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.

This course examines the managerial challenges posed by nonprofit organizations and techniques and practices used by nonprofit managers to help their organizations succeed.

This course introduces a process for systematically thinking about decisions and valuable techniques for analyzing decisions. Students learn how to construct models for decision making and how to use these models to analyze decisions.

How do concepts learned in the classroom translate into real-world practice? The Carolina MPA Immersion Experience offers both online and on-campus students the opportunity to make this connection and learn from MPA faculty with expertise in government and non-profit administration. Held at the UNC School of Government, the course allows students and faculty to come together for three days to focus on a relevant topic in the field of public administration.

Community revitalization requires mastery of community development methods, the real estate development process, and public-private partnerships. Techniques include demographic trend analysis, stakeholder identification, government entitlement review, area and parcel analysis, market research, and pro forma financial analysis. 

Students apply their skills in business, planning, or public administration to actual community revitalization projects in North Carolina communities. Projects require an understanding of community development methods, the real estate development process, and public-private partnerships. Students will manage client relationships and learn how their skills contribute to solving community challenges. This course is ideal for first year graduate students. 

This course teaches the principles of accounting and financial reporting in governmental and nonprofit environments. It provides skills for analyzing the financial condition of governments and the efficiency and effectiveness of governmental programs.

Students learn about the operations functions of local government. Each class will focus on a single local government department. Students will understand techniques and tools used to manage local governments effectively, efficiently, and equitably. Students learn the current issues, management trends, and problems associated with each local government department function. 

This course explores alternative approaches to planning and administering the budgets and financial operations of public agencies. It involves extensive use of case materials.

This course introduces students to how local officials measure the inputs, outputs, and outcomes of service delivery and how they use these performance data for making management and policy decisions. It explores the use of other types of data to information decision making, including content analysis, benchmarking, financial condition analysis, and benefit-cost analysis.