JOURNAL OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS EDUCATION - naspaa

Teaching Public Administration As a Fulbright Scholar In China:
Analysis and Reflections
Renmin University of China was the first to offer the MPA degree, and its
School of Public Administration boasts one of the oldest buildings on campus.
Its role as a leading MPA program is evidenced by its co-sponsorship of the biannual
Sino-U.S. Conference on Public Administration, and publication of the
journal Public Administration and Policy Review.
The School of Public Administration at Renmin includes three departments:
Public Administration, Land and Real Estate Management, and Urban Planning
and Management. There also are eight institutes and 10 research centers.
Seventy-eight faculty members teach courses for 328 undergraduates, 818 MPA
students, 414 graduate students in other degrees, and 134 Ph.D. students — in
full-time, part-time, and executive programs (School of Public Administration,
Renmin University of China, n.d.).
MPA Curriculum
Like many MPA programs in the U.S., Renmin University of China offers
both full-time and executive MPA programs. The full-time program offers a 40-
credit-hour curriculum that looks much like American MPA programs. It
includes 30 credits of core courses, 10 credits of electives, and a required
research paper, for a degree that generally takes two to four years to complete.
The titles of MPA courses are very familiar, including, for example, Public
Management, Public Policy Analysis, Research Methods, Practical Economics,
and Public Finance (School of Public Administration, Renmin University of
China, n.d.). However, core requirements seemed to be interpreted with some
flexibility in China. For example, while Program Evaluation is listed as an
elective, when I was there the students were told it was required.
Another major difference I noted is that students told me they were taking
between seven and 11 courses per semester. Seven core courses were standard
during the first semester, and if students wanted to take electives, those were in
addition to core courses. It appeared that the students front-loaded their
programs so they could devote more focused time on the major research paper
requirement later in the program.
I was teaching full-time students, who all lived on campus. They were
assigned together to dorm rooms of three to four students each. As a result,
another difference I noticed was a stronger sense of community and camaraderie
than one would see in most U.S. programs.
OVERVIEW OF TEACHING
Fulbright lecturers typically teach two courses per semester. I taught a
required Program Evaluation course for MPA students, and an elective on
Health Policy that was open to graduate students from across the campus. The
following discussion focuses on the Program Evaluation core course.
Twenty-nine, first-semester MPA students registered for Program Evaluation,
336 Journal of Public Affairs Education