APPAM: 2008 APPAM Spring Conference

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2008 APPAM Spring Conference
5 April 2008 - DoubleTree Hotel - Washington, DC
Constructing the APPAM Future: Competition and Cooperation on Campus

APPAM held a one-day conference on April 5 to focus on several important issues confronting its member schools of public policy and management. For information on various aspects of the April 5 meetings please scroll down this page.

Conference Schedule and Program - Updated 15 April 2008

Conference Topics:

The 2008 Spring Conference focused on the following two interrelated themes:

Increasing Complexity in the Public Policy Enterprise: Many policy schools are positioning themselves to grow in scope and scale over the next five to ten years. There are many new degree programs either in operation or planned, growing connections with other units on campus (including joint degree programs) and increasing numbers of specialized centers within the schools.

Competition and Cooperation with Other Professional Schools Related to Public Service: Policy schools operate in a campus environment in which other professional schools increasingly promote their own public policy/public service missions.

Presentations, discussions and break out sessions explored the implications for managing the schools successfully during this period of change. Participants looked specifically at the competition between policy schools and other professional schools on campus including business/nonprofit management, public health, social work, and environmental science and explore strategies for the future.

Conference Materials:

Conference program chair Sandra Archibald (University of Washington) and NASPAA Executive Director Laurel McFarland co-authored a presentation as part of their opening session. This presentation will become a working paper soon. To download the presentation in PDF format please click here (300KB). Terms of use: please do not quote or otherwise re-use without permission.

Schedule in for Saturday, April 5: - Updated 15 April 2008

Session 1: "A Changing Public Service Enterprise: Time for New Strategies?"

Presenters: Sandra Archibald (University of Washington) and Laurel McFarland (NASPAA). See above for the PDF version of the presentation.

This session explored ways in which the changing public service enterprise — which has brought new partners to public service — is both challenging and providing new opportunities for public policy and public management education.

Session 2: Panel discussion, "The Changing Dynamic of the MPP/MPA."

Moderator/Respondent: Michael O'Hare (University of California-Berkeley).

Panelists:

Raphael Bostic (University of Southern California)
Chris deNeubourg (Maastricht University)
Iris Geva-May (Simon Fraser University)
Deirdre Martinez (University of Pennsylvania)
Brint Milward (University of Arizona)
Jodi Sandfort (University of Minnesota)

The panel session convened panelists who are developing different strategies for the future. They represented differing institutional arrangements and explored how they are responding to the contest of traditional public sector markets.

Session 3: "Education for the New Public Service."

Speaker: Paul Light (New York University)

Paul Light discussed whether schools of public policy and management should we accept the hypothesis that public sector management of Public programs is likely to decline in the future as inevitable and redirect our efforts to train nonprofit managers and consultants to business under contract, or is there a way to reinvigorate the public service?

Session 4: Small discussion groups to work on "Options for Action"

Group A: How do we market smarter? Do we need to better define our brand? Does brand development require convergence of MPA/MPP? What are our niche markets? Does aggressive marketing require change in attitudes? Does this require new roles from our professional associations?
Group B: Commandeering the Public Sector: Is the MPP/MPA market contestable? How much have we already ceded to other professional schools? What new public service markets can we contest? Should we compete head on with other professional schools or is collaboration with other professional schools better?
Group C: Fine Tuning our Curriculum. Do we change our curricula to reflect need for new skills? Does it require us to hire more faculty with a new range of skills? Should we be training PhD students with these skills?

Session 5: Wrap Up and Next Steps

Participants in the three break-out groups returned the following action items from their conversations.

Group A: Marketing	Group B: Contesting Markets	Group C: Curriculum
How can we use marketing to compete and thrive and grow? Pay attention to certificates and subdegree programs Develop a value proposition for public policy education Heightened attention to 5 year programs (undergrad + MPP/MPA) Recruit more men into the degree programs Portray the MPA/MPP as the “un-MBA” or “un-JD” Challenge to ourselves to double the size (number of students) of our schools within 5 years	Continue to make prospective applicants aware of MPP/MPA programs Areas that MPP/MPA programs can expand into: Nonprofit, Social Service Management, Environmental Policy What characterizes the MPP/MPA market in terms of the above areas? Answer: When these areas first emerged, MPA/MPP programs were one of the only professional degrees offering skills necessary to compete in the job market for these areas but the existing providers aren’t poised to meet demand; hence, these areas could indeed be contested by other professional schools. Value creation proposition—different for MPP/MPA schools than MBAs, etc. with our emphasis on organization building rather than MBA focus on business management. Cooperation vs. Competition: Probably a local matter — may or may not make sense, depends on whether there are gains from trade. There may be tradeoffs expecially if cooperation depends on creating a common curriculum. Have we ceded any opportunities? Much more research is needed. Hard to tell from the numbers we have now on admissions, but this doesn’t mean that competition isn’t out there.	Need to better establish a consciousness of the three sectors, their interactions, and management skills that are portable across them (e.g., how manage uncertainty and information) More sensitivity to globalization and the changing place of the U.S. in it Ethics/Values: sensitivity to public responsibility and values Instilling normative decision making in students Teach program evaluation to provide feedback loops to test validity and alignment of programs Ideas for curriculum implementation: (1) innovative projects in internships and courses that provide multiisciplinary, multi-sector experience; (2) create safe environments for classrooms—comfort zone for students to really be inquisitive and make mistakes; (3) when a student enters the program, give the student a sector, policy problem, or policy maker to follow through the first year; and do the same but with a different focus in the second year.

Contact Information for Questions/Concerns

If you have any questions or concerns, please select "Spring Conference" when using the contact form on this website or phone the APPAM office.