Research Area: Program Evaluation, Public Management, and Administration

Students in the public management concentration learn the leadership and decision-making skills needed in developing and managing systems for implementing public policy that are accountable and effective. These are challenging goals. To be accountable, managers must understand the scope of their authority, accept responsibility for their duties, and understand how to measure and report the fruits of their efforts in an open and transparent way. To be effective, managers must know how to translate policy goals into strategic priorities for their organization and management practices that measure whether their efforts are yielding the desired policy outcomes.

In the current era, most public policies are implemented through complex networks of public programs that call upon the talents and resources of public, private, and not-for-profit organizations. These networks are bound together through contracts, funding mechanisms, regulatory and reporting relationships.  An accountable and effective manager in the modern era must have a detailed understanding of how different types of organizations and policy tools interact with one another.  The public management concentration is designed to provide students the perspective to be effective managers whether working for a public, private, or not-for-profit organization. 

The public management concentration builds upon a solid foundation of courses required in the core classes of the School of Public Policy.  At the graduate level, students are required to take one of three courses related to public management: organization theory, public management, or policy implementation. In addition, students can draw upon the following courses to build a concentration:

  •    PUBP 6014 Organization Theory
  •    PUBP 6017 Public Management
  •    PUBP 6018 Policy Implementation
  •    PUBP 6221 Policy and Program Evaluation
  •    PUBP 6226 Business and Government Relations
  •    PUBP 6314 Policy Tools for Environmental Management
  •    PUBP 6403 Science Careers and Workplaces
  •    PUBP 6501 Information Policy and Management
  •    PUBP 6760 Negotiations and Conflict Management