Volume 4 April 1998
MPA Evaluation
Program Evaluation: Phase I
With the participation and guidance of the MPA Advisory Council, Dr. Sharman Haley’s PADM 635 Program Evaluation class has prepared an evaluation of the MPA Program. This is a preliminary self-study leading toward an eventual accreditation review by the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration (NASPAA). The NASPAA review process includes application, self study, one or more site visits by a NASPAA team, and correction of deficiencies (if any). Programs found in conformity with NASPAA standards are placed on NASPAA’s Annual Roster of Accredited Programs for a period of 7 years.
Dr. Haley’s graduate students Kristin Erchinger, Kate Gressens, Thomas McNulty, Jordan Trigler, and Lynn Wallis have produced a report, "UAA Masters of Public Administration Program Evaluation: Phase I," which contains the following recommendations:
1. Develop an accreditation plan and
seek the required approvals.
2. Redesign the current student
questionnaire and database to alleviate "respondent fatigue" and improve the
utility of the data for student tracking and program management.
3. Develop entry and exit data collection.
4. Develop a comprehensive educational
effectiveness assessment plan.
5. Seek consistent funding for a graduate
assistant position.
6. Seek funding for adjunct faculty,
improved technology, and program marketing.
7. Develop a marketing plan for the
program.
8. Increase the frequency of core course
offerings and expand summer course offerings, both core and elective.
9. Enrich the curriculum with more
practical experiences.
10. Provide space for student socializing
and study groups.
Garth Jones Writing Competition
Professor Emeritus Garth Jones has endowed The Garth N. Jones Writing Competition, which will offer two $500 prizes each year, for the best undergraduate and graduate student papers written by College of Business and Public Policy majors. Patricia Winslow, a management major, has been selected as the first award recipient. She will receive her award at the College of Business and Public Policy’s Honors Reception on Friday, April 24. Patricia will also be a commencement speaker.
New Criminal Justice MPA Emphasis Approved
Starting in September, the MPA Program, in conjunction with the UAA Justice Center, will offer a new emphasis in criminal justice administration. The classes are:
JUST 625 Seminar in Criminal Violation
JUST 630 Justice Administration Theory & Practice
JUST 670 Administrative Law
And either:
JUST 610 Corrections Theory & Research, or
JUST 650 Policing Theory & Research
Plus one elective.
Applications are being accepted now. Students may begin taking core classes in summer or fall semester 1998. The first of the justice emphasis classes will be offered in spring semester 1999.
Forum on the University
Alaska Common Ground, a citizen organization dedicated to addressing public policy issues, is presenting a forum on Saturday, April 18, entitled "Anchorage—Defining the Future of the University and the Community in the 21st Century." Panelists will include:
Patty DeMarco, President, Anchorage Economic Dev. Corp.;
Mano Frey, President, Alaska AFL-CIO;
Sharon Gagnon, Regent, University of Alaska;
Lee Gorsuch, Chancellor, University of Alaska Anchorage;
Steve Lindbeck, Executive Director, AK Humanities Forum;
Dough North, President, Alaska Pacific University; and
Ted Trueblood, President, Tryck, Nyman & Hayes, Inc.
The Forum, moderated by Common Ground Chair Peg Tileston, will be held from 10:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at the Anchorage Senior Center, 1300 East 19th Avenue. Vice Chair Esther Wunnicke will provide concluding remarks. For further information, call 561-0540.
MPA Alumni Association
Looking for an outlet for your leadership talents? E-mail alumnus Kimberly Williams, williams @ alaska.net, or call her at 274-9799 (work) or 563-7561 (home). She is planning a very informal gathering for sometime in May to organize an MPA alumni association. Keep in touch with former classmates, continue your professional development, contribute your talents to the program or community—or just get together and have fun!
MPA Homepage
Dr. Greg Protasel’s research assistant Sheri Baxter has been working on developing a marketing plan for the MPA. She has created a terrific MPA homepage. Check out http://local.uaa.alaska.edu/~aympa/.
Sheri is also working on a revised list of government agency contacts who can help advertise MPA courses through internal newsletters and flyers. (If you or someone you know would like to distribute this sort of information, please e-mail Dr. Protasel, afgjp@uaa.alaska.edu.)
Certified Public Manager Program
Dr. Garth Jones and Dr. Greg Protasel having been working with Hank Wiedle of the Alaska Professional Development Institute to incorporate the program more closely within the State of Alaska’s training program. If you would like information about the CPM program or its class schedule, please call Bruce Rowe at 786-6758 or e-mail him (anbcr@uaa.alaska.edu.)
MPA Mailserv
If you would like e-mail updates on class schedules, job and internship opportunities, and other news items of interest to MPA students and alumni, just send an e-mail message to mailserv@uaa.alaska.edu. The message should say "subscribe uaampa." Whatever anyone sends to the mailserv, you will get a copy. If you wish to send a message, just e-mail it to uaampa@uaa.alaska.edu.
Job Hunting on the Internet
If your organization would like to hire an MPA or if you know of job posting sites of interest to MPA students and alumni, please call Janet Burton at 786-1700, fax 786-1919 or e-mail anjeb@uaa.alaska.edu. Ask about using our bulletin board to post public administration jobs and internship opportunities. Or ask about using faculty Internet mailing lists, called mailservs, to broadcast interesting job or internship opportunities. Here is a beginning list of Internet job sites:
Alaska Court System: http://www.alaska.net/~akctlib/recruit.htm
Anchorage Daily News: http://www.adn.com/classads/ads/sunday/435.html
ARMY: http://cpol.army.mil
DOI: http://www.usgs.gov/doi/avads
FAA: http://jobs.faa.gov
Municipality of Anchorage: http://crete.alaskanet.com/MuniJOL
State of Alaska: https://notes.state.ak.us/Admin/DOP/WorkplaceAlaska/PostApps.nsf
USA Jobs: http://www.usajobs.opm.gov
Student News
Trish Rabas, a 1998 MPA graduate, has been selected for induction
into Phi Kappa Phi, a national honor society for graduate students. Members are selected
on the basis of outstanding academic performance.
Mike Murphy is finishing up a six-month assignment in Bosnia, and is looking forward to finishing up the MPA Program which had already been interrupted by stints in Haiti and the Sinai.
Olga Paluba has been accepted to study in the Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, a required prerequisite to their prestigious Ph.D. in International Relations program. She will spend her first year of studies in Italy.
Karl Thoennes has left Alaska to take on a challenging new job as County Court Administrator in Long Prairie, Minnesota. Among his duties will be setting up a new accounting structure, moving from typewritten ledger books to Excel.
Capstone Presentations
PADM 659 students are working on a number of interesting capstone projects this year. In PADM 659 each student must find a public sector client and study an issue the client identifies. Capstone presentations will be on April 17. Call Dr. Steven Aufrecht at 786-1908 if you would like to attend.
Skeeter Bird has been working for Greater Anchorage, Inc. (Fur Rendezvous Board) on redefining their mission and vision statements.
Olga Paluba has been doing research for the Governor’s office on the economic and social impacts of nonstop scheduled passenger service between Anchorage and the Russian Far East.
Trish Rabas’ work assesses the availability of information and services for Alzheimer’s patients in rural Alaska for the Alzheimer’s Association Alaska Chapter. More information on this project will appear in Sunday’s edition of the Juneau newspaper.
Roberta Schowen has been studying performance measures for the Army Corps of Engineers.
Suzanne Sharp is looking at PL 102477 and the new possibilities it offers for change in the Cook Inlet Tribal Council’s Youth Education Program.
Lynn Wallis is working for the Mayor’s Budget Advisory Commission, performing an analysis of the Municipality’s unreserved fund balance.
Alumni News
Ralph Brower (1989) now a faculty member at Florida State
University, is teaching at UAA this summer. See the attached schedule for details about
his class PADM 671 Individual Identity and the Learning Organization.
Grace Reynolds (1993) has been accepted into the University of Southern California’s Sacramento Public Affairs Center doctoral program in public administration.
Beverli Thomas (1996) is currently serving as President of the Alaska Chapter of the American Society for Public Administration. She is very busy in her new job as Resident Services Coordinator for Alaska Housing. She is also teaching for the UAA Sociology Department, and is working towards her Ph.D. in the sociology of business.
Faculty News
Dr. John Alexander, Equal Employment Opportunity Director for the Anchorage School District (ASD), is teaching as an adjunct for the MPA program. In addition to undertaking a major recruitment effort for ASD, serving as a Board Member of Friends of the Library, and sitting on the Mayor’s Safety Advisory Committee for the Taxi Industry, he is teaching PADM 624 Human Resource Administration at Elmendorf this semester. This is part of our cooperative agreement with the Office of Statewide Military Education to deliver MPA courses at Elmendorf and Ft. Richardson.
Dr. Steven Aufrecht presented a paper entitled "Indians 78, Washington State O: What Public Administrators Need to Know About Native American Law" at the Public Administration Theory Conference in Colorado Springs in March. The paper was co-authored by David Case and Kimberly Martus. Dr. Aufrecht is also working on two papers for the International Institute on Administrative Sciences Working Group on the Ombudsman. He will attend their April meeting in Brussels, where he will be one of three American representatives.
Yvonne Chase, Director, Community and Rural Development, Alaska Department of Community and Regional Affairs, and Eileen Lally, Director of Hope Cottages, are team-teaching PADM 671 Children and Public Policy as adjuncts. This is a distance education course offered in conjunction with the University of Alaska Southeast in Juneau. In addition to teaching, Eileen and Yvonne have been working with UAA and DFYS to get federal Title 4E money to train social workers for child protection. Yvonne will present "African-American Children in Foster Care: Lessons Learned and Guidelines for the Future" at APSAC's Sixth Annual National Colloquium, in July in Chicago.
Dr. Garth Jones’ "Pakistan: A Civil Service in an Obsolescing Imperial Tradition" will appear in an upcoming issue of The Asian Journal of Public Administration. "Gathering of Zion in the San Luis Valley, Colorado: The Untold Tale of Missionary James Lisonbee’s Missionary Labors in Northwest Alabama and Northeast Georgia, 1876-1877" will be published in the Journal of Mormon History. Additionally, two of his book review essays will soon be published in the Journal of Third World Studies.
Dr. Sharman Haley’s "Estimating Net Benefits of Reallocation: Discrete Choice Models of Sport and Commercial Fishing" appeared in the winter issue of Marine Resource Economics 12:4 (307-327) 1997. She presented "Impacts of Development on Arctic Communities: Scenarios for Oil and Gas, Road Access and Tourism" at the Western Regional Science Association’s annual conference in February. This paper is part of a larger National Science Foundation study, "Sustainability of Arctic Communities." She is in the third year of evaluating rural sanitation demonstration projects for the Alaska Native Health Board. Dr. Haley is also serving on the campuswide Outcomes Assessment Coordination Council, coordinating the educational effectiveness assessments for UAA’s Colleges of Business and Public Policy, and Health , Education and Social Welfare.
Dr. Greg Protasel presented "The Development of Local Self-Government in Russia in the Post-Communist Era" to the Tacoma World Affairs Council on January 6, on a trip sponsored by the Tacoma World Affairs Council and the University of Washington Tacoma. In February, at the 37th Annual Meeting of the Western Regional Science Foundation in Monterey, California, he presented "The Development of Local Self-Government in Russia," and chaired a panel on "The Economy of the Indigenous North." In March (together with Arlene Abbott, Alaska State Department of Administration, Professional Management Institute) he provided public administration training to 50 mid-level Russian managers for the Sakhalin Regional Administration in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Russia. This was done under the auspices of the UAA American Russian Center in cooperation with the Russian American Business Training Center in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. Finally, on April 2 at the Anchorage Hilton, he co-chaired a panel on "Decision-making: Resolving Disputes Over Alaska’s Natural Resources" at the Alaska Dispute Settlement Association Conference "ADR in Alaska: Thinking Win-Win" held at the Anchorage Hilton.
Summer 1998 Classes
PADM 628 301 Administration of Financial Resources
Dr. Greg Protasel
Tuesdays &Thursdays, 6:00-10:00 p.m., CAS 223
PADM 640 Alternative Dispute Resolution
Dr. Greg Protasel
Intensive Course.
(Each section is 1 credit. Sections may be taken separately.)
Introductory meeting (all sections): Friday, May 1,
4:30 p.m.-5:30 p.m., LIB 201
Section 301: Negotiation, Friday and Saturday, May 15-16
9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m., CAS 253
Section 302: Mediation, Friday and Saturday, May 29-30
9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m., CAS 253
Section 303: New Approaches, Friday and Saturday, June 12-
13, 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m., CAS 258
PADM 671 301 Individual Identity & The Learning Organization
Dr. Ralph Brower
Intensive Course.
Introductory Meeting: Friday, May 1
6:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m., LIB 201
Session 1: Thursday, Friday, Saturday, June 4-6
8:30 a.m.-5:00 p.m., CAS 224
Session 2: Thursday, Friday, Saturday, June 25-27
8:30 a.m.-5:00 p.m., CAS 224
Fall 1998 Classes
ECON 625 601 Economics and Public Policy
Dr. Bradford Tuck
Tuesdays, 7:00 p.m.-9:45 p.m., LIB 201
PADM 601 601 Public Administration in the Contemporary Society
Dr. Steven Aufrecht
Mondays, 7:00 p.m.-9:45 p.m., LIB 201
PADM 603 601 Management Analysis
Dr. Greg Protasel
Wednesdays, 6:00 p.m.-8:45 p.m., LIB 201
PADM 606 601 The Policymaking Process
Dr. Greg Protasel
Tuesdays & Thursdays, 5:30 p.m.-6:45 p.m., LIB 201
PADM 610 775 Organizational Theory and Behavior
Dr. Garth Jones
Thursdays, 7:00 p.m.-9:45 p.m., Elmendorf Airforce Base
PADM 624 601 Human Resources Administration
Dr. Steven Aufrecht
Intensive course.
Introductory Meeting: Friday, August 28
4:00 p.m.-6:00 p.m., LIB 201
Session 1: Thursday, Friday, Saturday, October 1-3
8:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m., CAS 258
Session 2: Thursday, Friday, Saturday, November 5-7
8:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m., CAS 258
PADM 632 601 Quantitative and Qualitative Methods for Policy Analysis
Dr. Sharman Haley
Monday, 7:00 p.m.-9:45 p.m., LIB 201
Newsletter of the Public Administration Program, University of Alaska Anchorage, College of Business and Public Policy, 3211 Providence Drive, Anchorage, AK 99508. Dr. Steven Aufrecht , (907) 786-1908/afsea@uaa.alaska.edu; Dr. Sharman Haley, (907) 786-7741/afsh@uaa.alaske.edu; Dr. Garth N. Jones, c/o Janet Burton, (907) 786-1700/anjeb@uaa.alaska.edu; Dr. Greg Protasel, (907) 786-1786/afgjp@uaa.alaska.edu.