Systematically examining the mentoring process for PhD students' needs to recognize that it has characteristics of unit/small batch production and relies heavily on the coproduction of the PhD student. This article examines one mentor's experiences with 80+ PhD students over an extended period of time using these conceptual lenses. Three general…

The renewal of efforts to disrupt or dismantle White supremacy in public service organizations and society has been met by strong cross-currents from the current political and policy climate in the United States. We see efforts by public administration faculty to incorporate more critical perspectives around pedagogy and public service as very…

As the COVID-19 pandemic threatens American lives and disrupts daily routines, we continue to see front-line public servants step forward to battle the virus with persistence. Given the increasingly polarized COVID environment, the natural inclination is to ask: what is motivating these public servants to persevere in their work despite the…

Traditional MPA programs that deliver public affairs education often use gender blind pedagogies. Gender blind pedagogies maintain that organizational practices and decision-making processes are gender neutral and have similar outcomes to both men and women who engage in public service. Gender neutral assumptions in PA education perpetuate gender…

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…

As calls increase to give public affairs doctoral students more agency in their learning, we report on the effects of implementing professional development, self-reflection, and original research into a first-year, first-semester introductory doctoral seminar. Using Scott et al.'s framework, we purposively integrated elements of socialization and…

Independent Demonstration Projects is a strategy to innovate for government without prior approval of officials. The innovator implements their idea as a minimum viable product, independent of the government. Once the innovation is operating, it creates pressure on officials to sustain and expand it with government resources. This case illustrates…

Emotion is the "how" of NASPAA competencies related to leading and managing in a culturally-conscious manner. In this article, we describe the role of emotion in public service and we detail the mechanism by which emotion fosters a collective mind-set for effective public service leadership and cultural literacy. We indicate specifically…

Master of Public Administration (MPA) alumni face increasingly diverse and global professional expectations. Public affairs specialists generally go on to manage complex partnerships that involve a wide array of participants. Public administration education ought to do its part to ensure these graduates succeed. In this sense, we offer comparative…

The academic practitioner divide and strategies to close that gap have been important lines of inquiry in the fields of public administration and public affairs. This study contributes to that significant body of work by reporting results from two surveys of faculty in NASPAA accredited programs and of practitioners affiliated with the…

The widening cracks in the foundations of American democracy are leading to appeals for higher educational institutions generally, and public affairs programs specifically, to offer more courses on civil discourse. In this paper, we conduct a curriculum scan to evaluate the extent to which public affairs programs have answered these calls at the…

Despite Minnowbrook's call in 1968, social equity has been slow to be incorporated into public administration scholarship, teaching, and practice. However, recently, more organizations have promoted a social equity lens in their missions, strategic plans, budgets, hiring decisions, programs, and policies. As a pillar of public administration, this…

Computer-based simulations in public affairs curricula are thought to better prepare graduates for responding to an increasingly complex public policy environment upon entering into or advancing within public sector careers. Using survey results from 221 participants in the 2021 NASPAA-Batten Pandemic 2.0 simulation competition, the authors…

Debates about trade-offs among values are central to the field of public administration and to graduate education in public affairs. Accreditation guidelines from the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration (NASPAA) direct graduate programs to articulate the public service values that guide their curricula. Moreover,…

This article investigates transformations in public service education over the past 50 years, specifically: How have organizational forms evolved, and what lessons can we draw from that evolution? The organizational form construct originates in population ecology theory. We draw from a variety of evidentiary sources in answering the research…