Journal of Public Affairs Education

This essay is a potpourri of reflections about elevating both the status of public affairs as a field and the Journal of Public Affairs Education (JPAE), the field’s journal of record. The reflections argue that public affairs programs need to elevate their status in our universities, and program leaders and faculty must take more responsibility for closing the gap between theory and practice. JPAE could facilitate these initiatives, support globalization of the field, and lead a more robust discussion of public affairs doctoral education.

To herald JPAE’s 25th volume, it is appropriate to look back at a bit of history and look forward to future research. Just as governments have faced demands to demonstrate results, so also did graduate programs in public policy and administration begin to face pressure to pay less attention to inputs and do more to demonstrate the results those inputs were producing. Beginning in the 1990s, NASPAA revised its accreditation standards to emphasize a mission-based approach with considerable attention to the competencies students develop while pursuing their degrees. That development stimulated an outpouring of research on competency assessment, but has fostered quite limited attention to the results of that focus for our graduates and the programs they analyze, the services they deliver, or the agencies they manage. The logical next step, research into the effects on student careers and public services, could help identify what works and how well it works in public affairs education.

A 25 retrospective on Journal of Public Affairs Education (JPAE) reveals clear evolution and differences in issues of interest to public affairs teachers. Historical contingency and circumstances impact what should be taught. But there are also constants – repeated and recurrent themes that transcend time, authors, and editors. As the longest serving editor-in-chief or co-editor for Journal of Public Affairs Education (JPAE) for nearly eight years, I learned a lot by reading the article submissions, and among the constants are the three themes – change, crisis, and continued belief in a single best way to teach or do things. This article reflects on these three themes and what they mean for the teaching and practice of public administration and affairs.

In many if not most colleges and universities in the United States, raw scores from Student Evaluations of Teaching (SETs) are the primary tool of teaching assessment, and teaching evaluations often have real consequences for promotion and tenure. In 2005, JPAE published an article on teaching evaluations, and this article added to what was at that time a somewhat thin literature indicating that SETs are systematically biased against female faculty, and probably against older and minority faculty. Since that time, this literature has swelled and grown and now the evidence that SETs are invalid and systematically biased is too strong to ignore. Over its first 25 years, JPAE has been a force for good in public affairs education. As JPAE moves into its next 25 years, it should take a principled and evidence-based stand against the use of raw SETs as an important indicator of teaching quality, and should encourage high-quality articles studying other methods of assessing teaching so that we can learn what approaches are better.

This article evaluates the Journal of Public Affairs Education’s (JPAE) contribution during its first twenty-five years to the study of international and comparative public affairs education by looking at the 59 articles published that examine this topic in an international context. It uses a qualitative, iterative approach to summarize their themes of the 59 articles, and to categorize and display the different comparative emphases and public affairs education topics treated in them. It presents some quantitative data on the number of articles by category and by annual publication trend. It uses the results of this analysis to assess JPAE’s overall contribution in the international context of public affairs and to make suggestions for the future in this area.

Upon the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Journal of Public Affairs Education (JPAE), this article examines its development from 1995 to 2018. Many scholars in public affairs and administration have published in its pages, and the journal offers a large variety of articles on curriculum, pedagogy, and educational philosophy. This article presents the results of a qualitative content analysis of topics, as well as a quantitative bibliometric analysis of authorship patterns. Topics such as diversity and inclusion, teaching methodology, and the nature of public affairs education play prominent roles on the journal’s pages. Collaboration among authors has become more common. Gender representation has experienced changes over time. International authors also contribute. The co-author network structure of JPAE is relatively sparse but shows potential for greater collaboration. Finally, this article identifies directions for future exploration in the journal.

NASPAA expects accredited public affairs programs to stress public service values in their educational program. This article examines the values that are included the mission statements of 125 public affairs programs. There is wide dispersion in the number and content of the values identified in these mission statements. Content analysis of the five universal competencies was conducted to determine the match between the values in the mission statement and the description of competencies. The results indicate a common need for better integration of key values and the content of the curriculum. Finally, an approach to strengthen the activation of values by relating them to ethical standards in the Code of Ethics of the American Society for Public Administration or another comprehensive code is demonstrated. Despite clear connections between the values in NASPAA competencies and the principles and standards in the American Society for Public Administration Code, few programs incorporate codes in their curriculum.

In the fields of public administration, policy, and public affairs, more women are earning PhD degrees and entering male-dominated academic and public sector job markets. This trend raises questions about the future of dissertation research and implications of gender on methodological approach and research design. This study examines the state of dissertation methods and research design in public administration, policy, and public affairs doctoral programs through the lens of gender between the years 2010 and 2014. A total of 986 dissertations are reviewed from PhD programs housed in universities that have NASPAA accredited MPA programs. Chi-square tests of independence and multinomial logistic regression illustrate that choice of methodological approach is not independent of gender, but rather there is a significant association between the two, and choice of research design also impacts methodological approach. Descriptive statistics show an increased trend in females using quantitative approaches to dissertation research.

Maynard Wiertalla is a Corrections Shift Supervisor 12 (Lieutenant) for the Michigan Department of Corrections DOC). He is accused of sexually harassing a male subordinate, who alleged that Lt. Wiertalla touched him inappropriately more than 300 times over 12 years. The DOC interviewed the subordinate and staff members as part of its investigation, revealing that the inappropriate physical contact took the predominant form of prodding and poking with fingers in the ribs or stomach, or grabbing of the upper thigh or crotch area, often by surprise. Lt. Wiertalla admitted to what was described. Witnesses characterized the physical touching as horseplay rather than sexual harassment. This case explores how the DOC disciplined Lt. Wiertalla and defended its disciplinary action on appeal to the Employment Relations Board of the Michigan Civil Service Commission. The case is useful for raising questions about sexual harassment, authority, grievance procedures, due process and organizational justice.