Graduate School of Public Affairs

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT DENVER

Graduate School of Public Affairs

PAD5001

INTRODUCTION TO PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND PUBLIC SERVICE

Linda deLeon, Associate Professor Email: Linda

GSPA Phone 303-556-5977 Office location: 1380 Lawrence St, Ste 500

Home Phone 303-278-9582 Mailing address: GSPA/Campus Box 142

FAX: 303-556-5971 CU-Denver, POB 173364, Denver 80217-3364

[NOTE: Details of this syllabus may be changed, depending upon the size of the class or other factors.]

OBJECTIVES

·  The course is organized around several of the “big questions” of public administration. In formulating for themselves answers to these questions, using our readings, lectures, and discussions as well as their own research, students will develop an understanding of the history, theory and current issues in the field.

·  As with all graduate course work, this course is also designed to develop students’ skills in research, analysis, critical thinking and communication. The rubric that I use to evaluate student work is attached to this syllabus (“Criteria of Excellence”).

·  The course is intended to give students practice in knowledge creation, both through individual research and group production.

·  Finally, the course is geared toward helping students improve their own personal theories of administration, and of their skills for professional practice, through reflection and writing.

TEXTS

Required: Frederick S. Lane, Current Issues in Public Administration (6th Ed.) Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s Press

Students will also be encouraged to search out information from other public administration texts, journal articles (available online from the databases of the Auraria Library) and on the web. In addition, some readings will be placed on Electronic Reserve at the Auraria Library.

ASSIGNED ACTIVITIES

Participation in class activities and discussion. Each week, there will be one or more topics for discussion, organized as threaded discussions in each unit of the course. Students will be expected to participate in the discussion each week, suggesting questions for discussion, offering relevant examples from your own experience or other reading, and demonstrating thoughtful, critical evaluation of the week's reading.

Required Essays. Students will write a brief essay providing their own answer to each of the “big questions” around which the course is organized. Students will also produce one self-assessment and personal plan for their graduate course work and their professional development.

Webliography. Students will share the best web sites they find with the rest of the class. A contribution of at least 5 excellent web resources will be required.

Self-Evaluation. Prepare a one-page statement (this one can be single-spaced if you wish) assessing how well you achieved your own personal goals for this course. You don't need to give yourself a "grade," just tell me how your goals look now – did you achieve them? Revise them? How did this course fit in with the other work you have done at GSPA (if this isn't your first course)? What goals do you have for your future course work here?

Final Examination. A final examination will be given the last week of class. It will require an essay on a topic closely related to the “big questions” on which the course is focused, and therefore, the earlier required essays will provide the knowledge and analysis necessary to succeed.

GRADING

All assigned work is required and will be graded. The student’s final grade, however, will be based primarily on the final examination, since that exercise will demonstrate the student’s level of proficiency at the end of the course. A portion of the grade will reflect the student’s participation in class activities, such as group work and discussion, since these represent the co-production of knowledge and thus are an essential part of the graduate-level learning experience.

My philosophy of grading is that students start with a passing grade (a “B”) and with due diligence can likely earn a B+. Grades above that indicate outstanding performance, above the level that one would expect of graduate students. Grades below indicate sub-standard performance. A B- grade is considered a passing grade in a core course. Grades below B- indicate that the student has not mastered the material sufficiently well to continue in the program and require that the course be re-taken.

THE BIG QUESTIONS

·  What is public administration? (How does the public administration relate to the other governmental institutions such as judicial and legislative ones? What are the differences between public, private and nonprofit administration? How do federal, state and local levels of government relate to each other?)

·  What are the key features of the political and cultural environment of public administration? (How can administrators work with politicians? How does ideology and partisanship affect administrative and policy processes? What are the roles of political parties, lobbyists, interest groups, and other actors in shaping policy and administration?

·  What is special about public administration within a democracy? (How is political legitimacy conferred upon administration, which is not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution? What is accountability? Do public organizations have to be representative of the diversity of the population in order to serve all groups effectively? Should public organizations be democratic internally? To what extent should they promote citizen participation in policy making and implementation?

·  What are the effects of structuring public organizations as bureaucracies? Does bureaucracy support or undermine democracy? Are they the most efficient form of organization or the least efficient? What other forms of organization (communities, networks) are available and what are their advantages and disadvantages?

·  How can public organizations be made more effective? Can the outcomes of public organizations be measured effectively? Are there better or worse ways to manage them? What factors predict good performance?

·  What challenges does public administration face today and in the future?

CRITERIA OF EXCELLENCE

The following is a list of the elements I look for in evaluting a student's written work:

1. Understanding concepts, ideas and information: A good masters-level student should develop a solid understanding of the terms and concepts used in the text, other readings and discussions. S/he should be able to use these terms and concepts appropriately. If it seems from the student's discussion that s/he has a solid understanding, but s/he does not express this understanding "in so many words," then the student has implicitly demonstrated understanding. An outstanding essay explicitly demonstrates that the student has a highly-developed, complete, subtle understanding of the terms and concepts used in class.

2. Using examples and making analogies; making comparisons and contrasts: The ability to illustrate a term, concept, or principle with examples and analogies is very useful. The clearer the student's understanding of the material, the more appropriate will be his/her illustrations. Choosing the best illustrations is a bit of an art; very good, skillfully chosen ones illuminate the discussion even beyond the point of merely illustrating a term, etc. Excellent examples suggest subtleties and connections that are particularly interesting, relevant and fruitful. Similarly, the ability to make appropriate comparisons and contrasts is an important analytic technique: these comparisons and contrasts should be appropriate or, even better, suggestive of more than one level of meaning.

3. Demonstrating critical thinking: The student's critique of ideas, theories or information contained in the text, other readings and class discussion may be either basic or, beyond that, penetrating. A critique can consist of several things:

* pointing out what is especially good, useful or interesting

* showing errors in data, method, or logic

* expressing and examining underlying assumptions upon which

analysis is based and how these assumptions affect conclusions

A masters-level student should be able to point out glaring or fundamental errors when they occur. S/he should be able to evaluate a piece of work (his or her own, an author's, a fellow student's, the instructor's), describing what is good or not-so-good about it, and explaining his/her reasons for judging so. An outstanding student will be able to spot more kinds of errors, explain his/her judgments in more detail and with more sophistication, and will be able to suggest improvements or corrections.

4. Reasoning: A masters-level student should be able to reason logically, making appropriate connections between ideas and explaining each important step in his/her argument. A good essay has a clear line of argument and comes to a clearly stated conclusion, marshalling appropriate evidence along the way. Really outstanding clarity of argument, inference, and conclusion merits extra credit.

5. Writing: A masters-level student should be able to express ideas clearly, with reasonably good spelling, punctuation and grammar. Clarity and precision are always important, because words are the tools for expressing ideas, and ideas that aren't understood can't be evaluated or used. Outstanding writing is characterized by particularly graceful, lucid, or striking prose.

COURSE POLICIES

DROPPING THE COURSE

If after reviewing this syllabus, you conclude that you do not wish to continue with the course, it is very important that you file a Drop/Add form soon. The last date for Drop/Add requests is the 12th day after the class begins. After that date, you cannot withdraw and still have your paid tuition refunded. You may still withdraw from the course, but your tuition will not be refunded.

INCOMPLETE WORK

The University of Colorado at Denver recognizes two incomplete statuses: IW (Incomplete, Withdrawing) and IF (Incomplete, Failing). GSPA's policy is normally to award IF grades to students who do not complete all assigned work; an IF turns into an "F" after one calendar year. (If the student completes the work later and the instructor turns in a Change of Record form with a grade, the transcript will read "F / [grade]" and only the grade, not the F, will be used in calculating the student's GPA.)

If you find yourself unable to complete the requirements of the course, contact your instructor as soon as possible. If s/he consents, you should create a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) specifying (a) when you will complete the remaining assignments, (b) exactly what work you will turn in, (c) what will happen if you do the work on time (i.e., the same grade as you would have received had the work been timely, or a reduction in grade), and (d) what will happen if you do not complete the work. A copy of this MOU, signed by each party, should be placed in the student's file at GSPA.

ATTENDANCE

“Attendance” obviously has a different meaning in an online class, where there are no times when a student is required to be online and participate in class activities with other students. Students should keep up with all course work, however, which means participating in the threaded discussions each week. It won’t be possible to return to earlier weeks and make a contribution to the discussion, since the rest of the class will have moved on.

EMAIL SUBMISSION OF WRITTEN WORK

You are responsible for ascertaining that the assignment was received in readable condition, on the date when it is due. Submissions are made to the course website, so they will be automatically time-stamped. Submissions sent to the instructor’s personal email address will not be considered.

LATE WORK

If you know in advance that you will be unable to turn in work on time, you must make prior arrangements with me to do so; otherwise, your grade on the assignment will be lowered one notch (e.g., from A- to B+, from B+ to B, etc.).

If it is impossible to make advance arrangements, please contact me as soon as possible to arrange an alternate time to turn in the work. If you do so, there will be no penalty for lateness.

Please note: normally, if you know you will have circumstances (business travel or illness, for example) that will prevent you from turning in an assignment on time, I expect you to arrange to turn in the assignment early rather than late.

EXTRA CREDIT

No extra credit will be given.

ACADEMIC DISHONESTY

[The following statement was prepared by Professor Lloyd Burton. I reproduce it here in its entirety, in the hope it will introduce the range of issues involved and raise your awareness of them.]

Under University of Colorado and UCD campus rules, each school and college is responsible for encouraging its students to abide by the campus Academic Honor Code and to bring disciplinary action against students who are found to have violated it. Although Honor Code violations are relatively rare in GSPA degree programs, they do occur. Therefore, the purpose of this handout to briefly explain the two most common forms of academic dishonesty that have occurred on occasion at GSPA, and then to provide advice on how to avoid committing them, whether accidentally or intentionally.

Cheating on Examinations. This can be a particular problem in the administering of open-book, take-home examinations. Unless the course professor tells you otherwise, the general rule is that once the examination has been distributed, students should not communicate with anyone but the course professor regarding how to answer any of the questions on the examination. To ask anyone else for help in answering a question is a form of academic dishonesty. Moreover, any student who is asked by another for help in answering an exam question has an affirmative ethical duty to inform the course professor that another student has improperly asked for assistance.

Faculty who give take-home examinations have an obligation to make sure students clearly understand the terms and conditions under which the exam is being given, including what information sources students may and may not use in answering questions. The best way for students to avoid this form of academic dishonesty is to make sure they clearly understand the rules under which the exam is being given before taking it home. After the exam has been taken home, if a fellow student starts to ask another student for some form of help in taking the exam, it is the duty of the student being asked to remind the one asking the question that such communication is not allowed; and that the student asking the question should be communicating with the faculty member instead.

Plagiarism. This term is generally defined as incorporating words or ideas from an outside information source into one's written work without acknowledging the original source of the words or ideas; that is, creating the impression that the words and ideas are the student's own rather than those of the source from which they have been taken. Under American law, if plagiarized work is published for profit, it is considered a form of intellectual theft, and usually results in a lawsuit for money damages. In American academic institutions, plagiarism is also considered to be the stealing of ideas, although the remedy is disciplinary action by the school or college rather than a lawsuit.