Rutgers mini-MPA for busy government administrators
Don’t have time to complete a full MPA degree program? Rutgers’ mini-Master of Public Administration (MPA) offering might be the answer. It’s a 30-hour certificate program that Rutgers’ New Brunswick, N.J.-based Center for Executive Leadership in Government (CELG) offers on a series of five Fridays. The next session starts Sept. 23 and runs from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 pm.
Students at recent mini-MPA classes have included federal administrators from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency, as well as police chiefs and directors of city public works departments.
“It’s a program that’s suited for government administrators who wants to brush up on their skills, if, say, they got their MPA 20 years ago,” says Kathe Callahan, CELG’s associate director. “Students can find out what’s new in social media, and how they can use that to communicate effectively with their constituents. Another course covers what’s new in performance measurement.”
Networking opportunities during the mini-MPA sessions, says Callahan, enable students to talk to peers about some of the challenges they are confronting as public administrators and officials. CELG, for instance, hosts lunch discussions among participants each Friday.
Callahan says the instructors in the program are well seasoned. “They are practitioners as well as academics. They have their advanced degrees, but they also have years of experience, working in city, county or state government agencies. So it’s not your dry, boring academic. They are interesting people that have war stories to share. They’ve been in the trenches, and they understand what the challenges are.”
The topics covered at the sessions that start Sept. 23 include:
Managing Public Organizations and People
Visualizing the Big Picture and Setting the Agenda
Public Law and Ethical Dilemmas
Communications and Social Media
Performance Management and Financial Management.
The cost to attend the mini-MPA program is $2,500. CELG offers a brochure on the program.
