2003 NASPAA Strategic Planning Dialogue Session
ASPA Conference (Wash., DC), March 15, 2003
Participants:University of Pittsburgh: Carolyn Ban Virginia Commonwealth University: Blue Wooldridge Brigham Young University: Robert Parsons Univ. of Alabama at Birmingham: Akhlaque Haque University of Memphis: Joy Clay
Old Dominion University: Pam Gibson
Cleveland State University: Vera Vogelsang-Coombs Indiana University and Purdue
University, Indianapolis: James Perry University of Missouri, St. Louis: Andrew Glassberg
NASPAA: Ken Tolo
Introductions:
• Virginia Commonwealth MPA program in Political Science Department; soon will be in larger school (without departments); 100 students, half pre-service; 6-7 core faculty; weekend/evening classes; social equity is
“theme” for 2002-2003 courses
• Brigham Young MPA program in business school; has 100 pre-service students in Provo (64 semester credit hours); 120 students in Executive MPA in Salt Lake City (44 semester credit hours); 11 faculty, of which 3 new in last 3 years; 4 more faculty retiring by 2005
• Alabama, Birmingham: 50-55 MPA students; evening classes; 5 full-time faculty; in Government Department; Social Work formerly part of program • Memphis: 50 MPA students, largely part-time; in Division of Public and
Non-profit Administration, School of Urban Affairs and Public Policy; concentrations in health administration, social work, criminal justice, urban • Old Dominion: Graduate Center within Business College; teach at Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Hampton; 7 full-time faculty; mainly mid-career federal and military; 160 enrolled in MPA, M. Urban Studies, Ph.D. in Urban Service • Pittsburgh program is 45 years old; international affairs, international
development, public and urban affairs (MPA); 400 graduate students; 400 undergrad students; increasing research funding; separate accelerated Executive MPA in Macedonia (with State Dept.; opens 9/03)
• IUPUI: 500-600 undergrad majors; 500-600 graduate students, half full-time; health administration, public administration, planning; 25 full-time faculty, plus full-time lecturers and adjuncts
• Missouri, St. Louis: hybrid PP and PA program – MPPA degree; designed about 25 years ago; all faculty have joint appointments (e.g., business, economics); about 100 students, mostly part-time, in-service
QUESTION 1: EXTERNAL CHALLENGES/OPPORTUNITIES Challenges:
• Recruiting students and faculty of color and diverse backgrounds
• Recruiting faculty with non-profit management backgrounds; developing and funding internship and employment opportunities for students interested in non-profit careers, especially internationally
• Pressure from students for new curricular areas (e.g., disaster
management); hard to balance short-term student needs with long-term program implications of faculty hires and curricular choices now
• Changing public/private/non-profit governance structures are the biggest challenge facing PA; member programs still educating students for “command and control” environment
• Emphasis on performance measurement and outcomes assessment in public and private sectors affects curricula and faculty
• NASPAA members need to rethink missions, given external challenges • No clear perception of MPA; employers, public at large, prospective
students don’t understand what MPA is; MBA programs better than MPA programs at “selling” themselves and graduates
• PA/PP field has too many national professional associations (ASPA, ICMA, GFAO, NLC, etc.); who are we?
• Career changes, especially among military and government employees, can significantly affect curricula and programs
• Blurring of sector roles and employment opportunities; employers don’t understand MPA/MPP degrees and student competencies; challenge to design curricula to address sector blurring and career changes
Opportunities:
• Students increasingly interested in government careers
• Universal acceptance in workplace of importance of diversity; opportunity for NASPAA and members to develop greater diversity competencies in workplace
• Technology-enhanced distance learning enables members to meet needs of prospective students at their workplaces
• Serving educational needs of government and military often leads to strong support for MPA program in community
• Field studies, internships, capstone courses, etc. integrate education and practice; help address employer needs and student placement needs QUESTION 2: INTERNAL UNIVERSITY CHALLENGES/OPPORTUNITIES Challenges:
• No clear perception of MPA among university administrators and faculty outside MPA program; acceptance of MPA can be difficult; MBA programs better than MPA programs at “selling” themselves and graduates; MBAs
are better defined than MPA/MPP degrees; colleges of business and public administration often called just “business colleges”
• Diversity of competencies among MPA faculty; hard to convey clear sense of PA field; too many competencies and fields of study?
• PA/PP programs in political science departments are invisible • Planning degree programs have done a better job of marketing
themselves than have MPA programs
• Inaccurate perception that business school courses are more quantitative than those of MPA/MPP programs
• Biggest problem is fiscal
• No clear and consistent model as to where PA/PP sits organizationally in university; yet placement and structure very important to “success” • Students now have major interest in security, international affairs, and
international development, with less interest in MPA; challenge to meet student needs and recruit students while not creating imbalance among degree programs, faculty expertise, curricula, etc.; especially challenging since students in different degree programs have different cultures Opportunities:
• Faculty retirements offer opportunities for curricular changes
• Offer undergrad degree under General Studies even if not authorized to give undergrad degree (e.g., non-prof. BA in Public Service)
• Increasing opportunities for research partnerships in universities
QUESTION 3: MOST IMPORTANT NASPPA PROGRAMS, SERVICES, ETC. Following are the priority rankings by institutional participants:
• (1) Accreditation/peer review (helps member to be part of PA/PP field; benefits students and graduates); (2) Website/communication/information services (includes electronic and print communication, e.g., new green MPA/MPP brochure); (3) Pi Alpha Alpha (brings together students, alumni, practitioners)
• (1) Annual conference (share ideas; networking); (2) Career Services Directors (group and listserv; excellent networking); (3) Information/data sharing/benchmarking
• (1) Accreditation/peer review (distinguishes NASPAA members); (2) Website (sharing information among member programs); (3) Pi Alpha Alpha (benefits students)
• (1) Annual conference (creates intellectual dialogue with respect to PA/PP field, where it is, where it is going, etc.); (2) Accreditation/peer review (learn from self study process; helps within university); (3) Surveys and benchmarks; (4) JPAE/publications (create dialogue around teaching and inform constituencies about field); (5) Website (especially for marketing programs to prospective students; more than 50% prospective students find out about NASPAA members through NASPAA website
• (1) Accreditation/peer review (important externally and within university); (2) JPAE (a “library” for information); (3) Website/listserv
• (1) Annual conference (information sharing); (2) Accreditation/peer review; (3) JPAE (e.g., information on capstone course approaches); (4)
Information sharing
• (1) Accreditation/peer review (helps faculty rethink program;
overwhelmingly the most important NASPAA service – nothing else close): (2) Annual conference; (3) ????
• (1) Annual conference (networks; substantive panel sessions); (2) JPAE (gives NASPAA an identity; disseminates ideas and practices); (3) Accreditation/peer review
Summary of Priorities (#1=3 points, #2=2 points, #3=1 point): Accreditation/peer review 17 points
Annual conference 14 points
Website/listserv/info sharing/surveys 7 points
JPAE 5 points
Pi Alpha Alpha 2 points
Career Services Directors group 2 points
QUESTION 4 (IMPROVING MOST IMPORTANT NASPAA PROGRAMS; AND QUESTION 6 (ADDITIONAL NASPAA PROGRAM PRIORITIES)
[Participants interweaved their responses to question #4 (how to improve the effectiveness of the most important NASPAA programs, services, and activities) and question #6 (identify and rank order additional programs, services, and activities that are very important).]
Accreditation/Peer Review/Guidelines/Competencies:
• Add diversity competency standard, because students are working in diverse workplaces
• Rethink the accreditation process; have the self study due 1-2 years prior to site visit, since self study says an institution will do certain things in the future, and this would enable the site visit team to see if progress is being made; accredit on the basis of progress to outcomes, not promises • Accreditation is too expensive
• Because members use accreditation to promote quality of programs within university, site visit team members must be senior scholars and
practitioners who have “standing” in their respective fields
• Use accreditation to promote the national visibility of PA/PP field and students
• Helpful for site visit teams if they could get prior accreditation reports, self studies, etc. for the schools they are visiting, to know what goals were established and what commitments were made in prior years, etc. • When new COPRA interpretations or rulings are adopted between the
about the self study and responded to (November-December), do not ask candidates for accreditation to address these new interpretations or rulings; this creates a major problem on campus, when candidates for accreditation must justify to their university officials why these “new” standards or rulings weren’t addressed in the initial self study
• Discuss accreditation at national meetings (e.g., ICMA, NLC, ARNOVA) to help PA/PP constituencies understand value of accreditation
• There is an aura to MBA accreditation; need to achieve this with MPA/MPP accreditation
• Tighten up accreditation; don’t broaden it to encompass diverse fields (yet retain flexibility)
• Consider whether NASPAA accreditation should require specific courses or competencies; identify core courses for all accredited member schools, with each school deciding what courses it will offer; then “sell” MPA/MPP programs based on this “core knowledge”
• Because we do not require accreditation, marketing MPA/MPP is a dilemma
• Mission-based accreditation is a nightmare
• Members that are candidates for accreditation need to know more clearly in advance of the process not only what needs to be done when, but why; candidates are not informed until the site visit why the documents they are required to produce are important
• More practitioner representation on site visit teams
• Don’t let COPRA become like ACESHA (the accrediting agency for health administration programs)
• AACSB is now using a new methodology to accredit business schools: “Show us your strategic plan; show us the criteria you are using to assess progress toward outcomes and objectives in the plan; then show us how you are achieving them”; AACSB approach is more “user friendly” than COPRA/NASPAA approach; we should consider changing
Annual Conference:
• Most valuable conference sessions are roundtables of program directors, yet these sessions are overcrowded; improve scheduling
• Schedule session on MPA/MPP programs in business schools
• Provide opportunities for networking with other members in several ways – by type of organizational structure, by geographic region, etc.
• Involve more faculty on program and have greater focus on curricula and pedagogy; provide faculty professional development opportunities
• Schedule a session with ASPA’s Section on Public Administration Education
• Conduct New Deans/Directors Institute; model on Accreditation Institute • Send out survey in spring each year to assess needs of members and
how they might be met at annual conference in fall • Have more sessions on fund-raising
• Have more sessions on core curricula
• Provide conference attendees access to agency personnel directors (federal, state, local); could be part of orientation for new deans/directors Website, Listserv, Data Collection and Reporting, Communications:
• Promote more discussions about capstone courses and core courses on listserv
• Provide member information about numbers of faculty and students • NASPAA does not collect too much data; try to find out from survey
non-respondents why they are not responding
• Career Services Directors listserv is excellent; maintain its close connection with the general NASPAA listserv
• Provide website capability for NASPAA to respond to requests (for a fee) from NASPAA members and others for course syllabi used by faculty at member schools
• New (green) MPA/MPP marketing brochure is great; produce more JPAE:
• Raises important questions; goldmine of information and insights; need to market JPAE more as a premier journal of public affairs education
• Put JPAE on-line, so that articles in past issues are readily accessible; promote links to JPAE articles from web clearinghouses
QUESTION 5: LESS IMPORTANT NASPAA PROGRAMS, ETC. [No comments.]
QUESTION 8: NASPAA AS NATIONAL VOICE, POLICY ADVOCATE, ETC. • NASPAA has “public good” responsibilities: what are they? How does
NASPAA promote them? Are they important? Should NASPAA be a fee-based “consulting” organization? Promote excellence in public affairs education through support of networks of PA/PP schools in other world regions? Promote MPA/MPP degrees among U.S. employers and prospective students?
• NASPAA should focus on direct member services; not a big fan of NASPAA becoming involved with national programs and policies (excluding PMI); rather, for example, educate HR/personnel directors around the country about NASPAA, MPA/MPP graduates, etc. – this is the kind of member service NASPAA should provide
• Promoting the PA/PP field is a member service; do it through partnerships with other organizations; international projects can become services to members, not simply opportunities for members
• Member opportunities become member services when they make it easier for members to accomplish their program objectives
• Important NASPAA opportunities for members, even though not services for all members, include the PPIA Program, the (former) NASPAA Faculty Fellows Program, etc.
• NASPAA shouldn’t focus on national programs (e.g., PPIA), but should adapt national programs and concepts into local member services; members want assistance with small, local initiatives and challenges – with the “nuts and bolts” of their program activities (e.g., with recruitment of a diverse student body); instead of NASPAA funding national initiatives (e.g., PPIA), NASPAA could provide information and insights that help members get institutional support for their own initiatives
• Exploit the value associated with linking all past NASPAA Fellows; use testimonials to promote the PA/PP field and NASPAA members
• Promote the value and use of Intergovernmental Personnel Act (IPA) agreements to support faculty assignments in federal government agencies
• Adopt values that articulate what we do – that provide criteria against which potential NASPAA initiatives should be considered
CLOSING COMMENTS
• Participants expressed appreciation for the opportunity to participate in the NASPAA strategic planning process and to discuss NASPAA priorities
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