Our 2024 – 2025 graduates felt that the MPA Program delivered the student learning competencies well. According to the exit survey that year, on average graduates scored us near the top of a 7-point rating scale for each of them.
Graduates are expected to be able to:
- Lead and manage in public governance/Meet challenges of rapidly changing world (6.5)
- Apply a wide range of knowledge about the public service
- Apply a wide range of knowledge about an elective area within public service
- Provide evidence of professional skills necessary for the public service
- Participate in and contribute to the public policy process (5.8)
- Analyze, synthesize, think critically, solve problems and make decisions (6.3)
- Articulate and apply a public service perspective (6.5)
- Communicate and interact productively with a diverse and changing workforce and citizenry (6.1)
- Write effectively and concisely for an audience of professionals
- Present effectively to small and large groups
- Work effectively in groups and teams
- Communicate and work to ensure social justice, equity and other public service values highlighted by the Program (6.1)
Student Competencies in an Elective Area
In an elective area, students are expected to:
- Demonstrate an understanding of ethics
- Understand the roles and relationships (leaders, officials, citizens and stakeholders)
- Articulate the purposes of and processes for communicating with citizens and stakeholders
- Develop strategies for engaging citizens and stakeholders
- Lead, manage and serve to provide services and functions in the elective field
- Apply the management of local government financial resources (for Urban Administration)
- Apply the management of local government human resources (for Urban Administration)
- Develop an understanding of the current policy issues, challenges and solutions
- Understand the complexities of network relationships and develop skills in collaborative management
- Develop skills to lead, manage and serve and to provide solutions challenges
For the assessment period Fall 2020 – Spring 2024, the MPA Program assessed the policy PLO: Participate in and contribute to the public policy process
Brief description of assessment process, from MPA Program’s Assessment Plan Students’ policy briefing papers are evaluated using the policy brief assessment scoring rubric. The rubric has 4 possible scores for each criterion: initial, emerging, developed, and highly developed. The MPA Program calculates average scores and frequency distributions for each criterion. Target outcome measure: 85 percent of graduating students receive “developed” or “highly developed” for each criterion the Public Policy Process rubric.
- Policy theories criterion: The MPA Program met its goal of having 85% or more score “developed” or “highly developed” for policy theories for all 7 semesters.
- Stakeholders’ criterion: The MPA Program met its goal of having 85% or more score “developed” or “highly developed” for the for 3 of the 7 semesters in the assessment period.
- Engagement plan criterion: The MPA Program met its goal of having 85% or more score “developed” or “highly developed” for engagement plan for 6 of the 7 semesters in the assessment period.
- Adequacy of the brief criterion: The MPA Program met its goal of having 85% or more score “developed” or “highly developed” for the adequacy of the brief for 4 of the 7 semesters in the assessment period.
Across four of the five criteria, student performance demonstrates particular strength in conceptual understanding (policy theories) and application (engagement plan), with some consistency in applied areas such as stakeholder analysis and communication (adequacy of brief). These findings indicate that students leave the program with strong theoretical and analytical foundations, while the curriculum continues to evolve to enhance applied policy competencies.
The MPA degree is a 39-unit graduate program (42 units, with an internship) and can be completed within four semesters for full-time students. However, almost 85 percent of our students are part-time students, usually taking two courses per semester. The median time to degree is 6 semesters (2 -3 years, depending on whether attending full- or part-time).
Of students admitted to the program in Fall 2019 and Spring 2020:
- 15% graduated in 2 years
- 45% graduated in 3 years or less
- 60% graduated in 4 years or less
- 64% persisted to degree completion
The graduation rate of 64% for the 2019 – 2020 cohort is unusually low (typically it hovers around 85%) and upon closer examination, the cause of the greater than usual attrition sems to have been pandemic-related.