5010. Public Administration and Society. 3 hours. Examination of the political, institutional, organizational, ethical, social, legal and economic environments in which public administrators operate. Must be taken in the first term/semester of course work.
5020. Leading and Managing Public Organizations. 3 hours. Survey of contemporary theories and applications of managing high performance public organizations. Focus on leadership approaches, strategy, decision making, change management, networks and collaboration, privatization, and groups and teams.
5030. Managing Human Resources. 3 hours. The theory and application of managing human behavior in public organizations. Topics include motivation, supervision, conflict management, workplace diversity and the functions of public personnel systems including job design, analysis, and classification; recruitment and selection; compensation, development, training, and evaluation; promotion and discipline; and employee law.
5035. Professional Practice for Public Managers. 3 hours. Capstone workshop that teaches current and future public managers how to operate a government agency on a day-to-day basis. Managerial practices to be covered include the meaning of public service, communication in the public sector, making effective presentations to legislatures and governing boards, group facilitation and effective meetings, executive-legislative relations, citizen relations, media relations, and ethics. To be taken during the last term/semester of course work.
5040. Nonprofit Management. 3 hours. Characteristics of and leadership in nonprofit organizations, with emphasis on the chief executive, the board and volunteers in activities such as governance, planning and fund raising.
5050. Legal Issues in Public Administration. 3 hours. Focuses on the relationship between public management and the law. Explores the role of bureaucrats in formulating law and policy through the rule-making process and the control of executive branch agencies by the executive branch, the legislature, and the courts.
5060. Seminar in Intergovernmental Relations. 3 hours. Analysis of political, administrative and fiscal relationships among governments in the American political system. May be repeated for credit as topics vary.
5100. Local Government Management. 3 hours. Organization and management of American local government, including executive leadership, governance structures and service implementation with emphasis on council-manager government.
5200. Public Personnel Management. 3 hours. Managing human resources in national, state and local governments.
5210. Diversity in Public Management. 3 hours. Focuses on diversity issues in modern public management. Examines the contemporary meaning of workplace diversity, the identification and evaluation of governmental policies, processes, and management techniques for promoting diversity, and the effect of workplace diversity on government performance. Emphasis is given to identifying effective techniques for managing diversity.
5220. Personnel Management in Nonprofit Organizations. 3 hours. Examines the uniqueness of personnel management in the nonprofit sector. Emphasis is on the concepts and techniques of, and the laws and ethical standards affecting, nonprofit personnel management. Includes hiring, paying, supervising, motivating, developing, promoting, disciplining and retaining employees (paid or unpaid) in nonprofit and volunteer organizations.
5300. Introduction to Planning. 3 hours. Examination of state, regional and local government planning. Explores planning theory, the planning process, managing planning, implementing plans and citizen participation.
5310. Economic and Community Development. 3 hours. Examines the basic role of governance as an instrument of economic and community development in the United States. Focuses on the meaning and application of development primarily on subnational development with particular reference to cities and towns. Topics include economic development tools, politics of development, development financing, and development organizations.
5400. Managing Financial Resources. 3 hours. Principles of the budgetary process and innovations in budget preparation with emphasis on the role of the budget as a tool for financial control, improving program performance, and policy making. Topics include budget innovation, accounting and financial reporting.
5410. Capital Budgeting and Planning. 3 hours. Examination of capital budgeting and planning in government. Explores the financial aspects of water and waste water utilities, roads and highways, airports, parks, storm water drainage and other infrastructure. Key dimensions of budgeting, planning and managing public works facilities are detailed through lectures, case studies and papers.
5420. Revenue Policy and Administration. 3 hours. Examination of the economic, political and administrative issues that governments encounter when making revenue decisions, including how to achieve equity, economic efficiency, and administrative feasibility. Topics include the three principal revenue sources of government – income, sales and property taxes – plus such non-tax sources as user charges, grants-in-aid and lotteries.
5430. Financial Accountability in Government. 3 hours. An introduction to financial control in government, including fund accounting, financial reporting, internal controls and auditing. Particular emphasis is given to the public manager’s use of accounting information in such contexts as budget decision making, pricing government services, cash planning and municipal bond ratings.
5500. Administrative Research Methods I. 3 hours. Introduction to methods and techniques of applied research and statistical analysis. Topics include probability, descriptive statistics, estimation, hypothesis testing, contingency table analysis and regression analysis.
5510. Administrative Research Methods II. 3 hours. Course in program evaluation focusing on the practical application of appropriate social science research methodology to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of public and nonprofit sector programs and policies. Covers a broad range of topics on how to develop an evaluation plan; design various types of evaluations such as process, impact, cost-benefit, and cost-effectiveness evaluations; and how to manage evaluation projects.
5540. Public Decision Making Techniques. 3 hours. Examination of fundamental techniques used to assist public administrators in making decisions. Rationalism, incrementalism, probability models, cost-benefit analysis, forecasting and other methods are explored. The theory and practice of each approach is presented, along with case studies that use each technique.
5550. Seminar in Program Evaluation. 3 hours. Advanced course in evaluation, performance measurement, and monitoring in the management of government programs. Uses methods of social science to evaluate the effectiveness of government services.
5560. Performance Measurement in Public and Nonprofit Sectors. 3 hours. Overview of the performance measurement process, including benchmarking and performance monitoring in public and nonprofit organizations. The overall objective of the course is to acquaint program administrators and other practitioners with conceptual tools essential to understanding the development of performance measurement systems and the techniques necessary to enable them to apply the concepts in their work environments. Emphasis is on the practical application of the techniques of performance measurement in field settings.
5610. Disaster Preparedness and Management. 3 hours. Examination of the theory and practice of emergency management. Particular emphasis is given to the major issues affecting emergency management, including strategies to promote planning for mitigating disasters. Emphasis is on the evolving role of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), state and local government, and emergency managers in the disaster management arena.
5615. Environmental Planning and Hazards. 3 hours. Introduction to environmental planning and policy at the federal, state and local government levels. Designed to help students develop a working knowledge of basic planning and policy concepts, methods, institutions and issues. Emphasis is given to the linkage between environmental degradation and vulnerability to hazards.
5700. Seminar in Public Administration. 3 hours. Concepts, problems and processes of public administration. May be repeated for credit as topics vary.
5800. Public Management Internship. 3 hours. Enrollment in this course is required for pre-career MPA students. Students should enroll in this course their first semester. Periodic seminars cover resume development, interview skills, career counseling and professionalism.
5810. MPA Internship Practicum. 3 hours. Acquisition of practical public management experience through an internship in a governmental, quasi-governmental, or nonprofit agency for a minimum of 440 hours. Academic supervision of internship, evaluation of internship performance, and a final presentation are required.
5900-5910. Special Problems. 1–3 hours each. Conference courses open to advanced students capable of doing independent research under the direction of the instructor.
5950. Master’s Thesis. 3 or 6 hours. To be scheduled only with consent of department. 6 hours credit required. No credit assigned until thesis has been completed and filed with the graduate dean. Continuous enrollment required once work on thesis has begun. May be repeated for credit.
6010. Seminar in Public Administration. 3 hours. Introduction to the philosophy of science and evaluation of exemplary theoretical and empirical research on public administration. Attention is given to the evolution of public administration theory and practice in relation to historical trends and conditions, including related changes in social, political and management theory. Discussion of emergent trends and conditions relevant to the future development of public administration theory and practice.
6015. Public Organization Research and Theory. 3 hours. Addresses organizations as units of analysis. Examination of major theoretical and empirical research on the structure and process of public organizations.
6025. Institutional Context of Public Administration. 3 hours. Examines government bureaucracies and other formal institutional arrangements as key elements in modern social systems. Evaluates the role of society in shaping institutions and how these institutions influence and structure public policy making and administration.
6035. Social Science Inquiry. 3 hours. Designed to provide a thorough introductory overview of social science research methods. The objectives are to develop understanding of the basic elements of an empirical social science study, how to produce an empirical study, and the major methodological approaches used by contemporary social scientists. Research design and the structure of inquiry, the role of theory in empirical research, argument construction, causal inference, ethics, sampling, approaches to inquiry (quantitative, qualitative, experimental, evaluation) and reporting and reviewing research.
6110. Seminar in Public Management I. 3 hours. Focus on management theory in the public sector. Includes historical development, major questions in theory and practice, managerial decision making and effectiveness.
6120. Seminar in Public Management II. 3 hours. Focus on the study of public organization theory. Includes exploration of theoretical and empirical approaches to examining public and nonprofit organizations.
6310. Seminar in Public Policy Implementation. 3 hours. An in-depth study of public policy with emphasis on the role of public administrators in the formation, adoption and implementation of public policy.
6320. Seminar in Public Policy Analysis and Program Evaluation. 3 hours. Provides an overview of the substance and methodologies of policy research and focuses on the practical application of appropriate methodology to assess the effectiveness of public programs and policies.
6400. Seminar in Public Financial Policy and Management. 3 hours. Examines issues pertaining to the administration of financial resources in the public sector. Study of the issues from the perspectives of different disciplines such as: economics, political science, business administration, planning and public administration.
6410. Seminar in Government Budgeting and Financial Management. 3 hours. Examination of the history and development of budgeting and the processes used to manage financial resources at the local, state and federal levels of government in the United States. Topics include the effects of government fiscal affairs, primarily at the federal level, on the economy, and the problems associated with intergovernmental financial management.
6500. Analytical Methods for Public Administration Research. 3 hours. Emphasizes public-sector applications of decision analysis, queuing theory, projection techniques, mathematical programming, economic base analysis, and simulation.
6610. Emergency Management Theory and Practice. 3 hours. Explores the central conceptual and theoretical topics and debates that inform the discipline and practice of emergency management. Focus centers on the nature of disaster, common misperceptions about human behavior under conditions of stress, and the important literature pertaining to disasters and emergency management. By taking an interdisciplinary approach, the seminar enables students to think critically about the epistemological assumptions of alternative theoretical viewpoints and divergent policy proposals.
6615. Environmental Planning and Hazards. 3 hours. Explores the natural disasters and strategies public officials can apply to cope with their impacts on the built environment. Natural disasters of geologic, atmospheric, hydrologic, and biologic origin are considered. An environmental planning focus is taken where an emphasis is placed on human-environment interactions as they are related to environmental extremes. Alternative public policy strategies for coping with natural hazards are considered from the perspectives of preparedness, response, recovery and mitigation activities.
6620. Challenges of Disaster Response. 3 hours. Focuses on a variety of problems that arise before, during and after emergencies and disasters. Such challenges include warnings and evacuations, the convergence of people and material toward the disaster site, and working with the media, among others. The objective is to develop sufficient familiarity with these subjects to be able to address them with authority in professional settings. Emphasizes analysis and critical consideration of emergency management challenges and the related literature.
6630. Technological Hazards. 3 hours. Focuses on hazards arising from the development and use of technological systems in transportaion, manufacturing, energy production and distribution, and other areas of activity. Examines the philosophy of technology, the development of technology in social and political contexts, and theories and debates about the creation of hazards, effective management systems, and the causes of accidents.
6635. Disaster Research Methods. 3 hours. Provides an examination of methods that can be applied in the study of disasters. Focuses on qualitative methods, with specific attention given to social-scientific methods which can be applied to the study of events in the pre-disaster, during-disaster and post-disaster time frame. This seminar takes an interdisciplinary approach to explore the challenges and opportunities of qualitative disaster research with an emphasis on skills that can be applied to disaster field research. Enables students to understand the scope of qualitative methods available and to consider the range of activities necessary to perform disaster field research.
6700. Workshop in Public Administration. 1–3 hours. Specialized study on research in public administration. Students learn how to review and critique the relevant literature, how to present work at conferences, and how to write for journal publication.
6710. Seminar in Public Administration and Management. 3 hours. Concepts, problems and processes of public administration. May be repeated for credit as topics vary.
6900-6910. Special Problems. 1–3 hours. Conference courses for doctoral students capable of doing independent research under the direction of the instructor.
6940. Directed Research in Public Administration. 3 hours. Conference courses for doctoral students. Directed reading and research in fields of special interest.
6950. Doctoral Dissertation. 3, 6 or 9 hours. To be scheduled only with consent of department. 12 hours required. No credit assigned until dissertation has been completed and filed with the graduate dean. Doctoral students must maintain continuous enrollment in this course subsequent to passing qualifying examination for admission to candidacy. May be repeated for credit.
Date of initial release: July 1, 2009 — Copyright © 2008 University of North Texas
Page updated:
February 23, 2010
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