WINTER 2012 - National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and ...

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Yahong Zhang, Robert Lee and Kaifeng Yang Table 2. Sources of Learning Knowledge and Skills Sources Frequency Work experience 28 Workplace mentoring 8 Internships with MPA program 4 MPA courses with adjunct instructors 3 Experience with private and nonprofit organizations was also deemed as important to help learn the knowledge and skills of certain subjects (such as financial management), policy areas (such as health care), and people skills. One of the managers, who previously worked as the chief executive officer for a nonprofit organization, comments on how that experience helped him in local government policy making: Working with the Board of Directors and understanding how important interpersonal communication was to moving disparate ideas towards common solutions was the skill that I found most valuable when I became responsible for local government policy making. I learned that policy makers have various information and motivational needs. Policy solutions require effective communications that can unify the different levels of understanding, different perceptions, and different motivations of those who serve in a policy making role. A number of managers in our interviews appreciate their workplace mentors, who assisted them in enhancing their abilities for management and policy making. The mentors could be their colleagues or supervisors. One manager states: I began my career in the planning and development office; and the city manager I worked with was a huge resource in helping me understand the obligations of the position. He also taught me how to think outside the box and to look for community partnerships that would help further our goals. Two thirds of managers in the interviews hold an MPA degree, and approximately one fifth of them report that their MPA education is helpful to 198 Journal of Public Affairs Education
Stories from Local Public Managers in Florida the job they are doing. We acknowledge that the managers received their MPA degrees about 10 to 20 years ago and that MPA education in general has been changed significantly over the decades. Nevertheless, it is helpful to learn the expectations of these managers toward current MPA programs. The managers suggest that MPA programs should provide opportunities of effective internship and practical teaching. With internship opportunities, MPA students can discover how learned concepts can be applied in the real world; they can also learn people skills by interacting with elected officials and administrative staff in a real work setting before they take the public manager position. A manager points out: Many people who were required to do internships may downplay the importance. A student has an opportunity to work with local government; and it takes a commitment: not only working in the management areas but also taking the extra step to attend all council meetings, to go to staff meetings to learn some of the basic operations of city government. Eventually, that combined with a good education, will help someone with the policy making process. A few managers mentioned that their MPA programs did a nice job of incorporating real-world practices into classroom teaching via adjunct professors. Adjunct professors may share their stories of successes, mistakes, and failures with students. They may also discuss unintended consequences their decisions produced as well as their self-criticism about whom they should have listened to but they did not: I chose that MPA program because they concentrated more on the practical and pragmatic as opposed to the pure policy theories of city planning back in those days…It teaches you to have your antennae up in order to recognize when something is going well or about to go wrong. Nevertheless, while not many managers appreciate theories and concepts they received from MPA programs, some suggest that an MPA student may not recognize the value of theories until he or she has a certain amount of experience with the manager position. A manager went through two MPA programs 15 years apart, and he feels his experience with the second MPA program was much more rewarding because he had cumulated many more years of practical experience before taking it. “A text book cannot teach you fundamentals until you actually have worked with 5, 7, or 9 elected officials with many diverse personalities and opinions, and you were trying to build consensus with different interests.” Some managers also value their training experiences with the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) and the Florida County and Journal of Public Affairs Education 199
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JPAE VOLUME 18 NUMBER 1 JOURNAL OF
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Journal of Public Affairs Education
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FROM THE EDITOR In the symposium in
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NASPAA Presidential Address Annual
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Leading by Example: Modeling Global
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FROM THE GUEST EDITOR FROM THE GUES
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FROM THE GUEST EDITOR A SYMPOSIUM I
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on other fronts, certainly it can h
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Picasso, P. (1937). Guernica. Pictu
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A View from the 50th Street Gate on
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Reflections of a Working-Class Acad
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Reflections of a Working Class Acad
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Reflections of a Working Class Acad
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Class Rooms Kenneth Oldfield Univer
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Class Rooms although I did, but not
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Class Rooms GRADUATE SCHOOL I was u
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Class Rooms the odds this appointee
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Class Rooms The Great Leveler, too
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Class Rooms of higher learning and
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ook (Oldfield & Johnson, 2009). The
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Didactic Changes Class Rooms Pedago
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Admittedly, it will be difficult to
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hooks, b. (2000). Where we stand: C
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Shaw, G. B. (1928). The intelligent
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What’s a Girl Like You Doing in a
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What’s a Girl Like You For exampl
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What’s a Girl Like You and operat
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What’s a Girl Like You captured t
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What’s a Girl Like You full-blown
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What’s a Girl Like You inside). I
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What’s a Girl Like You and collea
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What’s a Girl Like You toward ser
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Blue-Collar Teaching in a White-Col
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Blue-Collar Teaching Half of my fam
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Blue-Collar Teaching from physics.
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Blue-Collar Teaching lifelong dream
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Blue-Collar Teaching Before him, in
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Blue-Collar Teaching One may argue
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Blue-Collar Teaching graduation in
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Blue-Collar Teaching advantages oth
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Carrizales, T. (2010). Exploring cu
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Oldfield, K. (2010). Socioeconomic
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Moving Forward by Looking Back Gary
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Moving Forward My father married my
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Moving Forward became apparent that
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Moving Forward to Duane, because he
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Moving Forward by this contaminant.
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Moving Forward quite by chance to b
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Moving Forward Federalist 51 detail
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Moving Forward their profession, in
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Moving Forward as the study shows,
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REFERENCES Ashwander v. Tennessee V
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Techniques in Teaching Statistics:
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Many researchers have explored the
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LITERATURE REVIEW Techniques in Tea
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Techniques in Teaching Statistics b
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Techniques in Teaching Statistics T
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Techniques in Teaching Statistics l
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Techniques in Teaching Statistics i
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Table 1. Downloads of Papers at Sel
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Figure 2. Expanded Model of Researc
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Techniques in Teaching Statistics o
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Figure 3. Expanded Model of Researc
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Techniques in Teaching Statistics L
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Techniques in Teaching Statistics o
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Felbinger, C. L., Holzer, M., & Whi
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Snee, R. D. (1993). What’s missin
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Are They Connected? Exploring Acade
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Exploring Academic and Social Netwo
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Figure 2. Career Advice Network Fig
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