Journal of Public Affairs Education

Cover design by Val Escher. Cover design property of NASPAA. Cover photo: University of New Orleans.

In the past two decades, the number of institutions of higher education offering degrees in homeland security has increased exponentially. This rapid growth, brought on by external factors, has led to some discussion about the ability of programs to address the needs of the field. This article is an overview of the state of higher education (college and technical school) programs in the fields of homeland security and emergency management. The authors look at the rapid growth of these programs in the U. S. system, explain the state of a lack of shared learning outcomes and standards in the field and describe the evolution of these issues, and conclude by offering some criteria and guidelines based on recent studies and organizational needs for such programs.

Emergency management academic programs continue to strive toward linking students’ theoretical and practical knowledge before they enter the evolving and challenging field of emergency management. This article recommends including service-learning pedagogy in the development of emergency management programs and curriculum to help meet this educational challenge. Results from a national survey of emergency management and homeland security academic programs indicate that many programs are incorporating service-learning projects in some courses. This article concludes by discussing the benefits and challenges associated with using service learning in emergency management programs and by presenting advice for program directors and faculty considering implementing this pedagogy.

Effective decision making under conditions of uncertainty involves the ability to recognize risk, formulate strategies for action, and coordinate with others in an effort to bring an incident under control quickly. Learning to make decisions effectively in urgent, uncertain conditions is not easily achieved in a classroom setting. Educators face a particular challenge in creating a learning environment in which students can develop this ability in preparation and/or support for careers in emergency management. The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) suggests that higher-level thinking skills facilitate the kind of problem-solving skills and subject mastery helpful to decision making under conditions of uncertainty. A content analysis of syllabi on emergency management demonstrates that instructors, in practice, focus disproportionately on lower-level thinking skills. We present a set of propositions informed by SoTL and the study of cognition to design curricula that facilitate the development of higher-order thinking skills that support decision making under conditions of uncertainty.

Though the number of female faculty members has risen in public administration programs throughout the nation, few studies have analyzed the advances made by them at universities and colleges. The most commonly used method of examining success in academic settings is by analyzing the research productivity patterns of faculty members. However, evaluation should not be limited to measuring publication productivity alone, but also through measuring gender equity in leadership positions. Thus the purpose of this research is to analyze the scholarly output and leadership patterns of faculty members in fields of public administration and policy by gender. The study uses data from the Survey of Doctorate Recipients to examine career trajectories and 241 schools offering degrees in public administration, affairs, policy, and management listed on the NASPAA website to examine leadership patterns by gender. The results suggest that female faculty members have lower productivity despite controlling for demographic, institutional, and career factors. However, when interaction terms are introduced between female faculty and ages of children, the productivity gap by gender disappears.

This article describes the yearlong process of systematically developing an MPA Major Field Test with a team of five schools in various regions of the United States. Each school professor on the test team interviewed numerous practitioners to determine current issues in the profession. The practitioner information was filtered through at least one academic team member who used the information to create exam questions and submitted them for peer review. The test is based on NASPAA’s five competencies for the MPA degree. Four schools list the data gleaned from the test results and its impact on their MPA program. Though the data set is currently not large enough to determine validity or reliability, the article describes the process and the utility of the test to offer the first collaborative measurement for schools to determine the strength of their MPA program.

This article gives a broad overview of Turkish public administration research over the past 20 years and Turkey’s current situation of public administration education. It presents descriptive findings and discusses, compares, and contrasts them with previous research in the United States and Turkey. It examines public administration theory, research, and education together because, in an integrated body of scholarship, the three should reflect each other. Evidence in this study illustrates that the field of public administration in Turkey is quite different from American public administration, but that the elements of theory, research, and teaching are consonant with each other.

Competency models offer potential for defining effective and/or superior performance and then aligning curriculum and other learning opportunities with individual development goals. However, barriers exist that prevent optimal use of competency models, including difficulty identifying competencies and assessing development appropriately. This paper presents insights based on the design and implementation of a competency model for MPA students at the University of Kansas. Goals of this multiyear effort include (a) helping students assess their development as they progress through the MPA program, (b) linking competencies to curriculum and experiential learning opportunities, and (c) assessing progress using multiple evaluations over time. This paper considers associated challenges, including competency identification, assessment, and the need to capture emerging competencies.

What statistical software programs should be taught in public affairs graduate schools to best prepare students for prospective jobs? A nationwide survey of MPA, MPP, and related Masters programs found that introductory statistics courses most often use SPSS. In later statistics classes, MPP programs use Stata more often than SPSS. Budget and finance courses almost always employ Excel. Those priorities were fairly congruent with the market. Relevant employers on 35 job websites requested familiarity with Excel far more often than any other statistical software. SAS and SPSS were nearly tied for second place, and Stata was third. SPSS is used for data analysis in a plurality of relevant academic publications, but the use of Stata has increased sharply over the past 15 years. As public affairs faculties evaluate their curricula, findings from this research on program practices and employer priorities can help inform their deliberations.