Course Offerings, 2007-08

PAPA   Concepts and Approaches in Public Administration
5014    Eikenberry
           Monday, 5:00-8:00pm
            A broad introduction to the study and practice of public administration. Course explores the development, and the political, social, and economic environment, of public administration (especially in the U.S.) and the role of the public service practitioner in a democratic society. Designed to complement the material in PAPA 5315, Behavioral Skills for Public Managers, and PAPA 5316, Systems Skills for Public Managers.

PAPA   Context of Public Administration
6024    Jensen
           Tuesday, 2:30-5:30pm plus Saturday, December 8,
           10:00-4:30, in Harrisonburg (final course meeting with the
           Alexandria 6024 class and Dr. Wolf; attendance required)
            Examines the development of the administrative state, the history of public administration as a field of study, and the social, political, and economic context of public administration as an element of governance. Doctoral students only.

PAPA   Public Policy Processes
6214    Dudley
           Tuesday, 9:00am-noon
            Explores the processes of policy-making and techniques of policy analysis in and for government. Covers the traditions, assumptions, and diverse perspectives of the field, notes and critiques the literature, and examines relationships with other fields and topics of public administration.

PAPA   Normative Foundations of Public Administration
6414    Rohr
           Tuesday, 7:00-10:00pm (plus Saturday, 10/20 in
           Charlottesville with the Richmond 6414 class and
           Dr. Roberts)
            Examines the discretionary judgments of administrators as the central normative issue in the field of public administration, and looks to constitutional principles for guidance in the responsible exercise of administrative discretion. Particular emphasis placed upon on selected court decisions as vehicles for comparing and contrasting legal and moral reasoning.

PAPA   Public Administration and Policy Inquiry
6514    Roberts
           Wednesday, 5:00-8:00pm
            Course focuses upon professionally oriented, applied research methods.

PAPA   Advanced Topics in Public Policy: Charity, Philanthropy, and Civil Society
6254    Eikenberry
           Wednesday, 1:00-4:00pm
            Explores the evolution of philanthropy and charity in the United States and abroad and introduces major issues and continuing concerns linked to the institutions engaged in these activities while exploring their ties to civil society. This course also may be taken as a doctoral capstone course, PAPA 6294, by permission of the instructor.

PAPA   Advanced Topics in Public Management: Public Management Processes
6354    Wamsley
           Thursday, 9:00am-noon
            Explores the alternative ways of understanding the so-called management processes of budgeting, personnel, accounting, and planning. In the “conventional wisdom” of public administration, these are conceived of as rational instrumentalities of agency, chief executive, or managerial control and direction. In contrast to this conventional treatment of these processes, this seminar will explore their multiple realities, multiple dimensions of meaning, and the “frontstage” or public depictions of them by participants versus their “backstage” or “insider’s” understandings of them. Familiarity with at least one of the above processes would be helpful, but it is not necessary.

PAPA   Capstone in Public Policy: Charity, Philanthropy, and Civil Society
6294    Eikenberry
           Wednesday, 1:00-4:00pm
            Explores the evolution of philanthropy and charity in the United States and abroad and introduces major issues and continuing concerns linked to the institutions engaged in these activities while exploring their ties to civil society. Doctoral students only, by permission of the instructor.

PAPA   Capstone in Public Policy: Structuring, Agency, and Policy Dynamics
6294    Hult
            Residency capstone course; spans both fall and spring semesters. Doctoral students only. Explores the policy effects of varying constitutional/institutional designs, leadership strategies, and characteristics of policy. Primary emphasis on examining the policy impacts of, for example, human design and re-design of institutions, the complex networks in which organizations and institutions are embedded, and political and policy constraints and opportunities. Considers multiple types of policy, highlighting governmental and non-profit sectors at local, national, and international levels. Course concentrates on OECD countries, but examples from other areas will be welcome.

Special variable dates/locations/times (tentative):
8/23/07 Polycom 4:00-6:45pm
9/15/07 Harrisonburg 10:00am-noon, 1:00-4:00pm
10/11/07 Blacksburg 1:00-4:00pm
10/12/07 Blacksburg 9:00am-noon
10/13/07 Blacksburg 10:00am-1:00pm
10/25/07 Polycom 4:00-6:45pm
12/1/07 Harrisonburg 10:00am-noon, 1:00-4:00pm
Spring 08 TBA

PAPA   Capstone in Public Management: Public Management and Organizational Change
6394    Dudley
           Wednesday, 5:30-8:30pm
            How public managers have initiated and/or facilitated dramatic changes in governance in the last decade. Topics will include a review of managing organizational change in public organizations and some of the challenges of managing blended workforces and the pressures to be a high performing organization in an era of alternative conceptions of publicness.

Because of curriculum changes, the instructor will work with Ph.D. students in their second year or later to have the course fulfill the requirement for PAPA 6124, Behavior and Change in Organizations.

NOTE NEW REQUIREMENT:
PAPA 5904, MPA Professional Paper
PAPA 5954, MPA Internship
PAPA 5994, MPA Thesis
           MPA Proseminar
           Dudley
            This mentoring proseminar is REQUIRED for ALL M.P.A. students planning to graduate in Fall 2007 or Spring 2008. The focus will be preparing for the internship conference paper, professional paper, or thesis. The first meeting will be held at NOON on Tuesday, August 28, at which time students will declare their intentions to graduate in fall or spring. Students planning to graduate in the fall will meet weekly during the fall semester until their papers and presentations are complete. Those planning to graduate in the spring will meet three times during the fall semester and weekly during the spring until their papers and presentations are complete.

Students should register for PAPA 5904, Project and Report, or 5954, Internship, or 5994, Thesis, per current practice.

PAPA   Dissertation Hours/Proseminar
7994               Ph.D. Mentoring Program
           Eikenberry
            This program is under development. It will meet approximately three times per semester. Students should register for PAPA 7994, Dissertation Hours/Proseminar, per current practice.

PAPA   Research Methods
5115    Hult
           Wednesday, 9:00am-noon
            The purposes, problems, and strategies of political science, public administration, and public policy research, emphasizing concept and hypothesis formulation, research design, observational techniques, and analyses of qualitative and quantitative data. Recommended for CPAP doctoral students.

PAPA   Behavioral Skills for Managers
5315    Eikenberry
            Addresses the personal competencies that public service practitioners face in the work environment. Special focus on the interpersonal and group skills needed to work in organizational settings. Consideration of management approaches within the context of the environmental, historical, political, social, and economic issues discussed in PAPA 5014.

PAPA   Systems Skills for Managers
5316    Roberts
            Investigates the skills, techniques, and technologies required to manage public organizations efficiently and effectively, and to hold administrative entities and actors accountable.

PAPA   Complex Public Organizations
6114    Dudley
            Examines the principal conceptual and theoretical bases for understanding the structure and environment of complex organizations, and explores the challenges that bureaucracy poses for democratic theory and for vigorous economy.

PAPA   Policy Design, Implementation, and Evaluation
6224    Instructor TBA
            Explores the processes by which public policy is formulated, analyzed, implemented, and evaluated in a variety of institutional settings.

PAPA   Public Budgeting Processes
6314    Jensen
            Explores the processes and dynamics of public sector budgeting and their relation to economic conditions and the politics of taxation and spending. The norms and behaviors of participants in budget processes, their impacts on public policy, intergovernmental dynamics, and implications for equity, democracy, inclusion, and effective public management are examined.

PAPA   Public Personnel Processes
6324    Woodard
            In modern government, human resources management (HRM) plays an integral role both organizational performance and democratic governance. This course focuses on public HRM and human capital management as a component of a strategic organizational framework and an integrated management system. Human capital policies and programs fall within the contexts of political, legal, and managerial systems. To manage within this complex environment, public managers must balance increasing levels of discretionary authority with corresponding responsibility, accountability, and liability in managing people to accomplish the work of the organization.

PAPA   Advanced Topics in Policy Systems: Federalism and Intergovernmental Management
6264    Jensen
            The relations and vertical interactions between levels of government in the United States and their influence on contemporary policy development and implementation. Emphasis on the origins and evolution of U.S. federalism; the dynamics of Federal-state struggles over authority; fiscal and information flows between levels of government; and the challenges of policy and program management in a heavily intergovernmentalized, and increasingly privatized, system of governance.

PAPA   Advanced Topics in Public Management: Legal Environment of Public Administration
6354    Rohr
            This course will examine the legal foundation and environment of public management. Particular emphasis will be placed on how the judiciary has struggled to shape the administrative process in its own image.

PAPA   Capstone in Public Policy: Structuring, Agency, and Policy Dynamics (continued)
6294   
            Residency capstone; registration in both fall and spring semesters is required. Doctoral students only.

NOTE NEW REQUIREMENT:
PAPA 5904, MPA Professional Paper
PAPA 5954, MPA Internship
PAPA 5994, MPA Thesis
           MPA Proseminar
           Dudley
            This mentoring proseminar is REQUIRED for ALL M.P.A. students planning to graduate in Fall 2007 or Spring 2008. The focus will be preparing for the internship conference paper, professional paper, or thesis. The first meeting of the spring is T.B.A. Students planning to graduate in the spring will meet weekly during the spring until their papers and presentations are complete.

Students should register for PAPA 5904, Project and Report, or 5954, Internship, or 5994, Thesis, per current practice.

PAPA   Dissertation Hours/Proseminar (continued)
7994    Ph.D. Mentoring Program
           Rohr
            This program is under development. It will meet approximately three times per semester. Students should register for PAPA 7994, Dissertation Hours/Proseminar, per current practice.