This foundation course introduces students to the historical and contemporary social, economic, political, and ethical context of public administration and governance in the United States. Students gain an understanding of public institutions and values and develop skills for interpreting and critically evaluating American public service issues.

PUBA 747 requires students to reflect on and demonstrate how they apply and integrate their learning from five required MPA courses and their professional public service work experiences to successfully respond to an applied research problem. Students will select from a list of applied research problems, conduct a literature review, collect data, and identify their preliminary findings. These steps will be informed by their professional public service work experiences given the applied research needed to produce their thesis substitutes, which will be written and evaluated by a three-person committee during PUBA 748.

In PUBA 748, students will continue to work on their applied research problem from PUBA 747. Students are expected to enter PUBA 748 with a complete (clean) dataset, including a preliminary analysis that has been revised to include the feedback from PUBA 747 instructors. In this course, students will continue with the data analysis, discuss the findings, and develop recommendations.

Nonprofit leaders and public officials rely on grants to help fund their grand plans. This course covers the process of finding grants, preparing grant proposals, and planning for and managing grant funds. It covers some of the similarities and differences between the funding process from federal/state agencies and private foundations.

NOTE: Students may take either PUBA 763 or 764.

This course covers theory and practice of dispute resolution and consensus building processes for public policy and program implementation. It focuses on workplace and service provision conflicts to develop mediation skills; is comprised of short lectures, demonstration, and student practice of a mediation model/specific skill sets.

NOTE: Students may take either PUBA 768 or 772.

This workshop-style course focuses on inter-organization and community settings to develop facilitation skills. It is comprised of short lectures, demonstration, and student practice of facilitation strategies.

This course is designed for graduate students seeking professional positions in local government or nonprofits. It covers issues of mutual concern to both nonprofits and governments.

This course emphasizes the practical application and implementation of various approaches to economic development. Students will apply tools/strategies by doing case studies and small group projects based on real-world scenarios faced by local practitioners.

This course looks at the diverse tools and strategies environmental service providers use to pay for their programs. It also examines the policy implications of deciding how to pay for these services.

This course explores the nature of city or county manager’s job: expectations of elected body, staff, public and professional peers. It examines contemporary issues in departmental operations that have significant effect on how manager’s performance is perceived.