New MPA Curriculum Has Been Approved– For Fall 2013!

For more than two years, the faculty worked on developing a new curriculum.  We consulted our Advisory Board, sought input from alumni and current students, and thought again about what students really needed to know in order to manage effectively in the public service of the future. Finally, we developed a new structure for the curriculum and sought University approval– which we have now received.

This curriculum will be followed by those students who are admitted in Fall 2013 and afterwards.  Students admitted prior to that will still have available all the courses they need to complete their degree under the old curriculum, although some will have different names or numbers (see here for a chart of old course names and numbers and new course names and numbers).

There are several documents available to assist students in understanding the new curriculum:

• An Overview of the new curriculum;
• A complete list of all courses under the curriculum;
• A Guide for Current Students on How to Use the New Curriculum to Complete their Degree program (with new courses and course structure to complete their degree); and,
• The proposal we used to get approval to revise the curriculum.

This figure provides another way to view the new curriculum:

Why a new curriculum?   There are a variety of reasons:

• New, emerging issues in public affairs to be incorporated
• Developing management trends needed to be included
• Lots of new content to be incorporated into curriculum
  • Collaborative management
  • Civic engagement
  • Contracting out
  • Change management
  • Macroeconomics
• Wanted to take advantage of what our new colleagues in the School of Public Affairs and Civic Engagement could offer
  • Criminal Justice
  • Environmental Studies
  • Urban Studies and Planning

We believe this to be an innovative and cutting edge curriculum that will serve both our current and our new students well.  Thanks to everyone who provided input and worked on this.    We will be hosting information sessions for those who want to learn more– keep an eye on the website for those!