PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION (PUBA)

This course examines the operation of the criminal justice system, the traditional ways it has dealt with people charged with crimes, and potential reforms, particularly greater access to and coordination of health services. The course takes a comparative approach. Students will explore differences in the criminal justice systems in the US and UK with the aim of identifying ways to improve outcomes for justice-involved and potentially justice-involved people and communities. Burch Fellows only. Honors version available.

This course examines the availability and unavailability of appropriate health services, under the law and in practice, and the impediments to providing care in the usually siloed criminal justice and health care systems. This course takes a comparative approach. Students will explore differences in the health care systems in the US and UK with the aim of identifying ways to improve outcomes for justice-involved and potentially justice-involved people and communities. Burch Fellows only. Honors version available.

Introduction to local/state public service, including: governmental institutions; ethics and public values; and core functions of administrative governance. Discussions led by MPA faculty with practicing public and nonprofit administrators.

Selected students have the opportunity to build on their experience of grant making to learn more about the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors. Students will follow up with the agencies receiving grants from the spring class and ensure completion of the activities required by the agreements through a reporting and site visit process.

Leadership as taught and demonstrated in the military and how it translates to leadership in public service, including the interrelationship of the military and other public service and the transition of veterans to civilian leadership roles.

This course gives students a working knowledge of the multi-disciplinary approach to governance as embraced by the theories of public administration. The course will include discussions on public management, values, organizational theory, and politics, among other topics. It will review the history and development of public administration, delve into the theories that are integral to the discipline, and review practical approaches to the application of these theories.

Provides a conceptual and experiential grounding in theories of management and organizational operation. Students learn how to analyze organizations and their environments from multiple perspectives. Students systematically examine important dimensions of organizational life: what motivates people, how decisions are made, challenges of diversity, conflict, and power dynamics.

Students learn about their leadership style and values, as well as strengths and weaknesses, with regard to public leadership at the personal, interpersonal, organizational, and community levels. Readings, assignments, and class activities focus on developing knowledge and skills necessary to lead successfully in public service settings.

First course in a two-course sequence introducing students to applied research design, data collection, data management, data analysis, and analytical reporting to allow them to conduct original research, be informed consumers of other research, and ultimately improve public program planning and evaluation decisions.

Second course in a two-course sequence introducing students to applied research design, data collection, data management, data analysis, and analytical reporting to allow students to conduct original research, be informed consumers of other research, and ultimately improve public program planning and evaluation decisions.

Prepares students to communicate clearly and effectively as public service leaders, which includes reading, listening, and thinking critically; writing and speaking clearly, concisely, and unambiguously; giving organized and convincing oral presentations; and using appropriate tools and tone in preparing oral and written communications for diverse audiences.

Students gain knowledge of the behaviors and practices of human resource management, as well as an overview of diversity and inclusion in public sector work-forces. Class learning is both theoretical and experiential.

Teaches the principles of accounting and financial reporting in governmental and not-for-profit environment. Provides skills for analyzing the financial condition of governments and the efficiency and effectiveness of governmental programs.

Introduces students to the historical foundations, institutions, and basic principles of public budgeting and finance. The course covers the fundamental areas of public financial management, including the operating and capital budgeting processes used to obtain and allocate public resources, decision making in the budgeting process, and the criteria used to evaluate revenues.

Community revitalization requires mastery of community development methods, the real estate development process, and public-private partnerships. Techniques include demographic trend analysis, stakeholder identification, government entitlement review, area and parcel analysis, market research, and pro forma financial analysis.

Students apply their skills in business, planning, or public administration to actual community revitalization projects in North Carolina communities. Projects require an understanding of community development methods, the real estate development process, and public-private partnerships. Students will manage client relationships and learn how their skills contribute to solving community challenges. This course is ideal for first year graduate students.

The purpose of the course is to assist students with further development of their skills, approaches, and philosophies in the functional areas of public budgeting and financial management. Requires students to analyze case situations in public organizations, identify possible solutions in response to their analysis, and justify final recommendations.

Students learn about the operations functions of local government. Each class will focus on a single local government department. Students will understand techniques and tools used to manage local governments effectively, efficiently, and equitably. Students learn the current issues, management trends, and problems associated with each local government department function.

This course is designed to enhance the practical skills of future public administration practitioners in navigating our complex intergovernmental system and supporting elected officials and others in influencing the outcome of public policy issues, consistent with professional ethics guidance.

Course will provide introduction to a process for systematically thinking about decisions and valuable techniques for analyzing decisions. Students will learn how to construct models for decision making and how to use these models to analyze decisions.

This skills-based, half-semester course familiarizes professional program graduate students with insights into effective data communication, exposes them to a communication framework, and allows them to hone new skills through the completion of various assignments. Covered topics include developing clear messages, designing effective graphs and tables, formatting written documents, and creating multimedia presentations. While new tools and techniques feature in this course, the overarching goal is a timeless one: the sharing of ideas.

The U.S. public sector workforce is increasingly diverse in race, ethnicity, gender, religion, socioeconomic status, sexual preference, physical and mental abilities, and gender identity. Increased workplace diversity requires a new knowledge base, which this course seeks to impart through thought-provoking readings, in-class exercises, and lively and respectful discussions.

How do concepts learned in the classroom translate into real-world practice? The Carolina MPA Immersion Experience offers both online and on-campus students the opportunity to make this connection and learn from MPA faculty with expertise in government and non-profit administration. Held at the UNC School of Government, the course allows students and faculty to come together for three days to focus on a relevant topic in the field of public administration.

Additionally, students will have to have completed the Professional Work Experience Practicum prior to enrolling in this course. The M.P.A. professional work experience consists of 10 weeks of full-time employment in a public agency or nonprofit organization. This course requires students to demonstrate and extend this learning experience within the context of public service leadership and management.

The purpose of the portfolio is for students to demonstrate and further develop their public service leadership potential through a collection of academic and professional products. Students take this course during their final semester, allowing them to integrate and build upon the core competencies of the program.

Students required to reflect on and demonstrate how they apply and integrate their learning from six required MPA courses and their professional public service work experiences to successfully respond to an applied research problem. Students will select from a list of applied research problems, conduct a literature review, collect data, and identify their preliminary findings.

Students will continue to work on their applied research problem from PUBA 747. Students are expected to enter PUBA 748 with a complete (clean) dataset, including a preliminary analysis that has been revised to include the feedback from PUBA 747 instructors. In this course, students will continue with the data analysis, discuss the findings, and develop recommendations.

Nature of city or county manager's job: expectations of elected body, staff, public and professional peers. Examines contemporary issues in departmental operations that have significant effect on how manager's performance is perceived.

This course is designed to acquaint students with concepts associated with strategic planning, productivity improvement, the importance of innovative service delivery, the measurement of performance, the gauging of constituent satisfaction, the viability of major proposals offered for improving operations, and the techniques for improving effectiveness. The course prepares students to conduct productivity analyses and to design realistic strategies for improving organizational operations.

The purpose of Performance Management in Local Government is to introduce students to how local officials measure the inputs, outputs, and outcomes of service delivery and how they use these performance data for making management and policy decisions. The course also includes how local officials use other types of data to information decision-making, including content analysis, benchmarking, financial condition analysis, and benefit-cost analysis.

Designed to help students think critically about social equity as the fourth pillar of public administration. Covering the origins of social equity as a concept in public administration. The course will also examine how social equity has been operationalized in practice, including how organizations create more equitable workplaces and communities and barriers to achieving social equity. Lastly, students will explore their roles and responsibilities to build a more just society as future public sector leaders.

Examination of the managerial challenges posed by nonprofit organizations and of techniques and practices used by managers of nonprofit organizations.

Provides basic financial skills for leaders of nonprofits, including bookkeeping fundamentals, interpreting financial statements, budgeting, cash management and investment, and legal compliance.

This course is designed for graduate students who are seeking professional positions in local government or nonprofits. The overall objectives are to exchange information about issues of mutual concern to both nonprofits and governments.

Social capital can come in many forms (trust, civic engagement, community attachment, and social networks) and has become one of the most contested concepts in social sciences. This course is designed to balance theories, methods, and applications, drawing on literatures from sociology, public policy, public administration, communication, media studies, and management.

Introduction to basic law subjects likely to be encountered in public administration. Topics include constitutional foundations, due process and equal protection, and First Amendment rights; property, contracts, employment, torts, criminal law, administrative law, and public ethics laws; and basic legal research, managing litigation, and working with lawyers.

Nonprofit leaders and public officials rely on grants to help fund their grand plans. You will learn the process of finding grants, how to prepare a grant proposal, and how to plan for and manage grant funds. This course will address some of the similarities and differences between the funding process from federal/state agencies and private foundations. Students may not receive credit for both PUBA 763 and PUBA 764. On campus MPA students only.

This course is designed to acquaint students with the grant seeking process for not-for-profit and public sector agencies. Through a review of specific writing techniques, students will practice and learn how to produce proposals that are comprehensive, cogent, and accountable to the objectives of the grantor agency. Students may not receive credit for both PUBA 763 and PUBA 764.

Analysis of alternative approaches to planning and administering the budgets and financial operations of public agencies. Extensive use of case materials.

In this course we will examine theories and concepts of nonprofit organizational governance structures. Through this course, students will develop a foundational understanding of board governance fundamentals, board development, board leadership, and common practices of high performing boards.

PUBA 767 will look at the relationship between Government, Nonprofit, and Private sector organizations through collaboration theory and a system thinking framework that allows for a deeper look at what influences how these networks of relationships work, to challenge how we think it works, and bring awareness and understanding to develop the public service leadership skills and strategies needed for effective community level collaboration.

Workshop-style course focuses on workplace and service provision conflicts to develop mediation skills; is comprised of short lectures, demonstration, and student practice of a mediation model/specific skill sets. May not be taken in addition to PUBA 772.

Course is workshop-style that includes advance reading, videos and online assignments; concentrated two-day instruction on skills; and a reflection paper. Course focuses on inter-organization and community settings to develop facilitation skills and is comprised of short lectures, demonstration, and student practice of facilitation strategies.

Emphasizes the practical application and implementation of various approaches to economic development. Students will apply tools/strategies by doing case studies and small group projects based on real-world scenarios faced by local practitioners.

Examination of ombudsman and mediation principles, roles, ethics and techniques in public sector. Students are expected to develop mediation skills through observation, in-class practice and feedback. Models of mediation are compared and shared in class their application and/or adaptation of mediation to their current or desired public sector duties. An introduction to dispute systems design frames how mediation, and its variants can benefit students' public service. May not be taken in addition to PUBA 768.

This course provides public managers with the basic knowledge to successfully manage technology projects and government information. The use of information technology has become an indispensable part of the public sector. Governments now use technology to communicate with citizens, disseminate information, and engage in digital democracy. This course is for on campus MPA students. Students cannot take PUBA 777 in addition to this course.

This course is designed to help students develop a deep understanding of concepts, techniques and theories of nonprofit fundraising. After an introduction to philanthropy, students will utilize tools and resources for fundraising and analyze and evaluate fundraising methods. This course is applied meaning it is important to have a relationship with a nonprofit organization where you can access current fundraising collateral and apply principles of fundraising to the improvement of fundraising methods/products.

Seminar in selected areas of public administration. Topics will vary from year to year. May be repeated for credit.

Directed readings in a special field under the direction of a member of the graduate faculty.

The primary goal of this course is to build students' knowledge of cybersecurity concepts, understanding of the threat landscape, overview of cyber liability insurance, principles of good cyber hygiene, and incident response strategies. Students may not take this course if they have previously or are currently taking PUBA 778: Strategic IT Management.

How can governments, communities, organizations, and businesses fund environmental services? This applied course reviews the diverse tools and strategies that environmental service providers use to pay for programs. The course will focus on environmental services related to: drinking water, wastewater, storm-water, watershed protection, energy efficiency, renewable energy, sustainability, and wetlands.

In PUBA 900 students conduct research and preparation for their thesis substitute and oral examination.