In part I of this series, I laid out a series of issues with how professional local government management is currently arranged (largely, through the MPA degree), and how it might miss the mark with the myriad audiences it is currently trying to serve. In this part II, I attempt to come to some resolutions to these problems. Again, I need to emphasize that none of this is an official declaration of the intentions of NIU–it’s simply my musings on what I see as needs and potentially how we can solve them.
The various audiences
There are at least 4 audiences for professional local government management education.
- Pre-career students and very early career professionals
- Mid-career professionals
- Specialists looking for (different) specialized knowledge
- Specialists looking for more general knowledge
- (Special case: sector switchers)
- Senior managers and/or current city managers
Each of these audiences has very different implications for educational needs.
For pre-career students, the traditional MPA works well–it’s all about how to design a specialty in local government management.
The mid-career student require careful consideration. These are two similarly situation audiences with two completely different needs. The former (specialists seeking more specialized knowledge) is often an individual looking to progress in their individual specialty. I often encounter these students in police and fire. They have specialized degrees in their area, but lack much of the training to do higher level management functions–things like HR, budget & finance, etc. The latter (specialists seeking more general knowledge) is likely more senior, an assistant department head or department head, who is an expert in their field. However, they might want to make the jump into central administration or to city manager’s seat. They’re looking to put their specialized knowledge into context; to understand where their specialty fits within the broader responsibilities of the local government. The special case of a sector switchers is a mixture of the preceding two cases–likely a specialist but with little public sector knowledge.
The final audience is existing senior managers and city managers. They have the knowledge, but perhaps want to expand a bit or better understand a process. This is yet another different audience.
Program design
Each of these audiences implies a different educational scheme, MPA or otherwise.
Pre-career
For the pre-career student, the traditional MPA is a good choice. From an educational perspective, the real issue is how to design a local government management specialization that provides all the basics. I come at this question from a unique perspective because the core of NIU’s MPA programs is organized around functional skills–HR, budgeting, financial management, and ethics–are all required courses. Since our program is largely about training local government leaders, these courses are already focused on the local level. This is not the case in many MPA programs, where the core of the program is far more generalized (or focused on federal). Because of our focus, I can eliminate many of the local-specific functional skills from the specialization.
What remains is “what is necessary to make a future local government leader?” To me, this is three things:
- A grasp on how local areas operate
- An introduction to how local governments operate
- Enough additional knowledge to know how to ask questions about all the other stuff we can’t teach.
Point one is often overlooked because it isn’t public administration. It’s economics, political science, sociology, planning, and a whole host of other areas that have attempted to explain all the social, economic, and political forces that are in tension in local areas. All these things are incredibly important because is frames all the decisions that a manager might make, how they interact with the public (and elected officials), and how they interact with other governments (either horizontally or vertically). Collectively, these things are often referred to as “urban studies,” which makes it seem like a big city thing but it decidedly is not.
Point two is what most MPA programs that do something in local government do. It’s typically a single class, organized around functional departments, that’s meant to expose students to all the management issues in local government. It’s adequate and not much more. Depending on how it’s taught, it could reinforce departmental silos; be devoid of any input by actual practitioners; and not be very helpful in furthering a local government career. I would argue this should be more than one class with one that focuses on internal management issues and one that focuses on external (or intergovernmental) issues.
The final piece is where all of this is going. What are the things on the horizon? How should we think about the future? This is a great place to plug in an experienced manager as an instructor.
You could achieve this in 3 courses (one in each area), but I would argue it’s much better achieved in five (2 for point 1, 2 for point 2, and 1 for the last point).
To be continued
This post is already long, so I will address mid-career students in the next post in this series.