Journal of Public Affairs Education

In a rapidly changing policymaking environment, it has become increasingly important that students of public affairs be prepared to grapple with the ethical responsibilities they will face in their professional lives. It is not surprising, therefore, that many schools of public affairs have begun seeking ways to devote more attention to the teaching of ethics in their programs. Yet significant disagreement remains about how best to teach ethics in this context. In this article, we present and examine critically two prevalent approaches, ethics codes and ethical awareness. We then offer our own alternative model, ethics as collaborative judgment. In contrast with the other two approaches, collaborative judgment encourages students to take a more active role in searching for contextual solutions to public problems by engaging in a mutual process of discernment with other ethical interpreters. It is thus better able to train policy professionals who are sensitive to the particular demands of crafting policy in a complex democratic environment. We conclude the article by providing some reflections on our own efforts in developing pedagogy around this approach.

This article examines the extent to which gender issues in public administration are covered in NASPAA-accredited and affiliated master's programs nationwide. In response to the NASPAA Diversity Report (2000), the authors surveyed all principal representatives in an effort to identify specific course coverage of gender issues within these programs. The study finds that courses on gender issues are being offered unevenly across NASPAA schools. The authors conclude that the study of gender issues in public affairs benefits—and remains essential for—female and male students and practitioners alike.

NASPAA accreditation standards, university assessment processes, and program management have put an increased emphasis on outcome and performance measurement in MPA and related programs. Simple yet comprehensive measures are not easily found or are very difficult and expensive to create. Based on the trade-offs, this article proposes information that may be collected as a byproduct of MPA program operation and from supplemental processes. Use of these multiple measures can serve well in assessing MPA programs and in guiding their performance. Examples are given from a specific MPA program.

Practical applications of ethics instruction are important in helping the student translate classroom learning into actionable knowledge, and they are useful in demonstrating the ethical challenges that public sector professionals face. One approach to developing an understanding of ethics applications is the training and manual exercise detailed here. Specifically, student groups are asked to develop an ethics training session and accompanying manual for a department of local, state, or federal government or a nonprofit organization. The exercise involves a comprehensive description of the ethical issues faced therein, potential catalysts for unethical behavior, sources for information on resolving ethical problems, and linkages to the ASPA Code of Ethics. An outline of the specific steps of the exercise is provided, along with a listing of representative ethical issues and their possible solutions.

This article is a case study of an equal employment opportunity course in which the main project is a personal interview of a minority, female, or disabled worker. The teaching method in this course combines the legal and sociological approaches to the study of the disadvantaged worker. Legal issues are addressed through discussion of public policy and legal precedents in class. Sociological issues are explored through primary, rather than secondary, sources in the oral history interview. In the academic setting, the oral history method is most often associated with history courses. However, as this case study will demonstrate, oral history is applicable and valuable in the study of public administration as well. Oral history provides an unfiltered, first-person view of the working environment and public policy's impact on the individual worker. It is an especially beneficial learning tool for this course because the experiences and viewpoints of disadvantaged persons in society, and the workforce, have historically been ignored and are not likely to be found in a standard textbook. Oral history, an example of active learning, requires students to reach into the community and speak directly to an individual who has been personally affected by the issues discussed in the classroom. Students gain “ownership” of the assignment and their education through the oral history approach.

The Mississippi “New” Capitol in Jackson, completed in 1903. The statuary group, titled “Our Mothers,” is typical of Southern public monuments bonoring women associated with the Confederate cause of the War Between the States, the Civil War. Photograph by Charles T. Goodsell, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.