School of Government and Public Affairs

The African American Advisory Council would want to insure that Transformations processes including consolidations and workforce reductions would not erode The University of Arizona's efforts to recruit and retain diverse faculty, students, and staff.

The UA President’s Hispanic Advisory Council (HAC) is pleased to provide its evaluation of this White Paper/Proposal, with the specific goal of relating it to the joint UA/HAC goals concerning diversity and inclusion, recruitment, retention and graduation of Hispanic students and faculty, and on meeting the UA goal of becoming a Hispanic Serving Institution by 2012. Additional criteria used when reviewing this proposal include the following: UA’s land grant institution status and thus its location in the southwest and the changing demographics of this area; innovative program design, including instruction methodologies; and whether the proposal realistically addresses the UA’s business needs. HAC’s mission it to strengthen relationships between the UA and the diverse communities within the State of Arizona by serving as a communications conduit and developing mutually beneficial partnerships.

HAC has reviewed this proposal and rates this as:

A Quality Proposal - this proposal should move forward and be further developed addressing the Hispanic Advisory Council criteria

I have reviewed and strongly support the proposal as submitted by Dr. Dixon and the Proposal Team. Public administration was never a good fit in the business school, and creating a new School of Public Affairs is an excellent way to combine these two highly complementary programs. Kudos to the Proposal Team!

I have the following suggestions to offer:

Name: The Morris K. Udall School of Public Affairs

Programs:
The University of Arizona, as an institution, is stodgy and seems to lack the innovative spirit of some other institutions of higher learning. Dr. Hartley's comments regaridng ASU's program are very well taken. UA needs some of the innovative, entrepreneurial spirit that seems to exist at ASU (its MPA program is regarded as the best in the state, which, as a loyal Wildcat, gives me pain). The programs suggested in the Proposal Team's white paper are tried-and true but have become routine and rather boring. I'd propose the following "enhanced" lineup:

BA Political Science (give consideration to new, cutting-edge focus areas, such as diplomacy and global affairs...take a page from Thunderbird's book).

BS Public Administration - with new focus areas that reflect current trends in local, state and federal government administration. There are so many fascinating and exciting specialty areas in the public affairs world these days...environmental management and sustainability (both the City of Tucson and Pima County have dedicated, cutting-edge sustainability programs), leadership, innovation and entrepreneurship, community development and revitalization (many universities in the UK offer programs in urban revitalization), parks, recreation and open space management and quality of life/healthy communities, urban planning and urban design, urban affairs, economic development, nonprofit management, and many more. To be a top-tier school of public affairs, you'll need to be on the cutting edge of these topics and trends. Otherwise, you'll be just another boring, same-old, same-old program.

MA Political Science

MPA Public Administration - with new focus areas as per the comments above.

PhD Political Science

DPA or PhD Public Administration

MCD - Master of Community Development - an interdisciplinary degree program with a high degree of flexibility. Program would be oriented more towards actual community development areas (social services, community design and quality of life, advocacy, economic development) than the management and finance focus you'd find in an MPA. I think that a well-designed MCD program could become the MPA of the future. Speaking as an MPA with 15 years of local government experience, the concept of an MCD is a lot more interesting to me than a straight MPA...if such a thing had existed back when I got my MPA (1990), I might have pursued that program instead. The MCD is a program the School could offer online. I think it is worth pointing out that if the School does not choose to offer a meaningful program online, it will be a sign of UA's continuing stodginess, lack of innovation, and impending obsolesence/irrelevance. If Duke is offering a high-quality master's program online (the DEL MEM---Google it), UA can too.

Master of Leadership, Innovation and Entrepreneurship. This one is a little harder to define but tracks the growing trend toward professional graduate programs in leadership generally (USC's School of PPD has a new Executive Master of Leadership, and I'm about 80% ready to participate, despite the travel requirements). Speaking as a local government entrepreneur, the next generation of public managers need to be exposed to the idea of entrepreneurship and innovation in government, which seems like an oxymoron but is anything but. This is a cutting-edge discipline in the field of public management; those who can't appreciate it have their ivory-tower blinders on. Catch the wave...

Institute for Local Government Administration. Our growing metro area could support an institute focused on local government administration, and could offer technical assistance to local governments throughout our region and in northern Mexico. Kind of like a Drachman Institute for the School of Public Affairs (the D.I. rocks, by the way).

Also, the new School should have a close/integrative relationship with the UA's Planning program (profs could teach in both the School of Public Affairs and CAPLA)...the school also has a natural affinity for the urban design portion of the Architecture program, and the Landscape Architecture program, which is turning out some very high-quality planners. Some interesting opportunities to be explored there.

As you can tell, this proposal struck a chord in me. It's something that I have been hoping to see happen for a long time. I hope it comes to pass.

Steve Anderson, MPA, CPM, CDP
Political science/public administration, '84

The School of Public Administration and Policy fully supports this proposal above all. Among the other white papers that mention our program, this is the only one that has the buy-in of our faculty and staff. A School of Government and Public Affairs is long overdue on the campus of the University of Arizona. For many, many years, SPAP has remained a loyal part of the Eller College and its previous incarnations. While we want desperately to stay in the college, we also want a viable program that will produce tomorrow's public and non-profit servants. This proposal, for many reasons, is the only viable option for keeping Arizona in the business of producing public servants from an accredited program. We argued for the status quo of keeping our program together and in Eller, but there are great concerns among our faculty, staff, and students that the proposal supported by Dean Portney, would in fact kill our programs. The only proposal to date that makes sense is this one. I say that because it was crafted carefully by faculty in two university units who understand the educational environment in these fields and the culture of the types of organizations that educate public sector employees. The other proposals, written by Dean Cervelli and Dean Portney, respectfully were authored without any consultation with or buy-in by our faculty. Most excellent universities have invested in Schools of Government, public administration, and the like. The reasons are not only that there is great forecasted demand for public employees and because of the important outreach that these schools do, but also for important political reasons. Universities remain further isolated from the public sector and have suffered greatly for it. Those who create budgets and policies that affect universities are the very students produced by schools like LaFollette (at Wisconsin), LBJ (Texas), Wagner (NYU), Humphery (Minnesota), SPEA (Indiana), SPIA (Georgia), in their respective states. There is no better way to influence policy and serve the state of Arizona than by producing and educating its federal, state, local, and non-profit managers. I must say that Arizona State University understands this. In the past 5 years, they have added 5 new faculty to their program, have created and funded new institutes, and have placed their School of Public Administration in downtown Phoenix near the seat of our government. The vision is clear. ASU recognizes the importance of educating policy analysts and public managers in fields like criminal justice, health care, city management, etc. They also recognize that their graduates will go on to serve the state and provide important linkages to the very government agencies that will later fund our universities. I could go on and on with good reasons for this school. I will just ask that you ask us and consult with us as you make your decisions. We are knowledgeble and can contribute effectively to building a new vision for public service education in Southern Arizona.