NASPAA Conference Reminders
Presenters: Please post your papers, PowerPoint, handouts, IN ADVANCE on the wiki, http://naspaa2008.wikispaces.com. And we encourage everyone to READ THE PAPERS AND OTHER MATERIALS IN ADVANCE OF THE CONFERENCE!  NASPAA Standards 2009 Friday plenary: Participants should read the newly revised draft standards IN ADVANCE of the plenary if possible. The draft standards were revised and edited again following the 14 April discussions across the country, and are now posted on http://standards2009.wikispaces.com. The Final Conference Program is available. It shows committee/section meetings and panels not previously scheduled. The Francis Marion hotel is sold out. We have obtained the services of "Rooms With A View" to help you find an overflow hotel within walking distance of the Francis Marion Hotel. Please contact them on 1.800.780.4343. A Great Big Thank you to the Conference Sponsors, Exhibitors and universities that placed ads in our conference program. In addition to thanking the host schools of our conference, a special thanks go to The Bush School, Texas A&M University for being the Gold Sponsor; SPEA, Indiana University, Bloomington for being the Silver Sponsor; and LBJ School, The University of Texas at Austin for being the Bronze Sponsor. Your continued support of the conference and NASPAA is deeply appreciated. And again, links to fun things to do in Charleston, and some pretty pictures!  25 Reasons We Love Charleston http://www.budgettravel.com/bt-dyn/content/article/2007/08/29/ AR2007082901564.html Watch a Video about Charleston on YouTube http://youtube.com/watch?v=vgf5RBjlk1Y < back to top >

Need Marketing? NASPAA Toolkit For MPA/MPP Schools On October 15, NASPAA will officially launch a new online Communications and Marketing Toolkit. The Toolkit will be a "one-stop shop” for member programs.
	Schools can use new web and communication tools to help better market their school, MPA/MPP degrees and better brand individual programs. The Toolkit is specially designed for use by program staff such as admissions, marketing, Web-IT, faculty etc. There are more than a half dozen main tools to choose and use. A full launch will occur at the NASPAA Awards luncheon in Charleston. To preview: www.NaspaaToolkit.org.
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NASPAA Puts Last Touches On New Student Website Combining research on teens and millennials along with the latest web technology NASPAA has created a new student focused website.

The site has everything from alumni videos to social networking groups to a Top 10 list of reasons to get an MPA/MPP. It also has a database of our 265 member schools for prospective students to search through. Additionally, the web site invites international students, undergraduates and midcareer professionals to specific webpage’s created for them. The site is at http://www.GoPublicService.org and will be formally launched at the NASPAA Friday night reception at the NASPAA Conference. < back to top >

New ‘Go Public’ Ads Get Final Touches

The challenge of breaking through the clutter of media, news and advertisements has never been tougher especially for schools in higher education. Realizing these facts, NASPAA consulted with a professional designer and created new ads for member schools to use free of charge. The theme of the ad is ‘Go Public with the Degree that Makes a Difference’. The main directive and tag line is: ‘Go Public’, by which we mean, for people to pursue a professional career in public service bolstered by training and degrees that our schools offer. The ads feature 4 recent alumni who work in nonprofits, internationally, in state government and with an environmental organization. The ads will soon be made available for your use. You can preview them at: http://www.naspaatoolkit.org/files/10.aspx  < back to top >

In Search of Moderators for the New NASPAA/APPAM Syllabus Wiki
Are you a Master of the universe? …. Or at least possessing masterful knowledge of some component of public affairs and public policy curriculum? NASPAA and APPAM are soon to launch our Syllabus Wiki, and we are looking for volunteer moderators for each component of the curriculum. We expect this to be an important source of support and exchange for our teaching faculty, one that will become an important component of service to the profession in future.
As moderator, you will encourage peers in your curricular area to share their syllabi, and when needed, to do a little reorganizing of that portion of the wiki. Please see the details in the attached document on how to apply: we hope we’ll see you soon as a Wikirator!  Download Request for Syllabus Wiki Moderators (pdf) < back to top >

Congratulations to Newly Accredited Programs!
The following new applicants are now accredited. Congratulations are in order. They were each accredited by NASPAA’s Commission on Peer Review and Accreditation (COPRA) in 2008*.  Newly Accredited Programs: Augusta State University, Master of Public Administration  Florida Gulf Coast University, Master of Public Administration  Naval Postgraduate School, Master of Science in Management  University of Pittsburgh, Master of International Development  NASPAA accreditation signifies that a master's program in public affairs and administration has gone through a rigorous process of voluntary peer review conducted by the Commission on Peer Review and Accreditation (COPRA). Accreditation is an integral part of the nationwide effort to improve the quality of programs to prepare professionals for public service. * The COPRA Action Statement and the Updated Accreditation Roster are available on the NASPAA website. < back to top >

Accreditation Institute: Learn the Building Blocks to Accreditation Success!  The Path to Success Starts: 3pm, Wednesday, October 15, 2008 NASPAA Conference, Charleston, SC  Build your confidence in the Accreditation Process!  Featuring:
	Self Study Workshop  Site Visitor Training  Student Learning Outcomes Share Session  Program Outcomes Applied Workshop Roundtable on Site Visit Training for new Standards
Click here to see the Schedule of The Accreditation Institute’s Events & Highlighted Conference Sessions. Don’t Forget to Pre-Register for the Free Program Outcomes Applied Workshop on Saturday morning at copra@naspaa.org.  < back to top >

The Latest Version of the Proposed New NASPAA Accreditation Standards are Now Available Online for Comment and Viewing!

Come to the October 17 plenary session in Charleston prepared to discuss the newest version of the Standards. The Standards Committee requests that you please stop by the wikispaces site (http://standards2009.wikispaces.com) to comment on any aspect of the standards. Remember, the next iteration of the NASPAA Standards will be presented for a vote by accredited programs at the 2009 NASPAA Annual Conference. Now is the time to make your voice heard! You can also print a PDF of the Standards for sharing with your faculty, students, and advisory boards.  Standards 2009 Instructions Draft as of 9/12/08 (PDF) Standards 2009 Draft as of 9/12/08 (PDF) < back to top >

We are a year away from the big vote--not the presidential election—the vote on a set of revised NASPAA standards! As I write this the presidential campaign is centered on conflicts over big issues like the war in Iraq, regulation of our economy, and change (okay, the list of issues also includes lipstick on bovines and Barbra Streisand) and it looks like we are headed for another close race in the Electoral College. I would not want to speculate on agreement among our members on presidential candidates, but I am happy to report that NASPAA members seem to agree on many accreditation issues. The feedback we have received through the April focus groups throughout the nation, feedback from various organizations including COPRA and a symposium held at the James McGregor Burns Academy for Leadership at the University of Maryland, and feedback through other means is that the major thrusts of our proposed standards are appropriate. Specifically members seem to be comfortable with focusing more on specifying a common set of student competencies and learning outcomes, having programs measure at least some of the achievement of these outcomes, allowing the possibility of non-US programs seeking accreditation, making public service values of our degrees more explicit, and providing more information about the basis of evidence for accreditation.  There are some concerns that we have confronted in the revised proposed standards just posted on the NASPAA website, and we will address these and others in various ways at the October conference. Let me give you a preview by specifying some issues and briefly indicate how we are addressing them: Nomenclature: What should we call our field and degree? You probably didn’t notice the inconsistencies in the current nomenclature (e.g. “public affairs and administration” in our association’s name; “public affairs, policy, administration” in the current standards in most but not all places). In the revised standards we tried “public service”, then “public affairs, policy, and administration” and now we are recommending “public affairs, administration and policy.”  5-Faculty standard: We first recommended not making this a standard but rather an expectation in the standards of evidence, then an explicit expectation, and now we are recommending its inclusion in the standards as follows: “An adequate faculty nucleus--five (5) full-time faculty members or their equivalent—will exercise substantial determining influence…” We are trying to balance CHEA expectations that resources and inputs not be the focus of accreditation standards (CHEA “accredits” NASPAA), the preference of some small programs to maintain their five faculty with this standard and the desire of other small programs to be able to be accredited without exactly five full-time faculty, and the expectations of larger programs that a set of minimal standards be met by all programs to maintain the integrity of the awarding of NASPAA accreditation. Basis of evidence: We distributed a document focused on basis of evidence to make explicit the criteria by which COPRA should judge whether accreditation standards are met or not but this caused some angst about whether all programs would have to cover all bases. We have now included the basis of evidence in the more familiar and less anxiety provoking rewrite of a document entitled “Self-Study Instructions.” (This will not be voted upon; it will be sent to COPRA for its modification as circumstances warrant.)  Measurement of Student Learning: Many program representatives expressed a favorable response to focusing on these but also expressed concerns about their ability to measure all (or many) of their student learning objectives. To help programs make this transition the Accreditation Institute at the conference includes two sessions on outcomes measurement. I also recommend that members review the way AACSB (the accreditor of business schools) handled their transition on this web page: http://www.aacsb.edu/resource_centers/assessment/frequently-asked.asp.   Big tent or individual tents: Some expressed concern that public policy students will have to learn how to lead organizations and ASPA published a report expressing concern about diversity of master’s programs threatening the “core values” of a public administration degree. We have set a list of minimal competencies which does set the expectation that those from various fields/disciplines/ whatever within our big tent will need to obtain. But we have made it clear that "understanding interrelationships among public policy, leadership and management” is the requirement, not necessarily the capability to run an agency. To quote Bob Behn, “Any program that seeks to educate people for careers in public service—whether its graduates are to become analysts or managers—must teach both analysis and management.” (“Policy Analysis and Public Management: What Should Jones Do?” Education for the Public Service, 1980) We have also made it clear that all students should address “public service values”, which we define in the glossary. At the Friday morning plenary session Steve Maser and I will discuss several of the big issues of accreditation and explain where we are and why. (Steve is the chair of the Standards Committee, has worked diligently to try to build standards based on the Steering Committee’s principles, the views of our members, and the accepted professional practice in accreditation.) NASPAA Staff and the conference committee have planned several panels and workshops on issues of major importance in this process including the Thursday morning panel on “Understanding Excellence in Public Administration: ASPA’s Task Force, the MPA, and the Center of Gravity in Public Affairs Education.” And two outcomes measurement workshops in the Accreditation Institute, one on Wednesday afternoon and one on Saturday, will encourage members to share ideas about this significant topic. The NASPAA Standards 2009 Steering Committee which I chair has recommended to the Executive Council that a set of voting procedures be considered at their conference meeting and that a procedure for amending the standards we ultimately propose be established in a reasonable way. I want to assure NASPAA members that their input will continue to be sought, heard, and responded to but I also seek to make sure that we all understand that revising the standards does raise some issues where it will be difficult to please every voice. With your help, we will find a reasonable, if not unanimous, path. See you in Charleston! Jeff Raffel < back to top >

2009 Local Government Management Fellowship is Accepting Applications
The 2009 Local Government Management Fellowship Program welcomes students to apply starting September 15, 2008. The deadline to apply is November 28, 2008. Finalists are placed in local governments nationwide to assume real responsibility, thrive in an environment that recognizes potential, and gain unique exposure to local government management. To date fellows have nearly 100% post-fellowship employment offers in local government management. The fellowship program was created to help new graduates and career changers break into local government with that first critical job. Master's graduates from NASPAA-member academic institutions with degrees in public administration/management, public policy, public affairs (MPA/MPP) are eligible to apply for the Fellowship. The degree will have been completed in 2008 or by late summer 2009 (or earlier on a case-by-case basis). Students may review frequently asked questions, or apply online starting September 15 at http://icma.org/lgmf. Make a difference. < back to top >

 

Lawyers Top # of PMF Placements

The Presidential Management Fellowship program placed lawyers in more positions than any other academic category. 212 lawyers were placed compared to 163 for public administration/policy analysis. The complete matrix of academic placements is on page 29 of this summary report from the recent PMF meeting in Washington DC. https://www.pmf.opm.gov/Documents/AcademicOutreach.pdf  < back to top >