Aspects of public service often involve tasks sometimes considered taboo, including working with grit, grime, blood, guts, grease, and stigmatized populations. Yet scholarship in our field directly incorporating dirty work remains limited yet growing. Importantly, if MPA students are not trained in how to work with and manage public sector…

For workers employed in the public and nonprofit sectors, the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program offers the potential for full forgiveness of federal student loans for those with 10 years of full-time work experience. A year-long waiver issued by the Department of Education in 2021 to address administrative problems in program access…

This dissertation intends to inform self-assessment and data collection practices within Rutgers University and act upon the encouragement of university leadership to advance the potential of the public service mission. These goals are accomplished by exploring relevant questions to inform the practices of institutional research (IR) and…

This paper discusses understandings of higher education and the public good in the context of Finland. A lexical-based comparison of public goods terminology reveals that the Finnish translation of public good--"julkishyödyke"--is used in comparatively recent (post-1970s) scholarship, mainly limited to the fields of economics, forestry…

The central challenge of social impact education within higher education is the lack of a shared framework to unify language and practice across an institution. One framework gaining popularity among Community Engagement Professionals (CEPs) is the Pathways of Public Service and Civic Engagement. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to…

Universities attend to multiple demands, making it challenging to identify their particular academic project, which can be defined as how the university understands its key purposes and develops its organisation and activities in service of such. While the three pillars of higher education -- teaching, research, and service -- are cited as being…

Public affairs programs have long aimed to advance public service education. First defined as preparing public servants for government employment, public affairs programs have expanded to advancing the public interest and governance across all sectors. While modern public affairs programs have become more expansive in how they define public…

This paper explores how alumni of a multi-term public service program understand the connection between the program and their career development. Qualitative data were collected from 393 alumni based on six open-ended survey questions. While career and professional development is not an explicit goal of the program, a thematic analysis suggests…

For administrators of higher education public service and outreach (PSO) units at public research institutions, the opportunities for service to their states are broad. These administrators' efforts in research, technical assistance, and training address critical needs in their states. Yet all units face limited resources, and the administrators…

Public service internships are an established pedagogical tool in political science. Decades of scholarship on teaching and learning highlight how hands-on practicums can enhance students' substantive learning, professional development, civic values, and multicultural tolerance. Despite the proliferation of research on the student benefits of…

This study aims to explore whether an introductory undergraduate course in Public Administration might be an appropriate educational tool for enhancing public service motivation (PSM) among undergraduate students. A quasi-experimental design involves surveying participants both before and after the intervention (taking an Introduction to Public…

This dissertation studies two distinct but equally essential industries: higher education and water utilities. In the context of higher education, I investigate the impact of subsidies on equilibrium prices and quality levels. For water utilities, I explore the differences between public and private providers in terms of productivity and…

The use of algorithms and automation of public services is not new, but in recent years there has been a step change in processing power and a decrease in the price of these technologies, which means we are seeing more widespread use. These advances are reframing our perception of what matters in ways that impact the ethical dimensions of…

Collegiality and the contribution to the sustenance of the academy through academic citizenship are central to commonly held conceptions of what it is to be a university. This study investigates the articulation and recognition of academic citizenship through institutional promotion criteria, including both traditional research and…

To improve customer service, some academic libraries have used a service philosophy statement to foster a shared understanding of service standards. The authors conducted semistructured interviews with heads of public services at academic libraries to understand how the service philosophy statement was used in practice and its impact on staff…