M.P.A. Courses

20:834:501 Introduction to Public Administration (3) Concepts and methods for analyzing significant factors and relationships in governmental agencies and nonprofit organizations as they function in their environments. Students identify and diagnose the principal types of problems encountered at levels of high administrative responsibility in government and the nonprofit sector.

20:834:503,504,509 Topics in Public Administration (3,3,3) Examination of selected issues and problems in public sector administration and management. The specific area within which issues are presented varies, but it may include health, public policy, human resources, and specialized topics. Students should check with the department to determine the precise curriculum to be offered in a given semester.

20:834:505 Intergovernmental Relations and Management (3) Management issues associated with administrative relationships among the levels of government in the United States, including fiscal and regulatory relations.

20:834:507 Leadership and Diversity (3) Leadership versus management; leadership qualities and characteristics; leadership skills, such as conflict management and team building; leadership tasks, including vision, agenda setting, and mobilizing resources; leadership in organizational and political settings; role of followership; and impact of diversity upon leaders and leadership.

20:834:514 Administrative Transparency (3) This seminar will address historical and current issues surrounding the concepts, theories, and practices of governmental transparency and how open government relates to ethics in public administration. Topics covered include open meetings, freedom of information laws, government publicity, whistle-blowing, and illegally leaked information.  Throughout the semester, we will discuss how transparency is at times in tension with personal privacy, national security, and governmental efficiency. How transparency relates to corruption and the different definitions of transparency in a transnational context are also addressed.

20:834:515 Administrative Morality (3) The primary goals of this course are to: (a) introduce students to the role that ethics and morals should play in the lives of public administrators in various capacities, and (b) provide tools and strategies for identifying and addressing ethical issues in professional life.

20:834:521 Technology and Public Administration (3) Implications of computer hardware and software issues for public sector management, with particular emphasis on applications of microprocessors. Includes a survey of database management problems, control, resource allocation, communications, and networking issues. Laboratory exercises required.

20:834:522 Public Organizations (3) Theories of organizational behavior and performance as applied to public and nonprofit sector agencies; includes organizational authority systems, relationships between public and private organizations, development and fulfillment of organizational mandates in the public sector, and use of resources within organizations.

20:834:523 Human Resources Administration (3) Human resources administration in public and nonprofit settings, including human resource planning, staffing, development, and compensation. Behavioral and environmental determinants are examined, including production technology, market factors, service delivery, and government regulations.

20:834:524 Strategic Planning (3) Strategic planning and management in the public and nonprofit sectors, including methods that facilitate achieving organizational goals in a changing environment. Attention paid to forecasting, goal and objective setting, strategy building, and resource mobilization.

20:834:525 Management Techniques (3) Problem-solving techniques that focus on effective managerial performance. Productivity and management improvement assessment techniques, including networking, queuing, simulations, linear programming quality-control approaches, focus groups, and the delphi technique.

20:834:526 Public and Nonprofit Productivity (3)   Analysis and critique of the most recent research on productivity in public organizations, with particular attention to human factors, work processes, effective-outcome measurement, and labor-management relations.

20:834:527 Labor Relations (3) Examines the history, contexts, and processes of employer/employee relations in public and private sectors. Among the topics addressed are the purposes of negotiation-based collective bargaining, forms and processes of collective bargaining systems (unions, work rules, adjudication, mediation, arbitration), limitations of collective bargaining systems, and alternatives for balancing stakeholder rights in the workplace.

20:834:528 Information Systems and Public Administration (3) Focus on practical application of management information systems in the public sector through case studies and implementation strategies. Looks at such topics as databases, system architecture, data normalization, benefit-cost analysis; offers an introduction to programming.
Prerequisite: General familiarity with personal computers is required.

20:834:529 Performance Measurement (3) Assessment of organizational performance, with particular attention to concepts of efficiency, effectiveness, outputs, and outcomes. Examines evaluation design, data collection procedures, data analyses, and citizen involvement.

20:834:537 Citizen-Driven Performance Improvement (3) Improving government performance and facilitating citizen participation are two recurrent themes in the administration of government. However, the link between performance measurement and citizen participation has not been fully emphasized. As a result, citizens' role in measurement has been occasionally realized but not systematically investigated. The consequence is that performance measurement may fall prey to political manipulation and managerial arrogance. In other words, performance measurement without citizen input, understanding, and acceptance will not fulfill its objective--to improve democratic accountability.

20:834:539 Egovernance (3) This online course focuses on the intellectual concept of governmental transparency. Using Blackboard, students will explore key policies in support of transparency as well as critically evaluate egovernance practices to identify some of the limitations and dangers involved with the rapidly changing role of information and information technology in today's society.

20:834:540 Citizen Surveys (3) This course explores the importance of citizen surveys and the mechanics of survey research design and implementation. Students are presented with a number of strategies for more effective data management and presentation.

20:834:541 Political Economy and Public Administration (3) Explores basic economic concepts and applies them to relevant public administration issues. Looks at microeconomic and macroeconomic problems as they impact the public and nonprofit sectors.

20:834:542 Government Budgeting Systems (3) Budget concepts and processes used by the American government and its administrative units. Provides essential skills and experience in budgetary analysis and management applicable to nonprofit as well as public sector agencies.

20:834:543 Public Financial Management (3) Surveys all major activities that concern the allocation, investment, and control of public funds. Activities include financial analysis, cash and pension fund investing, accounting, auditing, and financial reporting. Touches upon questions of budgeting and revenues in the context of fiscal policymaking.

20:834:545 Capital Budgeting (3) All aspects of capital budgeting, including what is appropriately included in capital budgets, what governments use capital budgets and why, how to create a capital improvement plan, and how to convert a capital improvement plan into a capital budget.

20:834:546 Infrastructure Finance (3) Implementation of the financing of a capital improvement plan for infrastructure items, such as streets, parks, public utilities, and other public works. Short- and long-term methods of financing, and the mix of markets in which funds may be sought. Emphasis on the latest financial tools created among investment banks in the public finance area. Fieldwork required.

20:834:553 Urban Education Policy and School Performance (3) Through a historical, sociological, and political analysis of educational problems, this course explores a variety of policy initiatives and reforms, including curriculum and learning standards, school choice, tuition vouchers, charter schools, privatization, and whole school reform.

20:834:556 Urban School Administration and Supervision (3) Drawing upon the literature on school administration and leadership, theories and practices are applied to the specifics of urban schools and urban school reform. Within this context, students explore how school administrators can be at the center of school restructuring and revitalization.

20:834:557 Urban School Leadership and Communication (3) Through an examination of school administration, leadership, and supervision literature and its application to urban districts, prospective school administrators analyze the complexities of urban school problems and improvement.

20:834:558 Leadership in Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment (3) Explores recent policies and practices in curriculum, instruction, and assessment, including recent debates about national and state curriculum and learning standards and how to assess them. Special attention focuses on the New Jersey State Core Curriculum standards, various instructional strategies to teach them, and their assessment.

20:834:559 Public School Finance (3) The course covers the educational decision-making process in the political and economic systems in which it exists. Particular attention is given to the tax structures which yield the resources directly supporting education, especially the property tax, as well as non-tax resources and the federated governmental structure through which they pass.

20:834:560 Public Education Law (3) Deals with the basic legal structure of the public education system and explores a range of current legal and educational policy issues confronting the public schools.

20:834:561 Analytical Methods (3) Quantitative methods in the analysis of planning and management problems. Includes descriptive statistics, statistical distributions, probability, hypothesis development, significance testing, correlation, contingency table analysis, and regression.

20:834:562 Research Design (3) Comprehensive literature review, methodology, and data collection strategies. Students develop full research proposals including a research question; those who are writing a paper as their capstone requirement use this proposal as the basis for their paper. Prerequisite: 26:834:561.

20:834:563 Capstone Paper (3)

20:834:568 Government Revenue Systems (3) Creation and management of the revenue systems of a state or local government. Focus on taxes, fee for services, intergovernmental aid, and interest income. Laboratory application and fieldwork required.

20:834:570 Theory and Practice of Nonprofit Management (3) Introduces theory, history, structure, and management of nonprofit organizations. Emphasis is given to critical functions such as fundraising and grantsmanship, financial management and budgeting, marketing and communications, leadership styles, and monitoring and evaluation.

20:834:571 Nonprofit Budgeting (3) Introduces budget concepts and processes used by nonprofits; provides essential skills and experience in budgetary analysis and management for nonprofit agencies and organizations.

20:834:575 Grant Writing and Grants Management (3) Grant writing and management for public and nonprofit agencies: proposal writing, promotional and support materials, budget development, fundraising sources, and grants-management system.

20:834:576 Resource Development for Nonprofit Organizations (Fundraising) (3) Emphasizes best practices and provides practical experience in the methods that nonprofits use to ensure that their objectives are financed by means other than grants. The study of fundraising encompasses strategic planning for annual giving, major gifts, and planned giving. Attention given to specific fundraising techniques: stewardship training, case statements, direct mail, telephone solicitation, special events, lapsed donors, taxation and bequests, and capital campaigns.

20:834:577 Human Resource Management for Nonprofits (3) Explores concepts, practices, and strategies of human resource planning; analyzes staff development, compensation, and evaluation. Emphasizes volunteer management, staff-board, and trustee relationships.

20:834:578 Strategic Planning for Nonprofit Organizations (3) An integrated overview of theory, processes, and practices emphasizing methods and techniques for achieving nonprofit organizational long-term goals and customer satisfaction.

20:834:581 Introduction to Health Care Systems (3) Provides an overview of the health care system in the United States, including a survey of health care uses, providers, financing, and quality-of-care issues.

20:834:582 Health Care Management (3) Focus on major social and political issues involved in the organization, delivery, and management of health care systems.

20:834:584 Health Care Finance (3) Processes and methods of financial management in the health care industry. Patterns of health care expenditures, methods of financing health care, financial planning and development, third-party reimbursement, and controls in health institutions management.

20:834:585 Health Care Policy (3) Analysis, development, implementation, and evaluation of policies and programs affecting health. Focuses on health care institutions, with some attention to managing health problems with nonmedical interventions at the community level. Uses the case method applied to realistic situations in which specific decisions must be made by health managers or officials.

20:834:586 Violence in the United States (3) Life-cycle approach to violence, including violence against children, juvenile, domestic, male-male, and cultural violence. With each type of violence, examination of historical and empirical dimensions of the problem; current theories about dynamics and causality; and the likely efficacy of current and proposed interventions. Emphasis placed on class, racial, and gender inequalities.

20:834:590 Internship I (3) Participation in activities of an agency or institution under supervision of a faculty member and supervisor in the agency. Requires reports and analyses of activities.

20:834:591 Internship II (3) Participation in activities of an agency or institution under supervision of a faculty member and supervisor in the agency. Requires reports and analyses of activities.

20:834:597 Advanced Study (3) Final required course of self-directed study. Students who opt for a capstone paper will write their paper. Students sitting for the comprehensive exams will prepare for their exams. Substitute capstone 20:834:563.  Prerequisite: 20:834:562.

20:834:598 Independent Study (3) Available as an elective for students who opt to explore a specific topic or issue under the guidance of a faculty member.
Prerequisite: Advance approval of M.P.A. program director prior to enrollment.