MPA Curriculum

Undergraduate Prerequisites: Incoming students must have completed one undergraduate American government course and one undergraduate statistics course. Each must have been completed with a “C” grade or better. Students may complete these prerequisites during their first semester in the MPA Program.

Core Courses: Students must complete each of the following core courses with a “B” grade or better. Students are not permitted to take the research courses (MPAD 6187, 6188, 6800, 6801) until all core courses are successfully completed.

• MPAD 6102 Foundation in Public Administration
• MPAD 6104 Public Organizations and Management
• MPAD 6125 Quantitative Research Methods in Public Administration
• MPAD 6126 Data Analysis in Decision Making (prerequisite: MPAD 6125)
• MPAD 6131 Public Budgeting and Finance
• MPAD 6134 Human Resource Management

Elective Courses: Students must complete 15 credit hours of elective coursework. Students may choose to follow one of the MPA Program’s concentrations, but doing so is not necessary. With the approval of the MPA Director, students may take courses from other departments/programs as electives. (See the MPA Handbook at the end of this page for more detailed information regarding the concentrations.)

Research Courses: After successfully completing all their core coursework students are eligible to take their research courses. Two options are available to students:

Option 1: Research Applications
MPAD 6187 Advanced Seminar in Public Management Problem Solving
This course requires the class to work as an evaluation team on a real world project using the skills they developed in the Program. A professional report is produced and presented to the relevant government or nonprofit body.

MPAD 6188 Research Application in Public Administration
This course requires students to work on an individual research project using the skills they developed in the Program. Students produce a professional research report and present their findings in a profession manner to MPA faculty.