M.P.A. in Public Administration

Overview

The MPA is the preferred graduate degree for a career in public service, enabling our graduates to pursue a multitude of career paths in federal, tribal, state, local government, as well as the nonprofit, education and private sector. Students graduate with an understanding and knowledge of government institutions, actors, and processes. As a professional program, emphasis is placed on learning the concepts, processes, and techniques associated with conducting society's business. The degree blends theoretical and practical dimensions while encouraging a broadened scholarly and professional perspective.

This M.P.A. program can train you to lead effectively. You will reflect critically on the role of public administration in a democratic society, the role you can play in applying our constitution and what your civic responsibilities are, as a public servant.

IIU MPA Mission Statement

The mission is to instill the knowledge, skills, and values necessary to manage and lead with distinction in government and related organizations that serve the public good in the U.S. democratic context and abroad.

We will achieve our mission by preparing students to:

• Incorporate a range of values into administrative actions, including democratic/constitutional values, respect for the diversity of people and perspectives in the policy process, and administrative values such as responsiveness, accountability, effectiveness and equity.
• Analyze administrative problems, craft solutions, and communicate them effectively to relevant stakeholders.
• Apply acquired knowledge about administration/management/leadership in contemporary public and related organizations and systems.

Fall Semester

PAD 700 — The Legal Environment, Human Resources and —

Organizational Leadership 3

Leadership in Organizations 3

Spring Semester

AREA OF SPECIALIZATION

HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT

Elective Courses

LOCAL GOVERNMENT & ADMINISTRATION

PLANNING & BUDGETING PROGRAM

PAD 731 — Economic and Financial Theory — 3

PAD: 734: Economics of Government Revenues 3

HEALTHCARE MANAGEMENT

COURSE DESCRIPTIONS

PAD 700: The Legal Environment, Human Resources and Organizational Leadership:

This course explores three areas of public administration; the legal environment for the public organization, human resources, and organizational leadership. The first part of the course focuses on creating agency authority, public participation, civil liability, employment law, and due process. The second part of the course focuses on selecting and retaining quality employees and managers, evaluations, coaching and training. The third part of the course focuses on strategic leadership, organizational analysis and culture, managing conflict, and organizational vision and change.

PAD 711: Strategic Communications & Information Leadership:

Strategic communication is a vital skill in today’s demanding, fast-paced, virtual or global workplaces. This course requires students to identify a personal leadership style, tendencies and preferences as a professional, and how one assimilates and applies information. Experiential learning is a large component of this course, so students will practice their skills at work and relay their experiences through a Leadership Development Portfolio

PAD 712: Strategic Organizational Behavior as Leadership in Organizations:

This course recognizes the fundamental importance of utilizing and believing in an ethical strategy as a leader. Principled decision-making promotes triple-bottom-line thinking to heighten awareness of how important ethical practices are to promoting a lasting, honored, socially responsible brand. Several case studies will be reviewed to contrast the paths and results of several organizations whose leaders had a strategy, but not one grounded in ethical principles.

PAD 713: Public Sector Incident Management & Emergency Response:

This course instructs students how to respond to incidents that effect governmental agencies. The topics include developing a response plan, emergency operations centers, emergency communications, and working with the first responder community. Students will also learn best practices for developing off-site backups and work areas, and the placement of people and equipment for continuing operations during an emergency.

PAD 714: Issues and Practices in Program Evaluation:

Workshops will be concerned with a range of program evaluation methods or tools that are currently practiced, debated, or endorsed in the field. The emphasis is on the most contemporary public service environments in which program evaluations are conducted. Individual topics will include performance measurement, stakeholder input, outcome assessment methods, data collection issues, and other factors in the comprehensive program evaluation process.

PAD 715: Welfare Policy and Management:

Analysis of current and former welfare programs, including objectives, policy designs, management systems and effects on low income families. Attention is given to the fine print of laws and regulations and mechanisms for implementing them.

PAD 716: Organizational Theory and Behavior:

This course uses social science theories and methods to understand human behavior in organizations. It explores such important areas as decision-making, perception, communication, group dynamics, and such managerial issues as organizational politics, organizational culture, and organizational change. Students employ case studies and exercises to develop skills in organizational analysis.

PAD 720: Politics and Policy:

Examination of the influence of political factors on the initiation, formulation and implementation of public policy. Considers the role of political institutions and forces in defining and shaping policy options and choices. Seeks to equip the student with the background necessary to operate effectively within the political environment of policy-making.

PAD 723: Historical Analysis and Public Policy:

The class introduces master’s students to the unique approach of historians who tackle contemporary policy issues. It aims to demonstrate how historical analysis can be useful in understanding policy challenges. Students will see that the historical approach is especially suited to particular challenges, such as discovering long-term patterns in government institutions that are likely to shape policy outcomes.

PAD 724: Citizen Participation and Public Policy:

The historic origins of the increasingly used statutory mandate for “citizen participation” as a requisite test of legitimacy, both in the formulation and implementation of public policy; a survey of applications in federal and state law and impact on the subjects and objects of public policy.

PAD 725: Systems Thinking and Strategy Development:

The course presents a set of concepts and tools for thinking through complex system-wide problems that challenge government managers’ ability to design and manage cross-agency and intergovernmental policies and programs. Students will learn to diagnose and solve complex system-level problems by applying systems thinking and strategic planning tools to case examples.

PAD 726: Environmental Policy, Management and Regulation:

An introduction to environmental policy and management in the United States to include a review of environmental ethics; major substantive areas of air, water, land and hazardous waste policy; the political dynamics that frame environmental policy making at the federal, state, and local levels of government; and the management issues arising in the implementation of environmental policy within the intergovernmental context.

PAD 727: Public Administration Research & Analysis:

This course reviews major research method designs and their application to policy development and evaluation. Students are also exposed to statistical techniques commonly found in public administration and social science research from the perspective of managerial control and application to evaluation of research design/program evaluation. Particular focus is placed on quality assurance and best-evidence management

PAD 728: Law and Policy:

Examination of the role of the courts in the public policy process and in substantive policy fields; integrates the literature of law and policy and applies it to such areas as mental health care, corrections, human resources, education, and housing policy.

PAD 731: Human Resources Development:

A survey of individual/group behavior, organizational structure, controls, work design, and motivation is presented as a background. Leads to discussion of the major institutions, methods, and procedures that constitute public personnel systems (the merit system, career staffing, selection, training, position classification, compensation, and workforce planning.

PAD 732: Seminar in Public Personnel Management:

Consideration of selected problems in the public personnel management process. Emphasis on empirical theories of motivation, satisfaction, productivity, supervisory patterns, and organizational conditions.

PAD 734: The Legal Environment, Human Resources and Organizational Leadership:

PAD 735: Public Employees and the Law:

Legal issues affecting public employees, with consideration of the constitutional and statutory context of public employment, including first amendment freedoms, due process protections and equal protection of the law. Such issues as employee discipline, political activity of public employees, liability and privacy issues also covered.

PAD 732: Human Resources in Public Service:

Compares modern techniques for effective personnel management with customary practices in the public, nonprofit and health sectors. Covers major laws that affect human resources such as the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Civil Rights Act. Students complete a personnel project for a public service agency.

PAD 733: Fundamentals of Administrative Law:

Survey of aspects of public law and legal methodology of particular concern to public administrators. The origins of doctrines associated with American constitutionalism and the rule of law, and the basic constitutional framework and concepts conditioning American public administration. Analysis of current issues emerging from the growth of the administrative process within this framework, involving the delegation to, nature of, and exercise of discretionary powers by administrators, related questions of administrative organization, and the limits placed on exercise of discretionary powers through judicial review and other devices for holding administrative agencies accountable and responsive to the traditional values of democratic government.

PAD 737: Policy Studies:

Examines approaches to the study of public policy such as public choice theory, implementation analysis, systems analysis, and impact analysis as they are applied to policy areas such as health, welfare, education, and criminal justice.

PAD 738: Non-Profit Governance:

This course examines the governance environment where boards and the leadership volunteers that serve on them operate, including what boards and volunteers do and how they do it to maximize nonprofit organization effectiveness. The aspect of the course that covers the “what” is the formal roles and responsibilities of boards whereas the “how” refers to the non-formal approach taken to carry out their roles vis a vis the organization’s management. The course utilizes a series of written reflections and Academic Service Learning (ASL) to explore the concept of board effectiveness in a real world context (e.g. students are matched to local boards to assess governance effectiveness). ASL, which is an intellectual process (academic) and product (service) of learning, is an ideal pedagogy for the theme of the course exploring ways nonprofit boards and the volunteers that sit on them add positive value to nonprofit organizations.

PAD 731: Decision Making in Local Government and Administration:

Rational decision theory and decision-making practice as illustrated by case materials. Topics covered may include: the economic concept of utility and maximization; the analytic problems of modeling and uncertainty; the psychological considerations of individual preferences and risk-taking behavior; the organizational and political context of decisions and its effect on agency choice; and current trends in local government administration decision-making structures.

PAD 732: Local Government Administration:

An analysis of the formation and implementations of policies at the local level. Municipal management concerns with human and financial resources, city and town planning and service delivery. In-depth cases are utilized throughout.

PAD 734: Local Government Administration and Legislatures:

The purpose of this course is to impart essential information about working in or working with local government legislative institution in the United States or internationally. Students will gain comparative insight into the abiding political nature of such organizations while coming to appreciate both their significant administrative needs and the challenges of bringing local government administration principles and practices to bear in a legislative environment with particular operational and functional needs. The knowledge imparted by the course will prove useful not only to legislative staff persons and elected members of legislative bodies, but to local government administration students interested in becoming staffers, as well as local government administrators and lobbyists who work with, or are affected by the actions of, legislatures. As current or aspiring local government administrators working in legislatures as staff persons or as elected members, course participants will develop an understanding about the administration of the legislative process as well as the numerous other organizational needs of legislative bodies in support of their core mission. The sensitivities required to perform effectively in such an environment and sustain key elements of institutional development will be explored in depth. For those seeking to understand the frequently incomprehensible ways of such bodies, the clearer picture that will emerge from the course of what makes legislative bodies tick – their political rationality – will serve class participants well.

PAD 735: Local Government Law:

Fundamentals of law relating to local government, viewed from the perspective of the public administrator.

PAD 736: Program Seminar in Managing Local Government:

Student research on problems and processes of managing local governments. Topics may include human resources for financial management and design or evaluation of public service programs. Research involves field studios in municipal or county governments and builds on courses previously taken in management and urban policy areas. Public officials are invited to discuss and critique student projects.

PAD 737: Municipal Government Internship:

Professional experience in local government. Reports and readings required.

PAD 738: Ethics in Public Administration:

The ethics of managerial behavior in government and organization, ethics codes and their implementation, ethical issues arising from the influence of administrators on public policy. Course procedures include readings, discussion, and student projects to relate ethics concepts to case studies or research findings.

PAD 748: Issues in Public Administration:

An examination of basic issues in public administration. Case studies in such areas as public policy implementation and public management at the international, national, state, sub-state, and local levels in public and non-profit organizations.

PAD 731: Economic and Financial Theory:

Examines the important theories in economics and finance relevant to public administration and basic tools of economics and finance needed to understand important public sector issues. Use of economic theory to analyze issues such as market failure, tax policy, equity and efficiency, and provision of public goods. Use of financial theory to understand the basics of financial management in the public sector such as cash and debt management and capital budgeting.

PAD: 734: Economics of Government Revenues:

How do governments collect revenues, and what are the effects on the economy? Who bears the costs of taxation? Why do many countries have several layers of government (federal, state/province, local) and why do different layers collect different types of taxes and perform different types of services? What are the effects of welfare programs like TANF and the EITC? This class surveys the economics of taxation (especially in the U.S.), tax evasion, poverty relief programs, fiscal federalism, local public finance. The class looks at both theory and empirical research. Emphasis is placed on reading professional academic sources.

PAD 735: Capital Markets, Risk and Governments:-

This course will examine related concepts of risk and return, the impact of diversification on risk, and the fundamental concepts that underlie derivative products in both equity and debt markets. It will explore these concepts in the context of regulation, government borrowing, hedging and pension investment activities. It will include an examination of topics such as: risk premiums, the impact of diversification on portfolio risk, the pricing and expected return on equity investments, the role of derivatives in investments, the pricing of both debt and equity derivatives and the relationship between these concepts and capital requirements. The course will also examine the basic structure of taxable and tax-exempt debt, the various kinds of issuers (including public authorities), and the pricing of debt in primary and secondary markets.

PAD 736: Public Budgeting:-

This course will involve a detailed examination of the processes and analytical techniques involved in developing and managing public budgets. Extensive attention will be put on budget processes and politics, the analysis of public revenue sources, and the techniques of budget analysis. The course will include considerable analysis of public budgets as well as a detailed examination of current issues, controversies and research in public budgeting.

PAD 737: Theories and Models of the Policy Process:

Current theories of the policy process, including policy streams, advocacy coalitions, punctuated equilibria, institutionalist and rational choice models. Considerable emphasis on theory, hypothesis testing and empirical research. Students will finish the seminar prepared to do sophisticated original research in the policy process.

PAD 738: Methods of Public Policy Analysis:

Develops an appreciation of the approach and techniques of 'systems analysis.' The context is that of the making of 'policy decisions.' Emphasizes the use of examples to illustrate the theoretical and procedural points being made.

PAD 739: Comparative Policy Systems:

This seminar investigates why some industrial societies have addressed challenges such as economic management and social welfare more effectively than others. It compares both policies and institutional structures charged with implementation in countries including France, Japan, and Britain. Privatization and prospects for international cooperation are explored.

PAD 766: Legislative Research:

Designed to enable students to develop skills in the utilization of methods of legal research, with particular reference to legislative staff work. Techniques of bill drafting and writing bill memoranda and reports. Use of standard legislative documents. Includes other research techniques in fact-finding and analysis appropriate for legislative research.

PAD 731: Financial Management in Health Care:

Financial management skills for health care administration, including budget preparation and execution, budgetary techniques, accounting principles, working capital management and reimbursement.

PAD 734: Health Care System Management:

Health care is a constantly changing field. Examines the development of the public/nonprofit/for-profit health care delivery system in the United States. Examines current administrative practices in areas such as governance and organization, planning and marketing, human resources, facility management in mental health and hospital administration and ethics.

PAD 735: Health Care and Human Services Policy and Administration:

History and analysis of health and human services policy. Structures and dynamics, roles of government and citizen groups in policy formation and implementation, ethical issues, and topics of current health and human services policy interests.

PAD 736: Health Policy Analysis:

This course introduces students to policy analysis and management by examining issues in the health sector. It fosters an appreciation of the complexity of policy problems and provides the basic tools used in policy design, implementation and evaluation.

PAD 737: Health, Safety and Environmental Regulation:

Presents a political and economic assessment of risk regulation policies as they have developed for air and water pollution, work place risks, auto safety, drug regulation and nuclear power. Prerequisite:

PAD 738: Health Care Finance:

Examines major policy and implementation issues in the financing of health care, particularly the poor. Among the topics addressed are health cost containment, Medicaid, long term care, AIDS, and the provision of care to the uninsured.

PAD 739: Disease Policy:

Managing Public Health Problems: This course examines major political factors that shape health policy decisions and the government response to various diseases and health conditions. Specific questions include: Why are some diseases more likely to get on the public agenda? How can we assess which jurisdictions and populations have higher needs for public health services? Why is it so hard to incorporate clinical and economic evidence into health policy decisions? What public policy tools are available to target health conditions, and what are the legal constraints on public health intervention? Prerequisite: Students should already have some familiarity with the functioning of the U.S. health care system, either from professional experience or from taking a course on health policy or public health.

PAD 741: Your Money or Your Life: Economics of Health Policy:

Why is health care so expensive? Why do health care markets tend to be inefficient and unjust? What are major psychological biases in health care behavior? What incentives does the American health care system create for the different actors in the system? How can we evaluate health care outcomes? This course examines major topics in the economics of health care policy, including selection, moral hazard, bargaining power, adoption of new technologies, valuing health, consumer behavior, provider behavior, and psychological health economies.

PAD 742: Health Care Financial Analysis:

Examines the use of health care reimbursement as a policy tool and the manner in which health care providers such as physicians and hospitals respond to financial incentives. Course involves considerable hands-on exposure to the design and operation of various reimbursement systems including prospective rate setting, managed care, and bundled payment systems.

PAD 743: Politics of Environmental Regulation:

Evaluation of environmental regulation in the United States and considers the response of political and administrative institutions to complex problems such as toxic wastes.