Mission Statement and Outcomes: Northern Kentucky University, Greater Cincinnati Region

The NKU MPA program prepares and develops students to manage and lead in governments, nonprofits, and related organizations to address the fundamental need for diverse, ethical, and effective public service professionals in the Northern Kentucky / Greater Cincinnati region and beyond.

Our MPA students enhance their knowledge and skills through engaged and experiential learning including capstone projects, service learning, student philanthropy, internships, study abroad, and research with faculty members.
In addition, our MPA students deepen their public service values through co-curricular and extracurricular activities such as: special events and guest speakers; mentoring and connections through our Advisory Board and alumni network; service and social activities organized by our student organization; and engagement with our chapters of the Pi Alpha Alpha global honor society and the International City/County Management Association (ICMA).

Objectives

The MPA program’s core objectives are:

Provide fundamental managerial and analytical skills to be applied to the public sector in the areas of policy evaluation, human resource management, organizational development and behavior, and financial management and budgeting.
Develop analytical competencies including thinking critically about social issues and potential strategies to address them, collecting and analyzing relevant information, and communicating it effectively.
Cultivate a strong sense of public sector values and ethical behavior within the public sector work environment.
Enhance abilities to organize information and ideas and to communicate them effectively, both in written reports and in oral presentations.
Provide certain specialized skills, knowledge and competency in the areas of concentration.

Learning Outcomes

The ability to lead and manage in public interest.
- Understand the uniqueness of the public sector in terms of the policy environment, organizational structure, values and requisite competencies.
- Develop skill sets that demonstrate the student’s ability to manage human, financial, information technology, and other resources.
- Inform and increase awareness of critical issues that the sector faces and their implications for managing and leading public sector organizations.
The ability to participate in, and contribute to, the policy process.
- Learn various theories and models of public policy making and implementation.
- Develop and apply analytical skills in policy making setting.
- Understand the politics of public policy as applied to stakeholder’s influence in the process.
- Demonstrate the skill to communicate to stakeholders the impacts, outcomes and influences of policy problems and issues.
- Ability to read statutes, ordinances, and case law and to apply these skills within a given public administrator’s scope of responsibility.
The ability to analyze, synthesize, think critically, solve problems and make evidence-informed decisions in a complex and dynamic environment.
- Enhance skill-sets that allow for the analysis and synthesis of critical thinking and problem solving.
- Demonstrate through the use of memorandum, technical report, research report and issue paper the skills to analyze and process information and present them effectively to aid in decision making.
- Comprehend the fiscal implications of public sector management.
The ability to articulate, apply and advance a public service perspective.
- Cultivate core values of public service, effectiveness, efficiency, honesty, accountability, fairness and diversity through analysis of hypothetical or applied case studies and scenarios.
- Understand the rights of citizens and public sector employees.
The ability to communicate and interact productively and in culturally responsive ways with a diverse and changing workforce and society at large.
- Develop increased awareness of diversity in society and the workforce in terms of gender, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and disabilities.
- Recognize diversity in society and the workforce and apply strategies and processes to manage it.
- Cultivate effective team building skills.

Mission-Specific Elective Competencies

Public Leadership

Objectives:

Provide knowledge and skills to manage and lead in the public sector, including local, state and federal government agencies.
Understand the uniqueness of leading and managing in the public sector, especially the diversity in employees, communities and society.

Learning outcomes

Build knowledge of employee motivation and motivational strategies to improve executive leadership skills.
Obtain a hands-on understanding of implementation, monitoring and evaluation tools in a governance structure.
Describe diversity and its impact in public organizations and environments.
Identify and build skills necessary for leading and managing diverse persons and viewpoints.

Nonprofit Management

Objectives

Provide skills and knowledge to form and manage nonprofit organizations.
Develop fundraising and financial management skills for the nonprofit sector.
Understand the uniqueness of working and managing volunteers.

Learning Outcomes

Understand the process of forming an incorporated nonprofit organization.
Identify and comprehend important issues and challenges in nonprofit management, including legal and ethical issues,accountability and performance evaluation, and the increasing involvement of the private sector.
Learn fundamental principles and concepts of fundraising as well as various programs and methods to acquire funds for nonprofit organizations.
Understand the basics of resource management, particularly budgeting, accounting and financial reporting.
Learn and apply theories, processes and best practices related to volunteer management.

Metropolitan Governance

Objectives

Provide students with the conceptual basis and skill assortion to become professional practitioners in local government.
Appreciate the political and organizational cultural nuances of such state and local sector institutions.
Provide specialized managerial and interpersonal skills to navigate often contradictory public policy issues.

Learning outcomes

Develop an awareness of the history and ethics of good government as developed by the city manager movement over the last century.
Understand the key policy roles played by the local manager in this age of the dependent city, especially in areas of comprehensive planning, economic development, and the budgeting of scarce resources.
Provide opportunities for interpersonal and political skill development through practical experience in the form of shadowing of managers and internships.
Enhance the ability to work in a collaborative project management setting.

Homeland Security

Objectives

Increase awareness of the different types of terrorism, their causes and prevention.
Understand the workings of the Homeland Security division of our government and its different infra-structure.
Understand the four phases of emergency management and how each phase is developed locally and federally.These four phases are mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery for man-made and natural disasters.

Learning outcomes

Develop knowledge and skills suitable for a career in homeland security or emergency management.
Evaluate a community’s preparedness against various types of disasters.
Develop knowledge and skills to respond and recover in a community during an actual emergency.
To develop an understanding of historical perspectives on terrorism, basic definitions of cogent terms and concepts, and the symbolism of terrorism.
To understand different forms of terrorist tactics and targets along with methods of appropriate prevention, detection, and response, applying such knowledge to the local environment.

General Public Management

Objective

Provide students an option to choose among different specialized courses from the other concentrations based on their career needs and aspirations.

Learning outcomes

Develop skills and knowledge on one or more specialized areas in nonprofit management, and/or homeland security, and/or planning.
Develop an appreciation for having personal and professional integrity and how these values relate to decisions that ultimately affect the citizenry.

Evaluation

The program systematically collects information from internal and external sources to assess these learning outcomes. Internal sources include feedback from students, capstone portfolios, capstone projects, and exams and assignments in different courses. External sources include feedback from alumni, area practitioners, and the MPA Advisory Board members.

Mission and Outcomes

Public Leadership

Nonprofit Management

Metropolitan Governance

Homeland Security

General Public Management

Evaluation

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CONTACT US

Northern Kentucky University - Master of Public Administration

FH 572B, Highland Heights, KY 41099

Email mpa@nku.edu / Phone 859.572.5326