Public Affairs, Administrative Faculty and the Winter Commission Report

Abstract

The following is a summary of a larger report prepared by the National Association of Schools and Public Affairs and Administration Task Force on Education for the State and Local Public Service. This summation reflects written contributions to the larger report made by task force members, including Glen Cope, Chet Haskell, Janet Patton, James Perry, Barbara Romzek, Frank Sherwood, and David Carnevale.[1] The Winter Commission recommendations profoundly impact teaching and research in public affairs and administration. Those who read the report may find parts they disagree with or identify areas that are not addressed in the recommendations. But the core of the report has programmatic implications for university and college public affairs and administration programs to which faculty and administrators in these programs must devote serious attention. The Winter Commission issues a clarion call for a new kind of public service which will require radical curricular transformation. The report should stimulate faculty reconsideration of the core curriculum of their degree programs to emphasize the best practices in public organization design and management control systems. The report challenges programs of public affairs and administration to equip students with the knowledge, skills, and abilities to be catalysts for change rather than guardians of the status quo. The commission's emphasis on public managers who serve as coaches and facilitators rather than supervisors and controllers will require faculty reconsideration of the range of skills that are imparted to graduates. The result will be greater emphasis on new skill packages that include competency in team building, negotiation, communication inside and outside the organization, employee involvement, cultural awareness, and program quality. The reform proposals also suggest that new teaching methods must be developed and emphasized. Programs must develop experiential opportunities to assist students in mastering interpersonal and managerial skills. High performance laboratories, developed in cooperation with state and local government officials, would bring together new ideas and skills. Further, programs should consider ways to develop and deliver in-service training in ways that enhance their attractiveness to practitioners by emphasizing flexibility regarding formats, locations, schedules, and program length. The Winter Commission emphasizes stable, consistent support for human resource development much more than many reform proposals. There is a need to develop in-service training programs that will hasten the time when public service managers can become the new kind of public manager envisioned by the report. In-service programs will also provide training of those whose initial education experience came from areas other than public management. Some training can be campus based and can be developed on a fee-for-service basis. Other strategies should promote the training of trainers to expand and enhance the quality of training provided directly by local governments or state departments and agencies. Faculty and administrators should work with state and local governments to better fund training and develop sufficient staff levels to provide the necessary time for training. Faculty members in public affairs and administration, as well as others, must face the reality that most persons in the state and local public service will be educated in areas other than public affairs and administration. This is not surprising since specialization typically has been the key to both entry-level positions and early career advancement. Persons interested in government often see other professional degrees or training as more useful to them in pursuing career objectives in the public service. Given these facts, public affairs and administration faculty and administrators must develop more cooperative relationships with these other higher education programs than has often been the case in the past. …