Administrative Core Courses 18 credit hours
(All are required for all MPA students)

PPA 500 Foundations of Public Administration
Introduces students to the practice and discipline of public administration. Core functions of the field are surveyed including: organization theory, public personnel administration, and budgeting and finance.

PPA 501 Research Methods in Public Administration
Application of the logic of scientific methodology and research design construction to the practice and discipline of public administration. Emphasizes hypothesis development and testing, data collection, measurement problems, and theory application.
PPA 502 Policy Analysis and Program Evaluation
This course introduces students to the practice of policy analysis and program evaluation. Emphasis is placed on the applied nature of both. Students are introduced to both quantitative and qualitative methods of evaluation.

PPA 503 Public Budgeting and Finance
This course introduces students to the principles and procedures of public budgeting and finance. Emphasis is placed on the budgeting process.

PPA 504 Public Human Resource Management
This course introduces students to human resource management in the public and nonprofit sectors. Topics include: federal and state employment laws, job analysis, recruitment and selection, performance evaluation, compensation and benefits, training and development, labor-management relations and human resource information technology.

PPA 505 Public Sector Organization Theory and Behavior
This course introduces students to the study of organization theory within the context of the public sector. Issues of organization design and effectiveness are explored. Schools of thought include: classical, neoclassical, human resources, modern structural, organizational culture and open-systems theory.