Public Administration, MPA

The master of public administration program is designed to provide students with basic administrative skills which can be utilized in a variety of administrative careers. It is based on a core curriculum of required public administration and quantitative analysis courses with a variety of related electives that will provide students with a choice of emphases depending upon career objectives.

All students applying for the MPA program are expected to take the GRE. Requests for exceptions will be considered only if the student presents recent acceptable scores on a comparable standardized entrance exam.

Students may transfer up to 15 s.h. from an institution accredited by a regional accrediting organization with the approval of the director of the MPA program and the dean of the Graduate School. Requests for transfer credit should be made at the time of admission.

Students may earn the MPA degree by completing 45 s.h. as follows: 27 s.h. in core public administration and quantitative analysis courses, 3 s.h. of internship work for pre-service students, 12 s.h. electives in public management and/or public policy to be approved by the director of the MPA program, and 3 s.h. for the MPA professional paper.

Public administration required core courses - 27 s.h.

Internship - 3 s.h.

Pre-service students are required to complete a 3 s.h. internship prior to the semester before graduation (approximately 300 hours of work). This requirement may be waived by the internship director and the MPA director if the student has substantial previous or current work experience in public sector or non-profit employment. To have this requirement waived, the student must submit a request documenting the nature of this work experience to the internship director. The internship director will provide guidelines for this documentation to the student seeking a waiver from this requirement. After submission of the documentation, the waiver will be granted if the student has had significant public sector work experience. Those students who are exempted from this requirement will complete 42 s.h. instead of 45 s.h.; however, no academic credit will be awarded for work experience.

MPA professional paper - 3 s.h.

All students must enroll in PADM 6900 and complete an MPA professional paper in which they identify a public management problem or policy issue and develop a problem-resolution strategy. The completed paper must be defended successfully before a three-member committee of MPA faculty members (one member may be from outside the MPA faculty upon approval of the director of the MPA program).

Electives - 12 s.h.

All students must complete 12 s.h. of MPA elective courses in public management and public policy. Students completing a graduate certificate may substitute the coursework in that program for their areas of emphasis. The graduate certificates taken by MPA students generally require 15 s.h. or one additional course beyond the 12 s.h. of elective credit needed for the MPA degree. Students should consult the director of the MPA program prior to making their selections. Other related courses may be substituted if approved by the MPA director.