude of constituencies with vested, but conflicting, interests that must be resolved through an intricate process of tradeoffs—tradeoffs that go to the heart of human concerns about how to allocate burdens and benefits. And they begin to appreciate that effective and ethical leadership is essential to developing and implementing policy alternatives that have values-based conse-quences. The search for common elements among competing interests may be the hardest and least obvious of leadership tasks, and the one with which students struggle the most. This course immerses students in this challenge so that they can develop emotional intelligence about the demands leveraged on leaders.

3. Behavioral. The experiential component of the course is also designed to give students an opportunity to experiment—to learn which strategies and tactics for making decisions and influencing the actions of others succeed and which fail. Moreover, the course supports many different valid and potentially successful styles of leadership and allows students to identify the styles with which they are most and least comfortable. One important characteristic of the simulation component is that how the exercises progress is determined almost exclusively by the decisions the students make and by the actual conventions of the policy- and budget-making processes. Only a few parameters necessary to facilitate a coher-ent simulation are specified in advance. After that, it’s up to the students. This makes it a more exciting and engaging event than if the causes and effects were programmed in advance, but most importantly it gives students a truer sense of what leadership competencies are important and effective.

Finally, to help the cognitive, affective, and behavioral lessons coalesce into real learning, we have learned the importance of following shorter exercises with debriefing sessions and likewise to stop longer simulation role-play to insert debriefings. These sessions are designed to reconcile observed behavior with



theoretical frames and case study examples. Also, we now favor shorter, more structured exercises and simulation activities over the free-flowing two-week model of our program’s lore. This change has facilitated more focused debriefing and learning assimilation opportunities, but also skill-enhancing repetition on a wider array of leadership challenges. Just as a budding dancer must repeatedly practice steps and moves to become proficient, so must a budding leader practice negotiation, conflict resolution, and communication skills, to name a few, to be effective. Small, “real time” corrections seem to be easier for students to take on board than large, “post-event” corrections.

Practical Advice for Teaching LeadershipHaving illustrated our pedagogical strategy, it seems useful to add to this

discussion some practical advice borne of several years of teaching the course described above—some ideas for others hoping to develop or improve their own leadership courses. Thus, in this section, we offer some lessons we have learned, from trial and error and from student feedback, about what works well in the classroom, in hopes that others can benefit from some of the experiences we have had.

1. Provide students with frameworks they can use. We follow Quinn et al. (2003) in our contention that, in fact, circumstances that call for leadership vary dramati-cally and thus demand a variety of skills and talents that students can recognize in themselves and refine. To ground a leadership course, we advocate relying on a framework of leadership that methodically identifies the many dimensions of leadership (e.g. directing, mentoring, facilitating, etc.) and specifies the variety of styles and skills that have been shown to be successful. The course described above explicitly presents students with conceptual frameworks that can help them organize their thinking about leadership and then follows up with sub-stantial practice trying out various leadership competencies. This allows students to understand systematically which kinds of situations call for which skills, strengths, functions, and styles. Without a clear organizing framework, students’ learning will be more haphazard and less coherent. Their experience will frus-trating because they won’t have a basis for consolidating their new knowledge and understanding. Models like Quinn’s are touchstones that facilitate cognitive learning as well as help students make sense of their experience in the course.

2. Create a realistic experiential learning environment. As we have argued, simply being told about leadership may satisfy cognitive learning objectives, but it ignores affective and behavioral objectives, making it hard for students to fully apprehend what is involved in leading. In effect, students will “own” leadership better if they learn by doing. We believe this argues for using simulations and role-playing. The dilemma is that simulations can feel too fictional to be plausi-ble. To mitigate this, we recommend that the learning environment be as nonde-terministic (unscripted) as possible. Much of leadership has to do with creativity



and with each person’s ability to marshal their particular skills and abilities to solve problems and make decisions. If the precise parameters of problems and so-lutions are set in advance, then the learning environment is not open to creative solutions that students might devise. This argues for simulations to be structured flexibly so that the students can change the rules to the greatest extent possible. Students should control their destiny and bear the consequences of their choices.

On the other hand, certain constraints and boundaries should be inviolate to be realistic. Students must, for example, confront time, information, and resource limitations. Leaders never have as much time, money, people, information, or po-litical capital as they would like, but this does not obviate the need for decisions and it does not preclude success. Students should learn how to operate under con-ditions of scarcity, how to make decisions under uncertainty, and how to enhance their knowledge in real time through data gathering and analysis.

3. Create a learning environment that is simultaneously political and operational. PA programs tend to emphasize administration, mostly leaving political behavior to political science programs. Yet leaders must not only solve implementation problems but contend with the complexity of motives and incentives that may not align with the apparent problem at hand. In other words, political leadership often varies dramatically from administrative leadership in its motives and objec-tives. The course should help students notice these differences and the interac-tion between them. To capture this complexity, we often use budgetary processes in the simulation component of the course as it is used in the real world: as a mechanism to reach agreement and formulate policy solutions about larger social issues in a political environment.

4. Incorporate unexpected contingencies. Examples of strong leadership that ap-pear in the literature often portray leaders who rose to the occasion of crisis circumstances (Mayor Giuliani on September 11, for example). In our course, we generally emphasize the everyday (though by no means straightforward) chal-lenges that public sector leaders face in running organizations and implementing public policy. But it is true that leaders face special demands when things are not routine. As challenging as daily operations may be, crises pose stressful circum-stances that call for even more—and different—skills. Moreover, today’s policy environment is rife with new and poorly understood threats. Thus, the skills of crisis management should be addressed explicitly. Students must be confronted with the affective dilemmas unique to catastrophes, including decision-making under conditions of extreme uncertainty, assessing tradeoffs between risky op-tions, and directing organizations overwhelmed by disaster.

5. Involve analysis, but keep it in its place. Leaders regularly depend on sound anal-ysis to solve complicated problems; therefore the learning environment should demand that good analysis be conducted and employed. Leadership courses that fail to incorporate the analytic activities germane to the policy process misrep-resent the environments in which most PA graduates will typically operate. The

analytic thinking skills that PA programs seek to inculcate in their students are incomplete until students learn two important lessons: how to strike the right balance between precipitous decision-making and “analysis paralysis,” and how to choose an appropriate course of action when no analytically optimal solution is feasible. For us, incorporating analysis into our capstone leadership course has also created a nice opportunity for students to try out the skills they learned throughout their program in a dynamic and realistic setting.

6. Provide multiple iterations. In an experiential learning environment, students rarely succeed fully the first time they attempt to lead. They should have oppor-tunities to try skills out, reflect on what they learn, and try again. They should also view leadership from various perspectives and so should play various roles. This allows students to learn from their missteps and to build competence and capacity. And, as we mentioned above, to help students consolidate their learn-ing, it is useful to schedule regular “in-progress” review sessions where role-play is suspended long enough to afford students the opportunity to reflect on their rationale for and the results of their leadership choices.

7. Create dynamic, long-duration experiences. Leadership is something real leaders cannot put down at the end of the day. Students must experience the ramifica-tions of this “burden” and the endurance it requires before they can have confi-dence in their skills. Moreover, policy, political, and operational contexts are not static but change in response to a leader’s decisions. A learning environment that permits this interaction to evolve over time allows students to develop higher-order behavioral skills (such as flexibility and adaptability).

8. Engage contemporary policy debates. While the prime target of the course we have developed is leadership itself, and not leadership with respect to any par-ticular policy issue or context, using contemporary policy issues keeps students interested and engaged. Exploration of real and significant policy questions has a natural affective appeal to students who select into public policy and man-agement graduate work. The focus on contentious public policy debates also gives the students an opportunity to probe the complexity of these dilemmas and makes for some very worthwhile substantive discussions that have utility in themselves. Thus, the students can take from the course more careful and thoughtful perspectives on contemporary policy issues in addition to a leadership experience.

9. Involve role models. An important learning mode we have not mentioned directly is observation. From the instructor perspective, this is satisfied through demonstration, an instructor-centered method. In our course, we have found that students benefit from the opportunity to interact with guests who are exemplars of effective leadership and who can comment on the challenges of leadership from personal experience. These guests often make formal presentations, but more intensive opportunities for interaction are valuable. As examples, students can





make in-role presentations to the guests, can meet guests in small groups, and can interact with them in informal settings.

10. Provide meaningful assessment. Perhaps the most important tactic in teaching leadership is to provide students with feedback that allows them to judge their progress at learning and employing leadership competencies. Feedback may take several forms, but we have found three main strategies useful. For cognitive skills, students can be tested conventionally using papers and examinations. For affec-tive skills, feedback is provided in the form of consequences. In other words, as students make decisions in the context of exercises, the results and ramifications of their choices must be perceptible. If the exercise concludes before the decisions can have outcomes, then students will never know how effective they were able to be. This requires that exercises incorporate appropriately realistic feedback mech-anisms (such as votes, budget allocations, or service outcomes in a public policy exercise). For behavioral skills, self- and peer-assessments, if administered care-fully, can provide important feedback. Regardless of the evaluative mechanisms employed, though, it is important that they be configured constructively, so that students do not face retribution for taking the risk of trying out new, unfamiliar leadership skills with which they are not yet facile.

ConclusionThis paper has attempted to draw from key literatures and perspectives to

develop a strategic model for teaching leadership. We synthesized the compre-hensive leadership framework of Quinn et al. (2003) with the learning frame-work of Bloom et al. (1964) to highlight the learning conditions appropriate for the lessons in leadership. We then drew from Gagne and Dick’s (1983) match of instructional strategies to Bloom’s learning domains to identify instructional strategies appropriate for teaching leadership. Finally, in summarizing our experi-ence with our capstone course for the MPA degree, we hoped to identify design strategies and tactical choices that flow from these conceptual and practical underpinnings. We do not pretend to have the answer to the perplexing chal-lenge of teaching leadership well. However, we believe that with a well-developed strategy, effective teaching of leadership in PA is achievable. Indeed, given the political and policy environment in which we will send our graduate students, we believe teaching leadership is absolutely necessary. We hope our discussion offers an approach that others find helpful.

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Lloyd A. Blanchard is the vice provost for fiscal management at Louisiana State University, where he also serves as executive director of LSU’s National Center for Security Research and Training, and adjunct associate professor of public administration. His research focuses generally on the resource tradeoffs in social and economic policy considerations, with a particular focus on small business finance, education accountability, and performance budgeting. His professional background includes federal executive positions in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Small Business Administration (SBA), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Amy K. Donahue is head of the Department of Public Policy at the University of Connecticut. Her research focuses on the productivity of emergency services organizations and on the nature of citizen demand for public safety. She recently returned from Louisiana State University, where she served as the founding direc-tor of the Stephenson Disaster Management Institute, a research institute focused on the challenges of managing large disaster responses. For the past five years, Donahue has served as a technical advisor to the Department of Homeland Secu-rity, helping to develop research and development programs to meet the techno-logical needs of emergency responders.


Radical Pedagogy: Lessons from the

“Africa Book” Project

Sarah E. RyanCity University of New York

AbstractAs public affairs educators search for meaningful ways to spark discussions

of diversity and promote cultural competencies among their students, a radical assignment highlights the potential of MPA coursework to engender profound results. The “Africa book” project engaged 50 students in social justice research. Although the project explicitly focused on writing and presentation skills, it simultaneously challenged students’ conceptions of the world, privileged mar-ginalized viewpoints, and sparked debates about race, class, international affairs, and the responsibility of public affairs professionals to employ their training for positive social change. Suggestions for future radical projects are provided by the student and faculty authors of the Africa book.

On December 28, 2006, Michael Wines, a Johannesburg-based New York Times correspondent, shed light on Africa’s silent tragedy: the fate of millions of under-nourished youth. These children survive famine only to emerge as physically dev-astated adults. Their stunted minds and bodies prevent them from fully engaging in the heavy labor that is often the primary means for economic self-sufficiency in Africa’s poorest nations. They live in perennially drought-stricken countries such as Niger and healing nations such as Liberia. According to Wines, “[t]he world mostly mourns the dead, not the survivors. Intellectual stunting is seldom obvi-ous until it is too late” (2006, A1). Wines’ article was presented to MPA students with a challenge: to craft solutions for ameliorating child malnutrition in Africa.

Fifty students in two sections of PAF 9103: Communication and Public Settings were assigned the task of harnessing the power of communication to alleviate child malnutrition. The assignment provoked a mixture of exhilaration and disbelief. As one student put it, “I was excited and overwhelmed.”1 After 10 weeks of research and drafting, the students completed an 11-chapter book and

JPAE 13(3/4):487–497


Radical Pedagogy: Lessons from the “Africa Book” Project

held a two-day conference attended by African dignitaries and nongovernment organization (NGO) leaders. At the conclusion of the “Africa book” project, the students exhibited greater confidence as writers and public speakers and devel-oped an appreciation for public administration in international contexts. Perhaps most importantly, the students gained respect for each other’s strengths and for diversity in the largest sense. The Africa book2 privileged often-marginalized viewpoints and provided practical training aimed at improving students’ cultural competencies.

The Africa book project began as an exercise in applying communication theory to the African context. Drawing on the fifth edition of Everett Rogers’ renowned Diffusion of Innovations, the assignment engaged students in critical in-terrogations of the role that communication plays in social evolution. The aim of the book assignment was to involve students in a grounded case study of minor-ity issues (NASPAA Commission on Peer Review and Accreditation (COPRA); Johnson and Rivera, 2007). Teams of three to five students utilized Rogers’ clas-sic S-curve model to determine the most probable channels for localized change in their chosen African nations. They articulated grounded solutions in increas-ingly complex written drafts as they prepared for their public conference.

The conference component supplemented the written assignment and fulfilled the oral speaking requirement of the course. Entering the course, students knew that they would be delivering speeches; they had not anticipated presenting at a conference. Though most students were reticent about publicly displaying their work, they were comforted by the thought that the conference would likely be populated entirely by friends and family. Letters were mailed to more than 100 dignitaries and NGO leaders, but students “assumed that there would not be enough time for invitees to change their schedules” and attend two nights of presentations. Still, with anticipation of an outside audience—any audience—the project took on a sense of urgency from the first class onward.

The architecture of the assignment involved six writing, four small group discussion, and three oral presentation components (see Table 1). The multi-phase project incorporated scaffolded assignments that allowed students to hone their writing via increasingly difficult interrelated individual and group drafts (Kolikant, Gatchell, Hirsch, and Linsenmeier, 2006; Petrucci, 2002). The draft-ing process exacted a heavy time commitment from the professor and students during the initial half of the project. Students had mixed reactions to the writ-ing component of the project. Some saw the scaffolding as a useful heuristic for processing communication theory, while others found the redrafting and the interconnected individual and group writing assignments difficult to manage and somewhat confusing:

• “I misunderstood the focus of the writing assignments—i.e., I had dif-ficulty balancing the communication theory with creating a somewhat



Component Description Written Oral

Individual country proposal memo

A one-page memo employing Toulmin-style (claim-ground- warrant) arguments for selecting a particular African nation as a pilot location (e.g., greatest need, likelihood of success, and/or modeling).

x

Country selection group discussion

A 30- to 45-minute in-class group discussion of the group mem-bers’ chosen nations, resulting in the debate and selection of a single pilot project nation per group. Groups were allowed to overlap (i.e., choose the same nation as another group, as was the case with Niger and Liberia).

x

Group country proposal memo

A 2- to 3-page memo employing Toulmin-style arguments justify-ing the nation that the group selected.

x

Group country presentation

A 5-minute “low tech” (e.g., no PowerPoint) oral defense of the group’s selection of a particular nation and a basic introduction to that nation’s history, demographics, etc.

x

Individual country issue mini-report

A 3- to 4-page report focusing on a particular issue related to child malnutrition in the chosen nation (e.g., geography and weather, political landscape and history, economic opportunities and challenges).

x

Country issues group discussion

A 30- to 45-minute in-class group discussion of the various issues researched by each group member. Groups were charged with the task of combining individual reports/research findings into a consistent and comprehensive report following this meeting.

x

Group country issues report

A 12- to 15-page APA-style (American Psychological Association, e.g., in-text parenthetical citations) research report detailing the obstacles and assets affecting the landscape of child nutrition in the pilot nation. This report was not to contain “solutions” and roughly approximated the sort of needs assessment commonly found in grant proposals.

x

Group coun-try issues presentation

An 8- to 10-minute “high tech” articulation of the issues facing the target nation via precisely six PowerPoint slides and individual issue reports from each member of each group.

x

Individual solutions report

A 3- to 4-page report providing an original communication solution/model crafted by the student and based on the findings of the group research process. Each solution had to draw upon Rogers’ diffusion of innovations model(s) and articulate specific individual and/or group social change actors (e.g., headmen as opinion leaders in Namibia).

x

Solutions group discussion

A 30- to 45-minute discussion of the solutions offered by group members. A critical evaluation and debate of solutions’ feasibility based upon criteria such as available resources and cultural con-straints. Groups were instructed to select three to five solutions. They were permitted to combine individual solutions, create new solutions as a group, and discard any proposed solutions without penalty (to the individual or group.)

x

Table 1. Components of the Africa Book Assignment



practical solution/project. The re-drafting process was therefore a real salvation.”

• “In the beginning it was complicated, since each member had a totally different idea of what we were doing. Although my group was wonder-ful and hardworking, the overall process of assembling a four-minded-paper was painful.”

• “I think [the assignments] were very effective. We did the project in steps, which made it less overwhelming in the final analysis. This method forced us to begin working immediately.”

Although the writing assignments proved time-consuming and challenging, the oral presentations were viewed overwhelmingly positively.

Overall, students rated the three oral presentation assignments as “effective.” Further, they almost unanimously appreciated the scaffolded presentations, each with increasing formality and length. Though students found it difficult to assess their improvement as writers, they recognized their oral presentation successes:

• “With each presentation there was obvious improvement. By the con-ference I think each group showed significant improvement.”

• “I thought the oral presentations were helpful. It is difficult to talk about something that, despite all of the research you’ve done, you feel self-conscious about. I feel like a more confident speaker now.”

One triumph shared by most class members was the ability to field a barrage of audience questions, especially those lobbied by the adversarial Ambassador of Zimbabwe, Boniface Chidyausiku. In post-conference feedback sessions, the stu-

Conference planning discussion

A 45- to 60-minute in-class group planning session devoted to finalizing writing, editing, and presentation planning prior to the conference. Final chapters were due several days prior to the conference.

x

Group final report

A 15- to 20-page book chapter outlining the background of child malnutrition in a target country, articulating needs and capaci-ties, and offering three to five never-tried solutions. Each chapter included an abstract, a literature review, a solutions/discussion section, and APA-style references. Authors were listed in order of their contribution to the project (without penalty during the portfolio grading process).

x

Class conference with expert panel testimony

A formal, videotaped, two-day conference attended by African dignitaries, NGO leaders, and guests. Each evening’s session com-menced with remarks from Baruch College administrators. Stu-dents presented from microphoned daises for 8 to 10 minutes, followed by open audience questioning for five to seven minutes.

x

Table 1, continued



dents expressed relief at having completed their turns on the dais and a sense of satisfaction at answering questions such as “What did the officials at the Namib-ian consulate think of your plan?” The students reveled in the “unique opportu-nity to communicate with ambassadors and people in power.” Students also took great satisfaction in presenting expert testimony.

The Africa book project required students to apply theories to real-world situ-ations as communication experts. This engaged learning was constructed as a quasi-consultancy, with African nations serving as clients. Students were in-structed to respect the sovereignty of their clients and to incorporate discussions with national policymakers into their solutions in some capacity. The assign-ment married public affairs concerns with communication theory. Some students expressed appreciation for the “outside the box” approach to theory, while others were frustrated that the course did not encompass a greater menu of communica-tion theories. One of the most provocative responses to the project demonstrated a deep appreciation for the complexities of fitting theories to practice, along with a healthy dose of skepticism:

[E]xamining development issues through a communication perspective shed some light on the complications that slow adoption of new techniques. I think we could have examined even further the role of government and community leaders in the process, particularly their interests and motivations in development projects. Also, I think there was a presumption that classic communication models can provide the means for solving these complex issues in Africa (e.g., that previous generations of development workers have failed to work through the various layers of the S-curve, etc.) But I think the class should question that assumption (and really know if that’s one of the missing items in development work).

While such critical thinking about communication was the goal of the proj-ect, the African context was also meant to prompt international “development” discussions.

The U.S.-based MPA is often focused on local “laboratories.” That is, much MPA coursework privileges domestic service delivery. Scholars have recognized that MPA graduates must possess cultural competencies for their “work in a glo-balized world” (Johnson and Rivera, 2007). Such cultural competencies require knowledge of cultural diversity and the skills to be able to serve a diverse public (see Rice, 2007). Although many MPA graduates will manage U.S. institutions, education in “social equity” (Gooden and Wooldridge, 2006), whether in South Bronx or South African contexts, fosters public servants more adept at interacting with diverse stakeholders. The Africa book represented a departure from exercises in domestic public administration, and some students embraced it as “inspiring”



and “interesting;” others suggested that “a project ‘closer to home,’ such a NYC, would have been more beneficial.” The majority of students seemed to appreciate the context, because “most other PAF [MPA] classes do not [take an international approach].” For some students, an African project represented a return to the familiar. More than 10 percent of the students were African natives or had served in the Peace Corps in Africa or traveled extensively on the continent. A significant percentage of the Africa book authors were pursuing MPAs en route to internation-al NGO work. Although not all students believed that they gained meaningful in-sights into the lives of people in their target nations as a result of the project, some students emerged with newfound discoveries about public sector work in Africa:

• “[I]t made me realize how extra desperate the situation is.... However, it made me realize the potential there to help themselves.”

• “After the project, I felt that something could actually be done about hunger in Africa. Before the project, I had a sense of hopelessness about Africa.... [After the project] I had a better sense of the different coun-tries and cultures…and a greater understanding of the challenges. I also thought that the ambassadors were very impressive.”

• “It renewed my belief that change is possible. Although, it also com-pounded my belief that creating sustainable change in Africa is an incredibly complex challenge.”

Several students also expressed an increased knowledge of African “culture” and “political and social structures.” The project was designed to elicit fact-finding about specific countries so that the students would develop a greater appreciation for the wealth of differences among African nationalities. Some responses suggest-ed that students appreciated the uniqueness of country-specific strategies, while other comments suggested that students still hold a monolithic view of Africa.

One flashpoint in the process served to most directly challenge this view, as it brought a particular nation’s political struggles to light. “The Sudan question” consumed the students for nearly two weeks. After the Sudanese Ambassador, Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamad, sent word that he would attend the conference, the debates began. Only one group had chosen to study the Sudan. Among them were a Nigerian native, an anti-war protester/Greenpeace-Japan activist, an anarchist, and a practicing Muslim born and raised in Harlem. The group harbored insecurity about how to discuss Sudan’s malnutrition issues in a diplomatic manner. Several members of the group faulted the Khartoum govern-ment, exclusively, for the rampant child malnutrition in the Darfur region. Fur-ther, some group members viewed the Ambassador’s visit as a prime opportunity to protest the situation in Darfur. “The Sudan group,” as they came to be known, turned to the class for advice, and an exchange ensued via Blackboard. Online, students wrestled with balancing passion and professionalism:



• “[M]ore can be accomplished by staying on point and seizing an op-portunity for dialogue about an issue at hand.... I’d look at it from a pragmatic, economic point of view. No nation-state can expect to sus-tain growth and development if its children have no future....”

• “I’m very torn about this. I would prefer to remain professional dur-ing the presentations, but I also feel strongly that we cannot ignore problems in...Sudan.... Perhaps a subtle protest, such as [sales of] the wristbands SaveDarfur.org..., would be an appropriate way to make our feelings known while not making a scene.”

• “400,000 killed in Sudan is never justifiable no matter what the causes are...it is so easy to be angry with the ambassador.... But it’s not the way to solve the problem.... I think my solution is the most controver-sial, challenging and even pseudo-punishment to the ambassador.... So I am really worried about how I should do the presentation. We will keep our discussion as objective as possible. But that doesn’t mean I don’t care about the issue. I never take off my wristband [from the 2006 Save Darfur] Central Park march.”

• “I think that the presentation itself should be respectful in a way that opens up the Q&A following the presentation into a dialogue.... Even though our conference is not an SPA [School of Public Affairs] spon-sored event, we also want to represent our class and our School well.”

• “At the UN, or similarly here at the School of Public Affairs, our pre-sentations should be respectful, professional, and academic. Out on the street we could be more confrontational.”

Via the online discussion and in-class dialogue, the class reached a consensus on “the Sudan question.” Some members of the class wore armbands. The Su-dan group’s presentation was scheduled next to last at the request of the Kenya group, who planned techniques for restoring order if a protest broke out. Mem-bers of the Sudan group agreed to not simply accuse the Khartoum government of “genocide,” but instead presented multiple explanations for the situation in Darfur, including global warming as a factor. Most importantly, they pulled together as a group, dug into the research, and spurred a class-wide debate that opened the door for country and issue-specific discussions. Further, “the Sudan question” motivated students to continue their research and activism following the conclusion of the project, as suggested by a post-conference Blackboard post that tied activism to the five stages of the diffusion of innovation model:

• “I think one of the things we should keep in mind all of the time is that we should not stop here. We need to keep paying attention to the issue.... Knowing is the first step...we need to move forward to the implementation stage.”



Taking this call to heart, nearly a dozen students formed a post-course group devoted to the study of public administration issues in Africa. The interpersonal ties fostered by the project were a lasting take-away for many of the students.

The stress of writing the book and hosting the conference as well as the sense of accomplishment in crafting innovative strategies for a worthwhile cause united many of the students. Though not everyone left the project with positive impres-sions of their classmates, many expressed a new sense of empowerment, respect for fellow MPA students, and a feeling of solidarity born out of the intensity of the experience:

• “This project allows us all to feel closer because we were all going through the same process. I learned how to deal with others in a group setting, despite how difficult others can be. I learned about others’ opinions and personalities.”

• “[T]he project definitely helped me get to know people in the class and to learn how smart and talented they are.”

• “It made me realize the wealth of life experience my classmates have.• “It affected my opinions of us all; of how good quality work we were

able to produce in such a short time period.”• “[The project] led to a rich and concrete work, inspiring, if to no one

else, at least to the students, who became aware of their capabilities....”

The newfound respect and interpersonal ties fostered by project work are in line with Breihan’s suggestions for retaining a diverse MPA student body (2007).

Discussions surrounding the “Africa book” fostered intense relationship- building and it privileged nonmajority viewpoints. Throughout the project, students had to rely on each other to complete tasks. This included typical group work duties as well as knowledge sharing during group discussions. Illustrative of this sort of interchange was the class discussion of one student’s “SisterNet-work” microfinance proposal. The SisterNetwork would encourage communica-tion between U.S. micro-finance institutions and Nigerian change agents. These change agents would in turn recruit women from established farming coopera-tives who would ultimately reach out to rural women employed in nascent farm-ing cooperatives. At issue were Islamic guidelines for money lending. A heady debate involving nearly half of the class ensued. African students weighed in on regional trends, Muslim students offered their interpretations of the Koran, and the class came to a consensus: SisterNetwork could provide loans but not charge interest. The debate represented the sort of real-world weighing of competing claims and viewpoints that is at the heart of culturally competent service delivery.

Additionally, the privileging of African and Muslim students’ voices during the Niger debate ushered in immediate deference toward students with relevant knowledge. The sort of respect engendered by the Africa book complements



strategies designed to retain a diverse student body (Breihan, 2007). When stu-dents of color, nontraditional life experience, or international status can witness their perspectives broadening their fellow students’ educational experiences, they are likely to develop the “personal connections to individuals in the program” (Breihan, 2007, 98) that ensure that they will remain committed to finishing the MPA at that college or university. In addition to appreciating the wealth of skills and life experience possessed by other members of their MPA program, Africa book authors also expressed a deeper appreciation for public administration/ affairs.

Throughout the project, students’ responses indicated that the students felt empowered to work alongside their classmates to create change despite “how involved public administration/affairs [work is].” Although one student had “al-ways felt that public administration serves a higher purpose,” many now viewed the field as more complex and creative than they had previously imagined. The experience also taught them to question established procedures and “to seek alternatives outside the entrenched bureaucracy.” Still, even those students who felt “vague about [the profession of] public affairs” or who embraced strategies such as “word of mouth,” retained “a sense that something could be accomplished in public affairs.” They felt they had uniquely contributed to “a significant social project” and hoped to continue “changing the world” in their roles as servants in the public sector. That the Africa book solicited this sense of empowerment is not surprising, given that “diversity education fosters self-reflection, greater per-sonal development, greater intellectual and social self-confidence, greater criti-cal thinking and problem solving skills, and greater acceptance and openness to racial and cultural change” (Hewins-Maroney and Williams, 2007, 30). Research also predicts that the effect of such learning is long-lasting (Hewins-Maroney and Williams, 2007). However, to foster a deep commitment to diversity and social justice, projects such as the Africa book must operate in tandem with courses that are purposely designed to train public managers about diversity issues (Johnson and Rivera, 2007). These courses represent a break from tradition, a departure requiring faculty commitment.

Faculty might hesitate to assign such coursework because they feel that they are either shunting coverage of centrally important topics in favor of “diver-sity” (Rice, 2004) or stepping outside the bounds of their core competencies (Hewins-Maroney and Williams, 2007). However, viewing these assignments as case studies grounded in theory allows educators to teach to their strengths (e.g., communication theory) while simultaneously forging into unknown territory. Such projects require a leap of faith from the faculty and students as they journey together, but an ability to step outside of one’s comfort zone is precisely the skill needed for managing diverse agencies. In this instance, the faculty member serves as a model of risk-taking that the students can emulate in their careers. As stu-



dents and faculty take this journey together, they should take heed of the lessons learned during this radical experiment:

• Concrete writing assignments should be articulated in their entirety in the syllabus. Additionally, the scaffolded nature of the assignments should be explained at the outset of the project.

• “Prompt and positive feedback” (Breihan, 2007, 97) should accompany early individual and group written drafts to foster “direction and dis-cipline” (student comment). Feedback should include suggestions for completing future tasks.

• Students and faculty should reach a compromise over how much theory to cover before students commence grounded research. Students should be neither novices nor masters before they begin to gather background research.

• Clear, consistent guidelines for assessing individual and group contri-butions should guide grading. Utilizing a portfolio approach encour-ages students to experiment with new ideas and techniques.

• Sufficient time for small group and class discussions must accompany theory lectures and assignments. Also, planned skills trainings (e.g., public speaking, database research, etc.) should accompany any nontra-ditional exercises.

Overall, students and faculty must work together to successfully manage any radical exercise. Although students ultimately appreciate most “creative op-portunities” presented within their coursework, they rely on faculty members to structure those opportunities in ways that make them meaningful and manage-able. That can be difficult for faculty members purposefully engaging in a radical departure from the norm, especially because they might not always receive ad-ministrative support (Mayhew and Grunwald, 2006). Ultimately, radical proj-ects such as the Africa book require a great deal of patience and dedication from both the students and faculty. But that is a small price to pay for “easily the best memory of any class….”

The author wishes to thank Mario Rivera for his insightful feedback and members of the Baruch College MPA class of 2008 for their contributions.

Notes1. All student names have been omitted to ensure privacy. Student quotes were gleaned from

Blackboard messages logged during the course and a post-course electronic survey distributed to students enrolled in both sections of PAF 9103. Student participation in Blackboard and the post-course survey was voluntary. Although retrospective and self-selection biases are present in the responses, they represent a range of possible feedback. Of the 50 students enrolled in the course,



nearly half participated in Blackboard discussions and/or responded to the post-course survey. The survey questions included:

1. What did you first think when you learned we’d be writing a book and holding a two-day conference?

2. The project included six writing tasks—three individual and three group—designed to encourage a draft/redrafting process. How effective were these writing assignments?

3. The project involved three oral presentations, including the class conference. How effective were the oral presentation assignments?

4. Overall, do you feel that this project was valuable? Why or why not?5. Did this project enable you to learn more about communication? If yes, what did you learn?

If no, what would you suggest as a more effective assignment(s)?6. Did this project alter your opinions about Africa? If yes, how? 7. Did this project alter your opinion about public administration/affairs? If yes, how? 8. Did this project affect your opinions of your classmates (group or nongroup members)?

If yes, how? 9. Do you have any other thoughts, feelings, or suggestions related to this project?

2. The official title of the Africa book is Child Malnutrition in Africa: Opportunities for Communication and Social Change. See Ryan in the References section below.

ReferencesBreihan, A. W. 2007. “Attracting and Retaining a Diverse Student Body: Proven, Practical Strategies.”

Journal of Public Affairs Education, 13(1):87–101.Gooden, S. T., and B. Wooldridge. 2007. “Integrating Social Equity into the Core Human Resource

Management Course.” Journal of Public Affairs Education, 13(1):59–77.Hewins-Mahoney, B., and E. Williams. 2007. “Teaching Diversity in Public Administration: A Missing

Component.” Journal of Public Affairs Education, 13(1):29–40.Johnson, R. G., and M. A. Rivera. 2007. “A Need for Diversity Competencies in Human Resource

Management.” Journal of Public Affairs Education, 13(1):15–27.Kolikant, Y. B., D. W. Gatchell, P. L. Hirsch, and R. A. Linsenmeier. 2006. “A Cognitive-

Apprenticeship-Inspired Instructional Approach for Teaching Scientific Reading and Writing.” Journal of College Science Teaching, 36(3):20–25.

Petrucci, P. R. 2002. “A Writing-to-learn Approach to Writing in the Discipline in the Introductory Linguistics Classroom.” The WAC Journal, 13:133–143.

Mayhew, M., and H. Grunwald. 2006. “Factors contributing to Faculty Incorporation of Diversity-related Course Content.” The Journal of Higher Education, 77(1):148–168.

Rice, M. 2007. “Promoting Cultural Competency in Public Administration and Public Service Delivery: Utilizing Self-assessment Tools and Performance Measures.” Journal of Public Affairs Education, 13(1):41–57.

Rogers, E. M. 2003. Diffusion of Innovations, 5th ed. New York: Free Press.Ryan, S., ed. 2007. Child Malnutrition in Africa: Opportunities for Communication and Social Change. New

York, NY: Baruch College.Wines, M. 2006. “Malnutrition is Cheating Its Survivors, and Africa’s Future.” The New York Times.

December 28, A1.

Sarah E. Ryan is an assistant professor in the School of Public Affairs at Baruch College, City University of New York. She is the former director of the Bronx Defenders Debate Initiative and holds a Ph.D. in Rhetorical Criticism from the Scripps College of Communication at Ohio University. She may be contacted at [email protected].


The Institutional Design of Courses: Insights from the Rhetorical and

Strategic Study of Credibility

Holona L. Ochs, University of KansasAndrew B. Whitford, University of Georgia

AbstractHow can teachers establish credibility in the classroom? We argue that a teach-

er seeking to establish credibility in the classroom can look to the insights from the communications studies literature and the strategic games literature. Specifi-cally, this assessment reveals the connection between communication theory and strategic games. We demonstrate the utility of applying what we know from firmly established traditions. We argue that instructors can alter the perception of their competence and trustworthiness through credible commitment mecha-nisms. We also argue that instructors perceived as competent and trustworthy can facilitate greater learning potential by enhancing the motivational commit-ment and the imperative commitment of students.

A central task for teachers is to persuade students that what they teach has value. The problem of persuasion, of course, has long been studied. Because a teacher’s messages, just like political ones, are not independent of their source (McCroskey, 1997), the credibility of the teacher is a fundamental aspect of teaching persuasion and social influence. How does one build the capacity to gen-erate understanding or to persuade? What techniques are employed in persuasive discourse? When are particular methods more or less influential? How does one go about establishing the credibility necessary for influence?

On one hand, the literature in communication studies has attempted to ex-amine and measure message and source credibility as a construct to better assess variation in the perception of credibility (see McCroskey, 1966, 1997, 1999; McCroskey and Jensen, 1975; Mehrabian, 1970; McCroskey and Young, 1981;

JPAE 13(3/4):499–507


The Institutional Design of Courses: Insights from the Study of Credibility

Wanzenried, Powell, and Franks, 1989; Leathers, 1992; McCroskey and Rich-mond, 1996). Generally, this literature presents three theoretical constructs for understanding the perception of credibility as it is filtered through the source (see Whitehead, 1968; Berlo, Lemert, and Mertz, 1969; Applbaum and Anatol, 1973; Tuppen, 1974; McCroskey, 1966; McCroskey and Jenson, 1975): (1) competence, as measured by qualification, expertness, intelligence, and/or authoritativeness; (2) trustworthiness, as measured by character, sagacity, safety, and/or honesty; and (3) goodwill or intent toward the receiver. These three dimensions factor into two analytical dimensions—competence and trustworthiness—in both of which goodwill is subsumed (McCroskey and Young, 1981). Other studies focus on person perception (see Osgood, Suci, and Tannenbaum, 1957; Norman, 1963; Markham, 1968), emphasizing “trait-based” characteristics of the messenger (see Asch, 1946), nonverbal communication skills (Leathers, 1992), and biases in judgment (Ichheiser, 1949; Ross and Nisbett, 1991; Gilbert and Malone, 1995).

On the other hand, literature from the study of strategic games has also ad-dressed the role of credible commitments in human interaction (Dixit and Nale-buff, 1991). Shepsle (1991) defines a commitment as credible in the motivational sense when players continue to want to honor the commitment at the time of performance and a commitment as credible in the imperative sense when perfor-mance is coerced or discretion is disabled. Credible commitments are positively related to the development of social norms that foster long-term investments, which are undermined by opportunistic behavior (Macneil, 1980). The strate-gic games literature generally recognizes a three-component model of relational commitments (Meyer and Allen, 1991): (1) an input or instrumental component, which is essentially calculated acts that are difficult to redeploy; (2) an attitudinal component, which represents an enduring intention to develop stable relation-ships; and (3) a temporal component, which is a measure of consistency. Commit-ment structures that are less than credible yield mixed incentives, lack a strong normative culture, and are comprised of low levels of investment (Gundlach, Achrol, and Mentzer, 1995), ultimately undermining political exchange (Miller, 2000) and economic exchange (Falaschetti and Miller, 2001). External agents are necessary but not sufficient conditions for efficient exchange unless credible com-mitments against opportunism exist (Miller, 2000; Falaschetti and Miller, 2001).

In large part, these literatures have evolved separately, identifying two different dynamics for establishing credibility. The puzzle that persists in the communi-cation literature is that measures of source credibility and personal credibility are not stable (Powell and Wanzenried, 1995). The puzzle that remains in the strategic games literature is how commitment structures affect the perception of credibility.

In this paper, we argue that a teacher seeking to establish credibility in the classroom should look to the insights of both of these literatures. Specifically, we show how formal and informal commitment structures can foster perceptions of



competence and trustworthiness. We outline structural and behavioral mecha-nisms instructors can use to demonstrate their commitment to students perceptibly.

This analysis proceeds as follows. In the next section, we briefly discuss the problem of establishing credibility. We then review communications literature insights into the choices instructors can make that assist in the construction of classroom credibility. Third, we introduce some institutional choices instruc-tors can make to better demonstrate commitment and earn credibility. Last, we analyze some specific strategies for establishing credibility that flow from the communications and strategic games literatures.

Credibility in the ClassroomA short definition of credibility is the quality or power to inspire belief.

Establishing credibility is a means for achieving the goal of persuasion or gen-erating understanding (McCroskey and Young, 1981). Although teachers are the only authority figure afforded credibility consistently across the population (Hinckley and Shapiro, 1998; Jacobs, Hinckley, and Shapiro, 1999), credibility is not often addressed in the literature on classroom performance and behavior. Classroom leadership is particularly important for university instructors because of the growing tendency for college students, who are largely autonomous and independent, to question authority. College students’ interests and learning styles exhibit great variety (Fox and Ronkowski, 1997), making it both difficult and vital for teachers to establish credible classroom leadership in order to enhance active learning. Active learning has been shown to improve student interest and commitment to learning (Salemi, 2002), to motivate underachieving students (Watson et al., 1996), and to boost the retention of course material (Kvam, 2000). Instructors have a signaling role that matters only if the students observe it. If the incentives are unclear and credibility is in question, their leadership is likely to be ignored (Wilson and Rhodes, 1997).

Teachers who are competent, trustworthy, and dynamic are generally thought to be “credible” (Berlo, Lemert, and Mertz ,1969; Cooper and Simonds, 1999; Kouzes and Posner, 1993). These three dimensions—competence, trustworthi-ness, and dynamism—form the behavioral foundation of credibility. The question is thus, “How are these dimensions of credibility effectively communicated to inspire students to perform to their potential?”

Instructors can adopt and modify sets of behaviors to improve classroom performance. Although students and contexts vary considerably for instructors, the communication studies and strategic games literatures reveal some simple techniques that are broadly applicable. For example, demonstrating competence includes such things as the ability to explain complex material well, refined skills in classroom management, consistent ability to answer student questions in a fair and balanced manner, referencing significant literature related to the topic, effec-tive communication skills, exhibiting a broad base of information, and the ability



to do what one is teaching. A trustworthy teacher follows through on promises, gives immediate feedback, offers a rational explanation for grading, teaches from multiple perspectives in an unbiased manner, treats all student the same, never embarrasses students, and is flexible. A dynamic teacher has high energy, is inter-esting, can deviate to increase student interest, has good presentation skills, and relates positively to students. The dimensions of credibility are sets of behaviors that demonstrate respect and concern for students, increasing the chances that students will engage in the class. Of course, teacher credibility is a necessary but not sufficient condition for learning. Although “students simply do not accept information from sources lacking credibility” (Beatty, Behnke, and Henderson, 1980, 56), and credible teachers are capable of increasing students’ motiva-tion, their drive to succeed, and their overall academic performance (Cooper and Simonds, 1999; Kougl, 1997; Teven and McCrosky, 1997), students still retain ultimate responsibility for their performance in the classroom.

Insights on Credibility from Communication StudiesIn communication studies, building credibility is a problem in message and

source believability. Accordingly, the communication studies literature notes eight basic attributes that teachers might modify in order to enhance their cred-ibility. They are insincerity, the use of powerless language, casual appearance, nonimmediacy, speaking in a non-Midwestern dialect, poor presentation skills, verbal pauses (Beatty, Behnke, and Henderson, 1980; Haleta, 1996; Leathers, 1992), and marginalized status (Russ, Simonds, and Hunt, 2003).

Establishing and maintaining credibility are crucial to the learning process, but a few problems are often associated with establishing credibility in the classroom. In particular, new instructors may not have a deep knowledge of the topic. They may not have a strong teaching background. More importantly, there may not be much time to change these facts before one actually has to teach a course. Percep-tion is often stronger than reality, and instructors can make some simple choices to signal the impression of credibility. Credibility is enhanced by a teacher’s own sense of comfort and confidence presenting material, their enthusiasm and interest in teaching, and their research and ideas. Commitment is enhanced by relating experience, ideas, and feelings, taking the first person approach and not separating oneself from the subject, and expressing one’s passion for the subject.

Delivery is tied to commitment and credibility. Albert Mehrabian’s (1981) pio-neering work at UCLA analyzing effective presentations identifies three elements important to establishing believability: verbal, vocal, and visual. Essentially, Mehrabian says that 7 percent of believability is accounted for by the words used, 38 percent of credibility depends on how one sounds (not the actual words), and 55 percent of believability is determined by how one looks when one speaks. Although teaching is not theater, students find concepts, knowledge, skills, and ideas most accessible and credible from someone they consider, well, not dull.



The rhetorical study of commitment shows the power of image. Consider a teacher’s visual, verbal, and vocal image. In the classroom, students will mirror, to some degree, a teacher’s energy and intensity, so new teachers should be con-scientious of how they are perceived and how they perceive others. New teachers are often told to engage students whenever possible, to take a passive, profes-sional interest in their students, and to try to remember each of their names. They are told to be clear and time considerate, to be consistent—but to modify their presentation of the material, especially if they have not yet found the right combination for that particular group of students—and to know the material and be enthusiastic about it. They are told to develop a commanding, rather than a demanding, presence. While these suggestions may seem hollow to new teachers, they are in many ways fully consistent with the rhetorical study of credibility. Political communication makes the same points about how leaders draw in the electorate.

For example, teachers have to navigate a fundamental divide—their own posi-tion of authority makes both them and their students vulnerable. Of course, all students are equally valuable, but a teacher is not the students’ equal. It is this difference that makes credible action necessary. Instructors have plenty of rea-sons to be mindful of their position of authority so that neither party misuses that authority. Just as in political communication, establishing and maintaining credibility in the classroom relies on a balance between the following tradeoffs: educating and entertaining; professionalism and personalization; and fairness to an individual student and fairness to the class.

Simple rules from the literature on source and message credibility suggest that teachers try to be respectful of all students and expect students to do the same, to utilize examples from a broad base of perspectives, to know ones’ limits, and to admit and fix any mistakes they make. Generally, students do not expect a teacher to know everything, but they do expect long-term message and source credibility. Just as in politics, skepticism of people who do have all the answers is practical.

Insights from the Strategic Study of CommitmentsAs with political actors, students test a teacher’s commitment to them, to the

rules, to their own decisions, and so forth. Like politicians, instructors generate credibility by demonstrating that their actions will in fact match their words. Both actors have reasons to uphold their obligations, keep promises, and follow through on the consequences.

Strategic analysis suggests at least eight specific techniques for making cred-ible commitments (e.g., Dixit and Nalebuff, 1991). First, actors should establish and use a reputation. Again, new instructors are often asked to assess their personal tendencies and preferences and to establish clear boundaries with students. They are asked to be approachable and to decide how approachable they intend to be.



Over time, they are expected to develop a philosophy of teaching that provides consistency across classes and to establish policies that are consistent across courses. Smart teachers firmly and consistently follow through on the rules they establish. In the classroom, teachers with policies against accepting late work often find their reputation damaged by making exceptions because intermittent reinforcement fosters an increased likelihood of a given behavior. Teachers are asked to consider their own goals when establishing a reputation. Do I want to be perceived as firm but fair, difficult but worthwhile? These admonitions are all consistent with the strategic edict to develop and use one’s reputation as a way of establishing long-term credibility.

Second, actors can write contracts. Contracts make one’s interests clear. In the classroom, a syllabus is a contract that defines goals, makes expectations clear, and can be relied on for consistency. A syllabus is a contract that is structurally sound when it binds the teacher as well as outlining how students determine their own grade. Grading rubrics are a second way to contractually instill trust. Specifying in advance whether and how a teacher accepts grade appeals is an-other contractual mechanism for binding actions and words. Teachers also often request that students who are underachieving meet with them to negotiate an arrangement that will help the student become an active participant in his or her success.

Third, actors can manage communication. Cutting off communication is a success-ful credibility mechanism because it makes an action irreversible by rendering renegotiation virtually impossible. The common practice of requiring students turn papers in to www.turnitin.com not only strengthens academic integrity; it minimizes the renegotiation of time constraints. Instructors may also require that a typed argument be submitted before they will talk to students about a grade appeal and may stipulate that they will respond to the appeal in the same man-ner. This places responsibility for grades on students, and formalizing their argu-ments in this manner ensures that they learn from the process as well.

Fourth, actors limit their ability to back out or renegotiate. This can be accom-plished in various ways in the classroom. One method instructors utilize is to burn or build bridges, such as by offering a minimally important quiz to provide students with feedback about their probability of success in the course before the drop date. Instructors also bind their commitment to students by removing test questions with statistically low performance from the exam scores. This signals to students that the teacher is committed to the evaluation of relevant criteria that presume the possibility of success.

Fifth, actors favor automatic enforcement or leaving an outcome to chance to minimize bias introduced in renegotiation and to establish credible commitments. One way to institute this in the classroom is to require students submit papers via a course management system like Blackboard, so that a “time/date” stamp accompanies all submissions and automatically caps the total possible points for late assign-



ments. An important aspect of this credibility device is that the threat should be no stronger than necessary for deterrence so that students are not concerned about enforcement errors.

Sixth, actors try to move incrementally. In the natural sciences, mathematics, and—remarkably—composition courses this is often achieved by never assigning work of extraordinarily high value. This strategy allows students to determine their grades in small steps throughout the course of the semester, with well-de-signed assignments that allow for the evaluation of the learning process rather than merely assessing a product. For example, a paper may be assigned in the following manner: (1) a thesis statement due two weeks prior to the first draft of the paper; (2) a rough draft of the paper turned in one week prior to the final draft; (3) a final draft to be graded with points subtracted for any missing prereq-uisites; and (4) the opportunity to revise their graded papers for one letter grade improvement if all the suggested revisions are made adequately.

Seventh, strategic actors use teamwork to enhance commitment. In economic settings, teams allow leaders to use peer pressure to their advantage. Likewise, in the classroom, teamwork is an opportunity for active and experiential learning. What better way to teach about institutions than putting students in groups to design social institutions? For example, students may be assigned to groups in which their task is to conceptualize a society and construct an imaginary regime. This exercise can be used throughout the semester to demonstrate the implica-tions of the rules they construct for various trade-offs.

Eighth, strategic actors employ a mandatory negotiating agent. A third party can enhance credibility by demonstrating a commitment to fairness. For example, teachers now regularly pair with another instructor and trade grade appeals so that the final decision is arbitrated. A mandated negotiating agent does not have the authority to compromise. Additionally, a mechanical third party makes suc-cessful haggling impossible, so for example, utilizing www.turnitin.com mini-mizes attempts by students to haggle over the due date.

ConclusionsThis study reveals the connection between communication theory and strategic

games. We demonstrate the utility of applying what we know from these firmly established traditions. Competent and trustworthy sources of information have a greater capacity for influence. Additionally, commitment structures that are cred-ible bind relational exchanges in a manner that increases investments and fosters stability.

We believe that the relationships detailed above have two primary implica-tions for practical application. First, instructors can affect the perception of their competence and trustworthiness through credible commitment mechanisms. Structuring incentives in a manner consistent with the priorities of the course en-sures that the appearance of credibility that one is attempting to communicate is



indeed a credible commitment, capable of persuading or generating understand-ing. Second, instructors perceived as competent and trustworthy can facilitate greater learning potential by enhancing the motivational commitment and the imperative commitment of students. Dynamic teachers who acknowledge their authority and construct obligations that minimize opportunism while ensuring that students retain responsibility for learning encourage motivated students and compel those who are not self-starters to follow through.

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Holona LeAnne Ochs is an assistant professor of political science at Howard University. She has worked as a licensed clinical marriage and family therapist and professional counselor specializing in trauma-related disorders. Her interests include public policy and administration, trust, and credibility.


Practicing What We Preach: Approaching Praxis Through

Classroom Governance

Peter J. BalintGeorge Mason University

AbstractThis article recommends techniques for matching course management practices

in graduate public administration programs to the content of the curriculum. In developing these recommendations, I draw on the revolutionary ideals of alterna-tive education for the disenfranchised in society and the equally ambitious goals of recent reform movements in public administration. Both visions assert that improved institutional performance can facilitate positive personal and social transformation. Under the assumption that these aspirations are relevant for the graduate classroom as well, I recommend the application of course management practices based on the principles of transparency, participation, accountability, and responsiveness. These practices can move public affairs education toward praxis—reflexive, active, transformative pedagogy.

In considering the current state of education in graduate public administration programs, Feldman and Khademian (1999, 483) highlight the contradictions inherent in conventional teaching practice. They write,

The traditional classroom structure based on hierarchical authority teaches students one way of making decisions. When public managers used hierarchical authority in their organizations in much the same way that the professors used it in the classroom, then what students were learning from the implicit model was appropriate to their future context. In recent years, however, there has been a divergence between

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these two settings. Increasingly, public managers are finding that hierarchical authority is rarely sufficient and often inappropriate. Our students as future public managers need to learn different ways of managing an organization. Traditional classroom structure deprives our students of one way of learning the skills required.

To realign teaching style and course content, Feldman and Khademian recom-mend that the public administration professor, following the case method of teaching, consider addressing the classroom dynamics that emerge during the course itself as a case for discussion and analysis (see also Gilmore and Schall, 1996). Yet the authors attach a caveat to their recommendation of using the class as a case in this way (Feldman and Khademian, 1999, 483):

We also are not convinced that this approach is indeed the best way to manage every classroom where future public managers are trained. It might very well be the case that in order to learn (especially at an introductory stage) the basics of public management, a more traditional pedagogy is required.

The logic of coordinating course management processes and course content in MPA programs is compelling. The approach has the potential both to model relevant professional skills and to foster a more dynamic, engaging classroom environment. But to achieve these goals, as implied in the caveat cited above, professors need classroom management techniques that can be applied in the full range of courses, whether introductory or advanced and whether typically taught through lecture, discussion, case analysis, experiential learning, Internet-based instruction, or some other method. Moreover, these techniques need to be broadly relevant to the range of governance frameworks that scholars have identified as contrasting with traditional hierarchical bureaucracy—e.g., new public manage-ment (Lane, 2000), digital-era governance (Dunleavy et al., 2006), third-party governance (Salamon, 2002), governance through networks (Agranoff, 2007), governance through self-organized collective action (Ostrom et al., 2002), gov-ernance in the context of international development (Batterbury and Fernando, 2006), and so forth.

In this article, I suggest that the principles of transparency, participation, ac-countability, and responsiveness can serve this purpose. I suggest further that applying these principles in course management will generate benefits beyond aligning course management processes and content and beyond modeling and promoting any particular skills of public administration. Transparency, partici-pation, accountability, and responsiveness can begin to move the public affairs classroom toward praxis—reflexive, active, transformative pedagogy.



In offering this proposal, I refer to the literatures of pedagogy and public administration. I also draw on lessons from my own diverse teaching experience. For 23 years, I taught English in Albany, New York’s inner-city alternative pub-lic high schools. For the past eight years, I have taught graduate courses in policy analysis and research methods, and I am currently a faculty member in an MPA program housed in a university political science department. The first part of this career introduced me to the ideals of praxis in alternative education for the so-cially marginalized. The second part taught me that these ideals are also relevant for graduate students in conventional university settings.

I begin this article with a brief discussion of the origins and broader implica-tions of praxis. I then make the case that course management practices based on the principles of transparency, participation, accountability, and responsiveness can be effective tools for bringing transformative pedagogy to public adminis-tration programs. Finally, I offer some examples of how these practices can be implemented in the MPA classroom.

Praxis: Transformative Pedagogy for the UnderclassTwo books influenced me as a young teacher working in Albany’s Street Acad-

emy: Death at an Early Age by Jonathan Kozol (1967) and Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire (1970). Kozol’s book documented his experience as a teacher in Boston’s inner-city elementary schools. In it, he publicized what he described as the traditional school system’s racism and moral bankruptcy, accusing it of the “spiritual and psychological murder” of African American children. I felt that my students, in their late teens and early twenties, were older versions of Kozol’s fourth graders with all the predictable problems linked to social dysfunction and educational malpractice fully realized. Most Street Academy students came to the program barely literate, broadly ignorant of the wider world, already in trouble with the law, already parents, already habitual victims of—or practitioners of—intimidation and violence, and already deeply alienated from broader social norms and institutions.

Compared to Kozol’s outraged narrative in Death at an Early Age, Paulo Freire in Pedagogy of the Oppressed provided a broader theoretical vision and a more de-tailed guide for action. Freire, a Brazilian writing primarily for the developing world context, drew from Marxism and leftist Catholicism. His book promoted a system of education for adults from the disenfranchised classes in which teach-ers and students collaborate as partners, each learning from the other through dialogue in an atmosphere of full mutual respect. Freire aimed explicitly to raise political consciousness and trigger social change. He applied the term “praxis” to signify informed and transformative action and argued for a “problem-posing” pedagogy that would incorporate such praxis. In Freire’s model, students must be agents and actors in their own education and in social improvement generally rather than merely passive objects into which detached teachers, following the



traditional system of “educational banking,” deposit dry knowledge perpetuating the status quo. He wrote, for example (1970, 67–68), that

[t]he banking concept (with its tendency to dichotomize everything) distinguishes two stages in the action of the educator. During the first, he cognizes a cognizable object while he prepares his lessons in his study or his laboratory; during the second, he expounds to his students about that object. The students are not called upon to know, but to memorize the contents narrated by the teacher. Nor do the students practice any act of cognition, since the object towards which that act should be directed is the property of the teacher rather than a medium evoking the critical reflection of both teacher and students….

I adopted the ideals expressed in these two books. In teaching style, I learned to be empathetic, alert, and fully engaged. Classroom dynamics were volatile and patterns of behaviors could swing unpredictably. If I slipped away from con-stant personal interaction—using names, giving eye contact, moving around the room—the fragile order could quickly collapse. In preparing lessons, I worked to incorporate readings relevant to the context and activities that encouraged the students’ own creative self-expression. I learned that the processes of class-room management, and the student engagement that would follow if I managed effectively, were as important as the coverage of any particular content. This ap-proach to teaching built on attention, engagement, and relevance helped students strengthen basic academic skills, build self-esteem and self-discipline, and, more generally, give education a chance.

Broader Relevance Deficiencies of teaching and learning extend well beyond the problems affect-

ing the marginalized 1960s populations that Kozol and Freire described (Glass, 2001; Orr, 2002). Researchers note ways in which contemporary schooling in conventional, first-world, university settings may also be disaffecting and anes-thetizing for students and instructors (Fernández-Balboa, 1998; Hoffman-Kipp et al., 2003).

Leftist scholars apply the language of Marxism, postmodernism, feminism, and social constructivism to frame their critiques of the role of conventional pedagogy in maintaining the hegemony of existing power structures (McLaren et al., 2004; Hill, 2005; Hastie et al., 2006). In this context, extending Freire’s ideas, they advocate pedagogy based on praxis as a weapon to raise political consciousness and to attack entrenched hierarchies.

Yet mainstream academic groups—clearly nonrevolutionary fixtures of the establishment—are also concerned with the uneven quality of teaching and learn-ing at the university level. Publication of the Journal of Public Affairs Education



reflects the importance that the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration attaches to these issues. Many other organizations, including, for example, the National Science Foundation, the American Political Science Association, and the American Society for Public Administration, convene annual conferences aimed at invigorating university education in their subject areas.

At these conferences, the revolutionary ideals of praxis, although rarely explicit, are often not far in the background. A recent ASPA teaching conference, for ex-ample, included sessions on reflexive and imaginative practice, creativity, critical thinking, experiential learning, and civic engagement. Participants in one panel discussed the role of the teacher as “wise mother,” “servant,” “composer,” or “wise physician” (ASPA, 2007). In a similar vein, O’Hare (1996) has observed that the teacher can be seen as a “manager”—in the positive sense envisioned in public administration reform movements.

Public administration reformers argue that institutional shifts toward transpar-ent, participatory, accountable, and responsive governance practices have value for the objective improvements in social outcomes they can be expected to produce and for the subjective benefits that accrue to citizens governed by fair and open institutions (Sen, 1999; Volcker et al., 1999; Kettl, 2000). Reformers argue that process matters. Volcker et al. (1999, 2-3) write, for example, that “how government acts is often as important as what it does, that good government is measured by process as well as purpose.” Sen makes an even stronger case for the importance of process in governance, arguing that the expansion of what he calls substantive freedoms, nurtured by transparent, accountable, and democratic in-stitutions, “is both (1) the primary end and (2) the principal means of development” (Sen, 1999, 36, emphasis in original). In other words, people gain from good governance independent of its likely positive impact on socioeconomic indicators.

I argue here that these concepts apply in the graduate classroom as well. That is, while students are likely to learn more in a course managed in a way that is transparent, participatory, accountable, and responsive, they are also likely to experience significant affective gains. In my experience, these gains are reflected in heightened levels of commitment and responsibility. Although perhaps not attaining the level of transformative praxis, such positive changes in attitude and behavior contribute to an active, engaged, reflexive, and collaborative classroom environment.

Practical Implications for the ClassroomThe application of simple, practical, graduate public administration classroom

management techniques based on transparency, participation, accountability, and responsiveness can help strengthen the match between course management prac-tices and course content and, at the same time, enhance student engagement.

No universal template for effective classroom governance exists, and the sug-gestions below are offered as examples rather than prescriptions. I recognize that,



depending on each instructor’s own experiences and preferences, some of these suggestions may seem obvious, while others may appear unorthodox and risky. In more than 30 years of diverse teaching experience, however, I have found that the benefits of experimenting with student empowerment and devolution of author-ity outweigh the risks.

Transparency and ParticipationStudents clearly deserve transparency in all aspects of course requirements and

procedures. Beyond easy access to clear syllabi and handouts, students are often particularly concerned about transparency in grading. They want to know—and within a good governance framework have a right to know—the details about how they will be evaluated. Various methods of demystifying the grading process before an assignment is due, during evaluation, and in returning grades may be used.

In the run-up to an assignment or exam, along with describing the grad-ing criteria that will be applied, it is useful to provide students with annotated examples of high-quality completed work or detailed suggested solutions for similar assignments and exams from previous semesters. Such efforts to clarify re-quirements and expectations in advance do not preclude surprises in assignments or on exams. But in a transparent environment, the instructor should be clear in advance that surprises may be coming and should incorporate opportunities to practice responding to surprises as part of the ongoing classwork or homework.

The same logic applies to time pressure in testing. It may be reasonable in some circumstances to examine students in part on how well they respond to time constraints. But if an exam or other assignment is likely to create time pres-sure, the students should be aware that this will be part of the testing environ-ment, and coursework leading up to the test should provide opportunities to practice performing in such conditions. In other words, the ability to demon-strate mastery of course content and related competencies is often different from the ability to perform well under time pressure. It can certainly be appropriate to test performance under time pressure or on unexpected challenges, but tests should test what has been taught and practiced.

In my own teaching, I choose not to test performance under tight time con-straints. I see the three-hour exam as an artifact of the academic tradition rarely replicated in professional life. Instead I give exams in take-home format and pro-vide a time limit for completing the exam that is about twice what I estimate a highly competent student will need to complete it. Students do not have unlim-ited time, but a well-prepared student will not feel rushed.

Transparency also means that the process for grading assignments and exams should not be a black box. An A, B, or C delivered with minimal explanation, rather than motivating students, is likely to create frustration and disaffection. Moreover, an evaluation delivered without adequate explanation has limited



instructive value. In the absence of detailed, constructive feedback, students will have difficulty understanding and acknowledging their weaknesses and working to improve. Instead, the professor should give a response to each assignment for each student that at a minimum is sufficiently specific and precise to justify the grade and point the way toward improved performance on future assignments. For similar reasons, graded assignments and exams should be returned promptly, before the opportunity to learn from past performance fades.

An additional component of transparency in grading relates to the way grades are returned. Students are certainly interested in their own grades, but many also want to know how they are doing compared to their peers. A person who earns a B+ in a graduate course, for example, is likely to be curious about whether that is a good grade, perhaps in the top third of the class, or a weak score nearer the bottom. Faculty members can use various convenient ways to let students know confidentially how they are doing in comparison to others. Presenting descriptive statistics with a brief discussion of the distribution of grades, for example, can let students know where they stand and simultaneously can model analytic skills that are part of the larger curriculum. Some students, however, prefer not to com-pare themselves to others. To accommodate different preferences, I post a link to summary information about grades for each assignment and exam on the course Web site so that students can access it as they choose.

For routine assignments—such as data analysis homework, for example—self-grading is valuable, because it promotes students’ participation in their own learning. For these assignments I suggest detailed solutions with a clear indi-cation of how many points each question or section is worth so that students can score themselves before coming to class on the day the assignment will be discussed. This process acknowledges the students’ maturity, enhances their independence and self-respect, and facilitates self-teaching targeted to individual areas of weakness. Additional opportunities for participation include self-se-lection of topics for projects and papers and open forums for students to offer feedback and input on teaching style and course management processes during the semester.

Maximizing transparency and facilitating participation are powerful ways of promoting trust, confidence, and a sense of ownership. In a classroom manage-ment environment that uses these tools, students are more likely to see the course as a mutual effort toward a common goal.

Accountability and ResponsivenessAccountability in the classroom applies to students and instructors. To a con-

siderable extent, the grading process builds in accountability for student perfor-mance.

The purpose of preparation, whether for the course as a whole or for an individ-ual class session, is to facilitate student progress toward the curricular objectives.



To this end, successful preparation for the course requires an effort to see the pre-pared materials, including the syllabus and other handouts, through the students’ eyes. Materials and activities that are not clear and clearly linked to the stated course objectives are likely to be counterproductive. Consideration and empathy in smaller things can also help create a positive environment. Instructors should keep in mind the cost of required course materials, for example, and give plenty of notice for any changes in assignments or due dates as the semester progresses.

Similarly, the classroom activities themselves should be well planned. As a graduate student in public policy, I heard the following joke:

Question: Why are elevators in the policy school so slow? Answer: So that professors have time to prepare their lessons.

At least two implicit assumptions in this joke are relevant for the question of accountability. The first is that professors have more important things to do than prepare for their classes. The second is that they are unlikely to face significant repercussions if they are poorly prepared. A certain amount of truth underlies both of these assumptions, particularly for tenure-track and tenured faculty whose first priorities are often research and publishing. Thus, although many universities and departments offer incentives for good teaching, the fundamental impetus for accountability in the classroom is often essentially self-imposed. Yet students will recognize and respond positively to thoughtful preparation.

Along with preparation, the instructor’s responsiveness can also be an im-portant contributor in strengthening student engagement and responsibility. Responsiveness that promotes students’ participation and commitment can take a variety of forms. Here I mention several. First, the instructor should learn, and use, students’ names. This takes some concentrated effort and practice, but assuming the class size typical of MPA courses—say, 30 students or fewer—it should be possible to learn everyone’s name within the first couple of class ses-sions. Second, within reason, instructors should encourage questions and com-ments from students in class and reply promptly to emails and telephone calls outside of class. Although occasionally a particular student may tend to monopo-lize class discussion or send emails with annoying frequency, those who speak up in class or contact the professor outside of class are generally demonstrating their interest and deserve a quick response. Moreover, the case of an overly demanding student can be taken as an opportunity for a private meeting and gently worded constructive criticism.

A responsive course management style aimed at promoting student engage-ment can also include adaptability and flexibility. Many instructors enforce strict adherence to deadlines and other details of assignments. This may be useful in reinforcing to students the importance of being responsible and meeting com-mitments. On the other hand, MPA students, who are often working profession-



als, are likely to respond positively to appropriate levels of flexibility just as they would in the workplace. Indeed, if a professor is flexible both parties may ben-efit. The instructor may be relieved of much of the policing responsibility that conventional course management entails, and students, treated as adults, may become more committed to, and accept greater ownership in, the course’s success.

ConclusionFreire, through his notion of praxis, emphasized that pedagogy must be trans-

formative to be meaningful. By educating—in the broadest sense of the word—those at the margins, he intended ultimately to overthrow the rigid hierarchies and entrenched injustices of the larger society. The reform movement in public administration of the past several decades has similarly radical ambitions. It aims at the creative destruction of “rule-based, authority-driven” management (Kettl, 2000, 2–3) and its replacement with institutions that improve conditions and opportunities for all members of society. Both perspectives emphasize the impor-tance of processes as well as outcomes, and both are progressive and idealistic in that their proponents aim at profound, positive change.

Various scholars offer the compelling argument that course management prac-tices and course content in graduate public administration programs should be more closely aligned. Many observers of educational practice more generally note that conventional pedagogy often leaves students and professors detached and dis-affected. This article makes the case that course management built on transpar-ency, participation, accountability, and responsiveness can address both concerns. Such practices foster the emergence of a reinvigorated classroom environment characterized by deeper engagement and more effective learning.

ReferencesAgranoff, Robert. 2007. Managing within Networks: Adding Value to Public Organizations. Washington,

DC: Georgetown University Press.ASPA. 2007. “Agenda for the 2007 Teaching Public Administration conference.” Available at http://

www.teachingpa.org/Final%20Teaching%202007%20detailed.pdf.Batterbury, Simon P. J., and Jude L. Fernando. 2006. “Rescaling Governance and the Impacts of

Political and Environmental Decentralization: An Introduction.” World Development, 34(11):1851–1863.

Dunleavy, Patrick, Helen Margetts, Simon Bastow, and Jane Tinkler. 2006. “New Public Management Is Dead—Long Live Digital-Era Governance.” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 16(3):467–494.

Feldman, Martha S., and Anne Khademian. 1999. “The Class as Case: ‘Reinventing’ the Classroom.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 18(3):482–502.

Fernández-Balboa, Juan-Miguel. 1998. “The Practice of Critical Pedagogy: Critical Self-Reflection as Praxis.” Teaching Education, 9(2):47–53.

Freire, Paulo. 1970. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Seabury.Gilmore, Thomas N., and Ellen Schall. 1996. “Staying Alive to Learning: Integrating Enactments with

Case Teaching to Develop Leaders.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 15(3):444–456.Glass, Ronald David. 2001. “On Paulo Freire’s Philosophy of Praxis and the Foundations of Liberation

Education.” Educational Researcher, 30(2):15–25.



Hastie, Peter A., Ellen Martin, and Alice M. Buchanan. 2006. “Stepping out of the Norm: An Examination of Praxis for a Culturally Relevant Pedagogy for African-American Children.” Journal of Curriculum Studies, 38(3):293–306.

Hill, David. 2005. “Critical Education for Economic and Social Justice: A Marxist Analysis and Manifesto.” In Marc Pruyn and Luis M. Huerta-Charles, eds., Teaching Peter McLaren: Paths of Dissent. New York: Peter Lang, 146–185.

Hoffman-Kipp, Peter, Alfredo J. Artiles, and Laura Lopez-Torres. 2003. “Beyond Reflection: Teacher Learning as Praxis.” Theory into Practice, 42(3):248–264.

Kettl, Donald. 2000. The Global Public Management Revolution: A Report on the Transformation of Governance. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.

Kozol, Jonathan. 1967. Death at an Early Age: The Destruction of the Hearts and Minds of Negro Children in the Boston Public Schools. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Lane, Jan-Erik. 2000. New Public Management. New York: Routledge.McLaren, Peter, Gregory Martin, Ramin Farahmandpur, and Nathalia Jaramillo. 2004. “Teaching in

and Against the Empire: Critical Pedagogy as Revolutionary Praxis.” Teacher Education Quarterly, 31(1):131–153.

O’Hare, Michael. 1996. “Quality Assurance for Teaching in APPAM Schools.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 15(1):97–109.

Orr, Deborah. 2002. “The Uses of Mindfulness in Anti-Oppressive Pedagogies: Philosophy and Praxis.” Canadian Journal of Education, 27(4):477–497.

Ostrom, Elinor, Thomas Dietz, Nives Dolšak, Paul C. Stern, Susan Stonich, and Elke U. Weber, eds. 2002. The Drama of the Commons. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Salamon, Lester M., ed. 2002. The Tools of Government: A Guide to the New Governance. New York: Oxford University Press.

Sen, Amartya. 1999. Development as Freedom. New York: Knopf.Volcker, Paul A., et al. 1999. A Government to Trust and Respect: Rebuilding Citizen-Government Relations for

the 21st Century. Washington, DC: National Academy of Public Administration.

Peter J. Balint is assistant professor in the Department of Public and Interna-tional Affairs at George Mason University. His research focuses on understanding obstacles to success in community-based natural resource management, a policy approach designed to integrate conservation and community development in rural areas of poor countries. He has published articles on this topic in journals including Energy Policy, Environmental Management, Human Dimensions of Wildlife, Geoforum, Society & Natural Resources, and the Journal of Southern African Studies.


Accountability, Ethics, Evaluation, and Governance in

Nonprofit Management Education: Trends and Treatment

Angela L. Bies, Texas A & M UniversityAmy S. Brimer Blackwood, Urban Institute

AbstractAs the scope and influence of nonprofit organizations (NPOs) have increased

in recent decades, so has demand for the professional management of such orga-nizations. Specialized, graduate-level education in nonprofit management is an outgrowth of this demand. With the environments, financial profiles, and inter-sectoral partnerships of NPOs becoming increasingly complex, nonprofit account-ability, ethics, evaluation, and good governance have emerged as target areas for improving nonprofit management. Despite this targeted interest, how such topics are treated in the curricula of professional management training programs is virtu-ally unexplored. Building on the work of O’Neill (1998), Mirabella and Wish (2001, 1999, 1998), and Wish and Mirabella (2000, 1998) on general trends in graduate nonprofit management education, this article explores the extent to which and how nonprofit accountability, ethics, evaluation, and governance are currently being addressed in U.S. nonprofit management education programs. The paper reports on findings from a survey of 153 colleges and universities and the analysis of documents including syllabi and course descriptions. Curricular inclu-sion of these topics is found to be associated with some institutional characteristics of the degree programs in which nonprofit management education is offered, in-cluding disciplinary setting and degree of specialization in nonprofit management.

In recent decades, nonprofit organizations have expanded the range and scope of their activities. Growth in the nonprofit sector and an increasingly broad and complex set of roles related to the delivery of essential social services, cultural expression, individual development, economic development, civic association, and policy advocacy have resulted in expectations for improved and increasingly

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professionalized nonprofit management (Salamon, 1999; Wilson and Larson, 2002). Professional expectations for nonprofit organizations and their personnel have contributed to recognition of the distinctive training and learning needs of nonprofit managers, giving rise to rapid growth and development of academic programs in nonprofit management (Fletcher, 2005).

As the internal management challenges and external environments of NPOs have become increasingly complex, nonprofit ethics, accountability, evaluation, and governance have emerged as key areas considered central to improving the management of nonprofit organizations. Increased demands for nonprofit manag-ers to be more accountable and ethical, for boards to govern better, and for the implementation of evaluation and performance measurement have resulted in yet further specialized demands for education, training, and managerial devel-opment for nonprofit leaders. As emphasized by Edwards (1997), “[i]n a future dominated by increasing competition, demands from donors for ‘results,’ closer scrutiny of the NGO world from its critics, more transparency and greater ac-countability…both development effectiveness and institutional survival demand that NGOs learn much more, and more effectively” (236).

Despite the growth in general nonprofit management education activity, Eisen-berg (1997) argued that academic production has not adequately coincided with performance expectations for improved accountability, evaluation, ethics, and governance in this statement:

Long term sectoral reform will require much more information and re-search than we currently have…if academia is vulnerable to criticism, it is on the score that it has ignored many of the most trenchant issues and problems on the sector. It has…done little work on subjects like accountability, ethics, governance. (340)

Although research on such topics has certainly increased over the past decade, the extant literature on nonprofit management education does not address the extent to which or how management training programs are addressing the topics of accountability, ethics, evaluation, and governance in their curricula. Thus, this study necessarily builds on and extends the work of O’Neill (1998), Mirabella and Wish (2001, 1999, 1998), and Wish and Mirabella (2000, 1998) on general trends in graduate nonprofit management education by providing the first ex-ploration of how nonprofit accountability, ethics, evaluation, and governance are currently being addressed in the curricula of U.S. academic programs that offer graduate level training in nonprofit management education.

Our central research questions are:1. Are the concepts of accountability, ethics, evaluation, and governance

incorporated into the curricula of current nonprofit management pro-grams? If so, in what ways and to what extent?



2. Does the incorporation of accountability, ethics, evaluation, and gov-ernance vary by the institutional characteristics or the location of the nonprofit management program?

3. How are accountability, ethics, evaluation, and governance treated?

In the sections that follow, we first briefly review the landscape of nonprofit management education programs in the United States. We then situate the study of accountability, ethics, evaluation, and governance in the context of other non-profit management education drivers and trends including parameters set forth by accreditation bodies and in relationship to the enduring “best place” debate, which centers on the question of which academic departments or disciplines serve as the best settings for nonprofit management programs (Hoefer, 2003; Mira-bella and Wish, 2000; Salamon, 1998; Smith, 1999; Young, 1998). The review of the extant literature suggests that curricular trends will vary by disciplinary and program setting, but it also reveals a gap in specific insights on the inclusion and treatment of accountability, ethics, evaluation, and governance in nonprofit management education. This study begins to fill that gap.

Nonprofit Management EducationEmergence of Field of Study

The introduction of nonprofit management education is linked to the rela-tively recent nonprofit phenomena of growth, increased complexity, and related professionalism of the nonprofit sector, its organizations, and its personnel that occurred during the latter half of the twentieth century, in both the United States and globally (Crowder and Hodgkinson, 1992; O’Neill, 1998; O’Neill and Young, 1988). At end of the twentieth century, in the United States alone, the nonprofit sector comprised annual revenue of more than three trillion U.S. dollars with nonprofit sector employment representing eight percent of national employ-ment, up from just one percent at the century’s beginning and accounting for the employment of more individuals than the federal and 50 state governments com-bined (Hammack, 2001; O’Neill, 2002). Salamon and Anheier (1998) similarly characterized this trajectory in the following statement:

A plethora of private nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations have emerged in recent decades in virtually every corner of the world to provide vehicles through which citizens can exercise individual initiative in the private pursuit of public purposes; this organized, private, voluntary activity may turn out to represent the greatest social innovation of the twentieth century. (60)

Greater numbers of and larger nonprofit organizations, increased financial holdings, more varied and complex sources of revenue including larger shares of



earned revenue and contracts with government, and increased scope and roles for nonprofits all contributed to greater recognition of the importance and complex-ity of managing nonprofit organizations. Table 1 provides a listing of some of the influences on the demand for enhanced nonprofit performance and professional-ized nonprofit management education.

Because of fundamental organizational differences, the management of non-profits began to be viewed as distinctive from that in for-profit or public sector settings (O’Neill, 1998). The need for and growth of specialized nonprofit man-agement education are premised by what are considered to be unique manage-ment challenges resulting from essential characteristics of nonprofit organizations (Fletcher, 2005). Such characteristics include a mission focus and values orienta-tion; the existence of nonprofits as private organizations with public dimensions; nonprofit access to a broad variety of sources of revenue, including charitable contributions, government grants and contracts, and earned income; the absence of shareholders and the nondistribution constraint; the existence of voluntary personnel; and complex accountabilities, absent of the political dimensions of the electorate and without a necessarily or easily monetized “bottom line” (Hodgkin, 1993; O’Neill and Young, 1988).

By the late 1980s, an entire field devoted to the development of the nonprofit sector and its organizations began to emerge. As nonprofit management practices and nonprofit management education offerings began to professionalize, so did the arena of capacity building, management development, and related research (DeVita and Fleming, 2001; Paton and Mordaunt, 2001). O’Neill (2005) associ-ated growth in the field of nonprofit management education, capacity-building

Table 1. Forces Influencing the Demand for Enhanced Performance and Professional Nonprofit Management Education

• Insufficient government oversight• No direct voter or shareholder regulation as in the public and private sectors• Increasing number of nonprofits• Increasing assets held by nonprofits• Increasing size and influence of individual nonprofits• Increasing reliance on nonprofits for the delivery of necessary

aspects of civil society and social programs• Increasing public and media scrutiny of nonprofits resulting from

numerous nonprofit scandals• Delegated authority by government to contracted nonprofits• Belief that increased accountability fosters public trust in the nonprofit sector• Belief that increased accountability will result in enhanced nonprofit efficiency

and effectiveness• Association of good governance and evaluation with performance• Association of ethical management with performance



activity, and nonprofit studies with two simultaneous and related trends: gener-ally greater recognition and formalization of professional education within the academy and the advent of national field service programs, associations, and organizations devoted to developing and improving nonprofit organizations, as reviewed above.

Such development is illustrated by such examples as the establishment of a national network of nonprofit training agencies in the Support Centers of Amer-ica in 1971, the provision of professional workshops on fundraising through the Grantsmanship Center and the Fundraising School, and the growth of nonprofit professional organizations and associations designed to strengthen nonprofit organizations and their personnel, including statewide nonprofit networks and associations such as the National Society of Fundraising Executives (now the As-sociation of Fundraising Professions), the National Center for Nonprofit Boards (now BoardSource), the Independent Sector, and the Association for Research on Nonprofit and Voluntary Action (O’Neill, 2001).

O’Neill (2005) further documented that academic coursework in hospital administration, arts administration, pastoral and religious management, educa-tional administration, public sector, international development, and social work or administration programs and the related formation of professional schools and degree programs in colleges and universities preceded the formation of special-ized nonprofit management training programs. The emergence of nonprofit man-agement as a specialized field of management study can alternately be viewed as a natural outgrowth of related professional management programs or as a byprod-uct of the inadequacy of extant academic programs to address cross-cutting and central issues associated with the distinctive management challenges of increas-ingly professionalized and sophisticated nonprofit organizations.

Academic Programs and CurriculaO’Neill’s 1998 research traced the first formal nonprofit credentials to the

certificate program at the Institute for Not-for-Profit Management at Colum-bia University in 1977 and the University of Missouri at Kansas City MPA program’s nonprofit concentration, formed in 1981. Mirabella and Wish (2000) pointed to the 1986 Nonprofit Management Education Conference in San Fran-cisco as an important early moment in the advancement of this field of study. Growth in the number and range of academic offerings has been rapid since these hallmarks.

When Wish and Mirabella (1998) first undertook a census of nonprofit man-agement education in 1990, they reported only 17 graduate programs with a concentration of three or more course offerings on topics related to nonprofit management. By 1997, Wish and Mirabella reported 90 such graduate programs with similar nonprofit offerings. The most recently published census by Mira-bella and Wish (2001) revealed the following: 242 colleges and universities with



some form of undergraduate or graduate courses in nonprofit management; and 146 colleges and universities with at least one nonprofit-related course within a graduate department, with 97 of these 146 institutions offering a concentration of three or more courses in the management of nonprofit organizations within a more general graduate degree.

In terms of nonprofit management curricula, Tschirhart’s (1998) early work utilized a comprehensive and multi-faceted sample of nonprofit managers, students, and faculty, and pointed out the need for curricular reform to match the increased complexity of nonprofit contexts. Wish and Mirabella (1998), while pointing out the need to better understand curricular trends in relation-ship to nonprofit management and sectoral imperatives, provided an accounting of curricular patterns among the graduate programs with nonprofit concentra-tions. They codified their results into two categories: courses concerned with the external environments of nonprofits, such as philanthropy, advocacy, fundraising, and courses concerned with the internal environments of nonprofits, including courses on human resources, financial management, and nonprofit management.

In the Wish and Mirabella (1998) study, courses concerned with external environments comprised 46% of course offerings; courses centered on internal organizational matters comprised 44% of course offerings. Courses that “spanned boundaries,” such as those concerned with legal matters or strategic planning, ac-counted for the remaining 10% (104). Although a number of the courses related to the topics under examination in this paper, Wish and Mirabella did not specify accountability, ethics, evaluation, or governance as topics offered as stand-alone courses.

Larson and Wilson (2001) addressed the “extent to which nonprofit courses reflect the interests and needs of the student practitioner” (13). Fundraising and strategic planning were identified as most important to nonprofit management. In addition to financial management, legal and policy perspectives, marketing, and proposal writing, the topics of governance, accountability, ethics, and evalua-tion emerged as “other important topics” (13). Although students reported being generally satisfied with their graduate training in nonprofit management and with the current emphasis on “ethics and values in philanthropy” (14), account-ability, evaluation, and governance were identified as areas in need of greater emphasis in nonprofit management course offerings.

“Best Place” PerspectivesLarson and Wilson (2002) and Larson, Wilson, and Chung (2003) built on

the nonprofit management education research that focuses on curricular content through their examination of alumni perceptions of educational and training needs and curricular trends. Their sample included students who pursue special-ized graduate degrees focused on nonprofit management as well as those who pursue certificates or concentrations in nonprofit management in the context of



more generalized master’s programs such as the MPA, MBA, or MSW degree. The Larson and Wilson study revealed that, across the groups, personal develop-ment and skill acquisition were identified as the two most frequent rationales for pursuing graduate training in nonprofit management. Program selection criteria rated as most important included the reputation of the program and the program’s specialization in the nonprofit sector.

Fletcher’s 2005 research focused solely on specialized graduate degrees that emphasized nonprofit management. Fletcher inquired into the perceived impact of such specialized study on the careers and professional lives of alumni working in nonprofit contexts. She found that most respondents’ perceptions were posi-tive. Fletcher’s research, however, also points to two contrasting results related to nonprofit management specialization: 1) respondents reported the highest rank-ing on a preparation for career subscale, which indicates high fit with specialized aspects of nonprofit management, and 2) respondents reported the lowest ranking on a knowledge of general management scale. Fletcher interpreted these findings to suggest that specialized nonprofit management programs may “overemphasize subjects specific to the nonprofit sector, such as fund-raising, to the detriment of more general management skills” (446). This is in contrast to the program selection preferences expressed for nonprofit specialization by the broader sample of students in the Wilson and Larson (2002) study. These contrasts suggest that demand and supply side perspectives may offer different vantage points on non-profit management curricula.

Although future research is needed to compare the efficacy of specialized graduate training in nonprofit management education versus nonprofit manage-ment offerings within the context of a more generalized graduate degree such as the MBA, MPA, or MSW , a vigorous debate ensues—that of the best place for nonprofit management education—about what should be taught, by whom, and toward what end (Hoefer, 2003). How this debate relates to the provision of education relating to accountability, ethics, evaluation, and governance is highly relevant, because the framing of the auspices, ownership, and performance criteria of nonprofit organizations are tempered by the simultaneously private dimensions and public nature of nonprofit organizations. It is thus argued that the disciplin-ary or institutional setting for graduate education in nonprofit management may affect the orientation toward public and private dimensions and in turn have ramifications for the related management foci, curricular choices, and values therein and for course offerings (Hall et al., 2001; Mirabella and Renz, 2001).

Yet the debate remains largely normative in nature. The September 2001 edi-tion of Public Performance and Review focused on nonprofit management education and featured leading authors in this domain of inquiry who moved the best place debate forward in a substantive manner. Several articles focused on the issue of the interaction among institutional, organizational, and disciplinary location in universities and nonprofit management education, research, and outreach



activities. The volume included an in-depth discussion (Hall et al., 2001) that summed up the current thinking, structural and intellectual complexities, and research on the topic and raised the issue as one in need of ongoing inquiry. Di-ane Vinokur-Kaplan’s comment captured the essence of the much larger dialogue:

So, I believe that there will continue to be 1,000 flowers blooming, given the different arrangements and cultures of various universities. To me it is interesting to next ask the question, What are the knowl-edge and skills that nonprofit managers need for today and tomorrow’s world? (2001, 79)

Disciplinary Perspectives Generally, how have management education scholars from disciplines closely

related to nonprofit management, such as public administration, business, and social work addressed the topics of accountability, ethics, evaluation and gover-nance? In the field of public administration, this examination has been rich. A review of the Journal of Public Affairs Education since 1995 reveals the following: 15 articles directly related to ethics, including a January 1998 special issue fo-cused on teaching ethics and aspects of moral education, and four articles re-lated to evaluation. Although no articles directly centered on accountability and governance, accountability topics were somewhat implicit in articles centering on preparing public management students for responsibility to public auspices and related performance expectations.

Public administration education scholars have also examined these topics in relationship to ethics education (Jurkiewicz and Nichols, 2002; Pickus, 2002), governance education (Boyle and Whitaker, 2001; Kettl, 2001), and civic trust and civic capital orientations (Durant, 1999) in the context of master’s in pub-lic administration or public affairs curricula. Berman (1999) provided a useful comparison of professional orientations between public and nonprofit managers that posed several important implications for public administration and nonprofit management education. A 2003 JPAE symposium edition included six articles related to nonprofit management education, all of which addressed only implic-itly the topics of accountability, ethics, evaluation, and governance.

In business education scholarship, there has been much written of late on the role of ethics and corporate social responsibility representations and responsibili-ties in the context of master of business administration contexts (Maddox, 2003). As the Academy of Management expands to include a focus on management edu-cation through its relatively new Management Education Division, such empha-ses may grow. A review of existing editions of the Academy’s new management education journal, Learning and Education, yielded articles on ethics and character (March 2006) and a (September 2006) special volume on “ethics and social re-



sponsibility.” It appears that the lexicon of management education utilizes terms such as ethics and performance more frequently that the terms accountability, governance, and evaluation, and that the general bias is on firm- and manager-level units of analysis rather than sectoral or industry outcomes. The exception to this is in the arena of corporate social responsibility and social entrepreneurship topics, which are addressed at multiple levels of analysis, including individual, firm, and societal outcomes. It is less common to see nonprofit management education topics included as areas of inquiry in the mainline business journals. One noteworthy exception is the recent article by Jervis and Sherer (2005) on necessary business competencies within the curriculum of an interdisciplinary nonprofit concentration. This article also provides a useful narrative related to the poles of opinion on the appropriateness of business school settings for nonprofit management education.

The field of social work is rife with literature centered on educating social workers for ethical practice. The journals Administration in Social Work and Social Work Education regularly produce articles that address aspects of professional management education, many of which specifically address nonprofit contexts. Hoefer (1993, 2003), for example, published two of his three seminal, empirical pieces on the best place debate in Administration in Social Work. In these articles, Hoefer provided critical insights into the best place for human services adminis-trative skills training, from a variety of stakeholder vantage points.

A search of the past 10 years of Social Work Education reveals 69 articles on ethics, largely centering on preparation for individual clinical practice dilem-mas; 122 articles on evaluation, largely centered on student evaluation and client outcomes versus organizational level outcomes; 45 articles on accountability, largely centering on regulatory and curricular/ethical standards; and 13 on gov-ernance, largely directed at academic training programs versus nonprofit or other management and organizational contexts. In the social work literature, nonprofit management topics are increasing, but the literature is still fairly focused on the contextual and policy dimensions of nonprofits for social work practice versus a more central focus on nonprofit organizational or management issues.

This review of key professional management education journals in academic disciplines closely associated with nonprofit management scholarship, course-work, and academic programming reveals varied emphases, directions, and publishing trends, which may provide insight into how the treatment of account-ability, ethics, evaluation, and governance might vary by program setting. An ad-ditional driver in curriculum development in professional management programs is the activity of standards and accreditation bodies. In the section that follows, the accreditation guidelines and standards pertaining to business, social work, and public administration schools are reviewed. A review of two relatively new guidelines for nonprofit management education programs is also provided.



Accreditation, Standards, and Curricular DirectionResponsive to some of the same dynamics driving increased calls for public sec-

tor, nonprofit, and, of late, private sector accountability, assessment, and perfor-mance, postsecondary education programs are face pressure to improve quality and related outcomes, especially in the arena of student performance (Jennings, 1989). Accreditation activities also arguably both influence and respond to dis-ciplinary values, norms, and stakeholder/market dynamics. It is therefore useful to review the guidance provided by accreditation bodies on the topics of account-ability, ethics, evaluation, and governance generally and nonprofit management education more specifically.

Business Schools. The accreditation body for schools of business is the Associa-tion to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). Although the AACSB does not require schools to adopt a specific curriculum, schools must demonstrate “assurance of learning standards” in order to be accredited (AACSB, 2007, 59). Accountability, ethics, evaluation, and governance, however, are not given equal emphasis in the curriculum standards. According to the AACSB’s Eligibility Pro-cedures and Accreditation Standards for Business Accreditation, ethics—and potentially some aspects of accountability—is emphasized in masters’-level business pro-grams, and programs are expected to incorporate learning experiences in “ethical and legal responsibilities in organizations and in society” (AACSB, 2007, 72).

Although the AACSB standards do not use the term evaluation, related per-formance and analytical perspectives are addressed in its standards that stipulate the inclusion of “statistical data analysis and management science as they sup-port decision-making processes throughout an organization” (72) and financial analysis and reporting (71). No explicit mention of accountability or governance criteria for accreditation is made, but the related topics of the legal and regula-tory environment are emphasized in the specification of a “global, environmental, political, economic, legal, and regulatory context for business” (71). The AACSB provides no guidance for nonprofit management education curriculum.

Schools of Social Work. The accreditation body for schools of social work is the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE), which emphasizes values and ethics as an important part of the curriculum. Graduates of social work should “un-derstand the value base of the profession and its ethical standards and principles and practice accordingly” (CSWE, 2004, 7). CSWE points out an important role played by social work education programs in its statement that such programs

integrate content about values and principles of ethical decision-mak-ing as presented in the National Association of Social Workers Code of Ethics. The educational experience provides students with the op-portunity to gain awareness of their values; develop, demonstrate, and promote the values of the profession; and analyze ethical dilemmas and the ways in which these affect practice, services, and clients. (8)



In order to gain accreditation, schools of social work must heavily emphasize values and ethics in their curriculum.

The incorporation of accountability curriculum within the accreditation stan-dards is somewhat ambiguous. Although schools of social work need to empha-size “populations at risk and social and economic justice” (CSWE, 2004, 9) and “be able to analyze, formulate, and influence social policies” (8), the curriculum standards do not explicitly mention or emphasize accountability per se. The CSWE standards also stipulate that schools should prepare graduates to

evaluate research studies, apply research findings to practice, and eval-uate their own practice interventions…. Research knowledge is used by students to develop, use, and effectively communicate empirically based knowledge, including evidence-based interventions. Research knowledge is used by students to provide high-quality services; to initiate change; to improve practice, policy, and social service delivery; and to evaluate their own practice. (8-9)

The CSWE standards suggest an emphasis on individual social work practice and on program-level outcomes. A discussion of governance is included within the CSWE standards, but it does not relate to curriculum standards, and the CSWE’s definition of governance pertains to the governance structure of the school itself, not to curricular dimensions. The CSWE provides no guidance for nonprofit management education curriculum.

Schools of Public Affairs and Administration. The accreditation body associated with schools of public affairs and public administration is the National Asso-ciation of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration (NASPAA). NASPAA recognizes evaluation as an important curriculum component for school ac-creditation. One of the common curriculum components “is the application of quantitative and qualitative techniques of analysis, the components of which include: policy and program formulation, implementation, and evaluation” (NASPAA, 2006, 9). Although ethics are not an explicit curriculum component, the common curriculum components are intended “to enhance the students’ values, knowledge, and skills to act ethically and effectively” (NASPAA, 2004, 9). Accountability is addressed only implicitly in NASPAA expectation that programs include a focus on providing an: “understanding of the Public Policy and Organizational Environment, the components of which include: political and legal institutions and processes” (9). Governance is not explicitly mentioned as a curriculum criterion in the NASPAA report.

Nonprofit Management Education Standards. In contrast to AACSB and CSWE, NASPAA has developed specific standards related to nonprofit management edu-cation. This special emphasis by NASPAA leads to the expectation that schools of public affairs and administration might have a greater focus on nonprofit man-



agement related topics. The review of this question and an additional curricular initiative by the Nonprofit Academic Centers Council (NACC) will reveal an expectation for the inclusion of all four topics in nonprofit management educa-tion curricula.

A NASPAA committee of nonprofit educators, led by scholar Mary Tschirhart, developed “Guidelines for Graduate Professional Education in Nonprofit Orga-nizations, Management, and Leadership” (2006).1 The purpose statement for the NASPAA nonprofit guidelines indicates that “[a] wide array of skills, knowledge, competencies and attitudes is essential for the success of nonprofit leaders and managers” (1). The NASPAA Guidelines are based on recognition of the distinc-tive characteristics of nonprofit organizations and stipulate that “[t]here are core essential elements that characterize nonprofit organizations and their managers and differentiate them from public and for-profit organizations” (2006, 1). It is further acknowledged that while the majority of graduate nonprofit management education occurs in the context of master’s programs in public administration and affairs or public policy, the guidelines, nevertheless, are designed to address a “fundamental body of knowledge” (1) in nonprofit management education that should cut across disciplinary program settings.

Much like the other accreditation approaches reviewed above, the NASPAA nonprofit guidelines do not establish a required set of courses but instead focus on essential core elements, “in order to foster innovation in the field and to pre-serve flexibility to pursue different educational program missions” (1, 2). Under the category Essential Elements, the guidelines focus on topics distinctive to nonprofit management educational needs, stating, “These elements should be ad-dressed in the curricula of all programs that claim to provide graduate profession-al education in nonprofit organization, management, and leadership” (1). Made explicit in this category are accountability, ethics, and governance in the follow-ing elements: Essential Element 1, History, Values, Ethics and Philosophies; Es-sential Element 2, Legal Structure; and Essential Element 4, Governance. Evalua-tion is not specified in this section.

The NASPAA nonprofit guidelines also include Overarching Elements “not specific to the nonprofit sector but still important for effective management and leadership of nonprofit organizations. These elements should be included in courses in nonprofit management concentration/certificate programs, and inte-grated into mainstream courses in graduate degree programs” (2). Overarching Elements address the three areas of accountability, evaluation, and governance with specificity, and devote the entire first element to “Accountability, Perfor-mance Measures and Program Evaluation.”

The Nonprofit Academic Centers Council curricular guidelines for nonprofit management, originating in 1999, and most recently updated and adopted in 2004, also contain a strong focus on accountability, ethics, evaluation, and gover-nance, similar to the guidelines set forth in the NASPAA document. With a mis-



sion to “strengthen academic centers devoted to the study of philanthropy and nonprofit organizations to advance education, research, and practice that increase the nonprofit sector’s ability to enhance civic engagement, democracy, and human welfare,” NACC is also interested in the direction of nonprofit management edu-cation and curricula. Scholars David Renz and Pamela Leland, who chaired the Nonprofit Academic Centers Council curriculum development initiative, pointed to the interdisciplinary nature of the field of nonprofit management education and suggested that “NACC is at the forefront of building a cohesive field of study that crosses disciplinary boundaries” (NACC, 2004, 3).

Similar to the NASPAA standards, the 13 NACC standards make a focus on all four topics explicit and provide substantive detail.2 Three specific areas are devoted to ethics, governance, and evaluation, including: Section 3.0, Ethics and Values; Section 4.0, Nonprofit Governance and Executive Leadership; and Section 13.0, Decision-Making and Analytic Methods (2004, 5–9). Accountability is made explicit as a subtopic that cuts across nearly all of the 13 standards.

This review of the treatment of the topics of accountability, ethics, evaluation, and governance by stakeholder, organizational, and environmental drivers, cur-ricular trends in nonprofit management education, disciplinary and best place debate perspectives, and accreditation norms suggests that the topics are impor-tant but varied in occurrence and emphases. The topics seem to have the most consistent salience and traction in the field of public administration, but the specific topic of ethics seems to have a foothold in business and social work set-tings. It is anticipated, also, that with increased emphasis and specialization on nonprofit management education will come increased inclusion of the four topic areas. Because the extant literature provides limited accounting of such trends, the results reviewed in this paper are useful, especially against the backdrop of a growing literature on nonprofit management education and increasingly special-ized expectations for improved nonprofit management.

Method and Data SourcesWe derived our sample of 153 universities or colleges from the census of non-

profit management programs by Roseanne Mirabella.3 We included all institu-tions that were listed during the 2003-2004 academic year cycle and that offered graduate level coursework, certificates, or degree programs in nonprofit manage-ment. A search of publicly available print and electronic resources of the 153 institutions was conducted first to obtain information on degree requirements, course descriptions, and course syllabi. In the absence of adequate publicly avail-able materials, we utilized a standard survey of programs to obtain information and documentation on degree requirements, course descriptions, and course syllabi.

Using a deductive approach to thematic content analysis (Miles and Huber-man, 1994), we conducted an analysis of course titles, course descriptions, and syllabi and coded for the mention of accountability, ethics, evaluation, and



governance either in the title of the course or within the course description. For the area of accountability, additional related key words emerged and were utilized during the course of document analyses, such as public responsiveness and public responsibility. Similarly, related terms such as performance management and moral development were used to search for content and topical areas related to evaluation and ethics, respectively.

Based on our initial analysis, follow-up requests were made to specific faculty or program administrative personnel for the syllabi of those courses containing accountability, ethics, evaluation, and/or governance in the title or in the course description. Additional requests, via email, mail, and fax, were sent to course in-structors who taught introductory nonprofit management courses or general core management and overview courses. Utilizing this method, we obtained course descriptions for 150 of the 153 institutions, and 243 syllabi from 126 institutions. Syllabi were then coded using our established procedures, as described above.

We also coded data on the programs by institutional variables, including private versus public university status; religious versus secular status; Carnegie institutional designation;4 the degree type in which nonprofit management edu-cation programs are located (i.e., public administration or public policy, business or management, social work, a free-standing nonprofit management program, MS, MA, or other program); the student profile of the nonprofit management program (i.e., whether the students are entry, mid, or executive level or some combination thereof); and the type of nonprofit management offerings, including degree programs, certificates, or only the provision of courses relating to nonprof-it management in the context of a more generalized degree program.

Data were also interpreted and coded into categorical variables relating to the nature and type of offerings for accountability, ethics, evaluation, and governance, including dummy variables for the existence of courses, whether the topics were offered as part of a broader subject area and whether or not such courses were required. Judgments were also made and related coding of the context in which the content areas were framed was undertaken. For example, was accountability treated in public administration, business, or social work contexts, or were the content areas treated with nonprofit contexts as the primary frame of reference? Or were the topics treated in a generic or blended manner?

In the left column of Table 2, sample characteristics are first summarized for the 153 programs reviewed in our study; to the right, information from Wish and Mirabella’s 1997 sample is also presented for comparison. In general, one can see growth in the number of programs, with a change from 93 graduate pro-grams reported on in Wish and Mirabella’s 2001 report (which reported on the 1997 data) to 153 programs in the 2003-2004 data. Despite this rapid growth, we observe similarity in the distribution patterns, with a few noteworthy areas of change related to an increased scope or focus on nonprofit management.



For institutional type, in both samples, more than 60% percent are doctoral ex-tensive and intensive institutions and approximately a third comprises master’s-granting institutions. Geographic location trends are fairly consistent with Wish and Mirabella’s data, with just more than a third of the programs continuing to be located in the Northeast (35.3%). Although more than one quarter remain in the Midwest (26.8%), the proportion of programs located in the Midwest has declined modestly, while programs in the South and West have increased by 3 and 4 percent, respectively. The distribution of public versus private university setting has not changed significantly, with a continuing ratio of about 60% pub-lic to 40% private university participation. A large proportion of the universities and colleges, nearly 80%, continued to consist of secular institutions across both time periods.

We utilized Mirabella and Wish’s census of graduate programs to code for a concentration in nonprofit management. Because we also wanted to incorporate a more highly specified code for nonprofit management education type, we devel-oped a coding scheme that ascertained whether a program only offered nonprofit coursework, had a formalized nonprofit concentration, or offered a specific non-profit degree. Our coding of nonprofit management education type—whether the institutional setting is characterized as having an NME program, concentration or coursework only—revealed that growth in the number of graduate programs offering degree programs has increased modestly, up from 7% to 9%.

Evidence of an expansion of focus on nonprofit management, however, is noteworthy, with evidence of growth related to concentration and coursework offerings. In the current study, nearly half (48%) of the programs offer a NME concentration, up from 31% in the previous time period, and 37% offer course-work only, up from 10% in the previous time period). A plurality of programs, 88%, continues to serve a mixed student population comprising entry-, mid-, and executive-level participants. Growth has been evident in the area of training mid-career and executive level professionals, up to 12% from the previous 5%. Although a focus on early career professionals appears small in both samples, it is important to note that our study reports only on graduate programs, most of which cater to a mix of students. If we had included a systematic review of under-graduate offerings, growth would also have been a central story line. Presumably such undergraduate programs cater largely to entry-level participation needs.

Seventy-two of the 153 (47%) institutions in the current data set represent MPA or MPP degree granting institutions. Twenty are master of business admin-istration programs, 19 are master of social work programs, 14 are master of arts programs, and 13 are master of science programs. Fifteen of the programs includ-ed in the data set are “other” masters programs, the preponderance of which offer a specialized master of nonprofit management degree program.

Analysis of the correlations among the institutional setting characteristics vari-ables showed several significant results. The first significant result showed posi-



Table 2. Sample Comparisons, Institutional SettingsStudy Samplea Mirabella Sampleb

Institutional Setting Frequency Percent Frequency Percent

Degree TypeMPA/Policy/Public Affairsc 72 47.1 42 45.7MBA 20 13.1 7 7.6MS 13 8.5 10 10.8MA 14 9.2 10 10.8MSW 19 12.4 16 17.4Other degree 15 9.8 7 7.6

Institutional TypeDoctoral-Extensivec 64 41.8 40 43.0Doctoral-Intensive 30 19.6 20 21.5Master’s I 49 32.0 28 30.1Master’s II 2 1.3 n/a n/aBac-Liberal Arts 2 1.3 2 2.2Bac-General 1 0.7 n/a n/aAssociate’s 1 0.7 1 1.1Specialized 4 2.6 2 2.2

NME TypeNME Program 14 9.2 6 6.5NME Concentrationc 74 48.4 29 31.2NME Coursework Only 56 36.6 9 9.7Other 1 0.7 n/a n/aUnknown 8 5.2 49 52.7

Geographic LocationNortheastc 54 35.3 33 35.5Midwest 41 26.8 32 34.4South 26 17.0 13 14.0West 32 20.9 15 16.1

Public/Private StatusPublicc 91 59.5 58 62.4Private 59 38.6 35 37.6Missing 3 2.0 n/a n/a

Secular/Religious OrientationSecularc 120 78.4 71 76.3Religious 30 19.6 22 23.7Missing 3 2.0 n/a n/a

Student PopulationEarly Career 1 0.7 n/a n/aPrimarily Mid-career, Exec 18 11.8 5 5.4Mixedc 134 87.6 88 94.6

Total 153 100.0 93 100.0a Compiled by the authors from Mirabella (2004) online census utilizing data only for correspondent organizations of this study’s sample. b Compiled by the authors based on Mirabella’s earlier data set. c Mode.



tive relationships between NME degree program existence and “other” degree setting (r=.48) and MA degree setting (r=.21), and a negative relationship with MPA degree setting (r=-.27). The second showed a positive relationship between NME concentration and MPA degree (r=.50) and MA degree (r=.26), and a nega-tive relationship with MSW (r=-.30) and MBA degree setting (r=-.19). NME concentration was also moderately correlated with the institutional type designa-tion of doctoral intensive (r=.17).

Student populations variables were correlated in the following ways: a positive relationship between early career and MSW degree setting (r=.21); and a positive relationship between mid-career and other degree setting (r=.22) There were no significant relationships with the geographic location, private vs. public status, and religious vs. secular status variables.

FindingsCourse Offerings

We first sought to answer our most general research question: Are the con-cepts of accountability, ethics, evaluation, and governance incorporated into the curricula of current nonprofit management programs? If so, in what ways and to what extent? To answer this question, we identified programs that offered courses (both core and elective) directly focused on accountability, ethics, evaluation, and governance.

In Table 3, we display the summary descriptive statistics of the course offer-ings by institutional setting. In general terms, half (49.7%) of the institutions in our sample offer ethics courses, and 45% offer evaluation courses. About a fifth (17.6%) offer governance courses. Only 4% of the institutions offer courses centered on accountability. When considering the course offerings by the institu-tional setting characteristics, some noteworthy areas of variation surface.

In terms of degree type, MPA/MPP, MA, and MS programs offer the four course areas in somewhat similar distributions to each other and to the general trends. MPA/MPP programs offer evaluation (57%) and governance (25%) at modestly higher levels than that of the overall sample, and evaluation at a level similar to that of the general sample. MPA/MPP program setting was moderately correlated with the existence of evaluation courses (r=.18).

Notably, no MBA programs in the sample offered a course directly centered on governance. Similar to the general findings, however, nearly half of the MBA programs did offer ethics courses. Only 10% of MBA programs offered evalua-tion courses. MBA program setting was negatively correlated with the existence of evaluation courses (r=-.31) and moderately negatively correlated with the existence of governance courses (r=-.19).

No MSW programs offered governance or accountability courses. Such pro-grams did offer courses in both ethics and evaluation, but at notably lower rates than the general findings indicate. All four course offerings are offered at higher



rates in the context of MA programs. An explanation of this might relate to the fact that these programs center on specialized nonprofit management education; higher inclusion levels might relate to the centrality of these topics or the flex-ibility and focus afforded in more highly specialized program settings.

In the doctoral-extensive, doctoral-intensive, and Master’s I designations for institutional type, which account for all but 10 of the programs in the sample, the distributions across all four course areas are similar to the general findings. In terms of nonprofit program type, greater variation is present.

Programs offering graduate degrees in nonprofit management, which represent only 14 of the 153 programs, offer courses in ethics (15% more), evaluation (20% more), and governance (25% more) at higher rates in comparison to the general findings; yet none of the 14 degree programs focused on nonprofit management had courses focused exclusively on accountability. In the 74 programs that offer a concentration of three or more courses in nonprofit management, results mirror the general findings on the provision of accountability and governance courses but offer ethics and evaluation courses at higher levels. The programs that offer coursework only offer courses in all four areas but at lower rates in all four areas.

Analysis of the correlation between the three NME Program Type designations and course offerings found positive relationships between NME program and all four course areas (accountability, r=.23; ethics, r=.24; evaluation, r=.24; and gov-ernance, r=.36). NME concentration was also positively correlated with all four topics but was not statistically significant. NME coursework only was negative and statistically significant with all four course categories. These results suggest that with greater specialization on nonprofit management may come a greater breadth of course offerings. Wish and Mirabella’s (1998) research on curricular variation suggests that when nonprofit coursework is offered it is of a more gen-eral nature, often centered on more generalized topics of nonprofit management or the sector.

The results for geographic location indicated that programs in the Northeast, Midwest, and West offered courses in all four areas in a pattern similar to that of the general population. Notably, programs in the South offered courses in all four areas at higher rates, with rates 3% higher in accountability, 16% higher in eth-ics, nearly 20% higher in evaluation, and 13% higher in governance. Half of the programs in the South were established in the last 10 years. This newness may be an area to consider as a possible explanation for a higher focus on these areas of nonprofit management coursework, and it warrants future exploration.

The distributions in public and private status are also similar to the general findings, with two exceptions: programs situated in public institutions offer evalu-ation coursework at modestly higher levels than the general finding, and private institutions offer ethics and governance at modestly higher levels. Religious programs offer ethics courses and governance courses in higher proportions (nearly 19% more in ethics and 15% more in governance) than do programs in public set-



Table 3. Course Offerings by Institutional Setting Characteristics Courses

Institutional Setting Accountability Ethics Evaluation GovernanceDegree TypeMPA/Policy/Public Affairs, n=72 4 (5.6%) 40 (55.6%) 41 (56.9%) 18 (25%)MBA, n=20 0 (0.0%) 9 (45.0%) 2 (10.0%) 0 (0%)MS, n=13 1 (7.7%) 7 (53.8%) 4 (30.8%) 1 (7.7%)MA, n=14 1 (7.1%) 10 (71.4%) 9 (64.3%) 3 (21.4%)MSW, n=19 0 (0.0%) 4 (21.1%) 7 (36.8%) 0 (0%)Other degree, n=15 0 (0.0%) 6 (40.0%) 6 (40.0%) 5 (33.3%)

Institutional TypeDoctoral-Extensive, n=64 4 (6.3%) 30 (46.9%) 30 (46.9%) 10 (15.6%)Doctoral-Intensive, n=30 0 (0.0%) 19 (63.3%) 17 (56.7%) 6 (20.0%)Master’s I, n=49 1 (2.0%) 21 (42.9%) 19 (38.8%) 10 (20.4%)Master’s II, n=2 1 (50.0%) 0 (0.0%) 0 (0.0%) 0 (0.0%)Bac-Liberal Arts, n=2 0 (0.0%) 2 (100.0%) 1 (50.0%) 0 (0.0%)Bac-General, n=1 0 (0.0%) 1 (100.0%) 0 (0.0%) 1 (100.0%)Associate’s, n=1 0 n/a 0 n/a 1 (100.0%) 0 (0.0%)Specialized, n=4 0 (0.0%) 3 (75.0%) 1 (25.0%) 0 (0.0%)

NME Program TypeNME Program, n=14 0 (0.0%) 9 (64.3%) 9 (64.3%) 6 (42.9%)NME Concentration, n=74 4 (5.4%) 46 (62.2%) 39 (52.7%) 12 (16.2%)NME Coursework Only, n=56 2 (3.6%) 19 (33.9%) 19 (33.9%) 8 (14.3%)Other, n=1 0 (0.0%) 0 (0.0%) 0 (0.0%) 0 (0.0%)Unknown, n=8 0 (0.0%) 2 (25.0%) 2 (25.0%) 0 (0.0%)

Geographic LocationNortheast, n=54 2 (3.7%) 24 (44.4%) 20 (37.0%) 5 (9.3%)Midwest, n=41 1 (2.4%) 20 (48.8%) 19 (46.3%) 8 (19.5%)South, n=26 2 (7.7%) 17 (65.4%) 16 (61.5%) 8 (30.8%)West, n=32 1 (3.1%) 15 (46.9%) 14 (43.8%) 6 (18.8%)

Public/Private StatusPublic, n=91 4 (4.4%) 42 (46.2%) 46 (50.5%) 14 (15.4%)Private, n=59 2 (3.4%) 33 (55.9%) 21 (35.6%) 13 (22.0%)Unknown, n=3 0 (0.0%) 1 (33.3%) 2 (66.7%) 0 (0.0%)

Secular/Religious OrientationSecular, n=120 6 (5.0%) 56 (46.7%) 55 (45.8%) 18 (15.0%)Religious, n=30 0 (0.0%) 19 (63.3%) 12 (40.0%) 9 (30.0%)Unknown, n=3 0 (0.0%) 1 (33.3%) 2 (66.7%) 0 (0.0%)

Student PopulationEarly Career, n=1 0 (0.0%) 1 (100.0%) 0 (0.0%) 0 (0.0%)Primarily Mid-career, Exec, n=18 1 (5.6%) 10 (55.6%) 6 (33.3%) 3 (16.7%)Experientially Mixed, n=134 5 (3.7%) 65 (48.5%) 63 (47.0%) 24 (17.9%)Total 6 (3.9%) 76 (49.7%) 69 (45.1%) 27 (17.6%)

Note.: Values in parentheses represent a percentage of the total institutions by institutional setting variables.


tings. No programs in religious institutional settings offer accountability courses. It is important to note, however, that the number of programs in religious institu-tions is small, accounting for only 30 of the 153 programs in the sample.

The majority (n=134) of the programs are oriented toward a mix of student experience and offer courses in all four areas in similar proportion to the general sample. The programs oriented toward mid-career and executive-level personnel offer ethics and accountability courses at higher levels and evaluation at lower levels. Programs focused on executive level development had coursework more generally focused on leadership and management content and less of a focus on program level skills, which might help explain this pattern. No significant rela-tionships existed across the four course areas and geographic location, public or private status, secular or religious status, or student population.

Consistent with the extant literature, the findings above suggest that the great-est area of variation in the curricula of nonprofit management education relates to degree type. Related to the best place debate (Fletcher, 2005; Wilson and Lar-son, 2003) is also the issue of the extent to which the curricula in various degree program type and disciplinary settings focuses on specialized nonprofit manage-ment education. Because of the centrality of degree and disciplinary setting, and because of the lack of significant relationships and limited variation in the sample in the other institutional characteristics variables, we limit the remaining presen-tation of findings in relationship to degree type in the sections that follow.

Course Requirements by Degree TypeAlthough an institutional offering of a course in accountability, ethics, evalua-

tion, or governance may point to the importance it places on such topical areas, an additional question is whether such courses are a required as part of the formal curriculum. Required inclusion suggests even greater centrality of focus in the program. As we will discuss in a subsequent section, course requirements alone do not tell the complete story.

In Table 4, we display by degree type the number of institutions that require a course in ethics, accountability, evaluation, or governance. As anticipated from the review of accreditation standards and as illustrated the findings included in Table 4, a requirement to take a course in any of the four areas occurs much less frequently than does an opportunity to take such courses (Table 3). Accountabil-ity is a required topic in only one program in an MPP/MPA setting. Governance and ethics courses are also required to only a limited extent, with ethics courses required in 20–25% of MBA, MS, and MA programs and nearly 10% of MPA/MPP programs. Evaluation, however, is more commonly required; an evaluation course is required in almost a third of MA, MS and other degree programs and approximately a fifth of MPA/MPP programs.

Our examination of optional and required courses has centered thus far on the identification of those with a singular and specialized focus on accountability,




ethics, evaluation, or governance. This approach is limited in several ways. First, it limits the inclusion of courses in which these topics, which do overlap, are treated in a combined way. Second, our review of core or required curricula also suggests an underrepresentation of closely related courses. For example, at first glance it appears that MBA programs rarely focus on evaluation. Although very few MBA programs in our sample offer evaluation courses per se, our approach did not take into account courses related to financial management, which arguably have evaluation dimensions. This approach also does not take into account related coursework in policy analysis or other standard research methods, also arguably related to evaluation, yet not as specialized and certainly not conceived of as be-ing specific to nonprofit contexts.

A third and related limitation of an examination centered only on specialized courses is that it misses the areas of the core curriculum in which the topics of accountability, ethics, evaluation, and governance are integrated into larger man-agement or overview courses. A useful example of this relates to the treatment of ethics. In our analysis focused on identifying specialized courses, we found that ethics courses are not offered or required in the MSW programs included in the census of nonprofit graduate programs. Yet when we look at the case of the MSW program at the University of Michigan, ethical perspectives are clearly at the core of their required foundation course, “Interpersonal Practice with Individu-als, Families and Small Groups,” which emphasizes ethical dimensions of social work and clinical practice. A review of MSW programs reveals a consistent focus on clinical ethics, framed largely in terms of individual behaviors and profession-alism. Yet as we will illustrate below when we examine the curricula of MSW programs, the discussion of ethics in broader management and administration

Table 4. Course Requirements by Degree Type

Degree Type Accountability Ethics Evaluation Governance

MPA/Policy/Public Affairs, n=72 1 (1.4%) 7 (9.7%) 14 (20.6%) 5 (6.9%)

MBA, n=20 0 (5.0%) 5 (25.0%) 2 (10.0%) 0 (0.0%)

MS, n=13 0 (0.0%) 3 (23.1%) 2 (15.3%) 2 (15.3%)

MA, n=14 0 (7.1%) 3 (21.4%) 4 (28.6%) 2 (14.2%)

MSW, n=19 0 (0.0%) 1 (5.3%) 1 (5.3%) 0 (0.0%)

Other degree, n=15 0 (0.0%) 4 (26.6%) 4 (26.6%) 4 (26.6%)

Total, n=153 1(1.4%) 23 (15.0%) 27 (17.6%) 13 (8.5%)

Note: Values in parentheses represent a percentage of the total institutions by degree type.

contexts is not as common as in the other degree programs, which have a broader private, nonprofit, or public organizational or administrative focus rather than a clinical focus. The findings above correspond closely with what is suggested by our previous review of the accreditation standards.

Similarly, aspects of accountability, ethics, and governance are often included in general management courses that are commonly part of core curricula. More-over, aspects of accountability and governance specifically framed within nonprofit contexts are well integrated into two types of courses common to most institu-tions: courses pertaining to nonprofit management and organizations generally and courses on the history and foundations of the nonprofit sector more broadly. Because of the limitations of an examination centered only on specialized courses, we also include findings on the inclusion of accountability, ethics, evaluation, and governance in the broader subject areas in the core curricula. By limiting our examination to core courses, we recognize that our findings may also be under-estimations of such inclusion more broadly in the curriculum. Yet because core curricula change less frequently and represent large areas of participation by stu-dents, it is useful to examine the treatment of these topics in these core courses. This examination reveals much greater exposure to accountability, ethics, evalua-tion, and governance.

Broader Subject Area Inclusion by Degree TypeIn Table 5, we display the number of institutions, by degree type, that offer

accountability, ethics, evaluation, or governance as a topic within core courses de-voted to a broader subject area. In comparison to the general findings relating to specialized optional and required courses, it is evident that accountability, ethics, evaluation, and governance are indeed treated more broadly in the core curricula of the programs under examination. The biggest differences are in the areas of accountability and governance, which when examined in this broader context of core courses reveals that more than one third include aspects of accountability and almost half include aspects of governance. Yet it is still the MPA/MPP and specialized MS, MA, and other degree programs that exhibit higher levels of all four categories.

Treatment and Context of Accountability, Evaluation, Ethics, and Governance by Degree Type

Accountability, ethics, evaluation, and governance are taught using a variety of approaches and framed in a variety of sectoral and organizational contexts. Given that nonprofit management programs are housed in several types of degree programs and disciplinary settings, it is important to consider in what context or in what manner each of these topics were treated. To do this, we coded the treatment of the topics by the following contexts: nonprofit context, public policy/public administration context, business management context, and public





service context. Public service context includes those approaches that focus on both public and nonprofit sectors in a mixed way; most examples from the MSW programs were coded into this category, as the context for social work often spans the nonprofit and public sector contexts. Table 6 illustrates the context in which accountability, ethics, evaluation, and governance are treated. It is important to note that some institutions use multiple approaches to teaching these topics, and therefore the numbers in Table 6, which represent approaches, are higher than the number of institutions in our sample.

As shown in Table 6, all four topics are found most often in the nonprofit context and the public policy/public administration context. Accountability and governance topics exhibit the strongest connection to nonprofit contexts in their treatment. Ethics and evaluation are focused on most often in the context of pub-lic administration and public policy. In the business or private sector contexts, although all of the topics are focused on less, ethics is the most represented of the four; governance and accountability are rarely oriented toward business contexts. This might change in the post-Sarbannes-Oxley environment.

Similarly, we would expect, and in many ways hope for, changes in the pat-terns and orientation of accountability, ethics, evaluation, governance, and other course offerings as the internal and external environments of organizations in all three sectors change. David Renz and Pam Leland (2006) alluded to the temporal nature of curricular development and decision-making in their introduction to the Nonprofit Academic Center Curricular Guidelines: “While these Guidelines may be a milestone of sorts, they are not a static marker for the field. They will be reviewed and adapted over time to respond to the ongoing advancements in the maturing field of nonprofit education” (2).

Table 5. Broader Subject Area Inclusion, by Degree Type Accountability Ethics Evaluation Governance

MPA/Policy/Public Affairs, n=72 31 (43.1%) 52 (72.2%) 45 (62.5%) 44 (61.1%)

MBA, n=20 4 (20.0%) 11 (55.0%) 6 (30.0%) 4 (20.0%)

MS, n=13 6 (46.2%) 11 (84.6%) 6 (46.2%) 6 (46.2%)

MA, n=14 2 (28.6%) 10 (71.4%) 12 (85.7%) 9 (64.3%)

MSW, n=19 3 (15.8%) 6 (31.6%) 7 (36.8%) 2 (10.5%)

Other degree, n=15 7 (46.7%) 10 (66.7%) 8 (53.3%) 8 (53.3%)

Total, n=153 55 (35.9%) 100 (65.4%) 84 (54.9%) 73 (47.7%)

Note. Values in parentheses represent a percentage of the total institutions by degree type.



Conclusion We have explored whether increased demands for improved accountability,

ethics, evaluation, and governance practices in nonprofit management are accom-panied by related coursework in nonprofit management education. Our research suggests that accountability, ethics, evaluation, and governance coursework offer-ings are fairly prevalent in MPA/MPP programs and in programs with the great-est specialization in nonprofit management education, and more varied offerings are common in the context of less specialized programs and in MBA and MSW programs. Our research suggests that the treatment of the topics may vary by disciplinary and degree program setting, particularly in the areas of accountabil-ity and governance. This research contributes to the ongoing best place debate to the extent that it provides a detailed rendering of this specific slice of course content and to the extent that various stakeholders value such content and related educational outcomes. Yet our research raises a number of provocative questions in need of additional consideration and research.

We have framed our research questions in terms of curricular responsiveness to market dynamics, such as stakeholder preferences and accreditation standards, and in terms of environmental and organizational change processes. O’Neill (2005) points out this process, as well as the process of growth in the field of nonprofit management education:

The growth of the nonprofit sector continues to have profound impli-cations for nonprofit management education. University programming tends to follow, not anticipate, social and economic change.... There is every reason to believe that the great growth of the U.S. nonprofit sector in the late twentieth century will continue to supply potential students for nonprofit management education programs. (14)

Table 6. Treatment and Context of Accountability, Ethics, Evaluation, and Governance

Accountability Ethics Evaluation Governance

Nonprofit Context, n=173 37 42 30 64

Public Policy/Public Administration Context, n=102 13 50 35 4

Private Sector/ Management Context, n=20 2 14 3 1

Public Service Context, n=58 12 20 23 3

Total n=353 64 126 91 72

Note: n=number of approaches to topics



Additional research is needed to move beyond a focus on how to respond to the training and educational needs of nonprofit managers to the exploration of how to shape curricula in anticipation of environmental pressures and changing organizational and managerial dynamics. How nonprofit management education programs anticipate the learning needs of nonprofit managers, especially during times of expansion and change, becomes a question of critical significance. How nonprofit management education programs distinguish themselves from one another as the marketplace of nonprofit management programs continues to swell will also be an interesting phenomenon. And how programs in varied disciplin-ary and program settings interpret changing nonprofit circumstances and value and construct curricular decision-making also warrants additional exploration.

In addition, the literature on nonprofit accountability and evaluation outcomes, for example, has been criticized as presenting these topics with a subjective, positive patina—with the attitude that if accountability and evaluation are good, then more accountability and more evaluation are even better. Our research, likewise, is limited by its reliance on documents and self-reports. And although the documents arguably represent legal and contractual obligations with students and are symbolic of the institution’s resource commitment and values, direct ob-servation and in-depth interviews certainly would provide additional insight into the process of course creation and content selection.

Through our research, we have extended the accounting of curricula provided by Wish and Mirabella (1998) to focus on several specific and current imperatives for nonprofit management programs. Yet the focus on an analysis of program catalogue, course description, and syllabi, although detailed and comprehensive, has been largely deductive in nature, with a goal of generalizing about trends and a general treatment of the topics in the coursework of a majority of nonprofit management education programs. Our current data set, particularly if com-bined with additional interviews, deeper content analysis, or observations, could, however, afford expansion of our analysis to better characterize how and to what extent accountability, ethics, and evaluation are being treated. For example, are such topics treated in the context of sectoral and organizational dynamics? From what theoretical perspectives? In a practical sense, or largely normatively? What readings are being utilized, and what does this symbolize? How strong is the em-pirical base with which these topics are commonly presented? Are there common patterns within disciplinary contexts, and what might this mean?

Additional research into how curriculum offerings relate to nonprofit manage-rial behavior is also warranted. Is there a relationship between curriculum offerings in accountability, ethics, evaluation, and governance and perceptions of effective management capacity? Do such offerings lead to changes in managerial orienta-tion, values, or management behavior? With greater insight, we may gain a better understanding of historical, ideological, theoretical, and practical models utilized in nonprofit management education program settings and their varied effects.



Finally, as Renz and Leland (NACC, 2006) suggested in the context of estab-lishing nonprofit management education accreditation standards, and as Tsch-irhart (1998) and Wish and Mirabella (1998) explored in their empirical work on nonprofit management education curriculum, our snapshot of accountability, ethics, evaluation, and governance and similar accountings of curricular content must be heedful of the dynamic nature and advancement of an increasingly so-phisticated profession and the context of the maturing field of nonprofit manage-ment education. It will be important to consider the extent to which accountabil-ity, ethics, evaluation, and governance are enduring topics for graduate nonprofit management education. How nonprofit management education anticipates and adapts to changes in the nonprofit landscape remains a vital and interesting phe-nomenon.

Notes1. After a consultative process, the NASPAA group responsible for the creation of the NASPAA

“Guidelines for Graduate Professional Education in Nonprofit Organizations, Management, and Leadership” held a panel discussion on the topic of nonprofit management education at the 2006 NASPAA Meeting in Minneapolis, Minnesota, October 19–21. Chaired by Mary Tschirhart, nonprofit management program heads and scholars Dean Eitel, Many Ann Feldhem, Renee Irvin, Sam Kirkpatrick, Steve Ott, and Kirsten Grønbjerg served as panelists. Please see http://www.naspaa.org/accreditation/document/NASPAAGuidelinesforNP%20Final2006.doc for the NASPAA Guidelines.

2. Please see http://www.naccouncil.org/pdf/NACC_Guidelines.pdf for the Nonprofit Academic Centers Council Curricular Guidelines for Graduate Study in Philanthropy, the Nonprofit Sector, and Nonprofit Leadership. The list of current NACC member centers and programs is available at http://www.naccouncil.org/members.asp.

3. A full listing and links to Roseanne Mirabella’s comprehensive database of nonprofit management education programs Nonprofit Management Education: Current Offerings in University Based Programs are available at http://pirate.shu.edu/~mirabero/Kellogg.html for. See also Mirabella and Wish (2001, 2000) and Wish and Mirabella (1998) for a full description of related sampling procedures, baseline data, and comparative data.

4. This refers to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching classification system for institutions of higher education. The classification system was first published in 1973, and has undergone several revisions, with the most recent major update occurring in 2005. We utilized the 2005 system for classifying the colleges and universities in our sample. For more information, please refer to the explanation provided on the Web site of the Carnegie Foundation at http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/classifications/index.asp.

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The authors would like to thank the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A & M University and the Urban Institute for support of our work on this project. In addi-tion, we are grateful for research assistance provided by Alison Edwards, Bibin Qin, and Ryan Stroud. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action. We are especially grateful to ARNOVA panel organizer Roseanne Mirabella and discussant David Hammack for their feedback, which influenced further development and refinement of the paper.

Angela Bies is an assistant professor at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University. She has a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. Her research interests include training and organizational develop-ment in nonprofit, nongovernmental, and educational contexts with particular emphases on accountability, evaluation, and policy development. Bies has held executive and consulting positions for a variety of nonprofit and public sector



organizations including the U.S. Peace Corps, United Way of the Greater Min-neapolis Area, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Council on Standards for International Education and Travel, and the National Charities Information Bureau/Rockefeller Brothers Fund national panel on nonprofit accountability. She is active in the Association for Research on Nonprofit and Voluntary Action, the International Society of Third Sector Research, and the Comparative Inter-national Education Society. She is also a visiting faculty member at the Catholic University of Lublin, Poland.

Amy S. Brimer-Blackwood is a research associate at The Urban Institute, a Washington-D.C.-based, nonpartisan think tank that gathers and analyzes data, conducts policy research, evaluates programs and services, and educates Ameri-cans on critical issues and trends in order to promote sound social policy and public debate on national priorities.


The Inter-University Case ProgramChallenging Orthodoxy, Training

Public Servants, Creating Knowledge

Ryan YeungSyracuse University

AbstractThe list of individuals who participated in the Inter-University Case Program

(ICP) reads like a who’s who list of public administration titans. In one form or another, scholar-practitioners like Dwight Waldo, Paul Appleby, Harold Stein, and Frederick C. Mosher played a part in the success of the program. This article examines the ICP with an epistemological eye. The era of the ICP was a period when scholars thought that the complexity of government prevented the devel-opment of general administrative principles and also prevented the use of con-ventional scientific methods to generate knowledge in the field. They believed instead that the strength of the ICP case studies was in their detail. Instead of presenting an idealized world of public organizations, the cases left the blemishes intact and presented a more realistic view of government: a government that was heavily political and, at times, even irrational. The goal of the cases was to teach decision-making skills, though generalization and theory development were important but subordinate objectives. Generalization of knowledge from the case studies was a difficult, but not impossible, task. The development of general principles was not possible, but, without disregarding context, the case studies allowed scholars to observe general tendencies at work in public organizations. Today, as public administration has once again found its theories to be challenged by a changing world, the case study remains an important tool for linking theory in the sphere of academia and practice in the real world of administration.

Because of its relatively modern development and because of Americans’ long-held antipathy to government, the field of public administration has sought to define and legitimize itself. In its earliest days, it sought to achieve these goals through association and analogy to more developed fields and an almost unwaver-ing dedication to scientism and scientistic methods. However, once the field was

JPAE 13(3/4):549–564


The Inter-University Case Program

more firmly established, it quickly became obvious that public administration in practice and in theory was much more complicated than initially thought.

Dwight Waldo, Herbert Simon, and Paul Appleby, among others, were some of the critics of this “orthodox approach.” They saw the public policy process as far more complex than described by their predecessors. Politics permeated the entire process. This new world required a new literature, one that was less prescriptive and more descriptive. This literature took the form of the Inter-University Case Program (ICP).

This article examines the Inter-University Case Program and the use of the case method in public administration with an epistemological eye. The case studies reflect the fact that public administration in this period was less interested in the development of general principles that governed administration (science) and more interested in process and decision-making. Creating knowledge in the field through research was possible, but very difficult, and certainly did not take the form of general principles.

What is a Case Study?Intuitively, most academics, and most practitioners as well, know what a case

study is, but a formal definition of the term is elusive. Perhaps cognizant of this difficulty, Yin (2003, 1) does not present an explicit definition for the case study, and instead describes case studies as “the preferred strategy when ‘how’ or ‘why’ questions are being posed, when the investigator has little control over events, and when the focus is on a contemporary phenomenon within some real-life con-text.” The emphasis is on the context. As opposed to more conventional quanti-tative methods, there is an understanding that institutional and environmental factors can often play decisive roles in the policy process.

Another definition is presented by Jensen and Rodgers (2001, 237). They define a case study “as any study where generalization to a larger population is called into question because the study focuses on a single entity.” Under this defi-nition, even quantitative analyses can be considered case studies. In the context of the Inter-University Case Program and public administration, however, this definition is somewhat too expansive. A more appropriate definition is provided by Stein (1952), who defines a public administration case as

a narrative of the events that constitute or lead to a decision or group of related decisions by a public administrator or group of public ad-ministrators. Some account is given of the personal, legal, institution-al, political, economic, and other factors that surrounded the process of decision, but there is no attempt to assert absolute causal relation-ships. Psychological speculation is avoided, though repetitive patterns of behavior are cited, and interpretations of personality by other par-ticipants in the action are quoted or summarized. The studies contain



much detail and an effort is made in the composition, by a variety of rhetorical devices, to give the reader a feeling of actual participation in the action. While background and aftermath may be briefly summa-rized, the main detailed account is confined to a restricted time period. Emphasis throughout is on decision, whether taken as act or process, and exploration is made of rejected and hypothetical alternatives. The decision problems selected for treatment involve policy rather than technical issues. (Stein 1952, xxvii)

As described by Stein, the case study as it is usually used within public ad-ministration is qualitative, and is considered as much art as science. As with the Jensen and Rodgers definition, detail remains an identifying characteristic of the case study.

A typology of case studies is helpful to providing some perspective on this device. In general, case studies fall within two categories: teaching and research. The teach-ing case was and is the dominant form of case study and the primary application of the ICP. Teaching cases are written for a more general audience and tend to be more descriptive. Their main area of interest is on process, and they serve to recreate for the reader the circumstances that led to a certain decision. Most of the cases pro-duced by the ICP and discussed in this paper are considered teaching cases.

The research case study is less interested in description and more interested in explaining the factors that led to the formation of a certain outcome. A famous example of a research case study is Allison’s (1971) study of the Cuban Missile Crisis. In this case study, Allison applied three theories from the social sciences—the rational actor model, the organizational process model, and the government politics model—to explain the causes and outcomes of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Allison’s goal in this study was to create theory and to generalize beyond the case of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Generalization beyond the individual case is not usu-ally a top objective of the teaching case.

The line between teaching and research cases is often blurred. As Waldo (1968) points out, most teaching cases require data to be collected under a research design that is in turn related to existing theory. In addition, most research case studies are also interested in the context of a decision-making process, and hence provide the student of public administration a taste of the inner workings of government.

Jensen and Rodgers offer another typology of case studies. The authors catego-rize a case study into one of five categories: the snapshot case study, the longi-tudinal case study, the pre-post case study, the patchwork case study, and the comparative study of cases. The ICP was dominated by the use of snapshot case studies. These case studies were intended to describe a single decision-making entity at a single point in time. In the longitudinal case study, a single obser-vation is followed across time and the factors that led up to a certain event or



outcome are described. The pre-post case study is more sophisticated than the longitudinal case study in that it includes an assessment before and after the implementation of a policy or program. The patchwork case study incorporates some or all of the case study methods described previously into a single case, thereby allowing a researcher to study a single observation at different points in time. Similar to the patchwork study, the comparative study focuses on generaliz-ing across different observational units at different times. The variance is between and within units. Allison’s study is an example of a comparative study.

BackgroundStein argues that the seeds of the case method can be traced to ancient Greece,

noting that “[t]here is nothing new in this device: the recounting of incidents to point a moral was a living method of instruction in the days when recorded literature made its first appearance. Aesop’s Fables and Plutarch’s Lives had a pedagogical end in view” (Stein, 1952, xxxviii). In the early twentieth century, the case study became synonymous with the University of Chicago Department of Sociology. Sociology remained the discipline most associated with the case method until the mid-1930s (Tellis, 1997). In the same period, the case method became the key pedagogical technology in legal thought. Rosenbloom (1995) cites the legal realism movement, the development of administrative law, and the Roosevelt court as the main catalysts behind the growth of case studies within legal education.

Public administration research during this period was dominated by the Com-mittee on Public Administration of the Social Science Research Council. Among the projects sponsored by the Committee were a series of publications called the Case Reports. According to Stein, the Reports had three characteristic qualities: (1) they were almost all written by practitioners and hence tended to be “in the nature of success stories; (2) “they dealt with rather narrow and simple decision-problems”; and (3) they were primarily interested in problems in organization and management, personnel, and finance; there were no cases that focused on program decisions (Stein 1952, xi).

The direct precursor of the ICP was cases produced, used, and compiled by the Graduate School of Business at Harvard University. Stein states these cases were “descriptive of the behavior of individuals in business organizations when faced with problems” (Stein 1952, xli). As early as 1919, the Business School cases provided students a look at decision-making in private organizations. Professor Pendleton Herring of the Littauer School for Public Administration at Harvard University and also of the Social Science Research Council Committee on Public Administration learned of the Business School cases, and with the help of col-leagues he produced a number of case studies about subject matter similar to that of the Business School cases but applied to the public sector.



News of the cases spread beyond Harvard, and soon Cornell, Princeton, and Syracuse Universities joined with Harvard in an application to the Carnegie Corporation of New York to finance the creation of additional cases. After the application was approved, the four universities formed the Committee on Public Administration Cases (CPAC) in 1948. With the financial assistance of Carnegie once again, in 1951, CPAC expanded and became the Inter-University Case Pro-gram. The ICP was tasked with developing cases with a broader reach than those of its predecessor. Cases in state and local government and even in international administration were common (Stein, 1952).

The publication of Stein’s Public Administration and Policy Development: A Case Book in 1952 represented a seminal moment in the history of the Inter-Uni-versity Case Program. Rosenbloom calls the book “a standard text for at least a decade,” and “a classic contributor to public administration’s intellectual history” (Rosenbloom, 1995, 41). In 1963, ICP moved its offices from New York City to Syracuse, New York, where it was based at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs after funding from the Carnegie Corporation and the Ford Founda-tion ended. The ICP published at least five more casebooks in the 1960s, but by the early 1970s it was clear that ICP had begun to languish, and it disappeared completely in 1991.

The Inter-University Case Program was a product of its time, as was its demise. The historical context that motivated the development and success of ICP is dis-cussed in the next section.

Historical ContextBetween 1880 and 1945, public administration was synonymous with the

Orthodox School. These scholars sought to identify public administration as a science. Science meant rationalization and the adoption of general rules and procedures to govern human and organizational behavior. Politics had no role in this system. Goodnow (2004, 35) echoed the sentiments of the period when he declared that there were two distinct functions to government: “Politics has to do with policies or expressions of the state will. Administration has to do with the execution of these policies.”

In this pursuit of scientific legitimacy, public administration drew heavily from the work of Frederick Taylor (1911) and research in the field of scientific management. In one of public administration’s earliest textbooks, White (2004, 62) declared that “[t]here can be no doubt that the achievements of scientific management have aroused a vast amount of dissatisfaction with the antiquated methods which have characterized many public offices.” The Taylorist approach relied heavily on experimentation and the use of time and motion studies to cre-ate knowledge in the field.

The Orthodox school came under attack in the 1930s and 1940s by leading fig-ures like Dwight Waldo and Robert A. Dahl. In The Administrative State, Waldo



(1948, 123) declared that “[o]nly in purely mechanical operations is discretion absent. What is one to say, then, about the idea that government consists of two actions, decision and execution; and particularly what can be said for the idea that ‘politics’ can be taken out of ‘administration’ by devising separate organs for ‘politics’ and ‘administration?’” To this new breed of scholars, public adminis-trators were more than automatons. The ways in which they decided to exercise the discretion offered to them affected how policy was formed and implemented. Individuals in the public service were not managers but governors, and govern-ing was a political process (McCurdy, 1986).

The methods used to study the field of public administration also came under attack. In “The Science of Public Administration: Three Problems,” Dahl (1947, 11) suggested that it was impossible to study public administration with the same techniques used in the hard sciences, noting that “[n]o science of public administration is possible unless: (1) the place of normative values is made clear; (2) the nature of man in the area of public administration is better understood and his conduct is more predictable; and (3) there is a body of comparative stud-ies from which it may be possible to discover principles and generalities that transcend national boundaries and peculiar historical experiences” (Dahl, 1947, 11). Dahl’s essay was an explicit critique of the use of scientistic methods in the Taylorist mode in the field of public administration.

This rebellion within the discipline of public administration was driven in large part by the growth in the size of the federal bureaucracy during the New Deal and World War II (Shafritz, Hyde, and Parkes, 2004). The expansion neces-sitated the need to expand the civil service. Among the individuals who served in the civil service during the Roosevelt Administration was Paul Appleby, who served as an under secretary of Agriculture, a presidential advisor and interna-tional negotiator, and assistant director of the U.S. Bureau of the Budget (Bailey, 1963). After the war, Appleby (who later became Dean of the Maxwell School) and other former practitioners, including Harold Seidman and Frederick C. Mosher, joined the ranks of academia, where they brought real-world experience to the discipline of public administration. They also brought a view of govern-ment that was very different from the prevailing mindset, very different from the private sector, and inherently political. “Government is different because it must take into account of all the desires, needs actions, thoughts, and sentiments of 140,000,000 people,” wrote Appleby (2004, 135). “Government is different because government is politics.”

Public administration adopted the case method at about the same point that it fell out of favor in sociology in this period of upheaval. The increasing fragil-ity of the politics-public administration dichotomy meant that much of the literature and standard textbooks in public administration were no longer viable. According to Rosenbloom, “Like administrative law, general public administra-tion tried to fill an intellectual void with case studies” (1994, 41). They allowed



public administration training to continue despite the destruction of a long-held paradigm. But case studies, especially in the case of the Inter-University Case Program, were more than a pedagogical device; they represented an approach that scholars felt was most appropriate to training future public servants and to col-lecting, producing, and retaining knowledge about public administration.

Training Public ServantsBefore the arrival of former practitioners like Appleby, Waldo, and Mosher into

the field of public administration, students of public administration received an education that was very rational and scientistic in nature. In White’s textbook of public administration, students were trained to become managers; management in public administration was no different from management in private adminis-tration. According to White, “In every direction good administration seeks the elimination of waste, the conservation of material and energy, and the most rapid and complete achievement of public purposes consistent with economy and the welfare of the workers” (White, 2004, 57). Efficiency—producing outcomes at the lowest possible cost—was the ultimate aim of public administration.

Borrowing from the scientific management literature, students of public administration learned there was a science of management. Management could be learned and it could be studied. General principles—such as White’s “Public administration is the management of men and materials in the accomplishment of the purposes of the state”—could be developed. One can imagine students memorizing these principles and repeating them to themselves in class or even in the workplace.

When the practitioners arrived in the field of public administration, they found the rote learning of principles to be both inadequate and impractical. Enter the case study, a teaching tool that could bridge the divide between theory and practice. The leaders of public administration in the 1930s through the 1960s believed that the way to learn public administration was to do public administra-tion. An editing guide composed by the Inter-University Case Program in 1967 declared that “the primary purpose of case writing is to cause the reader to un-derstand, sympathetically, how and why the actors in the case saw things and did things at the time. The purpose of case writing is definitely not to score off the actors or to show how clever a case writer can be after the event, when he stands on the built-up heels of historical hindsight.”

The case study offered the public administration student a chance to vicariously live the life of an actual public administrator. The detail in this research method was essential for understanding and absorbing the work of government. In the case of “The Office of Education Library,” readers were immersed in both the politics and process behind the reorganization of the Office of Education Library. They saw that beliefs and values shaped the implementation of policy and that efficiency often took a back seat.



In the case of the Office of Education Library, efficiency stood at odds with val-ues. Under the orders of Congress to eliminate duplication and create economies of scale, Oscar Ewing, Federal Security Administrator in 1947, sought to merge the previously separate agency libraries under his authority into a single unit. However, this plan was not without controversy, and the Office of Education in particular was vehement in its opposition. Philosophy, power, and personal integrity were at stake for both sides, but more so for the Office of Education. Dr. Studebaker, the Commissioner of Education, “considered education, its programs, its services, its organization, as a professional and unique function, and could not agree with the tendency to regard education as merely one aspect of welfare activities,” wrote Silverman (1952, 49). “Standing behind this theory, he was bound to resist the attempt to draw out of the Office of Education any services or activities which were common to other ‘welfare functions.’” Even so, reorganiza-tion eventually occurred but not without resignations and bruised egos.

Instead of the rationalized, bureaucratic world that students previously were exposed to in textbooks such as White’s, the cases presented to students of public administration a world that was highly politicized, where human relations were often as important a consideration for a public servant as efficiency. The decisions that a public administrator had to make were complicated, had major conse-quences, and were moral in nature.

Ethics played an even larger role in “The Little Rock Story.” In this well-known case, Silverman (1962) described the positions held by both the state and federal governments on the issue of school integration. “The Governor’s main weapon had been executive power, and his major argument his responsibility to maintain the peace,” wrote Silverman (1962, 21). “The weight of the case for federal power had been carried by the federal judiciary relying on the ‘supreme law of the land’ clause of the United States Constitution. At the height of the conflict the abil-ity of the President to neutralize the National Guard and to invoke federal force tipped the balance.”

Based on issues of federalism, legitimacy, and individual rights, both sides in this case had defensible arguments. Silverman leaves up to the reader the question of who was right. This type of dilemma in government is characteristic of most of the ICP cases. They were intentionally left ambiguous in order to encourage de-bate and discussion. In essence, students were expected to conduct policy analysis: putting themselves into the situation, they were expected to define a problem, offer solutions, and compare alternatives. Unlike the public administration of old, however, policy analysis could and should include a discussion of values. In his dis-cussion of the case method, Waldo declared that “the customary teaching objective has been not merely to examine ‘what happens,’ but to raise and probe questions of what ought to happen: questions of policy and ethics” (Waldo, 1968, 468).

The goal of schools of public administration during this period was not to teach general principles about management or administration. Rather, they



sought to first provide a taste of life in the public sector for individuals with lim-ited experience in government. Second, they hoped to develop better decision-makers. At the end of a case exercise, the best students were expected to have developed “useful new alertnessess, overviews and sensitivities,” and/or “maxims or tentative tactics or strategies about how they will deal with characteristic ob-stacles or conflicts that attend real governmental policy activities” (Bock, 1980). Although no student would face the exact circumstances of each particular case, the hope was that exposure and experience with challenging situations would result in the development of important decision-making skills.

Creating KnowledgeAs a pedagogical tool, the Inter-University Case Program was not interested in

inculcating students with “scientific principles” of public administration. How-ever, as a tool of research, the use of the case study to create knowledge in the field was seen as a more attainable and more worthwhile goal. Nevertheless, as with many issues in public administration, this sentiment was not shared univer-sally.

In the original application to the Carnegie Corporation for a grant to form the Committee on Public Administration Cases (CPAC), CPAC listed as its first objective “To provide the basis for realistic concepts, hypotheses, and generaliza-tions about administrative organization, behavior, and policy-making by utiliz-ing a clinical approach and drawing on case studies of administrators in action” (Stein, 1952, xlii). From the outset, one of the goals—though perhaps not the primary goal—of the Inter-University Case Program had been to generate knowl-edge about the field of public administration. The individuals involved with the ICP were not necessarily dismissive of science or scientific methods, but dismis-sive of science done badly.

Science done badly in public administration was the subject of an essay by Simon (2004). Simon declared that, “Most of the propositions that make up the body of administrative theory today share, unfortunately, this defect of prov-erbs. For almost every principle one can find an equally plausible and acceptable contradictory principle” (2004, 136). To Simon and contemporaries, the general principles encountered in textbooks in both public and private administration could not be applied to all situations, though they were not without their own value: “The difficulty has arisen from treating as ‘principles of administration’ what are really only criteria for describing and diagnosing situations. Closet space is certainly an important item in the design of a successful house; yet a house designed entirely with a view to securing a maximum closet space—all other considerations being forgotten—would be considered, to say the least, somewhat unbalanced” (Simon, 2004, 144).

For administration to develop as a true science, argued the major figures of public administration, it needed to begin anew, it needed to generate new princi-



ples based on observed phenomena and sophisticated research and not commonly held beliefs, it needed to be humble in its assertions, and it needed to pay atten-tion to detail and context and the role that values and beliefs played in decision-making. The case study was a potential tool to achieve each of these goals —goals that with the destruction of the orthodoxy required a new literature.

A case study by itself was not very generalizable, though it could serve to define the questions asked and suggest the factors at work. The lessons learned from the Office of Education Library case were not necessarily applicable to other agencies or other administrative decisions. It would be impossible to hold all of the variables at work constant. However, collectively with other case studies about the same general topic, it would be possible for researchers to put forth some generalizations. These were not generalizations in the scientific principle mold, but generalizations that were in the words of Stein, “much less absolute in character,” “tentative and complex,” and dealt with “tendencies and values” (1952, xxiv).

One such effort at generalization by the Inter-University Case Program in-volved governmental reorganizations. Responding to criticism that the cases had no relationship with each other or were not “scientific” enough, the ICP decided to sponsor a set of cases on the sole issue of governmental reorganization. Accord-ing to Mosher (1967, xii), “The Research Committee of ICP met on a number of occasions in later 1959 and in 1960. Its discussions were principally to the finding and selection of a suitable problem area and process that would provide basically comparable foci for cases in various places, and to the determination of a hypothesis that would be meaningful and significant in all those places, as well as transferable elsewhere.” The result was a book, edited by Mosher, that collected 12 cases, all of which dealt with the issue of governmental reorganization, and with subjects that included the California Division of Architecture, the Philadel-phia Department of Health, and the United States Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service. The goal of soliciting these studies was to test the hypothesis of participation. To paraphrase, the participation hypothesis stated that government reorganizations are more effective if the individuals affected by the reorganization take part in the decision-making process.

At the end of the book, Mosher presented the results of a review somewhat similar to a meta-analysis. In this section, titled “Analytical Commentary,” Mosher systematically teased out the features and sequences that he saw as com-mon to public administrative agency reorganizations, with a particular interest in the role of participation in successful reorganizations.

Table 1 is taken directly from the Governmental Reorganizations text. It summa-rizes the results from each of the case studies presented in the book. Treating each case as a single data point, Mosher found little evidence to support the hypothesis that participation was associated with reorganizational effectiveness: “If the cases were to support the hypothesis fully, we would expect the cases to fall, roughly



at least, into a diagonal line from the upper left to the lower right” (1967, 526). Digging deeper into the cases, Mosher found a relationship between participation and the degree of employee resistance in the implementation stage. As shown in Table 2, the greatest level of employee resistance was seen in the Children’s Bu-reau, Ballistics, and La Loma case studies. These were all cases where the degree of participation in implementation was described as slight to zero.

Table 1

Degree of Participation

Degree of Substantive Effectiveness

Overall Generally effective Moderately or partially effective

Relatively little effectiveness

Moderate or Substantial

Personnel Board U.S. Public Health Philadelphia Health

Slight AutomationAgricultural ResearchHighway PatrolLangley Porter

Architecture Fish and Game

Zero Ballistics Children’s Bureau La Loma

Source: Mosher (1967, 526).

Table 2

Degree of Participation

Degree of Employee Resistance

In implementation Slight or zero resistance Moderate or partial resistance

Great resistance

Substantial Personnel Board U.S. Public Health

Moderate AutomationAgricultural ResearchHighway PatrolPhiladelphia Health

Langley Porter

Slight Architecture Children’s Bureau

Zero Ballistics La Loma

Source: Mosher (1967, 526).



Clearly, the results of Mosher’s analysis are somewhat contradictory. Herein laid the strength of the case study approach, at least according to Mosher. The detail in the case study allowed researchers without the benefit of a randomized experi-ment to untangle the effects of other variables that may have moderated the effect of one variable on another. The following excerpt from Governmental Reorganiza-tions expressed this attitude:

This nearly universal problem in social science has, in the past, been bypassed by insight and generalization through the device of declaring that, other things being about equal, this or that variable—viewed both as dependent and indepen-dent—contributes to such and such result. Indeed such an approach, whether or not stated, has probably been the premise of many of the great understandings about social behavior. Thus, one might in the present case state that, other things being equal, participation contributes to success in bringing about organizational change. But, in governmental organizations as well as in other social organ-isms, other things are never equal, as does comparison of the same organization at different times. Thus, in governmental organizations as well as in other social organizations, the ‘other things being equal’ criterion may well be meaningless. (Mosher 1967, 527)

A further categorization by Mosher elucidates other factors that may condition the effectiveness of participation, including categorization by purpose, agency autonomy-subordination, accustomed internal compliance system and leadership style, the kinds of personnel involved, and personnel systems.

This exercise reflects how the leading scholars of public administration in the thirties, forties, fifties, and to a lesser extent the sixties, saw the process of generalization of research in public administration. Politics was an indelible part of public administration, and research that attempted to separate the two was fraught with problems of legitimacy. Rather than wrestle with the forces of envi-ronment, institutions, and context that shaped policy and administration, it was simpler, more feasible, and more accurate to embrace the factors that differenti-ated government from other organizations. The strength of the case study was in its ability to capture all of these nuances endemic in the public sector.

The Orthodoxy Strikes BackThe Inter-University Case Program began falling out of favor as the case study

fell out of favor in the field of public administration. The 1960s saw the emer-gence of the field of policy analysis, which was founded by economists who began to take an interest in societal problems and programs to address these problems. In one of the first articles on policy analysis, Dror (2004, 250) stated that

The main contemporary reform movement in the federal administra-tion of the United States (and in some other countries as well) is based



on an economic approach to public decision-making. The roots of this approach are in economic theory, especially microeconomics and welfare economics, and quantitative decision-theory; the main tools of this approach are operations research, cost-effectiveness and cost-benefit analysis, and program budgeting and systems analysis; and the new professions of this approach are the systems analysts.

As indicated by the excerpt, the economic approach was deeply rooted in ratio-nality and science.

Public administration was not immune to the theories and principles of policy analysis. The late 1960s and 1970s were a period of resource scarcity and cutback management. The language of management was used to justify existing programs within a tight federal budget. Performance budgeting, a private sector innova-tion that emphasized managerial efficiency, became the industry standard (Shaf-ritz, Hyde, and Parkes, 2004). The ghost of efficiency was back in full force.

Research in public administration also took on a more rational character. With-in public administration, there was significant concern that research in the field had not progressed with the rest of the social sciences, particularly economics, and was not “scientific” enough. McCurdy and Cleary (1984) were particularly concerned with the state of doctoral research in public administration. Based on a set of somewhat subjective criteria, the authors found that, “Of the 142 projects we studied, less than half tested a theory or a causal statement, the criteria for impact. Of those that had impact, only 21 were designed in a way that would allow the reader to have much confidence in the findings” (McCurdy and Cleary, 1984, 50). A similar analysis of dissertation research by White (1986) shared the same gloomy sentiments of McCurdy and Cleary. The lack of quality research in public administration was also apparently evident in the Public Administration Review (PAR). Perry and Kraemer (1986) concluded that the research in the PAR was primarily applied and not cumulative, conclusions supported by Stallings and Ferris (1988). The state of public administration research had apparently improved somewhat by 1990 in terms of dissertation research, though Cleary (1992) still had concerns about subject selection.

Without a doubt, the critics of public administration research associated qual-ity research with quantitative methods, science, economics, and policy analysis. In defining their concept of validity, McCurdy and Cleary declared that “[a] study that was carefully designed—it might use experimental or quasi-experimental methods or statistical techniques—generally met this test. Case studies generally did not” (1984, 50). Perry and Kraemer (1986, 215–226) were concerned that “the underlying purposes of doing research tend to be problem-oriented, which limits development and testing of empirical theory” and argued that “public administration scholars need to make more substantial use of causal analysis, structural equation models, and longitudinal statistical methods and to develop



working competence with new statistical methodologies sooner after they become available to social scientists than they do currently.”

In the type of methodologies presented in the previous paragraph, the key to modeling a causal relationship was to reduce the background noise that distorted the variable of interest’s effects. The term “holding all else constant” was often used to describe this process. Quite clearly, this strategy was almost the polar op-posite of the strategy of the case study, and especially the case studies of the Inter-University Case Program. “Holding all else constant” meant holding constant what was special about government and public service.

Rather than removing the background noise, the ICP cases saw value in includ-ing it and even exploring it. The Waldos, Applebys, and Simons of the world saw the field of public administration primarily as applied in nature. Its goal was to train individuals to make thoughtful decisions in the service of the public. Not only was stripping theory of context, environment, and ethics virtually impossi-ble, the exercise also divorced theory from reality and only served to detract from the training of public servants.

ConclusionIn part because of the development and increasing sophistication of qualitative

data methods as meta-analysis, the case study has made a comeback in the last decade, though there remains much prejudice against it. For example, every other issue of the Public Administration Review now includes a section titled “Adminis-trative Cases,” which promise to “analyze a recent public-sector innovation, a new procedure, a complicated governmental decision, or an institutional development of interest to a broad cross-section of public and nonprofit administrators” (Still-man II and Raadschelders, 2006, 5). Additionally, the Evans School of Public Af-fairs of the University of Washington has established an online repository called the “Electronic Hallway” for teaching cases and other curriculum materials in the field of public administration and other related subject areas (https://hallway.org/).

There is perhaps explanation for the resurgence of the case study within public administration. In the last decade, the world has become much more intercon-nected, technology has progressed at an astonishing rate of growth, the United States has become more politically polarized than possibly ever before, and ter-rorism has become an everyday concern. Public administration scholars have not yet fully absorbed the implications of all of these changes. As a result, there is a role for the case study in capturing, describing, and preserving all of the complex processes that are now involved in the policy process, important information that would be lost with other empirical techniques, important information that can be used at the appropriate time and place and with appropriate methodologies to cre-ate knowledge in public administration. As in the 1930s and 1940s, the standard texts in public administration today have not kept up with the changing ideas and environment of the new millennium, providing a role for the case study.



More so than ever before, there are no proverbs of public administration. Theories formed 20 years ago may no longer hold in this rapidly changing world. Public administration education needs to be comprehensive and holistic and to embrace qualitative and quantitative methods. It must, however, remain ground-ed in its history as an applied field. Knowledge created and imparted must be relevant and drawn from examples taken from the real world of public organiza-tions. While the Inter-University Case Program may be long gone, this lesson may be its most important legacy.

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The author wishes to thank Alasdair Roberts for his helpful comments.

Ryan Yeung is a doctoral student in public administration at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University and a graduate research associate at the Center for Policy Research, also located in the Maxwell School. His main research areas are in social policy, with a particular interest in education policy, public finance, public organization and administration theory, and research design and methods.


Policy Mapping: A New Framework for Teaching Policymaking and Policy Design

Through Case Studies

Lelia Helms, University of Iowa Selden Biggs, U.S. Government

AbstractThe case study method is widely used in the training of professionals. Many

graduate programs in business, law, public management, and other fields em-ploy case studies as a core teaching methodology. Case studies enable today’s students to walk in the shoes of yesterday’s decision-makers and to learn how to devise solutions to tomorrow’s issues. This experience is particularly important in training future public managers and policy professionals. Today, individual careers often crisscross commercial, nonprofit, and government sectors. As a result, familiarity with the tools of issue advocacy, policy design, and program delivery has become an increasingly valuable commodity for today’s professional students and tomorrow’s managers. Case study methods are an important means of introducing students to the practices of public policymaking. In this paper, the authors demonstrate the value of policy mapping as a teaching tool with a case study of the Campus Security Act of 1990. This act offers a simplified design for policy delivery. It requires post-secondary institutions to collect and publish data on crime on campus with the goal of making students more aware and bet-ter prepared to deal with of safety issues on campus. The program was born out of the personal tragedy of the Clery family of Pennsylvania and evolved from state to federal legislation. We map the path of the Campus Security Act of 1990 and its subsequent clones using the technique of policy mapping. The objective is to demonstrate the utility of policy mapping as a common framework for case study analysis across numerous policy domains.

In this paper the authors examine “policy mapping” as a teaching tool for introducing students to public policymaking and policy design. We illustrate the mapping framework with a case study of the Campus Security Act of 1990.

JPAE 13(3/4):565–584



Policy maps are simplified pictures of the evolution or “path analysis” of an individual policy initiative over time (Biggs and Helms, 2007).1 Policy maps provide a common framework that students can use to plot and compare the origins, design, delivery, and outcomes of public policies, and they highlight the kinds of tools and techniques that policy actors use to define problems, craft and advocate solutions, design programs, and evaluate policy outputs and outcomes. By providing a common framework for analyzing and representing the myriad instrumental decisions that make up the policymaking process, policy maps en-able the comparative analysis of individual policy initiatives across diverse policy domains and contexts. Hence, policy maps can be used both for backward- looking histories of individual policies or for forward-looking design experiments for policy advocates and designers. Finally, policy maps are specifically designed to support the kind of case study research methods long used in such professional disciplines as business, law, and education and increasingly in schools of public policy and public administration.

Case studies and teaching public policy to future practitionersCase study methodology in one form or another has long been a feature of

graduate education in a wide variety of professional disciplines. The emphasis here is on professions, because case-based knowledge is critical to making the transition from observer to practitioner or from beginner to expert. As Flyvbjerg has observed,

Context-dependent knowledge and experience are at the very heart of expert activity. Such knowledge and expertise also lie at the center of the case study as a method of learning.... It is only because of experi-ence with cases that one can at all move from being a beginner to being an expert. (2006, 222)

Context-independent knowledge and analytical rationality are “inadequate for the best results in the exercise of a profession, as student, researcher, or practitio-ner” (Flyvberg, 2006, 222). Expert knowledge is, by and large, tacit knowledge gained through exposure to a broad range of cases (Klein, 1998).2 Case study methods serve an important role in training future experts by introducing them to the kind of mental stimulation that is critical to successful decision-making in ambiguous and time-sensitive contexts.

Graduate programs in public policy have been around for more than half a cen-tury. Knowledge about public policymaking is now being incorporated into stud-ies in the professional disciplines such as law, medicine, nursing, education, and public administration. While expertise in public policymaking has often been domain specific—that is, in areas such as education, defense, or public health pol-icy—the recent proliferation of programs in public management testifies to the



demand for professional civil servants with knowledge of policymaking processes at all levels and in all areas of government. As the scope of policymaking by fed-eral, state, and local governments grows, so too does the need for skilled experts to manage the hundreds of thousands of programs and the hundreds of billions of dollars that constitute the portfolio of American public life. Like business management in the second half of the twentieth century, public management promises to become a core professional discipline that cuts across and sustains all sectors of American social and economic life.

Case study methods are becoming as widespread in schools of public policy and public administration as they have been in business schools. Case studies intro-duce future practitioners to real life situations and the kind of complex under-standing of reality that cannot be captured by empirical or predictive analysis. Governance is an art and case studies expose future artists to the nuances and ambiguities of transforming policy issues into policy outcomes.

Critics have long argued that case studies are conducted in the absence of any framework or theory and produce only so many isolated points of light (Campbell and Stanley, 1966; Dogan and Pelassy, 1990). More recent scholarship, however, rejects this viewpoint (Barzelay, 1993; Wenger, 1998; Flyvberg, 2001; Crandall, Klein, and Hoffman, 2006). Case studies expand students understanding of “how people frame and solve collective problems arising in factual contexts other than the one studied intensively” (Barzelay, 1993, 306).

Yet, for maximum value, case studies may be better executed within a model, explicit or implicit, of the policymaking process. In this paper we present a case study of the Campus Security Act of 1990 to illustrate the value of the specific technique of policy mapping for organizing the study of policy initiatives. Al-though this organizing framework will not explain why events transpired in the way that they did or predict how future initiatives will unfold, it does place the actions of policy actors in a broader context that facilitates student understand-ing of the choices made and paths not taken at every step of the policymaking process. Policy maps provide a framework for the common technologies of policy production that permit students to track and compare the various strategies for implementation.

Campus security—the case studyIn the following pages we will tell the story of the Campus Security Act of

1990—an act that is relatively simple to describe both in terms of origins and implementation. We concentrate our attention on implementation as the area of greatest interest to students in public administration and management.

BackgroundIn April 1986, at Lehigh University, Jeanne Clery was brutally raped and

murdered in her dorm room by another student whom she had never met. The



perpetrator, later convicted for murder, had gained access to her room through three doors that should have been locked but were, instead, propped open. In the four months before the murder, 181 incidents of doors being propped open had been reported for Clery’s dorm. Outraged by the crime, the University’s disregard for campus safety, and its inept management of their case, the Clery family sued for negligence, alleging that the University had failed to provide adequate safety measures and to warn students about potential crime on campus.

Crime on campus is a continuing problem. Before the Clerys, however, this issue commanded little sustained attention either from the public or the media. By the 1980s the doctrine of in loco parentis as applied to college students was in decline, with courts reluctant to hold institutions responsible for the safety of students on their campuses (Griffaton, 1991, 525). In 1987, for example, there were at least 31 murders, more than 1,500 armed robberies, and 13,000 physical assaults on campuses nationwide (http://www.securityoncampus.org/aboutsoc/didntknow.html, accessed 1-31-07). About 80 percent of these crimes on campus were committed by students against other students. Finally, few colleges volun-tarily reported such crimes, whether to the Uniform Crime Report, the database maintained by the FBI, or to state and local policing agencies, although the most serious were prosecuted through the criminal justice system (Congressional Find-ings. 1990. Pub. L. No. 101-542).

The Clerys settled their lawsuit against Lehigh and with funds from that agree-ment founded Security on Campus, Inc., a national, nonprofit organization dedi-cated to preventing violence on campus and to assisting victims of crime when it occurs. The Clerys and Security on Campus next turned their attention to policy reform. Initially they focused on Pennsylvania with the goal of enacting a stat-ute to require colleges and universities to publish annual statistics documenting crimes on campus. After succeeding at the state level, the Clerys turned their attention to Congress and federal legislation. They sought to make information about crime on campus available to prospective students and parents in order to enable them to make informed decisions about issues of safety when selecting a college or university.

Policy Production In May 1988, Pennsylvania passed the first law requiring colleges and uni-

versities to collect and publish statistics about crime on their campuses (24 PA. CONS. STAT. §§2502-3). Twelve states followed suit with laws of widely vary-ing scope and quality.3 Members of the higher education community who felt that such state disclosure mandates put their campuses at competitive disad-vantage in recruiting students soon joined the Clerys and persuaded Congress-man William Goodling (R-PA) to introduce legislation in Congress that would require colleges nationwide to report on campus safety (HR 3344, S. 1925, S.



1930). The proposal attracted bipartisan support and became law in November 1990. Known as the Student Right-to-Know and Campus Security Act, or the Clery Act (Pub. L. No 101-542, codified as amended at 20 U.S.C. § 1092 (f)), it required all educational institutions receiving federal funds for student financial aid to prepare, publish and distribute an annual security report to all students and employees as well as to the Department of Education by September 1, 1992.

The Clery Act is based on the premise that forewarned is forearmed. First, with readily available data about crime and security on campus, students and their parents would have better information on which to base decisions about enroll-ment and to better protect themselves once on campus. Second, reporting would create incentives for institutions to improve safety.

The original act has been amended three times. In 1992, all higher education institutions were required to develop and distribute to students and staff copies of policies, procedures, and services related to sex offenses (Pub. L. No. 102-325). In 1998 another set of amendments clarified some ambiguities in reporting cat-egories, required the Department of Education to collect and publish the yearly reports, and added monetary sanctions for violations over and above the provi-sions for terminating federal funds for student financial aid (Pub. L. 105-244). In 2000, a third set of amendments, termed the Campus Sex Crimes Prevention Act of 2000, extended the provisions of Megan’s Law to campuses and required colleges and universities to provide notice about the availability of information about registered sex offenders on campus (Pub. L. No. 106-386, codified at 42 U.S.C. §13701).

Authority requiring institutions of higher education to report data on crimes on campus is derived from a statute (20 U.S.C.§1092) as part of the Higher Education Act of 1965. The Clery Act sets forth a list of complex responsibilities for collecting and reporting statistics as well as for issuing timely warnings about crime and maintaining a daily crime log. The Act, including subsequent amend-ments, defines categories as well as locations of crimes to be included in annual reports. Failure to comply with reporting requirements can result in fines or loss of eligibility for federal student financial aid under Title IV. Practically speaking, noncompliance also generates negative publicity for institutions anxious not to lose out in the competition for student enrollments.

Responsibility for implementing the Clery Act was assigned to the Depart-ment of Education’s (DOE) Office of Postsecondary Education (OPE). There is no specific program organized within OPE to be responsible for the Clery Act implementation. Nor is there any line item in the Congressional budget. Instead, OPE simply works through its Management and Operations and Higher Educa-tion Preparation and Support Services Units, assigns staff as needed, and oversees the collection and publication of annual reports by institutions covered by the provisions of the Act. The Office of the General Counsel (another DOE admin-



istrative unit) coordinates the development of rules. Regulations specifying how institutions are to comply with the Clery Act are found at 34 CFR §668.46 et seq. No staff is available to colleges and universities to provide expertise to institu-tions on interpreting regulations.

Program implementation by OPE involves minimal staffing and occurs at two levels: reporting and compliance. OPE oversees reporting, that is, the yearly col-lection and publication of crime statistics which institutions upload to a DOE Web site. Every institution must designate a Campus Security Survey Adminis-trator to be its contact person. The DOE/OPE then provides a Web-based survey, developed by a contractor (CFC Federal Sector), for collecting data reported by institutions. Statistics are due to OPE a week after the October 1 deadline when each campus must distribute its annual report to students and staff. The contrac-tor adds the new statistics to a rolling data base that includes the latest three years of statistics and makes it available to the public through a searchable Web site (http://ope.ed.gov/security). In addition to information on crime each institu-tion must update and forward extensive information to OPE on its policies, pro-grams, and procedures related to security on campus as well as on how it makes information available about registered sex offenders on campus. Every institution must maintain a written daily log that records any crime reported that occurred on campus or within the patrol jurisdiction of campus security. This log must be accessible to the public. The DOE/OPE contracted with Westat, one of its regu-lar providers in the private sector, to produce a Handbook of Campus Crime Report-ing (2005). This material, posted online, offers 194 pages of detailed guidance for colleges and universities to follow. The DOE has no staff to regularly respond to questions about compliance from colleges and universities.

Despite efforts at clarification, confusion continues over the rules defining the categories of crimes that must be reported under the Act. Institutions must gen-erate statistics for the three most recent calendar years on crime reported to local police agencies or to campus security authorities. The Clery Act requires that institutions use the definitions of crimes set forth in the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Handbook (UCR). It makes no allowances for institutions located in states where the state law definitions of crimes differ or in states with their own reporting requirements for colleges and universities within their jurisdictions. The Clery Act requires reporting for the following offenses:

• Criminal homicide including murder, non-negligent manslaughter and negligent manslaughter

• Sex offenses both forcible and nonforcible• Robbery• Aggravated assault• Burglary• Motor vehicle theft



Each institution must also report data on arrests for violations of liquor laws, drug laws and for illegal possession of weapons. In addition, institutions must report separately on those referred for disciplinary action by any campus official but not arrested, for alcohol, drug and weapons violations. Data must be recorded on each incident and individual charged. Hate crimes where the perpetrator intentionally selects the victim because of his or her race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, or disability also must be reported. No reporting, however, is required for larceny/theft, by far the most common ‘crime’ on campus and one included in the Uniform Crime Reports (Fisher, Hartman, Cullen, Turner, 2002, 86).4

Another source of confusion involves the requirement to report crimes by loca-tion or place of occurrence. Institutions must break down their statistics on crime into four geographic areas:

• On campus—defined as any building or property owned or controlled by an institution within the same or reasonably contiguous geographic area and used in a manner related to an institution’s educational pur-poses

• In residential facilities (a subset of on campus), which includes dormi-tories or other residential accommodations on campus

• In or on a noncampus building or property that includes property owned or controlled by student organizations recognized on campus or used in direct support of institutional purposes

• On public property, which includes thoroughfares, streets, and parking facilities within the campus or immediately adjacent to and accessible from the campus.

All institutions must make reasonable efforts to gather information about crimes from local or state police departments. However, the Clery Act does not require local or state police departments to cooperate. Police data often rely on state law definitions of criminal offenses, rather than on Uniform Crime Report-ing definitions used by the FBI.

Finally, the regulations identify those on campus with responsibilities for cam-pus security. This group includes campus police departments, individuals desig-nated to receive reports of allegedly criminal offences, and officials responsible for all forms of student discipline on campus.

Compliance involves yearly reporting by institutions as well as periodic com-pliance reviews conducted by DOE auditors. At last count, compliance initiatives included 15 focused or in-depth reviews, 185 program reviews and 375 program audits (http://www.securityoncampus.org/schools/cleryact/, accessed 2-5-07). In addition, the DOE allows individuals and/or watchdog groups to file administra-tive complaints. This piggybacks on existing complaint mechanisms available



at the DOE’s regional offices. Complaints may involve claims that institutions have failed to disclose required information or have violated the Act in some way. These complaints are filed with the regional office in which the institution is located. The DOE investigates the claim to determine whether a violation has occurred. Once identified, the DOE may negotiate an agreement for corrective action with the institution or impose sanctions. For example, the DOE levied $200,000 in fines on Salem International University in 2005 (Chronicle, 2005) for repeated failures to report.

The interest group, Security on Campus, continues its work and monitors DOE implementation of the Clery Act. It serves as a private clearinghouse for informa-tion on the act and assists individuals in filing complaints against colleges and universities.

ResultsOutputs are the immediate results of policy production. Several outputs of the

Clery Act are readily identifiable. First are the yearly reports documenting crime on each individual campus. Reporting by institutions is more or less universal. These reports are readily available to all stakeholders, whether on campus or online. In addition, more sources of information about safety measures are ac-cessible. These include a long list of programs and policies that institutions are required to provide to the DOE, campus crime logs, published lists of registered sex offenders, and access for victims of crime on campus to information on the outcomes of campus disciplinary hearings.

The next question is what are the outcomes of the Campus Security Act? That is, what difference has the Clery Act made? Here the evidence, although limited, is mixed.

The Clery Act has raised the visibility of issues associated with crime on campus and increased institutional resources devoted to compliance. Yet, the evidence demonstrates that across all categories of crime reported (criminal homi-cides, sex offenses, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary) for which comparisons are possible, campuses are relatively safe and much safer than the communities in which they are located or than in society at large (Gregory and Janosik, 2002, 40). Most commentators speculate that campuses have long been comparatively safer havens, but no data are available for longitudinal comparison. In a survey of campus law enforcement administrators, 70 percent of respondents reported no changes to campus crime rates since passage of the law. However, in the same survey, 43 percent agreed that the Act had improved campus law enforcement procedures and policies and increased programming about safety (Gregory and Janosik, 2002, 43–4). No information estimating the costs to institutions is available at this time.

With required reporting on alcohol and drug-related offenses, the Clery Act has generated new categories of evidence. These involve alcohol and drug-related



arrests on college campuses. Arrests have risen steadily for 13 consecutive years, with the number of alcohol and drug arrests in 2004 10 percent and 3 percent higher respectively than in 2003 (Chronicle, 2006). Much of this increase may be attributed to improved reporting practices. Nonetheless, these statistics, espe-cially those related to alcohol, now command the attention of the media, college officials, and local communities.

The evidence suggests that increasing students’ awareness has resulted in a minimal reduction of the potential for crime on campus. The few reported stud-ies confirm that most students know nothing about the act (73%) and cannot recall receiving crime statistics for their campus (76%). More than 90 percent of students reported that safety issues had no effect on their enrollment decision . Approximately half of students report some knowledge about safety initiatives on campus but identify sources for their information other than Clery-mandated reports (Gregory and Janosik, 2002, 40–46).

Next are more complex legal questions about the impact of the Clery Act on other federal and state laws. Problems continue in reconciling the disclosure re-quirements of the Act with the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FER-PA) or with the Buckley Amendment (20 U.S.C. §1232(g)), which protects the privacy rights of students. For campuses, this issue involves protecting personally identifiable information in students’ disciplinary records, whether as the victims or perpetrators of a crime. Similarly, amendments to the Act that took effect in 2003 and applied the provisions of Megan’s Law to campuses (Pub. L. No.106-386, codified at 42 U.S.C. § 13701)) pose additional issues of privacy and the po-tential for steeply increased costs to institutions. Institutions are now required to post information about registered sex offenders on campus and to notify the com-munity about where this information is available. Indeed, a new industry is now emerging as entrepreneurs now regularly advertise services to supply background checks to university administrators on the criminal backgrounds of students on campus. No evidence is available at this time about how many institutions now require background checks and for which students.

Another involves pre-emption—specifically, the impact of the Clery Act on state laws addressing security on campus before 1990 and whether the Act has discouraged the development of alternative strategies to improve safety? Because colleges and universities depend on federal programs that generate financial aid for their students, all must comply at a minimum with Clery Act provisions. Some states, like Pennsylvania, simply amended their laws on reporting data on campus safety requirements to mimic the provisions of the Clery Act (18 PA STAT § 20.301-303). At least one other state, Kentucky, has gone one step fur-ther, expanding the scope of reporting requirements to include information about the status of fire safety measures on campuses (KY. STAT. KRS §§ 164.9481 et seq as amended).



In conclusion, the reporting requirements of the Clery Act would appear to have had minimal impact in making campuses safer; they have always been com-paratively safe. Nor does it appear to have increased students’ awareness about se-curity issues or changed students’ behaviors. The Act has, however, has raised the visibility of the issue for college officials, forced administrators to track and re-port on crime on campus, and had important effects on campus law-enforcement practices and educational programming.

Policy MappingPolicy design is an art, not a science. There is no recipe for success in the art of

policymaking and no paradigmatic case study. Nonetheless, making public policy is not a voyage through terra incognito. Policymakers can learn from past mistakes and there are heuristics—or rules of thumb—that can help guide policy architects.

A new graduate textbook on The Practice of American Public Policymaking (Biggs Helms, 2007) introduces future practitioners to the technologies and tools used by participants in all stages of the policymaking process, from problem definition to policy advocacy to program design, delivery, and evaluation. It offers a new framework, called policy mapping, for comparative case studies of public policies. Policy maps are graphical representations of the constellation of policy actors and institutional technologies that operate across all policy domains and allow stu-dents to use policy maps to plot the origins, design, delivery, and outcomes of in-dividual policy initiatives and programs. Policy maps can be used for backward-looking histories of individual policies or for forward-looking design experiments for policy advocates and designers. A policy map offers a simplified picture or “path analysis” of a policy initiative from concept through outcome and provides a picture of the resources available for public policymakers within a given policy domain. Policy maps allow for comparison within and between domains.

Policymaking is the art of getting results, of getting things done. To get things done, public policymakers must rely on a toolkit of social and institutional technologies that have been defined and refined over decades or centuries of use. Policy maps track the evolution of public policies over the four basic components of public policymaking:

• Inputs or how the raw materials of the policymaking process—the problems, solutions, issues, politics and agendas—are assembled and transformed into public policies.

• Production or how policy promises are manipulated and delivered to the American public through the institutional technologies of policymak-ing.

• Outputs or how the products of public policymaking that comprise the benefits and burdens of policy production are allocated to different groups in society.



• Outcomes or how the intended and unintended consequences of the poli-cymaking process are understood and recycled.

Policymaking is an iterative process in which outcomes or conditions generate policy inputs, which lead to policy production, outputs, and new outcomes, as shown in Figure 1 (Biggs Helms, 2007, 17).

In the following pages we illustrate the utility of policy mapping by tracking the evolution and implementation of the Campus Security Act. Again, our focus is primarily on the institutional technologies of production, an area of knowledge that students in public administration and management are expected to master. Policy Maps and the Campus Security Act

Policy maps track the trajectory of policy inputs as they cycle around and around the institutions of public policymaking. We illustrate the components of a policy map in the following sections.

Policy inputs. Policy inputs form the What of public policymaking or what happens before public officials get to make policy promises. Inputs are all about how problems are defined and solutions crafted and sold, how access is gained to policymakers and shaped by politics, how the agendas of public institutions are set and how public promises are made. The study of policy inputs occupies most of the research on public policy and has produced a literature that is familiar to most students and practitioners. For these reasons we limit our summary of the initial sequence of events leading to the Campus Security Act of 1990:

• A policy entrepreneur defines a problem to be remedied by public ac-tion. A very local, personal tragedy, the murder of their daughter, followed by the carelessness with which a college dealt with campus safety issues, motivated the Clerys to seek redress in the courts.

Figure 1. Policymaking as an Iterative Process

Figure 2. A Policy Map of the Campus Security Act (Biggs & Helms, 2007, 510)

Outcomes Inputs

ProductionOutputs

LEVEL SECTOR

P O L IC Y M A K IN G P R O C E S S

INPUTS

Problems

Solutions

Issues

National

Government

Market

Civil

Private

State

Government

Market

Civil

Private

Local

Government

Market

Civil

Private

PRO DUCTIO N

Authority Agency Program Rule Contract

CONTEXT

Budget

OUTPUTS

Benefits

Burdens

OUTCOMES

!

!

!

Inputs

Outputs

Outcomes

Production

Figure 1. Policymaking as an Iterative Process



• The same, or other entrepreneurs, link the problem to pre-existing or new solutions. For the Clerys this meant attaching their problem, the safety of students, to a solution, reporting and disclosure. By requir-ing colleges to collect and disseminate information about the types and frequency of crimes on campus, other parents and students, as well as educational institutions, could take appropriate protective measures.

• The problem-solution package then competes with other problem-solution packages for public attention and a policy issue is born. Funds from the settlement of the Clery lawsuit were used to establish an in-terest group, Security on Campus, which became a public megaphone to broaden the Clery’s voice and generated publicity for campus safety as an issue in need of public attention. Their first targets were groups in their home state, Pennsylvania.

• Issues are then linked to politics where politicians and interest groups exploit them in venues that are available and receptive. Security on Campus and the Clerys campaigned to elevate the issue of campus security to the political agenda, initially at the state level and subse-quently at the federal level.

• Policy entrepreneurs seek access to public policymakers in the institu-tional arenas of public policymaking. The Clerys first targeted state legislators in Pennsylvania with details about the problem, the horrors of their personal tragedy, and the merits of their proposed solution—an ostensibly simple mandate to report and distribute information. With few obvious negatives or costs to the state, at least, the solution became law. Within two years the Pennsylvania’s solution was duplicated in 12 states and by the federal government. Who could oppose improving safety on our nation’s campuses?

The Campus Security Act followed a familiar trajectory. A devastating in-cident, murder, galvanized devastated parents to take on the role of policy entrepreneur. They identified a simple and limited solution—reporting and disclosure—with little cost to the public and injected themselves into the poli-cymaking arena. Their proposal had few political drawbacks for state and ulti-mately national politicians, who quickly acted to produce legislation with few apparent downsides and with high symbolic content.

Policy production. Policy maps identify six critical institutional technologies of policy production, each offering an assortment of tools and techniques for policy design and delivery. The six we focus on are:

• Authority—the ability to act or make decisions with the expectation that those affected will accept the action or decision as legitimate. In the context of policy production, authority is the institutionalized



power to act on a policy solution, and it takes six forms: constitutional, legislative, executive, administrative, judicial, and initiative/referen-dum. Statutes, at the state and federal levels, provided the source for policy authority for activities to improve security on campus. Because solutions to policy issues are scarce, a solution developed by one gov-ernment is often replicated by others. This was the case with the Clery Act which, at the time of enactment, copied elements of laws in 13 states. The Clery Act created a basic framework for action (reporting and publicizing safety statistics on each campus) and imposed penalties for noncompliance. It has been amended by Congress three times.

• Agency—the delegation of authority to an entity to act. An agent is empowered to act on behalf of an authority. In policy production, agen-cies, which take many specific forms, are the organizations that house policy production and to whom oversight authority for that production is given. Because the DOE is responsible for federal policies in the do-main of higher education, authority over the Campus Security Act was delegated to it. Within the DOE, the Office of Postsecondary Education (OPE) is the administrative unit responsible for administering the Act.

• Program—a set of organized and ongoing activities directed at fulfill-ing a policy objective and producing a desired outcome. Programs are the means or lines of work in policy production. The Campus Security Act is not organized in program form. Instead, its specific functions de-pend, in part, on OPE staff assigned from, and funded through, other administrative units within the DOE and, in part, on private contrac-tors. Clery-related tasks required by law to be regularly executed by the DOE are few and are primarily associated with overseeing the collection and uploading of data from colleges and universities onto a Web site. This involves regular activities scheduled only once a year and has meant that no program staff has been assembled to work with institutions on an ongoing basis. Compliance efforts depend on exist-ing DOE staff in regional and field offices charged with processing all sorts of complaints arising from the many mandates administered by the DOE.

• Rule—an instruction or prescription for action that carries the weight of authority. Making policy almost always involves making and enforc-ing rules, standards, or guidelines. Rules are the primary technology for implementation of the Clery Act. The rules form the standards for enforcement and compliance and have been used to clarify ambiguities in the law. The Handbook, with its detailed policy guidance for col-lege and university officials, is a form of rule. Institutional officials are expected to read, understand, and comply with federal regulations and guidance as issued.



• Contract—a binding agreement between two or more parties enforce-able by law. Agencies and programs use contracts to purchase goods and services needed to accomplish program goals. The DOE relies on contractors to perform activities related to implementation: first in a time-limited contract to produce the Handbook for colleges and universities seeking guidance on compliance; and, second, on an ongo-ing basis to create and maintain the Web site for the database and to upload the annual reports from colleges and universities.

• Budget—a plan for managing funds by setting levels of spending based on estimates of revenue available to finance that spending over a speci-fied time period. Because there is no formal program for the Campus Security Act, there is no separate budget category to fund implementa-tion requested from Congress each year. No assessment of the costs to the federal government of implementation is possible because these funded are comingled across multiple DOE units.

Every—or almost every—policy initiative involves some application of most of these six technologies. Public policies are justified under the umbrella of some form of authority, housed in an agency or agencies, organized into programs, delivered by means of rules and contracts, and resourced by means of budgets. Within each technology are a series of tools or alternative mechanisms to get the job done. Successful policymaking involves the coordinated application of all six technologies of policy production.

Outputs and outcomes. Policy maps also permit the tracking of outputs and out-comes of production. Outputs are the tangible products of what policymakers do for or to their targeted populations.

• Outputs are deliverables, the goods, services, benefits, and burdens of policy production. Outputs include three components: benefits and/or burdens; the population targeted by the policy, and the method for allocating the former to the latter. Information about crime is the benefit intended by the Clery Act. Institutions are required to assume most of the costs of policymaking. Students and other institutional stakeholders comprise the target population. The method of allocation involves publication and distribution of the data on crime through the designated contractor. The Clery Act produces quantifiable, readily documented outputs, including reports filed and available on DOE and institutional Web sites, campus crime logs, copies of institutional poli-cies and procedures, records of disciplinary investigations, and sanc-tions recorded in DOE regional offices.

• Outcomes are the results of policy as measured by intended goals and their effects on society. Outcomes are longer-term, more difficult to



assess and often include both intended and unintended consequences. First, intended consequences: How has the Act affected campus safety? Insofar as can be counted, campuses have long been safer than their sur-rounding communities, and the little evidence available indicates that few, if any, students or their parents pay attention to information about crime on campus. On the other hand, there is evidence of greater atten-tion by institutions to policies and practices that affect safety. Cam-puses pay attention, even if students do not. Second are unanticipated consequences, such as the need to reconcile the disclosure requirements of the Act with the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) or the Buckley Amendment [20 U.S.C. §1232(g) (2000)], and, more recently, the need to apply the provisions of Megan’s Law to campuses (Pub. L. No. 106-386, 42 U.S.C. § 13701 (2000).

As the outcomes of policymaking reverberate over time, the Campus Security Act, like many other public policies, raises problems not previously anticipated. As discussed in an earlier section, these problems lead to new rounds of policy-making and ever increasing complexity.

ContextPolicymaking does not take place in a vacuum. It is performed by someone

(sector) and happens somewhere (level). There is a who and a where as well as a how and what to public policy making.

• Sector—The who of policymaking often depends on sectors of society other than government. Policy benefits are often delivered to target populations via market (commercial) and civil (nonprofit) institu-tions as well as through private individuals. These arrangements often depend on networks of institutional providers reliant in varying degrees on collaboration and cooperation. The Campus Security Act of 1990 provides a simple design for the who of policy production. No coordination is required with intermediate (state or local) levels of governance. Colleges and universities, which include a range of differ-ently organized entities in the public, civil, and market sectors, deal only with the DOE through its contractor (market sector) when they transmit their annual statistics and documents. When they are subject to a complaint or an audit, they deal with the DOE itself. Such limited interface simplifies implementation from the perspective of federal administrators. However, colleges and universities, as the targets for reporting, may be less comfortable with the lack of interaction with DOE personnel.



• Level—The where of policymaking is easier to understand. Policymak-ing takes place at multiple levels—national (federal), state and local—and often involves the replication of more or less common solutions, the what of policymaking. In terms of the where of policy production, the apparent simplicity of policy design at the federal level does not ac-count for issues raised by questions about ‘fit’ with policies established by state laws that preceded the Clery Act. By the time of passage of the Clery Act, several states had adopted similar solutions (reporting and disseminating information) adapted to state settings. The Clery Act neither accommodated nor addressed previously established, state-level programs, and it effectively displaced states’ policymaking.

Policy Map of the Campus Security Act of 1990Based on the previous section, a policy map consists of three dimensions:

• the phases or steps (inputs, production, outputs and outcomes) in the policymaking process

• the geopolitical scope of policymaking, or the location of policy activ-ity, whether at the federal, state, or local level

• the institutions or social sectors involved in policymaking including governments, markets, civil or nonprofit organizations, and private individuals.

Because the steps in the policymaking process unfold over time, we can map them over the horizontal dimension. For ease of understanding, we combine the level and sector of policy action into a single, vertical dimension as shown in Figure 2.

As can be seen, the Clerys began the initiative by lobbying the state of Penn-sylvania to pass the initial act, which was copied by other states and eventually by the federal government. The Campus Security Act is administered by the DOE, but it is not organized in program form. Instead, it operates primarily through the production technologies of rules that guide institutional compliance and contracts to process and publicize the data. The outputs of policy produc-tion are the data reports submitted by colleges and universities to the contractor (market) for dissemination to the public generally on the DOE Web site and to individual students directly on campus. At least in principle if not in practice, the outcomes include a better-informed public, improved institutional policies and practices affecting campus safety, and students and their families empowered to make choices based on information about campus safety.

Conclusions We conclude with several observations about the Campus Security Act of 1990,

about case studies in general, and about the value of policy maps as a tool for preparing professional students for the practice of public policymaking.



First, the history of the Campus Security Act of 1990 follows a relatively famil-iar storyline in the realm of American public policymaking. Struck by a horrific personal tragedy, a family mobilizes to create new laws governing the behavior of public or private institutions at the state and federal levels of government. Individual entrepreneurs can and do shape the conduct of public life at all levels of American society. Many scholars focus on the role of money and corporate lob-bies, but a good deal of the energy driving American public policymaking comes from families with a personal cause and innovative solutions, like the Clerys. Moreover, once tried and tested in an individual state, such solutions are often copied by other states and replicated at the federal level. Although t is difficult to predict precisely which constellation of problems, entrepreneurs, and solu-tions will flourish in the Darwinian world of American public policymaking, the ingredients for success appear obvious—at least in retrospect. Finally, the Clerys’ focus on information and an informed public is a recurring theme in American public life. Instead of increased punishment for individual offenders, exposure to public scrutiny helps bring the discipline of the marketplace to economic, social, and political organizations. The more the general public knows about what these organizations do or don’t do, the better the organizations are likely to behave. Information is increasingly replacing coercion as a tool of American public poli-cymaking, and the Clery Act provides case study evidence about approaches to implementation strategies for such policy solutions.

Figure 2. A Policy Map of the Campus Security Act (Biggs and Helms, 2007, 510)

CONTEXT POLICYMAKING PROCESS

Level Sector InputsProblemsSolutionsIssues

Production OutputsBenefitsBurdens

Outcomes

Authority Agency Program Rule Contract Budget

National Government

Market

Civil

Private

State Government

Market

Civil

Private

Local Government

Market

Civil

Private

i

i

!

!

!



Second, case studies are not only a means of generating interesting hypotheses about the workings of public life, they are also an essential tool in the training of policy practitioners. Analytical techniques for problem solving may be necessary elements in the training of professionals, but they are not sufficient. Expertise comes from exposure to a wide variety of direct experiences and context-rich case studies. According to Flyvbjerg (2001),

[G]enuine human experts exhibit thinking and behavior that is rapid, intuitive, holistic, interpretive, and visual, which has no immediate similarity to the slow, analytical reasoning which characterizes rational problem-solving.... On the contrary, it seems that there is a fundamen-tal and qualitative jump from analytical problem-solving to genuine, human expertise. This jump must be made in order for someone to be really adept at performing a given skill. (14)

Expert decision-making is “recognition-primed” decision-making (Klein, 1998). Case studies expose professional students to varieties of decision situations that they are likely to encounter on the job. They can serve as laboratories for the practice of public policymaking.

Finally, policy maps give graduate students from different professional back-grounds a common framework for understanding the design and analysis of public policies. Public policymaking is virtually ubiquitous in nearly every walk of life in twenty-first century America. Government touches everyone’s life. Suc-cessful careers in nearly every walk of life—medicine, law enforcement, public health, transportation, and computer science—almost inevitably involve some active role in the making of public policy at local, state, and federal levels. Most professional schools offer courses in public policymaking and many programs in policy studies attract students from diverse professional disciplines. Policy maps offer the kind of basic, practice-oriented framework that meets the needs of such graduate students. For students in public administration and management, policy maps create a common framework for comparing how basic institutional technologies of policymaking are used across distinctive domains and programs.

Policy maps have been used and refined in graduate level, introduction to public policymaking courses. Students used the mapping framework to guide case study projects from their own areas of study to discover how all components of the policy map—from inputs and production to outputs and outcomes—fit together for their specific example. The case study map developed and presented by each student illustrates the complexities and differences of policy designs and production. It provides a powerful learning tool and a common framework for understanding the possibilities and constraints that public practitioners face. An additional benefit is that many students learn for the first time how to utilize government documents and other critical library resources.



Policy maps enhance case study methods as a teaching tool for future practitio-ners by systematizing analysis and facilitating comparison. For students in the same field, the case study/policy mapping approach allows them retrospectively to distinguish the many different routes or paths in policymaking and prospec-tively to discuss strategies for more effective production designs. For students in different fields, this approach provides a common language and knowledge base for practice. For both groups, students as future public managers gain an in-depth appreciation of the institutional technologies available to them. Stu-dents also come to recognize the potential for policy design and acquire a sense of strategic thinking about their eventual roles as practitioners. Case studies that incorporate policy maps condition students to think about questions related to the how of doing policy as well as the more conventional focus on the analysis of what should be done.

Notes1. A detailed exposition of the comprehensive framework and constructs that inform the policy

mapping teaching framework described in this article is set forth in the Biggs and Helms text. See S. Biggs and L. Helms, 2000, The Practice of American Public Policymaking, Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.

2. See also Gary Klein, 1998, Sources of Power. How People Make Decisions (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press) for empirical studies of decisionmaking by experts.

3. In addition to Pennsylvania, the states that passed campus crime reporting legislation were California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.

4. As supplemented by interview, T. Baker, Campus Security Act Compliance Officer, The University of Iowa (interview, 1/22/07); see also B. Fisher, J. Hartman, F. Cullen, and M. Turner, 2002, “Making Campuses Safer for Students: the Clery Act as a Symbolic Legal Reform,” Stetson Law Review, 32:61–89.

ReferencesBarzelay, M. 1993. “The Single Case Study as Intellectually Ambitious Inquiry.” Journal of Public

Administration Research and Theory: J-PART, 3(3):305–318.Biggs, S., and L. Helms. 2007. The Practice of American Public Policymaking, Armonk NY: M.E. Sharpe.Campbell, D. T., and J. C. Stanley. 1966. Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs for Research.

Chicago: Rand McNally.Chronicle of Higher Education, May 13, 2005. Available at http://chronicle.com/weekly/v51/i36/

36a02001.htm. Accessed 1/15/07.Chronicle of Higher Education, October 27, 2006. Available at http://chronicle.com/cgi-bin/printable.

cgi?article=http://chronicle.com/weekly/v53/i10/10a. Accessed 1/15/07.Crandall, B., G. Klein, and R. Hoffman. 2006. Working Minds: A Practitioner’s Guide to Cognitive Task

Analysis. Cambridge MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press.Dogan, M., and D. Pelassy. 1990. How to Compare Nations: Strategies in Comparative Politics, 2nd ed.

Chatham, UK: Chatham House.Fisher, B., J. Hartman, F. Cullen, and M. Turner. 2002. “Making Campuses Safer for Students: the Clery

Act as a Symbolic Legal Reform.” Stetson Law Review, 32:61–89.Flyvberg, B. 2006. “Five Misunderstandings about Case-study Research.” Qualitative Inquiry,

12(2):219–245.Flyvberg, B. 2001. Making Social Science Matter. Why Social Inquiry Fails and How It Can Succeed Again.

Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press.



Gregory, D., and S. Janosik. 2002. “The Clery Act: How Effective is it? Perceptions from the Field—the Current State of the Research and Recommendations for Improvement.” Stetson Law Review. 32:40–60.

Griffaton, M. 1991. “Forewarned is Forearmed: The Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act of 1990 and the Future of Institutional Liability for Student Victimization.” Case Western Reserve Law Review. 43:525–590.

Klein, G. 1998. Sources of Power. How People Make Decisions. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.Wenger, E. 1998. Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity. New York: Cambridge

University Press.

Government Statutes and RegulationsCampus Sex Crimes Prevention Act of 2000 (extending provisions of Megan’s Law). Section 1601, Pub.

L. No. 106-386, codified at 42 U.S.C. § 13701.Family Educational Rights to Privacy Act, codified at 20 U.S.C. §1232(g) (2000).KY. STAT. KRS §164.9481 et seq. as amended 2002 Ky. Acts Ch. 166 §1 et seq. and 2004 Ky. Acts. Ch.

110 § 1.24 PA. CONS. STAT. §2502-3 (1991)18 PA STAT §20.301-303. Act 2004-180 (S.B. 668).Student Right-to-Know and Campus Security (Clery) Act. 1990. P.L. No. 101-542, §§201,205, 104

Stat. 2384, codified at 20 U.S.C. § 1092 (f); HR 3344, S. 1925, S. 1930, as introduced.Student Right-to-Know and Campus Security (Clery) Act. 1992 Amendments. Title II, Pub. L. No.

102-325, (1992).Student Right-to-Know and Campus Security Act. 1998 Amendments. Section 486 (e), Pub. L. 105-

244.Student Right-to-know and Campus Security Act. Regulations at 34 CFR §668.46 et seq.

Lelia Helms is a professor in Educational Policy and Leadership Studies at the University of Iowa. Her areas of teaching and research interests include law and policy, especially as applied to the areas of higher education and healthcare.

Selden Biggs is a senior policy analyst in the Department of Homeland Securi-ty. Trained as a political scientist, he has previously taught at several universities and worked in the private sector as a consultant to Federal agencies.

Helms and Biggs are coauthors of the recent text, The Practice of Public Policy-making (M.E. Sharpe, 2007).


Capstone for Political Science Majors: The Content is the Service

Cheryl A. Brown, Marshall UniversityRobert W. Behrman, Marshall University

AbstractService learning is a type of experiential learning, a form of education that

has become increasingly important at the college level as student bodies have changed. The authors present a review of their experiences with a course in which the content is a service learning project. The students carry out a project that enables them to hone their research skills and develop an appreciation of the political, economic, and social complexity of their community while at the same time providing a valuable service to that community.

Writers have defined service learning as involving reflection on the service activity that is likely to increase understanding of course content (cf. Bringle and Hatcher, 1996). In this paper, we present a review of our experiences with a course in which the content is the service. We have taught this course three times thus far, and it has evolved somewhat, but the premise of the course has remained the same. The students carry out a project that enables them to hone their research skills and develop an appreciation of the political, economic, and social complexity of their community while at the same time providing a valu-able service to that community.

Service learning is a type of experiential learning, a form of education that has become increasingly important at the college level as student bodies have changed. The traditional college classroom involves a professor lecturing as students attempt to take notes while listening, with occasional interruptions for discussion. Today’s student body is older than in the past, with many students already having had substantial “real world” experience; thus this approach may no longer be so suitable. Older students typically demand a role larger than that of largely passive absorbers of information; they want to be engaged in the sub-ject and to explore how class content relates to their experience and current work situations. Technology has also prompted changes in the classroom as computers

JPAE 13(3/4):585–591



and the Internet have made almost any information instantly accessible to virtu-ally all students. Students, thus, are in need not of information but of the skills to evaluate, process, and use information. Experiential learning can facilitate the development of such skills.

In fact, experiential learning has probably always been an important part of education. One learns how to play the piano, for instance, not merely by read-ing about the techniques involved and watching someone else perform, but more importantly by practicing on a piano oneself. Military trainees learn how to orient themselves by finding their way back to an assembly point by using their compasses and how to develop marksmanship skills by firing weapons at desig-nated targets. Similarly, we do not teach students how to write by merely having them memorize parts of speech and recognizing figures of speech; we have them write. Architectural students design buildings, apprentice bakers make bread, and assistant chefs prepare ingredients. It is not just the acquisition of skills that is practice promotes. Officer and NCO candidates sharpen and internalize their classroom-acquired knowledge of tactics in field exercises; nursing and medical students apply their knowledge in supervised clinical situations.

However, as Dewey (1938, 13) acknowledged, the mere accumulation of experience does not necessarily result in education. An important function of education, he argues, is to equip the student to translate impulse into judgment, a process involving observation, knowledge, and judgment (80). Judgment is possible only if we stop and think, if we reflect on the knowledge experience has given us. Dewey noted that “[t]o reflect is to look back over what has been done so as to extract the net meanings which are the capital stock for intelligent deal-ing with further experiences. It is the heart of intellectual organization and of the disciplined mind” (110). Kolb (1984), too, points out that learning is effective when it is based on experience and coupled with reflection on that experience. Mitchell and Poutiatine (2001, 180) summarize Kolb’s approach as involving “(a) a concrete experience, followed by, (b) reflective observation of the experience, followed by, (c) abstract conceptualization of the experience and reflection, which ultimately results in, (d) active experimentation that in turn leads to another con-crete experience.” Experiential education, thus, is not simply the accumulation of experience but “an iterative process of doing, observing, thinking, and reflecting” (Mitchell and Poutiatine, 2001, 180).

Experiential learning can be introduced into the college classroom via various methods. Science courses frequently involve laboratory activity or field trips that put students in situations in which they have direct encounters with phenomena dealt with in textbooks and lectures. In the social sciences, in which laboratory experiments may not always be appropriate, instructors may rely on manufac-tured experiences. Both of us have used role-playing exercises in which we ask students to put themselves in the place of policy analysts or specific decision-makers. Computer-based simulations have also become popular and apparently



effective teaching tools. Herz and Merz report that “the simulation/game MAC-RO supports the learning process described by Kolb’s (1984) model of experien-tial learning in a better way than a traditional seminar” (1998, 244). Outside the classroom, events such as the Model OAS and Model UN promote experiential learning, although such activities typically involve a select few students rather than an entire class.

Service learning is one of the most important forms of experiential learning be-cause it involves the practical application of course content outside the academic hallways. It is not merely the repetition of tasks to hone skills or the simulation of real world experience. It involves actual real world experience. Although ser-vice learning has become something of a buzzword in recent years, it is not a new phenomenon. Student teaching, for instance, involves sending senior education majors into elementary or secondary schools, where they develop their pedagogi-cal skills while serving their young pupils and the community at large.

An important rationale for experiential learning, we have seen, is simply that one does not fully acquire knowledge or skills without using them. This too is an important rationale for the particular form of experiential learning known as ser-vice learning. It is not, however, the only rationale. One of the purposes of educa-tion, at least political science education, is to prepare students for their roles as citizens—for their involvement in the political community. An important part of that involvement is service to that same community. Many political science programs have long provided opportunities for service learning through intern-ship programs. Students are given opportunities to work for government agencies or public service organizations and meet regularly with instructors and/or write papers relevant to their work experience. The trouble with internship programs, however, is that of limited availability. Students obtain internships as individu-als, not as whole classes. Thus the question arises of what sort of service learning activity might be appropriate and feasible for an undergraduate political science class.

A growing body of literature describes particular service learning projects. Jarosz and Johnson-Bogart (1996), for instance, discuss a geography class on “World Hunger and Re-source Development,” in which students were given the option of writing a traditional research paper or taking the service learning op-tion, which involved working three hours each week with one of 10 local organi-zations and writing a paper relevant to that experience. Long and her colleagues (2001) describe modifying an introductory gerontology class to incorporate an “intergenerational service-learning project” (10) in which small groups of stu-dents visited and helped with the work of their choice at four local sites provid-ing services to the elderly. Students in a class on Women and Gender Issues in Economics spent time assisting at an emergency shelter, allowing them to de-velop a deeper understanding of various socioeconomic issues with adverse effects on women (McGoldrick, 1998). In a study of some educational effects of service



learning, Reinke (2003) discusses three methodology classes in an MPA program: teams of students in a Program Evaluation course each conducted “an actual program evaluation of a nonprofit or public organization” (131), while those enrolled in the Research Methods/Quantitative Methods course sequence investi-gated a low-income neighborhood to assist in official efforts to revitalize the area. Similarly first-year MPA students at another university work in teams to provide policy analysis or program evaluation services to cash-strapped public agencies or nonprofit organizations. They have completed a wide array of projects, ranging from attitude surveys of particular target populations to designing new programs for client groups (Whitaker and Berner, 2004). Gregory and colleagues (2001) had students apply research techniques they had learned in a traditional class-room to the evaluation of a city’s efforts to “promote community development via the arts” (119). Beamer (1998) sought to overcome what he saw as a “disconnect” between what he taught in an Urban Politics class and what students understood by developing a one-week service project in which his students’ work with home-less persons and their reflection on that work in evening sessions would serve as an additional “text” for the course. Those who participated apparently gained a great deal from the experience, but only seven students had schedules that per-mitted them to participate in the project.

This illustrates one of the problems with designing an undergraduate service learning course in political science in today’s academic environment. Many stu-dents, including undergraduates, have part- or full-time jobs off campus. Each semester, as the next term’s course schedule appears, students scramble to find a way to take the classes they need, arranging with their employers to readjust their work hours to fit each student’s class schedule. The last thing such students need is to show up for the first class session and be told that they will have to invest many additional hours at particular times. Given the needs of today’s stu-dents, any service learning project must offer a substantial degree of flexibility.

A more serious problem is the specific service around which the course should be built. Students studying gerontology could learn about the problems the elderly face by providing services to them. Anthropology students could vol-unteer to assist at the site of an archeological dig. Social work students could, perhaps, work with troubled youth. Just what, though, would be appropriate for a fairly large undergraduate class in political science? One possibility, of course, would be to design a course around some specific issue or problem facing the community in which the school is situated. Such an approach could be quite beneficial to students and the community, but a very real risk is that the class will become involved with the issue in a partisan manner. There would be noth-ing wrong with individual students’ becoming so involved, but the class would have an institutional identity that it would be inappropriate to tie to one side or the other of a community controversy. This would be a problem with any sort of partisan involvement, such as assisting in political campaigns. With a small



class, it might be possible to arrange internships with municipal, county, and state offices located in the community, but such a course would lead us right back to the first problem mentioned, that of students with off-campus employment commitments. Something different seems to be needed—a project that utilizes the kinds of knowledge and skills one acquires in political science courses, that avoids drawing the institution into a compromising position, and that allows the students maximum feasible flexibility in providing their service.

The class we discuss is the political science capstone class and consists of about 30 students, mostly seniors.1 The capstone experience at our university is intend-ed to draw on and synthesize what students have learned in previous coursework in their majors. In earlier incarnations within the political science department, the capstone has essentially involved researching and writing a substantial and fairly lengthy paper. In transforming the course, we wanted to emphasize the service aspect of politics. With the help of a graduate student doing independent study, we eventually hit on the idea of having the class create a Web site provid-ing political and quality of life information about the local community. We also decided that the students in the class would largely determine just what sort of information should go on the site and that the students would work on the proj-ect in teams rather than simply as individuals.

At the first meeting of the revamped course, we explained the project concept to the class and urged students to look at other such community Web sites and think of particular topics that they should address in creating their own site. They came up with a list of eight topics: public safety, finances, economic devel-opment, intergovernmental relations, education, housing, health care, and the environment. These topics formed the basis of seven groups; health care and the environment were combined because of the public health aspect of environmental concerns. Two other groups were also created: the technical group, responsible for the software infrastructure for the site, and the executive group, responsible for (1) ensuring quality and consistency among the other groups’ contributions, (2) an executive summary of the class’s efforts, and (3) a discussion of a hot topic to be chosen by the class.2

Once each class had determined its particular agenda, the instructors assigned students to groups, largely on the basis of students’ topic preferences. This created the possibility of personality clashes within groups, but it avoided the problem of students’ choosing their own groups on the basis of social rather than academic considerations. Each group then began working on a plan for its por-tion of the overall Web site.

Groups were able to obtain much of the information from published sources, but students also engaged in extensive primary research as well. Students inter-viewed a large number of municipal officials, civil servants, business people, and individuals connected with nongovernmental organizations. Individuals from several groups, for instance, contacted the mayor, who made himself remarkably



available to the students. They learned how to approach individuals of standing in the community. They learned by trying how to frame questions in ways that would elicit helpful responses. They developed the virtues of patience and persis-tence.

In addition to the mayor, students have interviewed members of the city coun-cil, the police chief, the county sheriff, the city’s finance director, the head of the parks and recreation department, and other local officials. The Intergovernmen-tal Relations group the first year contacted the area’s representatives in the state legislature as well as county officials and leaders of some nearby towns, only to discover a near total absence of any sort of ongoing relationship between the city and these other entities.

In some cases they also learned how to modify their approaches to particular organizations. Several members of one team, for instance, repeatedly tried with-out success to secure an interview with someone at the Chamber of Commerce. Finally a different group member presented himself at the Chamber offices, rep-resenting himself as a person interested in starting up a new business in the com-munity. Instantly, they supplied all the information they had previously withheld from the group. In short, what the students learned through this project was how to do original, primary research about politics and government in their commu-nity.

At the start of the first semester with the new class, we did not have a com-munity partner, but it quickly became apparent that personnel at one community development agency were particularly helpful. That agency agreed to become the community partner for the project. They saw the value to the community of having some independent group, like the students in the class, compile, organize, and make available to the public (for free) the wide range of information that the class was assembling. That organization and others concerned with development could use such information, free from the taint of boosterism, to present their case for the community to outside organizations and firms interested in learn-ing about the city. Local individuals would be able to use the Web site to obtain information about the city and county budgets, for example, or the size of various public agencies. Businesses located elsewhere would be able to access the site as they explored the possibility of relocating or establishing branch offices here. Thus a broad range of “clients” could benefit directly from the students’ efforts.

Throughout the semester, each individual submitted journals—eight in all—in which she described the work she and her group had done since the previous journal and reflected on the project—what had been accomplished, what needed to be done, what the class was getting out of the project. Most journals showed a growing awareness of the surrounding community, an appreciation for a class that allows students to apply the knowledge and skills learned in earlier courses, to improve their writing ability, and to hone their group work techniques.



One journal comment stands out: “I had previously said that the worst part of Huntington, to me, was the lack of opportunity. I have had a change of heart after seeing everything that is there, and have decided that the worst part of this area, from my own personal experience, is my own heart. I claimed that there were no opportunities, but I realize now that all of the opportunities I have been given are thanks to the people in the community and at the university. I realize now that the community is what provides our opportunities, and that encourages growth and change.”

We have offered this class in this format for three years. We continue to make changes and adjustments to meet the students’ and community’s needs.

Prepared for presentation at the American Political Science Association Teaching and Learning Conference, February 17–19, 2006, at the Renaissance Washington Hotel, Washington, D.C.

Notes1. The first three times we taught the course, the enrollments were 34, 30, and 33, respectively.2. In subsequent years, each new class designed its own list of topics on which to focus and its own

hot topic. The hot topic the first year was the city’s experience with its relatively new, fairly young mayor. The second year it was the economic impact of the university on the city, and the third year it was a proposal in the state legislature for a multi-county metropolitan overlay that would include the city in which the university is located.

ReferencesBringle, Robert G., and Julie Hatcher. 1996. “Implementing Service Learning in Higher Education.”

Journal of Higher Education, 67(2):221–239.Dewy, John. 1938. Experience and Education. New York: MacMillan.Herz, Bernhard, and Wolfgang Merz. 1998. “Experiential Learning and the Effectiveness of Economic

Simulation Games.” Simulation and Gaming, 29(2):238–251.Jarosz, Lucy, and Kim Johnson-Bogart. 1996. “New Concepts of the Relationship between the College

and the Community.” College Teaching, 44(3):83–89.Kolb, David A.. 1984. Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development.

Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Long, Ann B., Pamala Larsen, Leslie Hussey, and Shirley S. Travis. 2001. “Organizing, Managing, and

Evaluating Service-Learning Projects.” Educational Gerontology, 27:3–21.Mitchell, Matthew, and Michael I. Poutiatine. 2001. “Finding an Experiential Approach in Graduate

Leadership Curricula.” The Journal of Experiential Education, 24(3):179–185.Prentice, Mary, and Rudy M. Garcia. 2000. “Service Learning: The Next Generation in Education.”

Community College Review Journal of Research and Practice. 24(1):9–26.Schettler, Joel. 2002. “Learning by Doing.” Training, 39(4):38.Steffes, Jeanne. 2004. “Creating Powerful Learning Environments beyond the Classroom.” Change,

36(3):46–50.

Cheryl A. Brown is the director of graduate studies in the Department of Politi-cal Science at Marshall University. She earned her Ph.D. at Georgia State Universi-ty. Her areas of interest include American government and public administration.

Robert W. Behrman is chair of the Department of Political Science at Marshall University. His areas of interest include public law, methodology, and Canadian politics.


Can Student Philanthropy Help to Address the Current Nonprofit

Identity Crisis? A Case Study of a Multiyear, Multidisciplinary Project

at Northern Kentucky University

Shamima Ahmed and Julie OlberdingNorthern Kentucky University

AbstractSince the systematic study of public administration began, many different

approaches have been taken to make future public administrators aware of the contexts of public agencies and to prepare them with the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to succeed in such organizations. One of the most recent innova-tions is student philanthropy, an experiential learning process through which students learn about nonprofit organizations and select one or more to which they award funding. Using survey data from 2000 to 2005, this paper assesses the short-term and long-term effects of Northern Kentucky University’s student philanthropy project and compares the experiences of students enrolled in the public administration discipline versus other disciplines such as art, sociology, education, nursing, and business.

A variety of approaches to teaching public administration have been proposed and implemented since the early period of systematic study of the discipline. Examples of such approaches include traditional lectures, legal case analyses, case studies, simulations, the practitioner-based approach, and the experiential approach. The teaching of nonprofit organization management—an important component of public administration—has followed a similar line of approaches. The ongoing search for new and improved approaches to teaching public admin-istration rests on finding effective ways to make future public administrators aware of the environmental contexts of public agencies and to prepare them with the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to succeed in such organizations.

JPAE 13(3/4):593–615


Can Student Philanthropy Help to Address the Current Nonprofit Identity Crisis?

One of the latest pedagogies that has been tried in public administration, nonprofit management, and other disciplines is student philanthropy, an experi-ential learning process through which students learn about nonprofit organiza-tions and select one or more to which they award funding. Well-designed student philanthropy has the potential to help the nonprofit sector in addressing some of its current crises, particularly its identity crisis. The current nonprofit literature speaks of this crisis which, in short, has resulted from concerns that the nonprofit sector is becoming more and more like the for-profit sector in fundraising, administration, and relationships with clients and, at the same time, has begun to resemble the public sector in its bureaucratic procedures and service delivery functions. There is no doubt that the nonprofit world currently is struggling to maintain its traditional identity, which embodies values such as a commitment to help others in need, community service or public service, and volunteerism. Student philanthropy has the potential to cultivate these values among prospec-tive nonprofit administrators, increasing awareness of nonprofit organizations and creating a more positive image of nonprofits.

Northern Kentucky University (NKU) is one of a few universities that have be-gun to utilize student philanthropy, and its program may be one of the most es-tablished, well funded, and progressive in incorporating philanthropy into many different disciplines and course offerings. This paper assesses the short-term and long-term effects of NKU’s student philanthropy project using survey data from 2000 to 2005. It utilizes information from reflective essays written by students who participated in the project. Specifically, the following questions are explored:

1. Does participation in philanthropy projects increase students’ aware-ness of social problems and nonprofit organizations?

2. Does student philanthropy enhance the development of certain beliefs, values, and intentions that the nonprofit sector embodies—such as a commitment to help others in need, community service or public ser-vice, and volunteerism—among students?

3. Does student philanthropy have any long-term effects on the partici-pants? If so, what are these effects?

In addition, this paper also compares the experiences of students enrolled in the public administration discipline versus other disciplines such as art, sociology, education, nursing, and business.

Nonprofit Identity CrisisThe nonprofit sector is faced with several challenges. One of the biggest chal-

lenges may be the sector’s crisis of identity that stems from the blurring of the for-profit and public sectors. The current nonprofit focus on using business prac-tices, hiring administrators with for-profit experience, and joining hands with



for-profit organizations in different business enterprises is raising questions about the new values and practices of the nonprofit world. The increased commercial-ization of the sector makes it resemble for-profit enterprise. As Salamon notes, “the nonprofit sector is increasingly confronting an identity crisis as a result of a growing tension between the market character of the services it is providing and the continued nonprofit character of the institution providing them” (2002, 46).

The growing tendency of nonprofits to pursue funds aggressively has called into question the very essence of the voluntary nature of the sector. Charities are even bringing breach of contract lawsuits against people who pledge donations but do not fulfill them. Weisbrod (1997) argues that “nonprofits are increasingly being seen not as public-spirited philanthropies but as self-serving entities that pursue interests of their top officials and board members” (545). The general public is also becoming skeptical of nonprofits. Well-publicized scandals involv-ing several prominent nonprofits, including the United Way and, more recently, the Red Cross, have negatively impacted public trust of nonprofit organizations. Jeavons (2001) argues that, in order to earn public trust, the operational values of integrity, openness, accountability, charity, and service have to be working.

The tendency to emulate business practices has led to another problem: the human resource challenge. Many employees currently working in the nonprofit sector view their work as just another job and may not bring the same level of principles and the same commitment to serve. As Pablo notes, “[t]he result has been a loss of people with passion and some anger, people committed to mak-ing a difference in the world. The challenge to the sector is how to rethink this spirit, how to attract new people with the enthusiasm and vigor to reenergize the sector’s tradition of public service” (1997, 336).

The blurring between the nonprofit sector and the public sector further complicates the sector’s identity crisis. There is no doubt that nonprofits have emerged as the preferred deliverer of public services. But Frumkin cautions that “[n]onprofit organizations must strive, however, to be more than mere engines of service production if they are to claim a compelling rationale for the sector. After all, government is more than capable of delivering a great range of critical human services” (2002, 168). Smith and Lipsky (1993) argue that the longer a nonprofit relies extensively on government contracts, the more it will tend to look, think, feel, and act like a small government.

Other scholars are concerned that such a blurring might threaten the future of the civil society (e.g. Alexander et al., 1999; Salamon, 2001). Salamon notes that “[a] massive gap has…opened between the modern reality of a sector intimately involved with government and moving into commercial activities in the wake of governmental cutback, and the popular image of community-based institu-tions mobilizing purely voluntary energies to assist those in need” (2001, 428). One of the effects of such incongruence between the image and the reality of the nonprofit sector is increasing doubt in the public about the sector—its contribu-



tion, justification for tax-exempt status, and distinguishing characteristics—as a whole. Public knowledge of the sector is mostly based on stories—both negative and positive—about prominent, large-scale nonprofits like the Red Cross, the YMCA, or the American Cancer Society. Although there is some truth to many of these well-known stories about large organizations, the bulk of the nonprofit sector is composed of small, unknown nonprofits that struggle to maintain their existence.

A careful look at the nonprofit identity crisis clarifies that, until the financial challenge is resolved, nonprofits will continue their commercialization and their dependence on government grants and contracts. However, nonprofits cannot compromise their traditional values, such as caring, service, generosity, char-ity, and benevolence. They cannot lose touch with these and other values that distinguish them from the other sectors. The current challenge for nonprofits is to renew those traditional values and to seek ways to incorporate them in their dealings with the private and public sectors. Another related issue that needs to be addressed is the limited understanding and even misunderstanding that the public has of the nonprofit sector. Most people are unaware of the challenges that nonprofits face and their reasons for engaging in business practices or seeking government contracts. Nonprofits cannot survive without public support and, hence, it is crucial for their future to educate the public about their activities and the challenges with which they are faced.

One suggestion from scholars (e.g. Young, 2002) is to expand nonprofit educa-tion in a way that cultivates values that would promote mission over financial success and that would encourage students to abide by ethical principles that are consistent with public trust, charitable impulse, and the pursuit of public good. Student philanthropy has the potential not only to develop among students an understanding of the nonprofit sector but also to cultivate in them some of the core values that define the sector.

Experiential Learning and the Nonprofit SectorStudent Philanthropy

Student philanthropy is one of the most recent forms of experiential education. Students develop their understanding of community needs and resources through active participation in a process in which they learn about nonprofit organiza-tions and select one or more nonprofits to which they award funding, usually in the range of $1,000 to $5,000. Because this is a relatively new approach, student philanthropy to date has been the subject of a very limited number of scholarly articles in public administration and in other disciplines.

Irvin (2005) describes courses involving student philanthropy or “grantmak-ing” in public administration courses, including a freshman seminar taught at the University of Oregon. The course was structured as an introduction to the nonprofit sector with “content focusing on the history, economics and psychology



of philanthropy as well as an overview of the size and scope of the nonprofit sec-tor” (Irvin, 2005, 317). Irvin secured $5,000 from Wells Fargo for the students to award to a nonprofit organization. Working in groups or teams, students researched nonprofit organizations, selected organizations, and prepared presentations to persuade their classmates to vote for the organization to which they wanted to grant the $5,000 award. Irvin provided some limited qualitative evidence of the student philanthropy project: “When I asked the founding year’s students if their experience in the course affected their intention to volunteer, sixteen of the eighteen students responded positively; some in glowing but general terms about their hope to become involved in the nonprofit sector” (Irvin, 2005, 320).

Irvin followed up the undergraduate seminar with a graduate seminar in phi-lanthropy, also at the University of Oregon. The graduate seminar focused on the philanthropic sector in the United States, including the history, the legal context, and the “business of philanthropy.” Irvin secured $10,000 from the Faye and Lucille Stewart Foundation. As with the undergraduate course, students in the graduate seminar worked in teams to research nonprofit organizations, selected one, and then tried to persuade their classmates to choose their organization for the award. Irwin does not provide any measures of outcomes of the graduate seminar in philanthropy.

Student philanthropy projects have been initiated at a few other universities. One project was in an honors course at the University of Nebraska-Omaha in 2004, for which students used a similar model to grant $5,000 from Wells Fargo (Irvin, 2005). Another student philanthropy project was at Seton Hall University in 2004, for which the professor personally provided the funds for the award to a nonprofit organization (Irvin, 2005). To date, no published study has examined the outcomes of these student philanthropy projects.

Service LearningAnother more established and well-known form of experiential education is

service learning, in which “students learn and develop their skills and under-standing through active participation in thoughtfully organized service that is conducted in and meets the needs of communities” (National and Community Service Trust Act of 1990). Service learning seems to be of particular interest —and growing interest—among faculty in master of public administration (MPA) programs because there are commonalities between their goals, according to Dicke, Dowden, and Torres (2004). Further, these authors assert that service learning is closely aligned with the ethos of professional associations, such as the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) and the National Associa-tion of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration (NASPAA).

Noteworthy similarities and differences exist between service learning and stu-dent philanthropy. An important similarity is that the two pedagogies are expe-riential in nature—in other words, both of them engage students in real projects

in the community. A key difference is the way in which they attempt to engage students in the community. Service learning engages students primarily by hav-ing them donate their time and talents—e.g., tutoring grade-school children, serving meals in a homeless shelter, helping to build a community playground, etc. Student philanthropy involves students in making decisions about which nonprofit organizations will receive funds—or in which nonprofits the students will invest philanthropic dollars.

Because service learning has been used much longer than student philanthropy, it has developed a much larger body of literature (e.g., The National and Com-munity Service Trust Act, 1990; Cohen and Kinsey, 1994; Eyler, Giles, and Braxton, 1997; Rhoads, 1997; Astin and Sax, 1998; Myers-Lipton, 1998; Parker-Gwin and Mabry, 1998; Eyler and Giles, 1999; Rockquemore and Schaffer, 2000; Vogelgesang and Astin, 2000; Howard, 2001; Academy Service Learning Fellows Program, 2002; Bernstein, Ohren, and Shue, 2003; Dicke, Dowden and Torres, 2004). Scholars have identified several expected outcomes or benefits of service learning, including enhancing students’ academic learning by integrating theory and practice; improving students’ critical thinking, communication, leadership, and other work-life skills; influencing students’ attitudes and beliefs, such as en-hancing their feelings of civic responsibility, personal efficacy, and public service; increasing students’ level of civic engagement or their level of participation in voluntary associations and the political process; providing students and faculty with opportunities to learn more about public and nonprofit agencies, to identify needs in the community, and to develop and/or implement strategies to address those needs; and assisting local nonprofit organizations and other organizations in the community with their work (Howard, 2001; Academy Service Learning Fellows Program, 2002; Bernstein, Ohren, and Shue, 2003; Reinke, 2003; Dicke, Dowden, and Torres, 2004).

Research indicates that service learning can have a positive impact on students’ academic learning and skill development (Cohen and Kinsey, 1994; Astin and Sax, 1998; Eyler and Giles, 1999; Rockquemore and Schaffer, 2000; Vogelgesang and Astin, 2000; Reinke, 2003; Dicke, Dowden, and Torres, 2004). For example, on surveys for three MPA courses in research methodology and program evalua-tion at Augusta State University, “[s]tudents were unanimous in concluding that the service-learning project enhanced their understanding and mastery of course material” (Reinke, 2003, 134). On the evaluations of an MPA course on public-private partnerships at Texas Tech University, “67 percent of students reported that the service learning project had helped them gain a better understanding of the course material” and 100 percent of the students reported that service learn-ing had improved their leadership skills (Dicke, Dowden and Torres, 2004, 204).

Evidence about the impact of service learning on students’ feelings of civic responsibility and public service and on their level of civic engagement is mixed (Markus, Howard, and King, 1993; Eyler, Giles, and Braxton, 1997; Rhoads,





1997; Astin and Sax, 1998; Myers-Lipton, 1998; Parker-Gwin and Mabry, 1998; Eyler and Giles, 1999; Reinke, 2003; Dicke, Dowden, and Torres, 2004). Markus, Howard, and King (1993) found that students involved in service learn-ing showed significant increases in their willingness to volunteer their time to help others and in finding careers that help others. An Institute for Research on Higher Education study of 33,000 students who participated in service learning nationwide found that “65 percent of respondents indicated that it was important to very important to participate in volunteer work” (Reinke, 2003, 131). In the MPA course at Texas Tech, however, “only 33 percent of students reported that their sense of civic responsibility had been enhanced through the experience” (Dicke, Dowden, and Torres, 2004, 204). In the three MPA courses at Augusta State University, the quantitative results “do not support the idea that service-learning promote[s] civic engagement in graduate students” (Reinke, 2003, 135). Some authors have asserted that service learning has a limited impact on MPA students because they have strong feelings of civic responsibility and public ser-vice and high levels of civic engagement prior to their service learning experience (Reinke, 2003; Dicke, Dowden, and Torres, 2004). In other words, MPA students tend to measure relatively high on indicators of civic responsibility, public service, and civic engagement before a service learning project, so the opportunity for the measure to be even higher after the service learning project is quite limited.

The Broader Movement of Community EngagementRelated to service learning and student philanthropy is a broader movement

of community engagement among colleges and universities in the United States. Community engagement has been described as “the collaboration between institutions of higher education and their larger communities (local, regional/state, national, global) for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity” (Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, “Community Engagement Elective Classification” Web site, June 30, 2006). Colleges and universities that have made community engagement a priority have taken on a commitment similar to that of “metropol-itan universities,” which have been described as institutions of higher education that “establish symbiotic relationships with their metropolitan areas” (Hathaway, Mulholland, and White, 1990, 9) and that try to address social problems in the surrounding region through internships, applied research, and professional out-reach (Killian, 2004).

James L. Perry, a scholar of public administration and public affairs, has focused on community engagement and civic education, including strategies by teachers and efforts by colleges and universities to support and enhance such strategies (e.g., Perry and Thomson, 2003; Perry, 2005; Perry and Jones, 2006). “In the face of perceived declines in social capital and civic education,” Perry notes, “colleges and universities are reassessing their roles in preparing future

citizens for engagement in civic and political life” (Perry, 2005, 266). For ex-ample, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) worked with the Alliance for Regional Stewardship to develop the Making Place Matter project. This project is designed “to promote a more integrated approach to engagement with communities, regional stewardship, and advancing policy and programmatic conversations for state college and university leaders through concrete tools and strategies” (AASCU, 2006). In addition, the Carnegie Founda-tion for the Advancement of Teaching identified “community engagement” as a new elective classification for colleges and universities, starting in February 2006 (Carnegie Foundation, 2006).

Student Philanthropy at Northern Kentucky University Northern Kentucky University (NKU) is a master’s-granting metropolitan

university with an enrollment of about 14,000 students. It is located in Highland Heights, Kentucky, which is part of the Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky metropolitan area. NKU has been recognized by a number of national associa-tions and institutions as a model for community engagement. For example, the AASCU chose NKU as one of four universities for its Making Place Matter proj-ect, which was designed “to work intensively with a select number of state col-leges and universities and their regional and state partners to better equip the[m] to serve as catalysts for regional stewardship” (AASCU web site, Making Place Matter, June 30, 2006). In addition, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advance-ment of Teaching selected NKU as one of 14 campuses to participate in the pilot project to develop the new elective classification of “community engagement” for institutions of higher education.

NKU’s university-wide student philanthropy effort is one of the most well-es-tablished, is the most inclusive in incorporating philanthropy into many differ-ent disciplines, and involves the largest number of courses, students, nonprofit organizations, and funding levels. NKU’s student philanthropy effort began in 1999 with a grant from the Manuel D. and Rhoda Mayerson Foundation. During the past seven years, 1,025 students have participated in the Mayerson Student Philanthropy Project in 35 different courses, including two graduate courses in the MPA program as well as a number of undergraduate courses in communica-tion, literature and language, marketing, philosophy, sociology, and theatre and dance. To date, these classes have invested nearly $300,000 in about 200 non-profit agencies in the Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky metropolitan area (Scripps Howard, April 26, 2006).

The Mayerson Student Philanthropy Project is set up so that students identify community needs, search for nonprofits whose mission addresses those needs, invite agencies to apply for grants between $1,000 to $4,000, and select the nonprofits that will receive these small grants. The Mayerson project has the fol-lowing parameters:





• Faculty from all disciplines are invited to participate. No discipline or course has a monopoly on preparing students for civic participation.

• Each semester, 5 to 7 courses will be designated Mayerson Student Philanthropy courses.

• The funding from the Mayerson Foundation provides each class with $4,000 to invest in community organizations with 501(c)(3) designa-tions.

• Faculty should use the Mayerson Student Philanthropy Project as a ve-hicle for teaching the subject matter, not as an add-on, so that students will come to realize that any academic discipline offers tools and con-cepts for identifying community needs and thinking about solutions.

• The Mayerson Student Philanthropy Project should afford students the valuable learning experience of engaging in meaningful and memo-rable interactions and discussions with nonprofit leaders and with classmates. (Scripps Howard, 2006)

Students who participate in the Mayerson Student Philanthropy Project are expected to complete the following tasks:

• Identify a community need.• Form community boards or small work groups.• Interact with people in the nonprofit sector through interviews, site

visits, in class presentations by nonprofits.• Write reflective essays in response to seven questions.• Issue and evaluate Requests for Funding Proposals (RFPs).• Engage in a deliberative group decision-making process to select suc-

cessful applicants and award a total of $4,00. (Scripps Howard, 2006)

In addition, faculty may require that students complete one or more of the fol-lowing activities: learn about the history of philanthropy and nonprofit organiza-tions, explore careers in the nonprofit sector, write a funding proposal on behalf of a nonprofit organization to submit to the class, volunteer for a nonprofit, and/or raise additional funds for the organization(s) selected for the Mayerson funds.

Methodology for this StudyThe Scripps Howard Center for Civic Engagement at NKU systematically

collects data on the Mayerson Student Philanthropy Project via surveys of stu-dents, faculty, and representatives of nonprofit organizations that received grants. Each semester, students participating in student philanthropy courses complete a survey and write a reflective essay on their experience with the Mayerson project. Toward the end of the semester, students are also asked about their willingness to be contacted three, five, and 10 years after their participation in a Mayerson



course. As of 2005, 105 respondents had completed three- and five-year follow-up surveys after their student philanthropy experience. This paper uses data from the surveys, excerpts from students’ reflective essays, and the results of the three- and five-year surveys to gain a deeper level of understanding of the effectiveness of the philanthropy project.

An SPSS file was created using survey data from 10 semesters in which student philanthropy was incorporated into courses at NKU (fall 2000 through spring 2005). During those semesters, 35 courses with 55 sections had incorporated the philanthropy project, including two MPA courses. The total number of students who completed surveys is 986, including 27 MPA students. Frequency distribu-tions and some cross tabs with students’ academic disciplines are constructed to assess the impact of the student philanthropy course. In order to have manage-able cross tabs, the analysis combined different majors into some general disci-plines. As an example, art, literature, theatre, and drama are combined into the discipline of art. There was one exception to this process: even though the MPA program is within the political science department, the MPA courses were kept as a separate discipline so that MPA students’ experiences could also be compared with the experience of undergraduate students. The cross tabs examine only those disciplines with 25 or more students.

This paper explores three specific questions:

1. Does participation in philanthropy projects increase students’ aware-ness of social problems and nonprofit organizations?

2. Does student philanthropy enhance students’ development of certain beliefs, values, and intentions that the nonprofit sector embodies?

3. Does student philanthropy have any long-term effects on the partici-pants? If so, what are these effects?

FindingsFindings are discussed in four sections: 1) survey findings related to students’

awareness of social problems and nonprofits; 2) survey findings related to stu-dents’ beliefs, values, and intentions; 3) findings on long-term effects; and 4) qualitative findings from students’ reflective essays.

Survey Findings Related to Students’ Awareness of Social Problems and NonprofitsTables 1–4 provide data related to the first question, which addresses whether

student philanthropy increases student awareness of social problems and of non-profit organizations.

As Table 1 shows, an overwhelming percentage of student respondents (89.6%) reported that the philanthropy course had a very positive effect or a positive effect on their awareness of social problems; only 10% reported no effect. These find-ings beg the question of whether there were differences across the disciplines.



Table 1. Awareness of Social Problems

Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent

Very positive effect 378 38.3 41.9 41.9

Positive effect 431 43.7 47.7 89.6

No effect at all 90 9.1 10.0 99.6

Negative effect 3 .3 .3 99.9

Very negative effect 1 .1 .1 100.0

Total 903 91.6 100.0

Missing System 83 8.4

Total 986 100.0

Table 2. Cross Tab with Disciplines and Awareness of Social Problems

Disciplines

Art Business Criminal Justice

Education Health MPA Nursing Sociology

Very positive effect 27 55 16 25 34 11 20 63

41.5% 26.2% 38.1% 65.8% 54.8% 40.7% 40.0% 66.3%

Positive effect 28 121 22 10 26 13 27 29

43.1% 57.6% 52.4% 26.3% 41.9% 48.1% 54.0% 30.5%

No effect at all 10 34 3 3 2 3 3 3

15.4% 16.2% 7.1% 7.9% 3.2% 11.1% 6.0% 3.2%

Negative effect 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0

.0% .0% 2.4% .0% .0% .0% .0% .0%

Very neg. effect 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

.0% .0% .0% .0% .0% .0% .0% .0%

Total 65 210 42 38 62 27 50 95

100% 100.0% 100% 100% 100.0% 100% 100.0% 100%

Table 2 indicates that a greater percentage of students in sociology, education, and health courses indicated that the philanthropy project had a very positive effect compared to students in courses representing other disciplines. About one-half to two-thirds of students in sociology, education, and health courses indi-cated that the philanthropy course had a very positive effect on their awareness of social problems, whereas only about one-fourth of students in business courses selected this option. About 40% of students in the two MPA courses said the course had a very positive effect. But when we look at the combined responses of strongly agree and agree, the differences are not as wide. For example, 88.8% of



students in MPA courses selected very positive effect or positive effect, while the combined responses of students in education comes to 92.1%.

As Table 3 documents, an overwhelming majority of the respondents (94.9%) strongly agreed or agreed that the student philanthropy course enhanced their awareness of nonprofit organizations. Again, this finding begs the question of whether there were differences across the disciplines.

Table 4 documents the results of the survey. According to Table 4, about two-thirds of students in health and sociology courses indicated they strongly agree that the philanthropy course increased their awareness of nonprofit organizations. This percentage is much greater than the percentage of students in courses rep-resenting other disciplines. In particular, the lowest percentage of students who selected strongly agree was in business courses. About 43% of students in busi-ness courses selected strongly agree, which is 20 percentage points lower than

Table 3. Awareness of Nonprofit Organizations

Frequency Percent Valid percent Cumulative Percent

Strongly agree 460 46.7 50.9 50.9 Agree 398 40.4 44.0 94.9 No effect 28 2.8 3.1 98.0 Disagree 10 1.0 1.1 99.1 Strongly disagree 8 .8 .9 100.0 Total 904 91.7 100.0 Missing system 82 8.3

Total 986 100.0

Table 4. Cross Tab with Disciplines and Awareness of Nonprofit Organizations

Disciplines



Strongly agree 33 90 20 22 41 15 29 60

50.8% 42.9% 47.6% 57.9% 66.1% 55.6% 58.0% 63.2%

Agree 26 114 18 15 19 11 20 31

40.0% 54.3% 42.9% 39.5% 30.6% 40.7% 40.0% 32.6%

No effect 5 5 1 0 2 1 1 0

7.7% 2.4% 2.4% .0% 3.2% 3.7% 2.0% 0%

Disagree 1 0 2 1 0 0 0 1

1.5% 0% 4.8% 2.6% 0% 0% 0% 1.1%

Strongly disagree 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 3

0% .5% 2.4% 0% 0% 0% 0% 3.2%

Total 65 210 42 38 62 27 50 95

100% 100.0% 100% 100% 100.0% 100% 100.0% 100%



students in health or sociology courses. Once again, however, the findings are not that different across the disciplines when we combine the responses of strongly agree and agree; the combined response of business students is 97.2% compared to 96.7% of health students.

Survey Findings Related to Students’ Beliefs, Values, and IntentionsTable 5 through Table 10 provide some answers to the study’s second ques-

tion: Does student philanthropy enhance students’ development of certain beliefs, values, and intentions that the nonprofit sector embodies?

The findings from Table 5 through Table 10 provide evidence that the philan-thropy project had a strong and positive experience on students’ development of certain beliefs that resemble the traditional values of nonprofits as well as certain intentions that promote such values. For example, 88.6% of students reported that the philanthropy course had a very positive or positive effect on their belief that they have a responsibility to help others in need. A similarly high percent-age (82.6%) said that the philanthropy course has a very positive or positive effect on their sense of personal responsibility to the community in which they live. In terms of effect of intentions, we find a similar high level of responses:

Table 5. Belief That You Have a Responsibility to Help Others in Need

Frequency Percent Valid percent Cumulative percent



No effect at all 101 10.2 11.2 99.8



Total 901 91.4 100.0

Missing system 85 8.6

Total 986 100.0

Table 6. Sense of Personal Responsibility to the Community in Which You Live




No effect at all 156 15.8 17.3 99.9


Total 901 91.4 100.0


Total 986 100.0



83.7% reported a very positive or positive effect on their intention to give money to charity and 82.6% reported a very positive or positive effect on their intention to do volunteer work. Findings from the other tables show a similar pattern of responses.

Once again, we explore the possibility of differences in students’ experiences with the philanthropy project, based on the discipline. Table 11 through Table 13 present the results of the survey by discipline.

Table 7. Interest in Community Service




No effect at all 131 13.3 14.6 99.4



Total 898 91.1 100.0


Total 986 100.0

Table 8. Intention to Work on Behalf of Social Justice




No effect at all 222 22.5 24.7 99.2



Total 897 91.0 100.0


Total 986 100.0

Table 9. Intention to Give Money to Charity




No effect at all 143 14.5 15.9 99.6



Total 901 91.4 100.0


Total 986 100.0



According to Table 11, students in education and health courses indicate that the philanthropy course had a very positive effect on their intention to do vol-unteer work (47.4% and 43.5%, respectively) at a much higher percentage than students in other disciplines. Interestingly, only 14.8% of the MPA students say that this experience had a very positive effect on their intention to volunteer. The next lowest response rate for a very positive effect was students in criminal justice courses (17.1%) and business courses (24.5%). When we combine the responses on very positive effect and positive effect, we see a slightly different finding. Overall, students in art classes had the lowest percentage of students reporting a very positive or positive effect (73.9%). Students in MPA courses have the next lowest percentage (77.8%). The differences in the other majors are not that wide

Table 10. Your Intention to Do Volunteer Work




No effect at all 154 15.6 17.1 99.8



Total 899 91.2 100.0


Total 986 100.0

Table 11. Cross Tab with Disciplines and Intention to Do Volunteer Work

Disciplines

Art Business CriminalJustice



27.7% 24.5% 17.1% 47.4% 43.5% 14.8% 28.0% 38.3%

Positive effect 30 120 28 17 29 17 29 48

46.2% 57.7% 68.3% 44.7% 46.8% 63.0% 58.0% 51.1%

No effect at all 16 37 6 3 6 6 7 10

24.6% 17.8% 14.6% 7.9% 9.7% 22.2% 14.0% 10.6%


1.5% 0% 0% 0% 0% 00% 0% 0%

Very negative effect 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%

Total 65 208 41 38 62 27 50 94

100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%



(business, 82.2%; CJ, 85.4%; nursing, 86.0%; health, 89.3%; and sociology, 89.4%).

Table 12 documents differences across disciplines in response to a question about the degree to which the philanthropy course affected students’ sense of per-sonal responsibility to the community in which they live. Once again, a greater percentage of students in education and health courses than students in courses representing other disciplines reported a very positive effect (47.4% and 45.2%, respectively). Of all the disciplines, MPA students rated the effect lowest; only 18.5% of MPA students reported that the philanthropy course had a very positive effect on their sense of personal responsibility to the community in which they live. The disciplines with the next lowest ratings of very positive effect were busi-ness (20.0%), criminal justice (22.0%), nursing (22.4%), and art (23.1%). When we combine the responses of very positive effect and positive effect, students in MPA courses still ranked low (74.1%) compared to other disciplines except art (67.7%).

Table 13 documents differences across disciplines in response to a question about the degree to which the philanthropy course affected students’ belief that they have a responsibility to help others in need. It is interesting to see that the results of this cross tab are similar to the previous cross tab. The percentage of students in education, sociology, and health classes who reported a very positive effect is much greater than that in the other disciplines. Also similar to the previ-ous results, MPA students had the lowest percentage of students who selected a very positive effect (14.8%), and students in business classes had the next low-est percentage (23.3%). When we combine the very positive effect and positive effect responses, students in art courses ranked the lowest (83.1%), followed

Table 12. Cross Tab with Disciplines and Sense of Personal Responsibility

Disciplines




23.1% 20.0% 22.0% 47.4% 45.2% 18.5% 22.4% 38.9%

Positive effect 29 127 26 15 31 15 34 50

44.6% 60.5% 63.4% 39.5% 50% 55.6% 69.4% 52.6%

No effect at all 21 41 6 5 3 7 4 8

32.3% 19.5% 14.6% 13.2% 4.8% 25.9% 8.2% 8.4%


0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 00% 0% 0%

Total 65 210 41 38 62 27 49 95

100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%



by students in MPA courses (85.2%). In contrast, students in nursing, sociol-ogy, health, and education classes have much higher scores (96.0%, 95.1%, and 94.7%, respectively).

The last question from the survey may be the most significant one: Does par-ticipation in a philanthropy project encourage students to consider a career in the nonprofit sector? Table 14 reports the findings.

According to the results presented in Table 14, 42.3% of the respondents strong-ly agreed or agreed that the student philanthropy project encouraged them to con-sider a career in the nonprofit sector, while 21.6% strongly disagreed or disagreed.

Table 13. Cross Tab with Disciplines and Belief of Having a Responsibility to Help Others

Disciplines




30.8% 23.3% 26.2% 50.0% 49.2% 14.8% 36.0% 45.7%

Positive effect 34 130 26 17 28 19 30 48

52.3% 61.9% 61.9% 44.7% 45.9% 70.4% 60.0% 51.1%

No effect at all 11 31 5 2 3 4 2 3

16.9% 14.8% 11.9% 5.3% 4.9% 14.8% 4.0% 3.2%


0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%


0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%

Total 65 210 42 38 61 27 50 94

100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%

Table 14. Encourages Consideration of a Career in the Nonprofit Sector


Strongly agree 106 10.8 11.7 11.7

Agree 276 28.0 30.6 42.3

No effect 326 33.1 36.1 78.4

Disagree 149 15.1 16.5 94.9

Strongly disagree 46 4.7 5.1 100.0

Total 903 91.6 100.0


Total 986 100.0



Findings on Long-term EffectsAnother research question is the following: Does student philanthropy have

any long-term effects on the participants? If so, what are these effects? Joan Fer-rante and Melissa Gish, who work with the Scripps Howard Center for Civic Engagement at NKU, prepared the second edition of a manual for the Mayerson Student Philanthropy Project in 2005. One section of the manual reported some of the long-term effects of the project on students. As mentioned earlier, the Center for Civic Engagement had collected 105 completed follow-up surveys for three cohorts as of 2005. These cohorts were students enrolled in philanthropy courses during the 2000–2001 school year, the 2001–2002 school year, and the fall 2002 semester. Table 15 reports some of the findings.

Table 15 shows that, after three and five years, 85.7% of respondents indicated that their experience with the philanthropy course helped to increase their belief that they could make a difference in society. The same percentage indicated that the philanthropy course helped to increase their sense of personal responsibility to their community. Interestingly, only 23.8% of respondents indicated that the philanthropy course helped them decide that they wanted to strive for a career in the nonprofit sector.

In the three-year and five-year follow-up surveys, students were also asked to rate the philanthropy component of their course on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 be-ing “one of my most memorable class” experience and 5 being “one of the least memorable experiences” (2005, 77). According to their findings, 42% of students rated the philanthropy component as one of their most memorable class experi-ences, while only 6% rated it as one of their least memorable class experiences.

Qualitative Analysis Based on Students’ Reflective EssaysStudents were asked to respond to seven open-ended questions that required

some reflective thinking and writing. Essays for Questions 1 through 4 were due the second week of class, and essays for Questions 5 through 7 were due the last week of class. Pertinent to this study were the answers to question 7: “What have you learned about yourself, the nonprofit sector, or others since becoming involved in the philanthropic component of this course?” Below are excerpts from essays that students wrote for this question:

Table 15. Effects of Involvement in the Course

Involvement in this course helped me Yes

Increase my belief that I can make a difference in society 90 (85.7%)

Increase my sense of personal responsibility to my community 90 (85.7%)

Decide that I wanted to strive for a career in the nonprofit sector 25 (23.8%)



• I have learned a great deal about the nonprofit sector through the phil-anthropic component of this class.... I had no idea that many of these nonprofits existed prior to this project. I also learned how devoted others are to philanthropic causes, especially those who work in the nonprofit sector. I really appreciated how many in the nonprofit sector sacrifice so much in order to further the mission of their nonprofit.

• This course has made me learn how fortunate I am to have had the op-portunities that I have had. The nonprofit sector opens your eyes to a lot of issues and concerns that others deal with that we take for grant-ed. It also makes me appreciate that the nonprofit organizations exist to administer the services to those that need them.

• Since becoming involved in this philanthropic component of this course, I learned that I do take some things for granted. Researching and visiting these nonprofits made me realize that there are many in-dividuals that need assistance whether it is personal or physical.... It is great that nonprofits exist and continue to grow promoting their cause. Volunteering is definitely something that I would want to do in the future because I would enjoy helping others.

• This experience showed me that I had allowed my hectic schedule of working full time and going to school part time prevent me from driv-ing my personal mission of helping others…. I must rearrange some things so that can get back to my true calling—“helping others help themselves.”

• Having the philanthropic component showed us the part of the non-profit world that most people, including me, do not even think about. We gained appreciation for all of the “behind the scenes” work that most people do not see. Before this class, I just thought of philan-thropy as charities, homeless shelters, church youth groups, things that I see occasionally. Even when I thought about these organizations, I never imagined the work that goes into them.

• From this component of class, I have learned that I am very interested in working in the nonprofit sector after graduation.

• My eyes have been opened to the fact that these agencies need volun-teers and are open to the community and are really passionate about the work they do.

• The exposure to so many different agencies caused me to reflect on how I might serve those nonprofits and see how, though diverse in pro-grams, they could all use my skills as a communicator and administra-tor. I am amazed at the vast number of nonprofits serving our area and the breadth of their services.

• I learned that I am not alone. There are times when you seem to think that all the society around you cares about is how big is their house,



and how expensive is their car. It is nice to see so many agencies and individuals out there with the goal of helping others out instead of making money…. I also learned that when my current commitments are fulfilled, there are some agencies that [I] would not mind helping out.

• I realized how very little I actually knew about the nonprofit sector. I knew I was (am) ignorant, but I was not quite aware of the extent of that ignorance!

Discussion of the Findings Overall, survey results provide evidence that the Mayerson Student Philan-

thropy Project at NKU had a strong and positive effect on the awareness, beliefs, values, and intentions of participating students. An overwhelming majority of survey respondents indicated that the philanthropy project increased their aware-ness of social problems (89.6%) and nonprofit organizations (94.9%), their sense of responsibility to help others in need (88.6%) and the community in which they live (82.6%), and their intention to give money to charity (83.7%) and to do volunteer work (82.6%). These findings suggest that student philanthropy is a potential strategy for addressing some of the issues underlying the nonprofit identity crisis. In particular, philanthropy projects in the classroom may instill and nurture in students the values of public service and the intention to volun-teer for, donate money to, and work for a nonprofit. By doing so, the project may help to attract more young people to the nonprofit sector.

Looking more deeply at the data, we found that the Mayerson project had a relatively limited effect on graduate students in MPA courses. For instance, 40% of students in MPA courses indicated that the philanthropy project had a very positive effect on their awareness of social problems, compared to more than 60% students in education and sociology classes (see Table 2). Further, only about 15% of MPA students indicated that the philanthropy course had a very positive effect on their intention to volunteer, compared to 40% of students in education and health courses (see Table 11). It is worth noting that at least 90% of MPA students at NKU work full time and take classes part time, and many of them have worked and/or volunteered for nonprofit organizations for many years. Also, the MPA class that participated in the philanthropy project, Managing Nonprofit Organizations, is a core course in the Nonprofit Certificate curriculum and most students enrolled in that class were nonprofit practitioners.

A possible explanation for this finding is found in the literature on service learning. As noted earlier, some authors have asserted that service learning has a limited influence on MPA students because they tend to have strong feelings of civic responsibility and public service and high levels of civic engagement before going into to a service-learning experience, so there is a very limited opportunity for an increase after the service-learning project (Reinke, 2003; Dicke, Dowden



and Torres, 2004). Applying similar reasoning to student philanthropy, it may be that the MPA students at NKU entered courses with relatively high levels of awareness of social problems and nonprofits and relatively high levels of intention to volunteer, sense of personal responsibility to their community, and belief that they have a responsibility to help others in need. Following this line of reason-ing, a philanthropy course—or any other intervention—that is designed to affect certain beliefs, values, and intentions can have very little or even no effect on students starting off with high levels of these beliefs, values, and intentions.

We found that the Mayerson project had a greater impact on undergraduate students in certain disciplines, particularly education, health, and sociology. For example, more than 60% of undergraduate students in sociology and education indicated that the philanthropy course had a very positive effect on their aware-ness of social problems, compared to 26% of students in business courses. A simi-lar pattern occurred for other survey items as well. It is likely that the disciplines of education, health, and sociology attract individuals who have certain values, beliefs, and intentions, such as a strong sense of responsibility to help others in need and the community in which they live. Student philanthropy may be a tool that encourages students in these disciplines to tap into those values, beliefs, and intentions and connect them to real world opportunities and experiences in order to nurture them. Conclusion

This paper assesses the short- and long-term effects of Northern Kentucky University’s student philanthropy project using survey data from 2000 to 2005. Along with survey data, it also uses qualitative data from students’ reflective essays on their experience with the philanthropic component of the course. The findings show that this pedagogy can have a strong impact on students’ values, interest, knowledge, and intentions that may benefit the nonprofit sector by at-tracting more informed prospective candidates who share the values that define the uniqueness of the nonprofit sector. However, the findings also show that in-career MPA students may not be the best target population for philanthropy projects. Undergraduate students—particularly in non-business disciplines—seem to be the population whose awareness, beliefs, values, and intentions, including their intention to give money to charities and to volunteer, are most likely to be increased by a student philanthropy project.

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Shamima Ahmed is an associate professor of political science and the direc-tor of the MPA program at Northern Kentucky University. Her areas of interest include human resource management and nonprofit organizations. She has pub-lished in State & Local Government, International Journal of Public Administration, Journal of Development Management, Public Personnel Management, and Asian Thought & Society. She received her Ph.D. in public administration and public policy from Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University.

Julie Olberding is an assistant professor in the MPA program and Nonprofit Management certificate program at Northern Kentucky University. She teaches courses in organizational behavior and theory, resource acquisition and manage-ment, volunteer management, strategic planning, and program evaluation. In ad-dition to student philanthropy, her research has focused on regional collaboration and partnerships among local governments, businesses, and nonprofit organiza-tions. It has been published in Public Administration Review and Economic Develop-ment Quarterly. Prior to her work at Northern Kentucky, Olberding served as a program manager at the Council of State Governments in Lexington, Kentucky, and as executive director of Citizens for Civic Renewal, a regional civic organiza-tion in Cincinnati, Ohio. Olberding earned her Ph.D. from the Martin School of Public Policy and Administration at the University of Kentucky.


Connecting Neighborhood Councils and City Agencies:

Trust Building through the Learning and Design Forum Process

Pradeep Chandra Kathi and Terry L. Cooper University of Southern California

AbstractThough citizen trust in government is very important for the legitimacy of

the government, there is evidence to show that citizen trust in government is decreasing, not only in the United States of America but also all over the world. Scholars argue that citizen participation and collaborative processes involving citizen stakeholders in government decision-making could lead to increasing citizen trust in government. However, the argument that citizen participation in governance and citizen-government collaboration can lead to increased trust in governance from a conceptual or macro level perspective is difficult to visualize or establish empirically. We suggest that this collaboration and participation has to be at the experiential micro or local government level rather than at the concep-tual macro level. Citizen participation in general has to translate into collabora-tive relationships between specific micro-level citizen organizations and city or local public agencies. We also propose that citizen participation mechanisms like collaborations and cooperative arrangements as well as the processes of col-laboration are critical to establish the participation-trust causal relationship. We then present our Learning and Design Forum model as a process that facilitates a sustainable agreement between neighborhood councils and city agencies model for developing mutual trust and collaboration.

Public trust of citizens in their government is important for any country. At the macro or national level, public trust provides legitimacy to government decisions (Feldheim and Wang, 2003). Citizen trust is a condition for a healthy democracy (Berresford, 2000a). Citizen trust in government is necessary for “po-litical leaders to make binding decisions and commit resources to attain societal goals” (Chanley, Rudolph and Rahn, 2000, 240). Public disinterest in govern-

JPAE 13(3/4):617–630


Connecting Neighborhood Councils and City Agencies: The Learning and Design Forum Process

ment functioning also affects the behavior of representative leaders, who may then just maintain status quo or resort to self-serving behavior. At the extreme, citizens’ lack of trust in government may affect the willingness of the public to pay taxes or to comply with the law. It may also affect how willing quali-fied and competent members of society are to work for the government, which has implications for the quality of government personnel (Berresford, 2000b). Evidence shows that citizen trust in government is decreasing, not only in the United States of America but also all over the world. Although trust has many specific dimensions, we broadly define trust in government as the level of confi-dence citizens have in their government (both politicians and public officials) to do the right thing—to act appropriately and honestly on behalf of the public. This broad definition is also accepted by many scholars and is routinely measured by polls, some of which provide one-off snapshots that are comparable over time (example, the University of Michigan National Election Studies).

In this paper, we discuss the trend of diminishing trust in government among U.S. stakeholders and argue that alienation from government can be overcome by active citizen participation in governance. However, this collaboration and par-ticipation in governance has to be at the experiential micro or local government level rather than at the conceptual macro level. The macro or conceptual level is not proximate to the citizen, so it is difficult to experience government directly in the same way as local government. We present research findings that show that collaborative planning and cooperative problem solving can balance inequalities in the power structure between city agencies and stakeholder groups by build-ing and supporting trusting relationships. We argue that in Los Angeles, where in the last decade dissatisfaction with service delivery undermined stakeholder trust in local government and led to secession efforts, the system of neighborhood councils is an appropriate experiential level citizen organization that could be the vehicle for collaborations leading to increased trust in city government. Then we present our Learning and Design Forum model as a basis for developing mutual trust and collaboration that facilitates a sustainable agreement between neighbor-hood councils and city agencies.

Increasing Cynicism in GovernmentThe past two decades have shown a trend of declining trust of government

among citizens across the globe. A number of books have highlighted the alien-ation of voters from government. These include Why Americans Hate Politics by E. J. Dionne in 1991, Democracy’s Discontent by Michael Sandel in 1996, and Why People Don’t Trust Government by Joseph Nye et al. in 1997 (DeLeon and DeLeon, 2002). At the federal level in America, it was reported in several studies that citizen trust in government seems to be declining. In 1964, the University of Michigan National Election Studies indicated that about 60 percent of respon-dents stated that they had a “lot” of trust in government. By 1994, 30 years later,



this figure declined to about 25 percent. Nye, Zelikow, and King (1999) also presented similar findings. Another comparative survey on trust found that, in 1964, 75 percent of respondents stated that they had a “lot” of trust in govern-ment; this figure went down to 20 percent in 1994 (Stonecipher, 1998). Many among the public believe that the government creates more problems than it solves (Wasserman, 1998). Lan (1997) writes that, since the 1980s, an increased tension between the citizens and public agencies has existed and negative feelings about the government have been high.

The loss of trust and alienation from government is not restricted to the federal or state governments. A 1995 survey by Evan Berman (1997) indicates that “cynicism is present in about one third of all cities with populations over 50,000 and one third of these have widespread ‘ardently’ cynical attitudes” toward gov-ernment. Pharr and Putnam (2000) write that, in the early 1960s, three quar-ters of the American public trusted the government to do what is right, and by 1998 only 39 percent felt that way. They also report that only one third of 1960s respondents agreed with the statement, “Most elected officials don’t care what people like me think.” However, in 1998, this number had increased to about two-thirds of respondents. The lack of trust in government is not restricted to the United States alone. Nye, Zelikow, and King (1999) have also noted that this decline in trust in government applies to most Western European government institutions. A recent international survey found that the level of dissatisfaction with modern government was 65 percent in Western Europe, 73 percent in East-ern and Central Europe, 60 percent in North America, 61 percent in Africa, 65 percent in Asia-Pacific, and 69 percent in Latin America (Reynolds, 2005).

Citizen Participation and TrustKing (1999) and Whelan (1999) attribute this lack of trust in the United

States to the citizen participation ethos of the administrative state that still dominates American public administration. Under this ethos, citizen participa-tion was considered disruptive to smooth administration and the technical com-petence of the professional administrator was the tool for efficient government. Of late, scholars have advocated citizen participation on both normative (Dachler and Wilpert, 1978), and instrumental grounds (DeLeon and DeLeon, 2002; Irvin and Stansbury, 2004; Cooper, 1983). Scholars argue that citizen participation in government and involving citizen stakeholders in government decision-making could lead to increasing citizen trust in government (King and Stivers, 1998; Baxter, Eyles, and Elliott, 1999; Campbell, 2003) Implementing policies with public participation, even in highly technical issues, is necessary to enhance trust in government entities (Rowe and Frewer, 2000). Berman (1997) suggests that providing citizens with a means to influence public policy and government decision making would be an effective way to tackle cynicism and overcome lack of trust. Berresford (2000b) argues that citizens will be more trusting and have



more confidence in government if they feel part of the political process. Greater citizen involvement in local government has the potential for citizens to have more voice in the issues that government addresses on a day-to-day basis. Berres-ford (2000a) believes that trust in government can be built if citizen engagement in social problem solving is increased.

The scholars and practitioners cited above make a case for a conceptual causal relationship between citizen participation in governance leading to increased trust in government. However, we believe that this causal relationship at the conceptual level of citizen participation leading to increased trust in govern-ment is difficult to establish empirically. The argument for citizen participa-tion in governance as a concept leading to increased trust is similar to the causal relationship between Protestantism and capitalism discussed by James Coleman (1986). As Coleman suggested, the relationship at the conceptual or macro level can only be explained by moving down first to the micro or experiential level of individual actions and then going back up again to the conceptual level. In the case of citizen participation/increased trust relationship, we propose that citizen participation in general has to translate into specific micro-level citizen organiza-tions and city or local public agencies. It is at this level that citizens interact with government on a day-to-day basis and most of their experiences and dealings with government are at this level. We also propose that specific citizen participa-tion mechanisms like collaborations and cooperative arrangements as well as the processes of collaboration are critical to establish the citizen participation/trust causal relationship.

City Agencies and Neighborhood CouncilsWhile moving down to the experiential level of citizen participation in govern-

ment, it is important to identify the government entity and the citizen organiza-tion that represents this level. In recent years, the depth and breadth of public participation in local government decision-making has significantly increased with innovative participation methods like citizen juries, citizen panels, com-munity visioning, and community planning. These mechanisms have been implemented with the intention of affecting the way civic services are delivered (Pratchett, 1999; Wilson, 1999). On a day-to-day basis, citizens interact mainly with local governments and their dealings with the state or federal government are very limited. It is not surprising, then, that participatory theorists propose that citizen participation in governance at the local level is the most practical and rational because it is at the local level that one can see the benefits of participa-tion most clearly (Pateman, 1970; Bachrach and Botwinick, 1992, as cited in Steelamn, 2001). Local governments could adopt participatory mechanisms that empower stakeholders and that enable them to represent their interests within service delivery areas, including urban planning, sanitation, street maintenance, parks and recreation, and public works. The line of argument is that it is possible



to achieve outcomes and better policy and implementation decisions if citizens are fully involved in participatory decision-making at the local level (Irvin and Stansbury, 2004). Rebuilding public trust—and preventing further deteriora-tion—through stakeholder participation in government decision-making on local government agencies’ service delivery may be one avenue toward mitigating cynicism (King and Stivers, 1998). Therefore, city governments and city agencies seem to be ideally suited to represent government at the experiential level.

As a vehicle to represent the voice and concerns of citizens, the concept of neighborhood councils seems quite appropriate. Neighborhood councils are qua-si-governmental citizen organizations created by formal arrangements like charter amendments. The intention is to promote and involve citizen groups in city decision-making. A common model of neighborhood councils is one in which the neighborhood councils are created by city charter amendments, and citizens self-organize into neighborhood councils, establishing boundaries, designing governance structures, creating bylaws, and establishing outreach procedures de-signed to attain inclusion of the diverse population of the neighborhoods (Musso, Kitsuse, and Cooper, 2002). The neighborhood council system appears to be one institutional mechanism to empower citizens, in part by improving service de-livery and increasing trust—two of many advantages of citizen participation. Of-ficially recognized local citizen organizations like neighborhood councils provide avenues for engaging citizens with city agencies in the planning and delivery of city services. As a tool of citizen participation, neighborhood councils have been posited as a good mechanism for involving residents/citizens in city decision-making (Scavo, 1993). The creation and/or recognition of such organizations at the neighborhood level has been a significant new way in which citizen engage-ment is being implemented in many U.S. cities like Portland; New York City; Minneapolis; Saint Paul; Columbus and Dayton, Ohio; Birmingham; and Seattle (Berry, Portney and Thompson, 1993). Nalbandian (1999) argues that “neigh-borhood councils will increasingly take over many of the responsibilities of city councils and administrators for setting priorities and evaluating service delivery.” The recognition of neighborhood institutions as a citizen organization by way of formal arrangements creating collaborative governance has emerged in these and other cities during recent decades. In 1999, partly motivated by the attempts at secession by residents of three large parts of the city, Los Angeles established a system of neighborhood councils. A solid majority of the voters approved this key element of the new city charter.

Collaborative ProcessesAt the experiential or city government levels, the legitimacy of city agencies

rests on their ability to collaborate with citizens while ensuring equity of rep-resentation in the partnership process (Nalbandian, 1999). Collaborative plan-ning and joint problem solving can balance the inequality in the power structure

by initiating a cycle of trust-collaboration-trust, wherein engagement with the city agency increases trust and encourages further engagement (Hutchinson and Vidal, 2004). Vigoda (2002) suggests that public trust is gained by bringing the administrator closer to the citizen so that administrator responsiveness to citizens is founded in collaboration rather than conflict. Trust, then, is not the merely vested in public officials and their stewardship (Kass, 1990) but rather is culti-vated though participation and developed through working directly with stake-holders in order to improve service delivery.

Collaborative efforts aimed at addressing specific problems could lead to “better communications, sharing of information, building of trust, developing personal relations and leading to new opportunities for joint action” (Imperial, 2005). In the planning field, scholars and researchers have suggested that citizen participa-tion in the planning process can “generate trust, credibility, and commitment regarding the implementation of policies” (Brody, Godschalk, and Burby, 2003; Innes, 1996). In one specific case of a watershed eco-protection plan, collabora-tion between the watershed stakeholders and public agencies led to a strong foundation of trust between the organizations (Korfmacher, 2000). Research has also shown that successful prior collaboration can create a network between citi-zen organization representatives and public agency administrators and that such networks and relationships increase trust between the two (Koontz, 2005).

Citizen participation in governance is likely to foster trust in the government agency, especially if the participants are given some power and control over the collaboration process (Baxter, Eyles, and Elliott, 1999). Irvin and Stansbury (2004) suggest that transparent decision-making processes build trust and that shared authority in decision-making improves the effectiveness of the process. Processes that provide for interactions between citizen groups and city agen-cies that address problem solving could lead to increased trust and understand-ing (Feldheim and Wang, 2003). On the other hand, Baxter, Eyles, and Elliott (1999) argue that distrust can arise between citizen groups and public agencies if the collaboration or consultation process is too scientific and technical without adequate stress on the process.

From the above literature, the following factors stand out as the requisites for effective collaboration and trust building:

•Working with citizen groups•Addressing a specific problem of service delivery •Shared power and authority•Improved communication and information flow•Making process less technical and scientific

Our model of the causal relationship between citizen participation and trust is in Figure 1. Multiple collaboration processes with multiple citizen organizations





and city agencies could lead to increased trust of specific departments. Replica-tion, aggregation, and citywide adoption of these processes over many city agen-cies and citizen organizations could lead to increased trust in city hall as a whole. The model in Figure 1 establishes the broader linkage between “citizen trust in government” that results from shared, collaborative experiences. The model poses that the central link to trust in government, which is a deeply conceptual phe-nomenon, is directly linked to citizen experiences with city administrators in col-laborative settings in which information is shared and communication between governmental managers and citizens is enhanced.

Learning and Design Forums Our collaborative process, the Learning and Design Forum, is designed to

bring city agencies and neighborhood councils together in the delivery of city agency services and incorporates the requirements of effective collaboration. The Learning and Design Forum concept was designed as part of the Collaborative Leaning Project, an action research project in which City of Los Angeles admin-istrators and neighborhood leaders were brought together to review current prac-tices in order to share ideas and establish innovative means of providing effective service delivery. Our research has shown that collaboration appears most effective in sessions that include workshop presentations, small group and plenary discus-sions, informal networking, and participant reflection, all with an independent facilitator. Repeated interpersonal exchanges and institutional processes have been shown to create trust (Zucker, 1986). It has also been found that, if indi-vidual public employees are made aware of what the public actually needs and

ConceptualExpected

Increased Trust in (City) GovernmentCitizen Participation

Local Neighborhood Organizations

City Government

Shared Information Improved Communication Common Understandings

Agreements

Collaboration processes facilitated by intermediary

Experiential

Formal arrangements Large-scale adoption

and aggregation

Figure 1. Citizen Participation—Trust-Causal Relationship

they work to improve service delivery, trust can be maintained (Feldheim and Wang, 2002). Based on this approach, we developed the Learning and Design Forum model as a facilitated opportunity to bring together both neighborhood councils and City departments in the coproduction of services. This is in conso-nance with the concept of participatory democracy that seeks to “develop col-laborative practices based on trust, cooperation and respect between citizens and local government (Cuthill, 2002). Our work with neighborhood councils and city agencies demonstrates a further extension of citizen engagement to what some have referred to as co-production: the conjoint responsibility of lay citizens and professional government agents for the delivery of public services (Sharp 1980). The approach outlined here is best understood as a form of mutual adjustment, where the interaction among citizens and governmental officials lead to a mutu-ally agreed upon service delivery (Tang, 1999; Arentsen, Bressers, and O’Toole Jr., 2000). This is consistent with Lindblom’s (1959) argument that public decision-making is incremental and a series of mutual adjustments. Small group decision-making literature that focuses on the need for quality and acceptability of decisions has supported this approach (Thomas, 1990).

In our action research project, we brought together three sets of neighborhood councils and city agencies into the Learning and Design Forum sessions. The three sets of city agency representatives and neighborhood council representatives participated in three weekend sessions at the University of Southern California. The practical version of our conceptual model (Fig. 1) for increasing trust in city government places neighborhood councils and the Learning and Design Forum collaborative process in the participation-trust experiential relationship, and is shown in Figure 2.



ConceptualExpected

Increased Trust in (City) GovernmentCitizen Participation

Neighborhood Councils

City Agencies

Memoranda of Understanding

Learning and Design Forum Sessions facilitated by the Collaborative Learning Project, SPPD, USC

Experiential

Charter amendment City-wide replication

and aggregation

Figure 2. Neighborhood Council—Trust in City Agency Causal Model



The central feature of the Learning and Design Forums is deliberation—face-to-face interaction over three half-days, led by a professional facilitator, and with assigned homework between sessions. The neutral territory of the meeting, the University of Southern California, acted as one factor offsetting the power imbal-ance. During the first session, the neighborhood councils and the city agencies presented their assessments of each other. These presentations were used as the starting point of discussion and opened up avenues for honest and frank informa-tion sharing and communication. Another important activity of the Learning and Design forum sessions was role reversal, which enabled the neighborhood council to have a better appreciation of the problems and constraints faced by city agency, and the city agency to understand the expectations and aspirations of neighbor-hood councils. Multiple small mixed teams comprising members of both groups were formed and worked together to address the issues to be resolved. These in-teractions over time built trust between the two groups and also led to the break-ing down of communication barriers. As one member said, “now we are speaking the same language.” The Learning and Design Forum model of collaboration is shown in Figure 3.

City DepartmentsNeighborhood Community

Understanding and Trust

Common Interests and Shared Power

Neutral Third Party

Increased democratization, development of participation, supportive leadership, shared power

Democratic knowledge

capacity

Professional and resources capacity

Figure 3. Model for Enhancing Trust and Civic Capacity—Collaborative Learning Project

Increased trust, power, technical knowledge, and leadership development

Dialogue and Deliberation

Facilitative and mediating capacity

Collaborative Capacity

Mutual Understanding and Agreements

Collaboration Process— Learning and Design Forum©



Conclusion and DiscussionIn the first Learning and Design Forum session with all the groups, the city

agency representatives tried to take refuge in their budget limitations, plead-ing that there is not a lot they can do. They also tried to emphasize the technical nature of their department. The neighborhood council representatives initially seemed to accept that defense, but then a few began to push against that position. Soon the city agency representatives realized that they could not get away with simply paying lip service to collaboration while fending off any real collabora-tion with their technical information and pleas of budget constraints. They found themselves having to respond to particular questions that probed the reasons for their department’s policies and practices. As the sessions progressed, the research team noticed that each side clearly understood much better what the other side has to deal with and the constraints they confront. A lot more empathy devel-oped on both sides, and they went on to establish a working relationship, where they connected names with faces. Personal relationships between the participants developed, and they shed their antagonistic attitudes. Some of the comments made by the neighborhood council and city agency Learning and Design Forum participants are shown in Table 1 on the following page.

In the third collaboration process between four city-wide neighborhood coun-cils and the Department of Transportation, the neighborhood council participants were asked specific questions on their ability to trust the Department of Trans-portation (DOT) and the City Council at the beginning of the first Learning and Design Forum session and then at the end of third session. Though the sample size is too small for a significant generalization, the results are interesting and show increased neighborhood council trust in the DOT and City Council. The results of the small sample survey are shown below in Table 2.

These findings suggest that neighborhood council representatives and city departments came away with a far more comprehensive understanding of their counterparts’ fundamental perspectives, capabilities, and constraints. These shared understandings became the basis for mutual trust and collaboration. The concrete expression of this collaborative deliberation was a signed agreement between a city department and neighborhood councils for the delivery of city services in targeted areas. These agreements have become the beginning of an ongoing collaborative service delivery planning process.

We see potential in our Learning and Design Forum model, which uses a facili-tator who leads the city agency and neighborhood council team members toward collaboration and agreement. The preliminary results have been encouraging. Two sets of neighborhood councils and city agencies have created written agree-ments on how the city agency will deliver its service in the neighborhood council area. The memorandum of understanding and collaborative process with the one city agency that was part of our process allowed for the exploration of infrastruc-ture needs specific to the four Southeast Valley neighborhood councils. The de-



Table 1. Neighborhood Council and City Agency Participant Comments

Neighborhood Councils City Departments

I no longer felt a “they-us” split Trust doesn’t just happen…unless both sides open up. We were open, and they were open.

I am more open to them now, but trust has to be built over a period of time.

Trust increased. The bureaus learned that the NCs could be partners, not just critics or consumers.

Only toward those who actively participated from DCA.

For those individuals that were there, I think trust improved.

It took somebody to throw a party to make the neighborhood councils and the depart-ment learn that they like each other.

I think it got better…it takes time to build trust. You need to see results over time for trust to develop.

The results will be surprising if personal inter-ests and gains are set aside with the tasks at hand being approached in good faith through cooperative efforts.

A real education has taken place in terms of what the community wants and what the department can do.

Positively. It is based on knowledge of what DOT can and cannot do.

I keep going back to seeing people as in-dividuals. That was a big change…these are real people.

I trust the people, not the department policies. I think there was a break down of bar-riers.

I was pleasantly surprised to find people at the city agency open and communicative.

The seeds have been set for improve-ment, but we’re not there yet.

I personally learned to trust the city agencies more than I did.

Degree of trust is much increased.

Table 2. Trust Question Survey Results

Question Total number of Neighborhood Council Respondents

Number respond-ing “yes” after first LandD Session

Number respond-ing “yes” after third LandD Session

I trust the City of Los Angeles to incorporate neighborhood council suggestions

14 2 8

I trust the DOT to incorporate NC suggestions

12 3 8



partment then used lessons learned in the collaboration to implement a citywide process of distributing Infrastructure Assessment Reports to every neighborhood council. The Department of Water and Power, when faced with serious objection from neighborhood councils over a proposed rate hike, adopted a different collab-oration process. This resulted in a citywide level agreement between the Depart-ment of Water and Power and neighborhood councils over future rate hikes. Our sample is small, and we are still developing the hypothesis that collaboration at the experiential level between city agencies and city agencies could increase trust of citizens in city government. The initial results with two sets of neighborhood councils and city agencies have been encouraging. We are hopeful that other city departments and other neighborhood and community organizations will further replicate and adapt the Learning and Design Forum collaboration process and that this replication, adaptation, and aggregation citywide will lead to increased trust in city government.

ReferencesArentsen, M. J., H. Th. A. Bressers, and L. J. O’Toole, Jr. 2000. “Institutional and Policy Responses

to Uncertainty in Environmental Policy: A Comparison of Dutch and U.S. Styles.” Policy Studies Journal, 28:97–612.

Baxter, J. W., J. D. Eyles, and S. J. Elliott. 1999. “From Siting Principles to Siting Practices: A Case Study of Discord Among Trust, Equity and Community Participation.” Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 42:501–526.

Berman, Evan. 1997. “Dealing with Cynical Citizens.” Public Administration Review, 57(2):105–112.Berresford, Susan V. 2000. Social Service and Public Trust: An Antidote to Indifference. Speech made at

the John C. Whitehead Forum, Washington, D.C., February 9, 2000. Available at http://www.fordfound.org/news/view_speeches_detail.cfm.

Berresford, Susan V. 2000. Finding Trust in Unexpected Places. Speech made to the Council for Excellence in Government, February 9, 2000. Available at http://www.excelgov.org.

Berry, J. M., K. E. Portney, and K. Thomson. 1993. The Rebirth of Urban Democracy. Brookings Institution: Washington, D.C.

Brody, S. D., D. R. Godschalk, and R. J. Burby. 2003. “Mandating Citizen Participation in Plan Making: Six Strategic Planning Choices.” Journal of the American Planning Association, 69:245–264.

Campbell, M. 2003. “Restoring Trust in Government: A Cost-Effective Approach to the Cry for ‘Accountability’.” The Journal for Quality and Participation, 26:44–51.

Chanley, V. A., T. J. Rudolph, and W. M. Rahn. 2004. “The Origins and Consequences of Public Trust in Government.” Public Opinion Quarterly, 64:239–256.

Coleman, J. S. 1986. “Social Theory, Social Research, and a Theory of Action.” The American Journal of Sociology, 91:1309–1335.

Cooper, T. L. 1983. “Citizen Participation.” In Thomas D. Lynch, ed., Organization Theory and Management. New York, NY: Marcel Dekker, 13–46.

Cuthill, M. 2002. “Exploratory Research: Citizen Participation, Local Government and Sustainable Development in Australia.” Sustainable Development, 10:79–89.

Dachler, H. P., and B. Wilpert. 1978. “Conceptual Dimensions and Boundaries of Participation in Organizations: A Critical Evaluation.” Administrative Science Quarterly, 23:1–39.

DeLeon, L., and P. DeLeon. 2002. “The Democratic Ethos and Public Management.” Administration and Society, 34:229–251.



Feldheim, M. A, and X. Wang. 2003. “Ethics and Public Trust: Results from a National Survey.” Public Integrity, 6:63–75.

Hutchinson, J., and A. C. Vidal. 2004. “Using Social Capital to Help Integrate Planning Theory, Research, and Practice.” Journal of the American Planning Association, 70:142–193.

Imperial, M. T. 2005. “Using Collaboration as a Governance Strategy: Lessons from Six Watershed Management Programs.” Administration and Society, 37:281–320.

Innes, J. E. 1996. “Planning Through Consensus Building: A New View of the Comprehensive Planning Ideal.” Journal of the American Planning Association, 62:460–472.

Irvin, R. A., and Stansbury, J. 2004. “Citizen Participation in Decision Making: Is It Worth the Effort?” Public Administration Review, 64(1):55–65.

Kass, H. D. 1990. “Stewardship as a Fundamental Element in Images of Public Administration.” In D. D. Kass and B. L. Catron, eds., Images and Identities in Public Administration. Newbury Park: Sage, 113–131.

King, C. S. 1999. “Public Administration at Midlife?” Public Administration Review, 59:256–263.King, C. S., and Stivers, C. 1998. Government Is Us: Public Administration in an Anti-Government Era.

Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.Koontz, T. M. 2005. “We Finished the Plan, So Now What? Impacts of Collaborative Stakeholder

Participation on Land Use Policy.” Policy Studies Journal, 33:459–483.Kormacher, K. S. 2000. “What’s the Point of Partnering?” The American Behavioral Scientist, 44:548–566.Lan, Z. 1997. “A Conflict Resolution Approach to Public Administration.” Public Administration Review,

57:27–36.Lindblom, C. E. 1959. “The Science of Muddling Through.” Public Administration Review, 19:79–88.Musso, J. A., A. Kitsuse, and T. L. Cooper. 2002. “Faith Organizations and Neighborhood Councils in

Los Angeles.” Public Administration and Development, 22:83–94.Nalbandian, J. 1999. “Facilitating Community, Enabling Democracy: New Roles for Local Government

Managers.” Public Administration Review, 59:187–197.Nye, S., P. D. Zelikow, and D.C. King. 1997. “Why People Don’t Trust Government.” Cambridge,

Mass. Harvard University Press.Pateman, C. “Participation and Democratic Theory.” New York: Cambridge University Press, 1970.Pharr, S. J., and R. D. Putnam. 2000. “Why is Democracy More Popular than Democracies?” The

Chronicle of Higher Education, 46:B4–B6.Pratchett, L. 1999. “New Fashions in Public Participation: Towards Greater Democracy?” Parliamentary

Affairs, 52:616–633.Reynolds, P. 2005. “Survey Reveals Global Dissatisfaction.” BBC News, http://news.bbc.co.uk.Rowe, G., and L. J. Frewer. 2000. “Public Participation Methods: A Framework for Evaluation.” Science,

Technology, and Human Values, 25:3–29.Scavo, C. 1993. “The Use of Participative Mechanisms by Large U.S. Cities.” Journal of Urban Affairs,

15:93–109.Sharp, E. B. 1980. “Toward A New Understanding of Urban Services and Citizen Participation: The

Co-production Concept.” American Review of Public Administration, 14.Steelman, T. 2001. “Elite and Participatory Policy-making: Finding Balance in a Case of National

Forest Planning.” Policy Studies Journal, 29:71–89.Stonecipher, H. C. 1998. “Restoring Trust in Government: Leadership Must Create Trust.” Vital Speeches

of the Day, 64:505–509.Tang, K. 1999. “Planning for the Unknown: Social Policy-making in Hong Kong, 1990–1997.” The

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 19:27–57.Thomas, J. C. 1990. “Public Involvement in Public Management: Adapting and Testing a Borrowed

Theory.” Public Administration Review, 50:435–445.Whelan, R. K. 1999. “Public Administration—The State of the Discipline: A View from the Urban

and Local Management Literature.” Public Administration Quarterly, 23:46–65.Wilson, D. 1999. “Exploring the Limits of Public Participation in Local Government.” Parliamentary

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Vigoda, E. 2002. “From Responsiveness to Collaboration: Governance, Citizens, and the Next Generation of Public Administration.” Public Administration Review, 62:527–541.

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Pradeep Chandra Kathi, ABD, is a doctoral candidate in public administra-tion at the School of Policy, Planning, and Development, University of Southern California. He has a master’s degree in management from the Atkinson Gradu-ate School of Management, Willamette University, Salem, Oregon. He was the co-principal investigator and lead research assistant on the Collaborative Learning Project, which aims to connect city agencies and neighborhood councils of Los Angeles.

Terry L. Cooper, Ph.D., is the Maria B. Crutcher Professor in Citizenship and Democratic Values in the University of Southern California School of Policy, Planning, and Development. Cooper’s research centers on citizen participation and ethics in government. Currently he is director of the USC Civic Engagement Initiative and is a co-principal investigator in the USC Neighborhood Participa-tion Project conducting research on the role of neighborhood councils in gover-nance in the City of Los Angeles.


The Status of Doctoral Programs in Public Affairs and Administration

Marc Holzer, Hua Xu and Tiankai WangRutgers University-Campus at Newark

AbstractAt least 72 doctoral programs in public affairs and administration, almost all

Ph.D.s, now exist in the United States. The number of doctoral degrees awarded by NASPAA institutions grew from 169 in 2003 to 208 in 2006, according to Public Administration Times. The National Research Council formally recognized the Ph.D. in “public policy, public administration and public affairs” as a field in its 2006 Assessment of Research Doctorate Programs. In the context of this mo-mentum, it is important to assess the current status of Ph.D. programs in public affairs and administration. The purpose of this article is to provide that snapshot of the field, with particular attention to trends and questions grounded in data collection.

Research Methodology and Data CollectionThis research is based on a series of endeavors. The primary data are drawn

from a 2003 questionnaire survey to NASPAA doctoral programs. That survey was distributed to 64 NASPAA member institutions with Ph.D. and D.P.A. doc-toral programs at the time, generating 37 online, faxed, or mailed responses to questionnaires. Prior to questionnaire distribution, a pilot questionnaire had been sent to a small number of programs, and some revisions were made to the ques-tionnaire to reflect feedback from several participating schools. The questionnaire covered key aspects of doctoral programs, such as curricular requirements and student characteristics.

The second part of the data was collected online in the academic year 2005-2006 from a list of schools that offer doctoral programs in public policy, public administration, and public affairs (including urban affairs), with particular atten-tion to the curricula for those programs.

The third part of the data was derived from a revisit in 2006 to the Web sites of the 37 programs that had responded to the 2003 NASPAA questionnaire survey and served to update and reconfirm the data collected in 2003. The Web

JPAE 13(3/4):631–647



sites largely confirmed the validity of the 2003 survey. The final part of the data is from secondary sources such as issues of ASPA’s Public Administration Times in which the doctoral degrees awarded each year are announced and the Almanac at the NASPAA Web site, where the results of annual online surveys on master’s and doctoral enrollments and degrees awarded by member institutions are pub-lished.

FindingsData analysis was carried out and some parts of the preliminary findings were

presented at the NASPAA doctoral education committee annual meetings and at associated conference panels; the questions and comments posed at those meet-ings helped sharpen this analysis.

The data from the 2006 online search provide a rather complete list of pro-grams. Of a total of 69 universities offering Ph.D. programs in public affairs and administration (including similar programs) at that time, only 54 universities posted their curricula online. In our analysis, we attempted to categorize the courses offered by these 54 programs into several groups and to examine which requirements are common across these programs. Types of requirements are cat-egorized as prerequisite, required, and elective. Courses are subdivided into nine course groups, which include Core; Additional Public Administration; Politics; Organizational Theory and Human Resources; Economics and Financial Admin-istration; Methodology; Urban, Environment, and Health; E-Government/Tech-nology, Criminal Justice and Sociology/Social Policy; and Other. Coursework within these clusters is differentiated as prerequisite, elective, or required courses, with virtually all coursework in the elective and required categories, as indicated in Figures 1 through 9. Note that prerequisite denotes prior required courses; required denotes core courses (including elective core courses and core methodol-ogy courses); and elective denotes elective courses (including Ph.D. specialization or major required courses).

Core courses (Figure 1) include Public Administration, Public Policy, Research Design, Research Methodology I and II, Public Finance, Human Resource Man-agement, and Organization Theory. Research methods (I and II), public policy, public administration, and organization theory are required by a large number of programs.

Additional public administration courses (Figure 2) include Advanced Topics in Public Administration, Administrative Law, Intergovernmental relations, En-vironment of Public Administration, Ethical Issues in Public Administration, Constitutional Foundation of Public Administration, Politics and Administra-tion, Public Management, Decision Making, Strategic Management, Conflict Management, and Legal Process. Courses on ethics in public administration, public management, decision-making, administrative law, and advanced topics in public administration are among the most frequent of the non-core courses.



Figure 1. Core Courses

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Figure 2. Additional Public Administration Courses

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Politics and Administration is categorized as an additional public administration course, rather than a politics course, because those courses are grounded in the public administration, rather than political science, literature.

Politics courses (Figure 3) include Theory/Foundation of Governance/Govern-ment, State and Local Government, Federalism, Bureaucratic Politics, Democracy Theory, Politics and Public Policy, Advanced Topics in Policy Administration, Scope and Theory in Public Policy/Administration, Political Economy and Pub-lic Policy, Comparative Politics and Public Policy, Law and Public Policy, Policy Implementation, Policy Making, and Policy Administration. It is apparent that courses on comparative politics and public policy, state and local government, politics and public policy, and advanced topics in policy analysis are among the most popular “politics” courses for the doctoral programs.

Organizational Theory and Human Resources Management (Figure 4) courses include Organization Behavior, Organization Change and Development, Organizational Psychology, Human Resources Management (Advanced), Leadership in Pub-lic Organizations, and Labor-Management Relations in Public Organizations. Courses on leadership stand out as the most common across programs.

Economics and Financial Administration (Figure 5) courses include Advanced Eco-nomics, Micro Economic Theory, Macro Economic Theory, Economics in Policy Analysis, Economic Analysis, Cost Benefit Analysis, Public Economy, Public Finance, Financial Analysis, Financial Management, State/Local Public Finance,

Figure 3. Politics Courses

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Figure 4. Organizational Theory and Human Resources Courses

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Figure 5. Economics and Finance Administration Courses

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Capital Budgeting, and Government Accounting. Economics courses on policy analysis and courses on microeconomics and public economics are among the most common courses. Of note, courses on financial management and courses on state/local public finance are offered by quite a few programs.

Methodology (Figure 6) courses include Political Science Methodology, Program Evaluation, Logic of Inquiry, Applied Research Seminar I and II, Econometrics, Regression and Correlation, Advanced Quantitative Techniques, Multivariate Statistical Analysis, Statistics, and Qualitative Methods. In this cluster, courses on qualitative methods, program evaluation, and research seminars are common to many programs.

Urban, Environment, and Health (Figure 7) courses include Urban Policy, Urban Administration, Urban History, Economics in Urban Policy, Urban Economic Development, Urban Development Policy, Urban Planning, Environmental Pol-icy, Environmental Economics, Environmental Management, GIS, Health Care Administration, Health Policy, Epidemiology, and Economics of Health. It is evi-dent that courses on urban policy, environmental policy, health care administra-tion, and health policy are offered by many programs. A course on urban policy is required by the largest number of programs that offer this particular course.

E-government/Technology, Criminal Justice, and Sociology/Social Policy (Figure 8) courses include E-Government/Governance, Technology and Information Policy, Techniques in Public Administration, Criminal Justice, Corrections, Theory of Criminal Justice, Social Policy/Welfare, and Sociology. In this cluster, courses on e-government, techniques in public administration, and social policy are among the most commonly offered, even though the total number of programs offering these courses is relatively small.



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Other (Figure 9) courses include Public Affairs, Foreign Policy, Education Policy, Administration of NGOs, and Financial Management in NGOs. It ap-pears that NGO administration is offered by a significant number of programs. Together with Financial Management in NGOs, a focus on NGOs is even more significant.

The 2003 NASPAA survey identified a number of trends and issues, and there is every reason to believe that these patterns are virtually unchanged.

The Admissions ProcessThe 2003 NASPAA survey probed the policies and standards applied to the

admission process by incorporating a series of questions in this regard. The fol-lowing findings are based on the 2003 data.

Requirements for master’s degree. Most programs (22 out of 37 responses) require a master’s degree for admission, but only three responses specifically require an MPA degree. About 85 percent of the admitted students have a master’s degree. It is evident that applicants with master’s degrees are favored in the admission process, though overall there is no strict requirement of an earned master’s degree before entering a doctoral program.

Prior course preparation. The survey results indicated that 14 out of 37 respon-dents set some sort of course requirements for admission. Such course require-ments differ greatly from program to program. For instance, one program uses a prior course in calculus as a requirement, while some others use introductory PA courses or core MPA course competencies, or economics or statistics basics. Although the majority of the programs surveyed do not explicitly require any



Figure 9. Other Courses

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courses prior to admission, they indicate that prior coursework on certain subjects is preferred and remedial work is required to fulfill such preparation after stu-dents are admitted to the doctoral programs (in many cases the remedial course-work is not counted toward the credit hours for the normal doctoral curriculum). It is clear that some introductory level courses in public administration, pub-lic policy, organization theory, elementary quantitative and research methods, economics (public/political) and the like are most commonly desirable, although admission policies vary greatly.

The use of standardized tests scores such as the GRE, GMAT, LSAT. Thirty-four of 36 responses indicate that programs are using standardized test scores in admissions decisions. Only two had no such requirements. Among the standardized tests, use of the GRE predominates, with a few programs using GMAT or other types of standardized tests to substitute for the GRE. However, when it comes to the importance accorded to these standardized test scores, it appears that only about half of the respondents regard such scores as extremely important (18 programs), while 12 answered “somewhat important.” Only one respondent indicated that such scores are not important at all.

The Commitment and Resources Allocated to Doctoral Education The commitment and resources allocated to doctoral programs are measured

by the following key indicators, which include student to core faculty ratio, aver-age number of dissertations supervised per faculty member, workload compensa-tion for dissertation committee members, course offerings, and financial support for doctoral students.

Doctoral students to core faculty ratio and number of dissertations supervised per faculty member per year. The ratio of students to core faculty is believed to be instrumental in ensuring that PA doctoral students have a chance to obtain a sufficient amount of time and attention from faculty. The survey shows that this ratio varies from 16 to 1 to less than 4 to 1, with an average of 3.3 to 1. Although this ratio is highly important in determining the quality of doctoral programs, inconsistency resulting from arbitrariness and ambiguity in the definition and understanding of “core faculty” may make this ratio less comparable from program to program. Furthermore, we may presume that if the orientation of the program is more multidisciplinary and liberal, the home department/schools tend to have fewer core faculty. Complementary to this measurement is the number of dissertations supervised per faculty member per year. The average number is slightly less than two students per faculty member, but there is a great variation among programs, with the highest at six. It is reasonable to assume that a program with a smaller ratio of doctoral students to core faculty has less of a workload in supervising dis-sertations on the part of faculty members.

Service on dissertation committees for teaching credit. Out of 34 responses, 20 indicated a policy of awarding teaching credits for advising and serving on doctoral dis-



sertation committees, while 12 have no teaching credits, and two have mixed responses. Mixed responses came from programs awarding merit raises or some workload reduction or providing economic compensation to those serving on the committees, but not to the extent of giving teaching credits. The time and atten-tion dedicated to advising dissertation committees may be a factor affecting the quality of the dissertations, because it is one of the crucial stages in producing dissertations. This factor also may be viewed as a good indicator of the impor-tance that programs place on guiding doctoral students as well as the resources that are available to programs of doctoral education.

Seminars and regular interchanges between faculty and doctoral students. Half of the 34 respondents require formal mechanisms for regular (periodic) scholarly inter-change between faculty and Ph.D. students, whereas the other half did not have such mechanisms but did indicate that such exchanges between faculty and students are encouraged or that they are attempting to make those exchanges a requirement. Interestingly, comments on this question indicated that several programs are tapping the existence of university-wide faculty lecture series or doctoral-level seminars/pro-seminars/colloquia by requiring doctoral students to attend. Exposing doctoral students in PA to multidisciplinary environments is certainly beneficial to the intellectual growth of these students.

Course offerings. On average, programs offer approximately seven courses solely to doctoral students, but there is large variation (with a standard deviation over 4). We believe that the validity of this measure to some extent depends on the goals and training modules of the programs. For instance, if the program stresses a multidisciplinary approach, or if the home department of the program has insuf-ficient resources, then the number of courses solely offered to doctoral students (likely by the home department) may be less than that of programs that place more emphasis on a singular training approach and programs that have sufficient resources. Further, when asked about what percentage of coursework doctoral students take at the MPA level, programs indicated that, on average, 30 percent of the courses are MPA level; the highest response was 80 percent. There has been criticism of the high portion of MPA courses in doctoral programs, with some critics suggesting that such doctoral programs are a simple extension of MPA education, which jeopardizes the quality and rigor of those programs.

Twelve programs reported offering daytime courses only, 17 evening only, and eight both daytime and evening. A relatively higher percentage of part-time students was indicative of courses offered in the evening, and some may suspect evening classes may not be as rigorous as daytime classes. The average size of the entering class each year is just over nine for the responding programs. This cohort of students would certainly enjoy added value because of its small size, which could help encourage group learning dynamics if there is an appropriate faculty-to-student ratio.



Funding coverage, funding level, and the sources of funding. The survey revealed that about 80 percent of full-time students are funded by the programs. Twenty-nine of 31 programs with financial support provide some financing for stipends as well as tuition and fees; only two programs limit assistance to tuition and fees. Thirty-one programs require students to be a teaching assistant or research assistant in order to receive financial support. We found that only 1 percent of the part-time doctoral students are receiving financial support from the programs, and thus have almost no opportunities to work as teaching or research assistants to obtain the important academic experiences that result from those opportunities.

The Rigor of Doctoral ProgramsAdams and White (1994) developed a comparative assessment of the methods

and quality of dissertation research in public administration and cognate fields, and found dissertation research on public administration was rather problematic, while a more recent study by Cleary (2000) indicates that dissertation research has seen substantial improvement. We believe that rigor in the programs is one of the key elements for improved dissertation research. The 2003 NASPAA sur-vey utilized a battery of questions to measure rigor. These key indicators included training in research methodology, academic standing measured by GPA, qualify-ing and candidacy exams, attrition and dropout rates, on-campus caseload and daytime/nighttime attendance requirements, number of years to complete the degree, and the breadth of training measured by number of concentrations.

Training in research methodology in the doctoral curriculum is fundamental to doc-toral education, according to Felbinger, Holzer, and White (1999). Specifically, they list Philosophy of Social Science, Quantitative Methods and Qualitative Methods as three foundational courses for training in methods of research inquiry. With these in mind, the survey investigated the offering of these courses.

When asked about whether programs have a foundational course in methodol-ogy, such as the Logic of Social Inquiry, 28 of 34 respondents answered yes and only six answered no. Further, 33 respondents gave specifics on their courses in quantitative methods. The names and emphases of those courses differ greatly: some focus on statistics, some on economics and/or econometrics, some on research design; some use general terms such as quantitative analysis and data analysis; and some are more tailored to PA research.

A question about qualitative courses in the doctoral programs generated 27 responses, which varied greatly depending on respondents’ interpretation of the question. Some regarded courses in public management, political philosophy, politics, organization theory, public administration theory, or other similar topics as qualitative method training components. Generally, requirements for quali-tative methods seem to be less stringent than those for quantitative methods, which was evidenced by responses indicating that qualitative methods courses are “electives,” or “none required…taught and encouraged,” or even “none.”



Twenty-eight responses indicated that non-method courses were required for all doctoral students.

These findings were to a large extent consistent with the analysis of the curri-cula in the first part of this article.

Qualifying exams, research proposals/papers, and requirements on doctoral candidacy. Thirty-five of 37 respondents indicated that their programs have comprehensive exams. This question was further supplemented by an open-ended question indi-cating that the comprehensive exams take varied forms, such as written and oral exams covering theories or methods or the selected field of concentration and/or the coursework taken so far; approval or colloquium/defense on dissertation proposal/prospectus; research/analytical papers; passing exams covering MPA materials; or any combination of these criteria. Other types of requirements on candidacy seem more lax, such as a 3.5 GPA and successful completion of a cer-tain number of credit hours or a certain amount of coursework as a substitute for separate comprehensive exams. From a question on the format of qualifying ex-ams, we found that 17 programs use supervised exams, 12 use take-home exams, and 5 use mixed methods. Further, of 34 responses, equal numbers of programs offer the qualifying exams separately versus taking them as a group.

Screening and checkpoints. Thirty of 33 responses confirm that doctoral stu-dents are screened at some point in the programs. Although the stringency of the screening process may vary from program to program, the presence of the “checkpoints” is a proof of program administers’ awareness of the necessity for this type of review and therefore of efforts to ensure the quality of doctoral educa-tion.

Size of student body and attrition rate. The average size of each entering class was nine for the responding programs, with a large variation indicating that cohort size varies quite a bit across programs surveyed. The average number of gradu-ates per program in 2003 was four. A relatively larger variation in the number of graduates occurred that year. Some programs had no graduates that year, while other programs had as many as 21 graduates. Our survey asked about dropouts before the second year. Overall, programs reported about a 10% dropout rate before the second year, 14% before comprehensive exams, and 20% after com-prehensive exams. It is clear that a considerable proportion of admitted doctoral students drop out along the way. However, it is hard to tell if these numbers are cumulative or not. In other words, we are not sure whether these numbers are mutually exclusive or not.

GPA requirements. Out of 31 responses, 29 require a GPA no lower than 3.5 for public administration doctoral students to maintain their doctoral status, whereas only two programs require a GPA no lower than 2.7. A 3.5 GPA is gen-erally a result of half grades of A and half of B for all graduate-level courses taken for the doctoral program. Thus, a 3.5 GPA may indicate that the Ph.D. students’ performance is above average. Nevertheless, lower GPA requirements do not



necessarily imply that the programs are less rigorous, because the rigor of grading and the level of difficulty of the courses may vary across programs.

Time requirements or minimum course load on campus. Fifteen of 24 responses in-dicated that there is some form of requirement for the minimum course load completed on campus or a minimum number of credit hours per semester. This is a key measure to ensure the full-time status and/or residency of doctoral students, which is believed to be important in demonstrating the commitment of the students and that they have an appropriate amount of free time to interact with faculty and their peers. Other responses indicate that there is a limit on the num-ber of years for program completion. Setting a ceiling for the number of years for completing a program or a limit on the number of credit hours transferred from other programs may also be interpreted as a sign of program intensity and rigor.

Timeframe in which classes are primarily offered, daytime or evening; proportions of full-time and part-time students. As noted earlier, 37 responses indicated that 12 pro-grams are offered mainly in the day, 17 in the evening, and 8 are mixed. The majority of programs offer classes in the evening, indicating that they are primar-ily aimed at serving part-time doctoral students. Of students in the responding programs, 58 percent are full-time and 42 percent are part-time. What is strik-ing is that 24 of the 34 programs have a larger portion of full-time students than of part-time students, and six have only full-time students. The other perspective is that six out of the 34 responding programs have more than 80 percent of the part-time students. It is natural to associate this finding with the fact that some programs, faced with difficulty in funding and the increased needs for doctoral education, increase their number of part-time students as a strategy for respond-ing to these problems. It could be also interpreted as a sign of compromising the traditional goal of cultivating productive scholars, because supporting only full-time students is increasingly more difficult.

Years needed to graduate. According to the survey, 38 percent of the students in the responding programs graduate between 3 and 5 years, 50 percent between 5 and 7 years, and 19 percent between 7 and 9 years. The survey also indicates that it typically takes about 5 years to graduate from the first date of registration. Although these numbers are approximations, apparently about 80 percent of students graduate within 7 years.

Concentrations/specializations. Although 14 responses indicated that they have more than one area of concentration, we suspect, in fact, because of the disparate answers given in the survey, that a larger number of programs have more than one concentration. In counting the number of concentrations, we did not differ-entiate minors from majors. The programs surveyed have great variation in this regard. But there is greater variation in what concentration each program has. For instance, some programs simply state that there are no limits on the concen-trations as long as the proposed concentrations are approved by the faculty. For the number of courses required for each concentration, the highest response was



24 and the minimum was 2. We suspect that the maximum number reported in the survey is not correct, and that the abnormally high number of courses is more probably the number of credits required for each concentration instead of the number of courses. Nevertheless, the average number of courses required for each concentration is about six, which is quite plausible.

Orientation, Career Preparation, and PlacementTraditionally, doctoral education in public affairs and public administration

largely prepares doctoral students to be future scholars and teachers in this field. Felbinger, Holzer, and White (1999) raise concerns about the increasingly non-academic orientation of doctoral education in light of the fact that the majority of doctoral degree holders never publish and enter (or remain in) professional, not academic, positions. White, Adams, and Forrester (1996) also observed the rather limited contribution to the knowledge and theory by doctoral education and research. Experiences in publication and teaching, however, would effectively prepare them for future academic careers. The 2003 NASPAA survey examined these two important factors to reexamine these issues.

Publication requirements. Out of 37 responses on whether publishing a peer-reviewed article is required, 13 said yes and 14 said no. The negative answers sometimes are accompanied with comments like “not required but encouraged.” Furthermore, most of these positive answers indicate that publications can be either coauthored or solely authored. Accordingly, only 17 out of 37 responses indicate that the program has a distinct practicum (or portion of a course) that focuses on writing (either journal articles or dissertations) and/or how to publish. To some extent the inconsistency in requirements for publication reinforces criti-cisms of the scholarly productivity of the doctoral programs and their contribu-tions to the scholarship of public affairs and administration (Raadschelders and Douglas, 2003; Brewer, Douglas, et al., 1999; Douglas, 1999).

Attention to teaching experiences and teaching training. If training future instructors is one of the goals of the doctoral programs, then the curriculum or the overall design of the program should reflect and help meet this need. The survey shows that 20 programs encourage or require undergraduate or graduate teaching ex-periences and nine have a distinct course on pedagogy. It is clear that the major-ity of programs still have a strong orientation toward training future teachers. We were not surprised to see a smaller number of responses indicating a distinct pedagogy course, because only 3 out of 20 actually require teaching experiences. In many cases taking a course on pedagogy may not be a prerequisite for under-taking teaching assignments.

Career Interests, Hiring Records, and Recruitment PatternsOur data show that the hiring patterns of doctoral programs speak to the

multidisciplinary nature of the field. The projected hires of these programs are



not limited to public policy, public administration, or public affairs. Instead, a considerable portion of programs expect to recruit Ph.D. students from other fields such as economics or political science.

Career interests after graduation. We believe that, because the responses we ob-tained from the survey represent the faculty’s judgment about doctoral students’ career interests, the answers to questions about career interests after graduation may not be entirely accurate. That is, we doubt whether faculty perceptions ac-curately reflect the real, long-term intentions of students or not. Nevertheless, our survey shows that faculty identify about half of doctoral students as pursu-ing an academic/teaching career, and an equal percent of doctoral students are considered full-time practitioners. About one-quarter of students (or about half of part-time students) in the surveyed programs intend to be part-time faculty, a number we consider as understating teaching interests; in our opinion it is very likely that career interests may shift toward teaching as the academic interests of students develop during the program, and it is especially likely that virtually all practitioner graduates in public affairs and administration will eventually teach on a part-time basis. The actual placement record shows that the number of grad-uates per program placed in academic positions during 2000–01, 2001–2002, 2002–03 averaged 2.0, 2.1, and 1.6 per program respectively, with a maximum of five for any one institution.

The hiring record. The survey asked about the number of hires in doctoral pro-grams in the past five years and the degrees and specialties of these hires. A rough tally of the survey shows that the 37 doctoral programs have made about 100 assistant professor hires over the past five years. In another words, there were about 2.7 hires for each program over the past five years. As for the degrees and specialties of these hires, a more complex picture from the survey does not give us a clear conclusion. Rough categorization of hires indicates that there were 16 doctoral degrees in political science, 13 in public policy or policy analysis, 21 in economics or economics in a particular field, 24 in public administration, and 26 in various fields such as urban studies, IT, sociology, methods, business (/admin-istration), health services research and policy, etc. What is harder to comprehend is that under these broad categorizations of degrees, varying concentrations or specialties fall into more than one category. For instance, holders of the Ph.D. in political science may have specialties in public policy or public administration or methods. Likewise, holders of the Ph.D. in public administration may have a specialty in health policy or quantitative methodology or IT. This made the cat-egorization less useful, but it does suggest what types of degrees hires hold over a period of five years.

Recruitment expectations. The number of projected hires of assistant professors for the period 2003–2008 was about 80, or 20 per year, which is somewhat smaller than the number of hires for the preceding five years. Some responses indicate that the number of new hires is largely subject to the availability of funding.



With regard to the specialties of projected hires, it is apparent that certain specialties that are desired of the new hires include public administration/man-agement, public policy, human resources development, management and policy, (public) budgeting and finance, economics, political science, American govern-ment, nonprofit management and policy, health and education, urban studies/policies, policy analysis, and methods. A quick grouping shows that the number of projected hires with a specialty in public administration or with other spe-cialties central to public administration, including (public) budget and finance, human resources, politics and administration, urban administration, local gov-ernment administration, and IT management totals 34, which is less than half of the total projected hires. It may be the result of the multidisciplinary nature of public affairs and administration studies. We also noted that some questionnaires left the questions on the new hires unanswered, and we may infer that these pro-grams may not expect to have new hires in the near future.

ConclusionThe multidisciplinary nature of the field is apparent throughout the data on

these programs and is embodied in the various aspects of the programs. A wide array of concentrations and courses is provided to doctoral students. In addition to the traditional scope of public administration, other concentrations such as economics, sociology, justice, and international relations are also choices of doc-toral students. Furthermore, the recruitment records and projections show that doctoral graduates from other fields are also in demand.

As indicated in the mission statements of some programs, as well as by our data, doctoral programs not only prepare scholars and teachers but also future practitioners in the public sector. The rigor of doctoral training is apparent when measured by a number of indicators, and the commitment of schools to doctoral education is strong.

The data we compiled represent relatively comprehensive, in-depth informa-tion on doctoral programs in public affairs and administration. Though the responses to the 2003 NASPAA survey did not cover all doctoral programs in the field, they are indicative of the current status of doctoral education. Our recom-mendation is that this sort of in-depth survey should be conducted on a regular basis to ensure the consistency and continuity of the data.

AcknowledgmentsThe research for this article relied on substantial input and comments from

Laurel McFarland of NASPAA and Kathryn Newcomer of George Washington University.



ReferencesAdams, G. B., and J. D. White. 1994. “Dissertations in Public Administration and Cognate Fields: An

Assessment of Methods and Quality.” Public Administration Review, 54(6):565–576.American Society for Public Administration. 2003. “Doctoral Degrees Awarded in Public Affairs and

Administration at NASPAA Member Schools.” Public Administration Times (Education Supplement)._______. 2004. “Doctoral Degrees Awarded in Public Affairs and Administration at NASPAA Member

Schools.” Public Administration Times (Education Supplement)._______. 2005. “Doctoral Degrees Awarded in Public Affairs and Administration at NASPAA Member

Schools.” Public Administration Times (Education Supplement)._______. 2006. “Doctoral Degrees Awarded in Public Affairs and Administration at NASPAA Member

Schools.” Public Administration Times (Education Supplement).Brewer, G. A., J. W. Douglas, R. W. Facer II, and L. J. O’Toole, Jr. 1999. “Determinants of Graduate

Research Productivity in Doctoral Programs of Public Administration.” Public Administration Review, 59(5):373–382.

Cleary, E. R. 2000. “The Public Administration Doctoral Dissertation Reexamined: An Evaluation of the Dissertations of 1998.” Public Administration Review, 60(5):446–455.

Douglas, J. W. 1999. “Faculty Graduate Student, and Graduate Productivity in Public Administration and Public Affairs Programs, 1986-1993.” Public Administration Review, 56(5):433–440.

Felbinger, C. L., M. Holzer, and J. D. White. 1999. “The Doctorate in Public Administration: Some Unsolved Questions and Recommendations.” Public Administration Review, 59(5):459–464.

Raadschelders, C. N. J., and J. W. Douglas. 2003. “The Doctoral Graduate in Public Administration: Apprentice or Master?” Journal of Public Affairs Education, 9(4):229–243.

White, J. D., Guy B. Adams, and J. P. Forrester. 1996. “Knowledge and Theory Development in Public Administration: The Role of Doctoral Education in Research.” Public Administration Review, 56(5):441–452.

Marc Holzer is dean and Board of Governors Professor of Public Affairs and Administration at Rutgers-Newark. His research interests include public per-formance measurement and reporting, public service, and comparative public administration.

Hua Xu is an assistant professor in the department of public policy and ad-ministration in the College of Public Service at Jackson State University, Mis-sissippi. He currently teaches graduate courses in research methods and health care administration. His research interests include public affairs education and curriculum design, comparative public administration, public finance and bud-geting, and public performance measurement. He may be contacted at [email protected].

Tiankai Wang is an assistant professor in the MPA program at Cheyney Uni-versity of Pennsylvania. He earned his Ph.D. in public administration from Rutgers-Newark and his MBA from Tianjin University in China. His research interests include fiscal transparency, municipal bond issuance, and public man-agement.


Economic Development Specialty Tracks:

A Survey of MPA Programs

Edward P. MurrayFlorida International University

AbstractOver the past two decades, in a constantly changing global economy, local

economic development programs and activities have grown in prominence as cities and metropolitan areas across the country have struggled to strengthen their eco-nomic base and increase job opportunities for their populations. Although local governments are expected to play a more proactive role in building their econo-mies, the reality of global competition is that government cannot go it alone. Governments are important in helping to shape the local business environment, but so are companies, colleges and universities, and many other local institutions. A potentially significant component of collaborative networks are university-based, graduate-level policy and management programs that can equip economic development officials with the knowledge and skills needed to effectively respond to the heightened level of competition brought on by the new global economy. This article analyzes how current graduate-level public administration (MPA) programs are responding to these challenges based on a survey of economic development specializations in MPA programs in the United States. The article describes the general direction and focus of economic development specializations offered in MPA programs in the United States and the extent to which MPA economic development specializations are addressing specific “core competencies” in the knowledge and skills of economic development professionals.

BackgroundThe economic well-being of our nation’s cities has received increased atten-

tion recently from practitioners and academics alike. Over the past two decades, local economic development programs and activities have grown in prominence as cities and metropolitan areas across the country have struggled, amid a con-stantly changing global economy, to strengthen their economic base and increase

JPAE 13(3/4):649–669


Economic Specialty Tracks: A Survey of MPA Programs

job opportunities for their populations. In the wake of the physical disaster of the City of New Orleans brought on by Hurricane Katrina and the human face of the devastation depicted on television news channels across the country, an even greater sense of urgency has influenced the direction of U.S. urban economic poli-cies. Not since the 1960s “war on poverty” during President Lyndon Johnson’s administration has so much attention been given to the conditions of our nation’s cities. Indeed, incessant poverty rates, crime, and failed public school systems garner the media’s attention and are the focus of much of the discussion on the state of urban America. At the core of these discussions is the inability of urban policies to create viable and sustainable local economies (Blakely and Bradshaw, 2002; Porter, 1997). Consensus among city leaders throughout the United States is that “more of the same” is not an acceptable policy response to the dynamic global economy and its impact on urban and metropolitan areas.

The pressing challenge for urban policymakers is to formulate new and effec-tive strategies that can respond to the changing global economy. There is grow-ing recognition that in order to adjust and thrive in the changing global econo-my our metropolitan regions must have economically vital central cities (Florida, 2002; Porter, 1997; Stegman and Turner, 1996). This recognition has prompted new ways of thinking about the role of city and county governments in improv-ing the competitiveness of central cities and larger metropolitan area economies. Local governments are expected to play more proactive roles in developing and implementing long-term economic development policies and implementation strategies (Blakely, 2001; Porter, 2000). An understanding of the relationship between urban, regional, and global economies provides the necessary underpin-nings of these actions. Although local governments are expected to play a more proactive role in building their economies, the realities of global competition is that government cannot go it alone. Governments are important in helping to shape the local business environment, but so are companies, colleges and uni-versities, and many other local institutions. These networks of collaboration also require improved knowledge of local economies, industries and their workforce, including emerging industrial sectors and new technologies. A potentially sig-nificant component of collaborative networks are university-based, graduate-level policy and management programs that can equip economic development officials with the knowledge and skills to effectively respond to the heightened level of competition brought on by the new global economy.

To help discern how current graduate-level public policy and management programs are equipped to respond to these challenges, this article provides a gen-eral assessment of economic development specializations in graduate-level public administration (MPA) programs in the United States. The article describes: the general direction and focus of economic development specializations offered in MPA programs and the extent to which economic development specializations are addressing specific core competencies that reflect current thinking about the



important knowledge and skills of economic development professionals. The article begins by providing an historical overview of local economic development policy and practice in the United States in recent decades, including trends and evolving thinking with respect to the changing global economy. The article then provides the results of an exploratory survey that identifies the location, focus and general direction of economic development specializations within MPA pro-grams. The article concludes with an assessment of economic specializations that determines the level to which they are addressing core competency areas in the education of local economic development professionals.

Economic Development TrendsEconomic development in the United States during the post-World War II

period and the years leading up to the 1980s was, by and large, a function of state governments. These economic development programs and activities gained par-ticular popularity in southern states where commerce departments were created to perform a variety of functions, including industrial promotion and recruit-ment. The industrial recruitment or business attraction model had a singular fo-cus—to recruit manufacturing firms from other states by offering them low-cost investments locations and public financial incentives (Ross and Friedman, 1991). However, by the early 1980s it became increasingly evident that state marketing and recruitment efforts to stimulate economic development were having limited success amid new competition brought about by the emerging global economy. Although business attraction was the main thrust of state economic development activities prior to 1980, cities and metropolitan areas were principally focused on administering a variety of federal urban (re)development programs. The Urban Renewal (1949) and Model Cities (1966) programs were the principal federal funding resources for efforts aimed at alleviating the economic, social, and physi-cal distress of major cities during this period. By the end of the 1960s, the war on poverty and other programs had created hundreds of categorical grants for city and state governments to address urban poverty issues.

During the early 1970s, the federal government’s role in urban (re)development changed significantly as the Nixon administration began fulfilling its New Fed-eralism policies. The New Federalism would terminate many federal programs, including Urban Renewal and Model Cities, and replace them with a system of community development-based decentralized programs and federal revenue shar-ing (So, 1988). Subsequently, the 1974 Housing and Community Development Act consolidated most federal urban (re)development programs under a new Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program with federal fund-ing allocated directly to cities and metropolitan areas. This new funding source would eventually be combined with other federal programs—for example, the Urban Development Action Grant (UDAG) program and the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA), enabling cities to undertake a wide range



of urban economic development activities with greater local decision-making in the use of federal funds. New Federalism policies and programs were guided by the principle that public assistance should be targeted to areas where the need is the greatest as measured by such factors as job loss, poverty rate, and persistent high unemployment (Kasarda, 1999). Targeted areas were typically inner-city lo-cations where economic disinvestment, structural unemployment, and increasing poverty and social issues persisted in spite of previous federally funded programs.

With the implications of the global economy becoming increasingly clearer during the 1980s, policymakers and economic development professionals were faced with unprecedented challenges. Not only were industrial recruitment and economic incentive efforts proving largely unproductive and inefficient, there was now mounting disenchantment with big government programs, particularly the anti-poverty kind of big government program (Grogan and Proscio, 2000). The post-federal policies of the Reagan administration were directed at these costly big government programs, including urban and economic development programs administered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Economic Development Administration (EDA). The subsequent withdrawal of federal support and dismantling of federal agencies marked the beginning of the post-federal policy era. Thus, while federal programs stimulated the acceleration of local economic development activity during the 1970s, by the mid-1980s the volatility of federal resources, as well as absolute cuts in the level of funding, forced many local officials to turn to nonfederal funding sources to support local economic development activities (Clarke and Gaile, 1999).

The coincidence of post-federal policies and rethinking of local economic development policies within the emerging global context propelled local officials to begin employing a host of new strategies to help foster local economic growth. Economic development policies and strategies aimed at building the competi-tive capacities of local economies began to grow in popularity during the latter 1980s. The creation of new “entrepreneurial environments” became a major focus of these economic development efforts. An entrepreneurial approach to local economic development focused on building new institutional capacities in the form of public/private partnerships, targeted industries and formalized workforce development. These strategies represented a fundamental shift from business recruitment toward business retention and expansion focusing on the develop-ment of homegrown industrial sectors and a skilled workforce. New local eco-nomic development strategies included the establishment of university-industry linkages and manufacturing collaboratives, the introduction of new management models such as just-in-time (JIT) and total quality management (TQM), and the development of industry clusters (Kotval, Mullin, and Murray, 2002). Clearly, economic development policy and strategy in the new global economy had begun to establish a more active role for local governments in building the competitive capacity of cities and metropolitan areas.



The Rise of Community Economic Development During the mid-1960s, in the midst of social upheaval in cities across the

United States, a more localized, neighborhood-based form of economic develop-ment began to evolve as groups of neighborhood residents attempted to take control of their communities. Through the use of various community organizing and advocacy techniques, neighborhood coalitions began to define and control the development of their communities while tackling the most immediate economic, social, and physical problems within their communities (Peirce and Steinback, 1991). These efforts gave rise to the first community development corporations (CDCs) in the United States. CDCs are community nonprofit organizations con-trolled by boards of directors composed primarily of neighborhood residents. By and large, the first CDCs were formed to take on the establishment using com-munity organizing, advocacy, and other “saber-rattling” activities (Grogan and Proscio, 2000). However, as CDCs grew in the 1960s, they were fueled by the War on Poverty’s community action programs, which provided federal funding for an array of community development type activities.

The New Federalism programs of the 1970s fundamentally reshaped CDC activities in the United States. The new system of community development supported by decentralized federal programs provided funding opportunities for CDCs unlike anything previously experienced under the community action programs of the 1960s. The Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 provided the impetus for an expanded CDC function in the implementation of local community development programs and activities. The primary objective of the 1974 Housing and Community Development Act was

The development of viable urban communities by providing decent housing and a suitable environment and expanding economic opportu-nities, principally for persons of low and moderate income (So, 1988).

Community development’s expansion into the economic functions of neighbor-hoods gave rise to a new term community economic development. The National Congress on Community Economic Development (NCCED) defines community economic development (CED) as “a process by which communities take control of their own destinies.” CED is intended to improve the economy of a community by increasing the income and wealth of residents and stimulating private invest-ments. A significant emphasis is placing assets in control of residents through a cycle of new investment wherein CDC housing and economic development projects remove the sources of blight that drag down the value of surrounding properties. These investments, in turn, create amenities, such as new retail estab-lishments, that increase property values. These initial investments demonstrate the profit potential of the neighborhood to the larger marketplace leading outside investors, such as venture and equity capitalists, to consider the neighborhood a

good economic bet. Fundamentally, CDCs help organize the multiple and simul-taneous investments needed to overcome the reluctance of any single actor to go it alone (Galster, Levy, Sawyer, Temkin & Walker, 2005, Porter, 1995).

Community economic development activities have elevated the role of CDCs and other community-based organizations (CBOs) in the physical and eco-nomic growth of U.S. cities from Boston to San Diego. With this new role and responsibility has come the need to effectively manage community economic development efforts, including larger scale (re)development projects. Larger (re)development projects undertaken by CDCs have often transcended the bound-aries of individual neighborhoods. With CDC (re)development activities more integrated with the economic development planning of cities, the opportunity is thus created to connect with larger urban and regional economies.

New Economic Development ChallengesThe emergence of the “new economy” has brought about a fundamental para-

digm shift in local economic development thinking in recent years. While the new economy has actually been in place since the post-World War II years, its full impact on local economies wasn’t magnified until the recent emergence and growth of information technology (IT) and the cyberspace age. These dynamic changes, most of which have occurred since 2000, have created the demand for new knowledge- and idea-based economies. The importance of knowledge and ideas in building the competitive capacity of local economies represents a signifi-cant shift in focus from the more traditional emphasis on place-based economies that relied mainly on the local availability of resources and labor to generate economic growth. According to noted economic development planner Edward Blakely, new knowledge-based economies have four basic attributes: globaliza-tion, accelerated pace, knowledge, and networks (Blakely, 2002). Clearly, it is the dynamics of the new global economy and the capacity of local economies to respond to these changes that pose the greatest challenges for local economic development policy.

If we accept the prognosis that the new competition will take the form of an accelerated—and constantly changing—version of globalization with knowledge and networks as the key economic drivers, then local governments will need to re-think many existing and entrenched policies and strategies. For in order to create competitive and sustainable local economies, policymakers and practitio-ners must supplant existing place-based initiatives with more comprehensive and dynamic strategies that build the enabling capacity for economic opportunities and advantages to occur within knowledge-based industries. This begins with the need for developing a full understanding of local economies—the issues, oppor-tunities, and constraints—and the creation of entrepreneurial environments that encourage investment in the “creative capacities” of communities (Florida, 2002).





The rethinking of local economic development also has significant implica-tions for traditional anti-poverty programs as well. Their historic targeting and spatially concentrated assistance may have inadvertently increased the mismatch and the plight of educationally disadvantaged residents by binding them to the inner-city areas of blue collar job decline and in areas that, by program definition, are the most distressed. These policies have done little to reduce the skills mis-match between the resident labor force and available urban jobs (Karsada, 1999, Porter, 1995). There is now general recognition that revitalizing inner cites will require a radically different approach aimed at business and job development. The creation of quality jobs and sustainable business activity that benefit disad-vantaged inner-city residents are fundamental to this approach (Florida, 2002, Porter, 1997). Cities interested in building strong social and economic capital will need to create entirely new educational curriculum and comprehensive work-force development strategies that emphasize knowledge, ideas, and supporting technology. The strategy is that as communities produce international knowledge workers, economic activity will migrate to them (Blakely, 2001). The creation and continual enhancement of the competitive capacities of urban neighborhoods will continue to be the single greatest challenge for local governments.

Educating Economic Development ProfessionalsThe new global economy has created clear policy implications for local gov-

ernments. Likewise, the creation of the entrepreneurial capacity to stimulate economic growth activities also raises important public management issues. The new economy will inevitably hold local policymakers and economic development professionals more and more responsible for the performance of their local econo-mies. Further, the creation of new knowledge and idea-based economies that can respond to changing global conditions should logically result in greater demand for accountability and measures of effectiveness, including the ability to measure the impact of economic development programs and activities. This is particularly concerning as studies have shown that economic development professionals spend a good deal of their time performing sales and marketing type activities rather than community planning; in fact, there appears to be a certain cognitive discon-nect between practitioner behavior and the thrust of scholarly literature on the broader context of community planning (Levy, 1990). Therefore, evaluation and benchmarking techniques are becoming increasingly useful tools in measuring the performance of local economic development organizations, but there contin-ues to be resistance in the use of these management techniques (Kotval, Mullin and Murray, 2002).

Strategic planning principles have also been modified and adapted to local eco-nomic development programs. Strategic planning can systemically identify the assets and liabilities of a community, determine opportunities for growth, give a

sense of direction to local programs so that growth can be achieved, and provide a framework for the evaluation and modification of the economic development pro-grams and activities (Kozlow, 1991). Educating professional economic develop-ment managers on the importance of strategic planning and program evaluation will be fundamental in building quality-level, entrepreneurial environments that can effectively compete in the new global economy. Graduate programs in public administration and related disciplines can provide the necessary learning inputs to current and future economic development officials to effectively plan and man-age local economic development programs and activities. Central to this approach are economic development curricula that provide graduate-level students with the necessary “core competencies” to effectively practice their disciplines within the changing global economy. A composite of the scholarly literature on the topic suggests the development of more dynamic and integrated economic develop-ment curricula including four essential core competency areas: globalization, competitiveness, strategy development, and performance.

GlobalizationA dynamic and integrated economic development curriculum would begin

with an introductory course on the impact of globalization on local economies. This course would serve as the umbrella for the integration of other core compe-tency areas. The challenge for economic development education will be to stay current with the pace and issues surrounding globalization and, specifically, how global changes are impacting the local economies in which graduate-level eco-nomic development students work.

Economic development experts generally agree that it is the pace and flow of knowledge brought about by continual technology upgrades that distinguishes the global economy in the post-2000 era. Globalization in its most current form still involves the flow of capital and labor, but it is the flow of knowledge and information, creating a global net of ideas, that is so dramatic and significant. According to Thomas Friedman in his bestselling book, The World is Flat, “the unique character of the new global economy is how software and all its applica-tions, in conjunction with the global fiber-optic network, has made us all next door neighbors” (Friedman, 2005).

Knowledge and technology-based globalization clearly represents a major para-digm shift for local economic development policy and strategy. Technology-based globalization requires a more aggressive role for local governments in building the competitive capacity of their cities and regions. As such, coursework involv-ing globalization would involve developing an understanding of the causes and consequences of the evolving global economy and its impact on local economic development planning and policy. The teaching of “globalization” and the “new economy” would include an overview and assessment of leading economic growth theories and models that explain or advance these concepts.





CompetitivenessCompetitiveness within the context of the global economy requires building

local capacity within knowledge-based industries. Local capacity is perceived as a requisite for the successful implementation of economic development policies and strategies. The creation and nurturing of local entrepreneurial environments is viewed as the foundation of local capacity building for sustainable economic development. There are two basic elements: workforce development and institu-tional support.

Fundamental to entrepreneurial environments is an educated and trained workforce. In fact, the most critical issue since globalization radiated during the 1970s has been keeping human capital capacity in line with the technology being used in the economic development activity. Investing in the technological know-how and creative potential of the local workforce will require new institu-tions of learning that harness and develop the intellectual capital already in place in all urban and metropolitan locations: industry, economic development agen-cies, and colleges and universities. Together these resources function as a working collaborative to develop and continually enhance the knowledge and skills of the local workforce.

The creation of workforce collaboratives involving local industry, economic development leaders, and academic institutions would enable the creation and ongoing enhancement of a job-incubating economic base. Additionally, the col-laborative would also provide the institutional support for the creation of net-works of local firms that through formal and informal inter-firm agreements and linkages can begin to develop new competitive strategies. The teaching of local competitiveness and capacity building would involve coursework in targeted in-dustries, workforce development, and industry collaboratives. Fully understand-ing industry attraction and retention issues, worker skills, technological advance-ments, and global markets would be the essence of this learning.

Strategy DevelopmentStrategy development involves identifying and implementing local economic

development programs and activities based on a clear understanding of the locality’s competitive advantages. Targeted industries, industry retention, and cluster-based strategies are several of the more common economic development strategies employed by local economic development organizations. However, recent thinking about knowledge-based industries suggests a more proactive ap-proach by local governments in growing and continually enhancing the competi-tive advantage of these industries.

Strategy development would ideally occur within the framework of a competi-tive entrepreneurial environment that has developed institutional capacity and support for workforce development and inter-firm networks. Institutional col-laboration in these areas would allow for strategy development utilizing various



economic tools and techniques. Local economic development organizations would ultimately be responsible for implementing strategies. However, for strategy development to be successful, particularly in knowledge-based industries, there is an expectation that economic development governmental agencies and inter-firm networks will work hand-in-hand in developing local strategies. Coursework in strategy development would involve developing a keener understanding of local industries, particularly inter-firm linkages and the potential for greater inter-firm networking. Coursework would also include various economic development financing and marketing strategies, site planning, and capital improvement plan-ning in support of industrial development.

PerformanceEvaluation and benchmarking techniques are becoming increasingly useful

tools in measuring the performance of economic development entities. How-ever, as previously noted, local economic development organizations continue to resist the use of these management techniques. Part of the resistance is that local economic development has been traditionally evaluated based on the sum of activities as opposed to measuring actual economic growth.1 Economic de-velopment organizations often attempt to equate activity with progress in their efforts to respond to the issues of performance and accountability. Clearly, local economic development activity in the changing global economy will continue to come under greater scrutiny. As urban and metropolitan areas struggle to revive their local economies with less federal and state assistance, the leveraging of di-minished financial resources has become necessary. Local economic development organizations will be held more accountable for the use and productivity of these leveraged resources.

Teaching performance and productivity would include coursework in strategic planning and program evaluation specific to economic development organiza-tions. Strategic planning in the corporate world has been modified and adapted to local economic development programs. Strategic planning can systemically iden-tify the assets and liabilities of an area, determines opportunities for growth, and provide local economic development organizations with a clear set of goals and objectives. Furthermore, strategic planning provides a framework for the evalua-tion and modification of local economic development programs, thereby enabling a more flexible management response to changing global conditions.Economic Development in MPA Education

In order to educate MPA students in a more focused and disciplined manner, it has become common practice to offer students coursework that includes at least one area of specialization in public administration. Indeed, one of the real strengths of traditional MPA and related degree programs continues to be the combination of a strong foundation of core courses and an appeal to a diverse



audience by providing additional specialty areas in response to constituent and market demand (Hewitt, Marshall, and Badger, 2006).

The diversity and appeal of specialty areas in MPA education is evidenced by the existence of at least 16 specializations within MPA curricula according to the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration (NAS-PAA) Web site (Table 1). NASPAA is the membership association of graduate programs in public administration, public policy, and public affairs. The twofold mission of NASPAA “is to ensure excellence in education and training for public service and to promote the ideal of public service.” NASPAA’s Commission on Peer Review and Accreditation is the specialized accreditor of these graduate de-gree programs. NASPAA defines a master’s of public administration (MPA) as a “professional degree for people who want a public service career in management.” According to NASPAA, MPA degree programs “develop the skills and tech-niques used by leaders and managers to implement policies, projects, and pro-grams that resolve important societal problems while addressing organizational, human resource, and budgetary challenges.” Graduates with MPA degrees work in a variety of public service fields and in all levels of government (federal, state, local, and regional), in nonprofit organizations, in the international arena, and in the private sector. Indeed, the diversity of career opportunities coupled with changing job market demands has propelled the emergence and proliferation of MPA specialty tracks.

Methodology for Surveying MPA Economic Development Specializations

The methodology involved an ex-ploratory survey of economic develop-ment specializations in public admin-istration graduate programs (MPA) in the United States. The survey began with an examination of the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration’s (NASPAA) Web site to identify those schools which list “economic development” as a special-ization within their MPA programs. NASPAA lists a total of 25 mem-ber MPA Programs that include an economic development specialization. The next step in the survey involved cross-checking each MPA program’s

Table 1. Specialty Tracks in MPA Programs

Specialization Total

Budgeting/Finance 59Criminal Justice 49Economic Development 25Education 13Environment 40General/Public Management 89Health 83Homeland/National Security 9Human Resources 63Information Technology 26International 28Non Profit 83Organizational management 15Policy 61State & Local 47Urban 49 Other 141 Source: NASPAA Website, January 2007



Web-site to determine whether economic development specializations were actu-ally included as part of their program curricula.

The methodology for identifying the focus and direction of economic develop-ment specializations involved a review of the program description and curriculum for each specialization, including the course listings and descriptions provided within each program’s Web site or the graduate course catalogue for each respec-tive school. Course descriptions were selected rather than course syllabi because the purpose of the research was to provide an objective assessment of the general direction and focus of MPA economic development specializations. Although examples of course syllabi were available on a number of Web sites, it was pre-determined that course syllabi content could provide a misleading interpretation of the general direction and focus of each economic development specialization. This is because course syllabi can reflect the substantive area or teaching interest of a particular instructor. It was predetermined through peer discussions that eco-nomic and community development coursework often utilizes adjunct instructors who may tailor course syllabi to their particular area of training and expertise. It was concluded, therefore, that course descriptions, coupled with other program statements from each economic development specialization, would provide the more objective assessment criteria.

Location and Focus of Economic Development Specializations As previously noted, the NASPAA Web site lists 25 MPA programs with a

specialization under the general heading of economic development, 20 of which are NASPAA accredited. A review of other NASPAA graduate programs revealed that 12 (three accredited) master of public policy (MPP) and six (four accredited) master of science (MS) programs have specializations in economic development. In the case of the University of Minnesota and the University of Southern Cali-fornia, economic development specializations are also offered as part of a dual MPA/MPP degree. Clearly, however, MPA programs provide the vast majority of economic development specialty tracks among NASPAA-affiliated schools.

The survey determined that each of the 25 MPA economic specializations have detailed Web sites describing their programs, course curricula, and degree requirements. Although the development and sophistication of individual Web sites vary, program descriptions, specialization curricula, and course descriptions were relatively easy to obtain. The survey revealed, however, that only 17 of the 25 MPA programs listed on the NASPAA Web site actually include an economic development or related specialization within their program curricula (Table 2). It was determined that the balance provide course offerings in economic develop-ment and related coursework, but not as a distinct specialization or concentration.

Based on a further review of the 17 economic development specializations, it was determined that nine of the MPA programs list specializations or concentra-tions in economic development or a comparable heading such as planning and



economic development or development. Significantly, the balance of programs list specializations in community development or some variation of community economic development. The survey found, in fact, the MPA programs generally split between economic development and community development or com-munity economic development specializations. This finding is quite significant, because economic development and community development have traditionally been viewed as separate fields. The growth in community economic development has bridged some of that divide, but there is still generally a clear split between the two in professional practice.

The next level of analysis involved the identification of economic and com-munity development specializations by location, focus, and direction. The survey indicated that 12 of the specializations (70 percent) are situated within MPA programs at urban or metropolitan universities. This is particularly apparent for community and community economic development specializations, where all but one of the universities are located in urban or metropolitan areas. This finding was unremarkable given the historically urban focus of community development in the United States. However, the urban location of economic and community development specializations, in general, suggests a significant correlation with re-spect to the origin and geographic focus given to these specializations. Indeed, a subsequent review of program and course descriptions determined that state and particularly sub-state (local and regional) geographies are the primary focus of both economic and community development specializations. In the case of urban and metropolitan area MPA programs, the link to local economies, governments and surrounding economic and community development issues is prototypical.

The survey found that both economic and community development specializa-tions focused on preparing graduates for careers in various levels of government, community organizations, and the private sector. Program Web sites market the specializations as growing fields with many employment opportunities. The versatility of the specializations is a strength cited by many of the MPA programs surveyed. Economic development specializations, in particular, provide program descriptions claiming that career opportunities are abundant at virtually every level of government, while providing a platform for careers in the private sector as many companies partner with economic development agencies. On the other hand, community development specializations typically market leadership and management positions within public organizations.

The survey determined that both economic and community development specializations generally include two or three required courses as part of the curriculum. Outside electives are encouraged in several programs. Outside elec-tives are typically found in economics, business, and political science. Required courses address fundamental theories and principals, policy issues, and tools and techniques. Economic development and community development specializations differ in their respective required coursework. Economic development specializa-



Table 2. Economic Development and Related Specializations in MPA Programs

School Geographic Setting

Degree Specialization/Concentra-tion

Course CreditHours

NASPAA Accredited

University of Alabama— Birmingham

Urban MPA Community Planning and Development

12 Y

Auburn Univ.— Auburn

Suburban MPA Economic Development 12 Y

Bowling Green State Univ.

Suburban MPA Economic Development 12 N

Clark AtlantaUniversity

Urban MPA Community andEconomic Development

15 Y

Cleveland StateUniversity

Urban MPA Economic Development 10-12 Y

University of Delaware

Urban MPA Community Development and Nonprofit Leadership

12 Y

Georgia StateUniversity

Urban MPA Planning and Economic Development

12 Y

Indiana Univ. —Bloomington

Suburban MPA Economic Development 12-15 Y

Eastern KentuckyUniversity

Suburban MPA Community Development 12 Y

Jackson StateUniversity

Urban MPPA Community andEconomic Development

12 Y

University of Minnesota

Urban MPA Economic and Community Development

9 N

University of NC-Greensboro


15 Y

University of North Texas

Suburban MPA Economic Development 12 Y

University of SouthernCalifornia


12 Y (Area Cluster)

University of Texas-El Paso

Urban MPA Economic Development 12 Y

Wayne State University

Urban MPA Economic Development Policy and Administration

9 Y

Wright State University

Urban MPA Development 12-20 Y

Source: NASPAA Web site, January 2007



tions tend to focus more on the tools and practical skills to pursue careers in eco-nomic development, while community development required coursework tends to be more policy, process, and issue oriented.

General coursework in economic development involves theoretical foundations of economic growth and development; approaches to economic development; the roles of institutions involved in economic development process; the formulation of economic development strategies; and the economic, political, and social con-text in which development policy occurs. Several of the economic development specializations surveyed offer courses in development financing, economic model-ing, and labor market analysis. General coursework in community development involves the implementation of community development strategies in the public organization setting. The focus of study is the nonprofit community organization, and, specifically, community-based organizations (CBOs) and community devel-opment corporations (CDCs). Coursework relates community development to the community organization and examines current efforts, especially those based on the concept of self-help, to generate and implement community development programs. Community nonprofit leadership courses are common within the spe-cialization. These courses are designed to prepare students for leadership roles in institutions working in CBOs and CDCs on such issues as community economic development, housing, urban and neighborhood planning, and governance.

Coursework involving performance measurements and program evaluation are common in both specializations, but are more evident within community devel-opment. Course listings specifically list performance measurements for public and nonprofit organizations. The specific focus of economic development special-izations are the local economic development government or quasi-public agency. Strategic management issues are the general topic of economic development specializations.

Economic and community development specializations both include courses on special topics and issues. Special topics coursework within economic develop-ment specializations include: economic development finance and impact models, labor market analysis, and globalization. Special topics in community develop-ment course work include poverty and neighborhoods, development finance, and neighborhood planning and revitalization. Both specializations include Geographic Information Systems (GIS) coursework. GIS courses provide spatial information analysis on issues such as the labor market and the identification of local industries.

Core Competencies in Economic Development SpecializationsThe final level of analysis involved a review of course descriptions to determine

the extent to which the core competency areas of globalization, competitiveness, strategy development, and performance have been introduced into the curricula



of MPA economic and community development specializations. The first step in the analysis required categorizing economic and community development courses into general substantive areas of teaching. Categories were determined by re-viewing course descriptions and establishing the general nature and intent of the various course offerings. The analysis concluded that economic and community development courses can be grouped under five general headings (Table 3):

• Theory and Practice • Policy Analysis• Tools and Techniques • Organization and Management• Special Topics and Issues

Theory and PracticeCourses under the general heading of theory and practice are typically intro-

ductory in nature and are intended to provide students with a basic understand-ing of economic growth theories and models and their application. The under-standing is primarily twofold: 1) the impact of economic growth theories and models on state and local economies, and 2) the response of state and local gov-ernments from a planning and policy perspective. In contrast, theory and practice coursework within community development specializations typically involves a historical perspective on the issues and problems or urban areas. Coursework also tends to focus on the community decision-making process and neighborhood planning issues.

The survey found that all 17 economic and community development special-izations offer a course under the general heading of theory and practice. The survey found that theory and practice coursework addresses the globalization core competency area in seven of the specializations. All but one of the courses was found in economic development specializations. As previously noted, coursework

Table 3. Teaching Core Competencies in Economic/Community Development Specializations

Core Competencies

Substantive Area of Teaching

Frequency Globalization Competitiveness Strategy Performance

Theory and Practice

17 7 2 -

Policy Analysis 13 2 3 3 6Tools and Techniques

11 - - 7 -

Organization & Management

12 - - 4 10

Special Topics and Issues

17 2 5 - -



involving globalization would involve developing an understanding of the causes and consequences of the evolving global economy and its impact on local eco-nomic development planning and policy. The teaching of globalization and the new economy would include an overview and/or assessment of leading economic growth theories and models that explain or advance these concepts. Examples of courses under the heading theory and practice that address globalization issues include Economic Development I, an introductory course that studies the effects of globalization on workers and communities and the public policy response to these issues, and Theory and Practice of Economic Development, an introductory course that studies leading economic growth theories and models.

The core competency area of competitiveness was found in two theory and practice courses. An introductory course, Economic Development, in one com-munity development specialization is intended to focus on capacity-building issues with respect to the larger regional economy. An economic development course, Growth, Science, and Technology, addresses the need for developing local capacity within the context of the global economy.

Policy AnalysisCourses under the general heading of policy analysis provide the economic, so-

cial, and political contexts in which economic and community development poli-cies occur. Course content involving a discussion of the role of local institutions in the development process is more common to community development and community economic development specializations. Examples of policy analysis courses in community development include Urban Policy and Administration, Development Planning and Policy Analysis, and Urban Public Policy. Economic development courses in policy analysis include Economic Development Policy and Planning, Public Policy Analysis, and Methods of Policy Analysis.

Policy analysis courses were found in 13 of the economic and community devel-opment specializations surveyed. Each of the four core competencies was found in at least two policy analysis courses. The core competency area of performance was most commonly found with six of the courses addressing performance and evalua-tion issues specific to economic and community development organizations. This finding is consistent with the direction of economic development policy analysis in recent decades. As previously noted, evaluation and benchmarking techniques are becoming increasingly useful tools in measuring the performance of local eco-nomic development activity. The study of performance and evaluation issues and practice were found in each of the above referenced policy analysis courses.

The core competencies of globalization, competitiveness, and strategy devel-opment were found in several policy courses. These courses typically included a reference to all three. Performance was not specifically referenced within these courses. However, the brevity of some course descriptions may have omitted specific reference.



Tools and TechniquesCourses listed under the general heading of tools and techniques include

development financing, project feasibility analysis and various economic model-ing, including econometric techniques, model building and simulation analysis, and applied econometric forecasting analysis. Tools and techniques courses under community development specializations are more focused on development financ-ing and project feasibility analysis. Course listings include Economic Develop-ment Finance, Economic Impact Models, and Local Labor Market Analysis.

Coursework involving economic and community development tools and techniques were found in 11 of the specializations surveyed. Courses in tools and techniques address the core competency of strategy development in seven pro-grams. It is not clear whether these courses apply economic development tools and techniques within the contexts of globalization and local competitiveness. The courses read more technical in nature, focusing on tools such as economic modeling and development financing. However, several references to industrial analysis and cluster-based strategies suggest that some coursework involves a certain level of study on globalization issues and local capacity building. As previously noted, coursework in strategy development would be based on an understanding of the competitive capacity of an area and the entrepreneurial en-vironment that needs to be in place to support the implementation of economic development strategies.

Organization and ManagementThe emphasis of coursework listed under the general heading of organization

and management is divided between economic and community development spe-cializations. Programs with economic development specializations tend to focus more on local governments and economic development agencies, whereas com-munity development specializations tend to focus more on community nonprofit organizations, specifically community development corporations (CDCs). There is also a difference in management emphasis. Economic development coursework is more focused on strategic planning principals, while community development specializations are typically more focused on performance and program evaluation.

Organization and management coursework in economic and community de-velopment was found in 12 of the specializations surveyed, eight of which are in community development. As noted above, organization and management course-work in community development is more focused on performance and program evaluation. Courses include Management of Urban Nonprofit Agencies, Program Development and Evaluation, and Program Design, Implementation, and Evalu-ation. Coursework typically involves an overview of the performance measure-ment process, including benchmarking and performance monitoring in public and nonprofit organizations. Course objectives are aimed at familiarizing program



managers with the conceptual tools essential to understanding the development of performance measurement systems and the techniques necessary to apply them in the work environment. Organization and management coursework in eco-nomic development specializations includes courses in Strategic Management, Strategic Thinking, and Urban Administration.

As previously noted, teaching performance and productivity would include coursework in strategic planning and program evaluation specific to economic development organizations. The survey found that specializations, particularly those in community development, have developed organizational and manage-ment coursework that addresses the core competency area of performance in 10 programs. Course descriptions clearly state that students will be provide the conceptual tools to implement performance measures and program evaluation systems within the agency setting. The competitiveness core competency is also introduced in four economic development specializations. Coursework involves building local capacity and creating institutional support for economic develop-ment activities.

Special Topics and IssuesCoursework under the general heading of Special Topics and Issues includes a

wide variety of subjects, including urban poverty, racial segregation, and neigh-borhood revitalization. The survey found that course listings under special topics have also enabled several economic development specializations to offer course-work in the core competency areas. Special topics courses were found that address the core competencies of globalization and competitiveness. Course listings in-clude Globalization and Entrepreneurship, a course listing that examines the link between globalization, entrepreneurship, and regional economic development, and Creating Good Work: Economic and Workforce Development, a course that addresses the importance of creating a skilled workforce to compete in the global economy. Other courses include Global City-Regions, Globalization, and The Global Economy.

ConclusionsSpecialty tracks have grown in popularity in MPA and related graduate pro-

grams throughout the country. Specializations provide market appeal to pro-spective students by hypothetically honing curricula to the demands of the job market. While specializations do offer graduate students the opportunity to develop the knowledge and technical skills within a predefined area, there is the need to ensure that specialization curricula substantially reflect the changing knowledge and skill sets of the professional disciplines. Although it is evident that U.S. graduate programs in public administration have established economic and community development specializations that offer career professionals the



knowledge to manage local economic development agencies, the challenge will be for programs to continually keep pace with the changes that are endemic to a constantly changing global economy where knowledge and ideas flow quickly.

The research found that MPA specializations in economic development are es-sentially split between traditional economic development and community devel-opment curricula. The specializations are focused on career opportunities in both areas and educate and train current and future professional to work in a variety of working environments including state and local government, community non-profit organizations and the private sector. The locations of MPA programs offer-ing economic and community development specializations are principally urban or metropolitan. This is probably because the fields of community development and community economic development had their beginnings in the larger cities of the United States. Additionally, urban areas are home to many of the nation’s larger industries and employment centers.

The survey found that while newer core competencies in economic develop-ment have been introduced in many economic and community development specializations, coursework tends to be geared more toward traditional learning in these fields. Globalization has had an enormous impact on local economies in terms of competitiveness, worker skills, and new technologies. Economic theo-ries and growth models address these impacts, yet based on the survey of MPA program, globalization issues are addressed in less than one-half of the course work devoted to theory and practice. Ideally, the core competency areas would be included in an integrated format, whereby each of the four core competen-cies would be introduced across each specialization’s course work. For instance, leadership and program evaluation courses in community development would also include discussion of community economic development opportunities that connect urban neighborhood to the larger local and regional economy.

The economic development challenges of urban America are clearly evident. Policy leaders and practitioners are in agreement that “more of the same” is no longer a viable alternative. The field of economic development must respond with creative policies and strategies that help urban economies grow and prosper in the new global economy. Cutting-edge knowledge consisting of core compe-tency areas in graduate-level education would be an effective starting point for this discussion.

Notes1. The meaning of the term economic development has created substantial debate. This is problematic,

because scholars and practitioners have used it to mean many different things (Reese and Fasenfest, 1999). Moreover, the modifier “economic” deflects attention from the inherently political nature of “development” in our cities (Beauregard, 1993). Defining economic development and, specifically, economic development activities has also created difficulties in establishing standardized monitoring and performance measurement systems.



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Edward P. Murray, Ph.D., AICP, teaches in the School of Public Administra-tion at Florida International University. He may be reached at [email protected].

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