Teaching curiosity in public affairs programs

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 365-375
Author(s):  
William Hatcher

Through practicing curiosity by asking questions in the hopes of seeking answers, public administrators may practice empathy, build knowledge about how the world works, and in doing so, dispel ignorance in public agencies. By valuing curiosity, or dispelling ignorance about how the world works, public administrators may help create bureaucracies that are effective, democratic, and trustworthy. Thus, curiosity is a concept that can help public administrators improve the delivery of public services and better serve their communities. However, public affairs curriculum rarely addresses the topic. This article discusses the importance of curiosity in public administration, examines how public affairs programs can teach the concept, and concludes with advice on incorporating the exercises teaching curiosity in the public administration classroom.

1991 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis P. McManamon

Throughout the world, public agencies, professional societies, and individual archaeologists have recognized the need for more and better public education about archaeology. We are challenged to act on this recognition by providing opportunities for the public to learn about, and even participate in, archaeological interpretations and investigations. The audiences for these efforts include the general public, students and teachers, legislators, public administrators, and Native Americans. Archaeology has been a subject of interest to the public for centuries, and the archaeological record has fascinated people for even longer. Contemporary archaeologists must reach out to the public by providing them with understandable interpretations and explanations. We must do this if appreciation for archaeology and for the importance of archaeological preservation is to grow in America.


2021 ◽  
pp. 014473942199751
Author(s):  
Naci Karkin ◽  
Fatih Gurses

The public sector gets through a big transformation in many dimensions lately. The volume and extent of this transformation influence institutionalization, organization, and execution of the public sector as a whole, irrespective of either a developed or a developing country case is at stake. There is a growing inclination to capture and direct this transformation in public administration scholarship. However, there is a void concerning whether and how the curricula of public administration are designed to capture and drive this transformation. This paper aims to address this void by analyzing the curricula in a developing country case, namely Turkey. This bidirectional motive of the study is served by evaluating first to analyze the attitudes, expectations, and opinions of public administration academics working and studying in the field of public affairs on several educational issues. Then, we aim to analyze the curricula of some selected public administration departments. After analyzing all the study findings, it is seen that departments in Turkey are mainly framed to represent the traditional dimensions of statehood. No matter how hard are the challenges that the governments face, public administration departments are still stuck to structural, organizational, and legal perspectives. We argue that the public sector needs curious public administrators rather than institutional ones, thus we plea for curricula that reflect meeting this need.


Public Voices ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 7
Author(s):  
Ronald Q. Frederickson ◽  
H. George Frederickson

The authors have selected a few Nemerov poems they judge to be "public"--poems that will interest persons in public affairs-government, politics, and public administration.


2021 ◽  
pp. 014473942110173
Author(s):  
John J Carroll

A purpose of the Master of Public Administration (MPA) program is to translate theory into practical concepts to prepare leaders of the public and nonprofit sectors. The practice continues to employ entrepreneurial activities throughout the world. The academy has researched, written, and published extensively about entrepreneurship to build knowledge. The author pulled together aspects of the research to build an applicable framework for entrepreneurship—presenting, publishing, and designing an MPA course. This paper discusses that journey. The author sought to find the extent of similar courses in other accredited programs. The findings did not reveal widespread dissemination of entrepreneurship courses. An unintended finding shows that core course offerings appeared to be largely unchanged for decades. Is it time to “reinvent” the MPA program?


2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 263-285
Author(s):  
Claudia Petrescu ◽  
Flavis Mihalache

Public services represent an important dimension of quality of society, as they create the contextual conditions for people to further their quality of life. Romanian public administration reform has brought about a constant institutional transformation, which has influenced both the specific features and the quality of the services. This article aims to analyse trends regarding the perceived quality of public services in Romania, in European comparative perspective, using the data of the European Quality of Life Survey (2003–2016). The article aims to understand the low satisfaction with public services in Romania against the background of the public service reform measures taken by government in this period. The article describes the context of Romanian public administration and public service reform, the most important public policy measures adopted and the most important challenges. The lack of vision in the public service reform, the partial introduction of reform elements, the permanent and, sometimes, conflicting changes are issues that may have influenced the way in which the population perceives the quality of public services. The decentralisation process of public services and the insufficient allocation of public funds for delivering such services at local level might have an impact on their quality and quantity perceived by the population. Keywords: public services; public administration reform; citizens’ satisfaction; New Public Management; New Weberianism.


2013 ◽  
pp. 87-91
Author(s):  
Loránd Bói

The re-establishment of historical district government offices in the Hungarian public administration system will ensure the availability of the provided public services on an integrated, citizen-friendly level. Reorganising of district borders and changing the district centres as well the settlement new administration services in the central cities will predictable restructure the citizens public transport attitudes. This study deals with the motivation, quantity and direction of the possible modifications on the public transport demand in Hajdú-Bihar County. The study goals to present the possible public transport organising interventions, and to find a balance between the changing demand and the regulation provided public transport instruments.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 143
Author(s):  
Viera Papcunová ◽  
Roman Vavrek ◽  
Marek Dvořák

Local governments in the Slovak Republic are important in public administration and form an important part of the public sector, as they provide various public services. Until 1990, all public services were provided only by the state. The reform of public administration began in 1990 with the decentralization of competencies. Several competencies were transferred to local governments from the state, and thus municipalities began to provide public services that the state previously provided. Registry offices were the first to be acquired by local governments from the state. This study aimed to characterize the transfer of competencies and their financing from state administration to local government using the example of registry offices in the Slovak Republic. In the paper, we evaluated the financing of this competency from 2007 to 2018 at the level of individual regions of the Slovak Republic. The results of the analysis and testing of hypotheses indicated that a higher number of inhabitants in individual regions did not affect the number of actions at these offices, despite the fact that the main role of the registry office is to keep registry books, in which events, such as births, weddings, and deaths, are registered.


2011 ◽  
pp. 276-290 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexei Pavlichev

As public sector agencies use the e-government model to improve delivery of their services, it is important that this model become integrated into education of future leaders of the public service. A fully scaled implementation of e-government requires more than simple automation of the existing processes. It can affect significantly the overall organizational structure of public agencies, their missions and goals, and the way they interact with customers and with each other. Because of its profound impact on the functions and even structure of government, implementing e-government involves significant challenges, including resistance to change and the problem of lack of information technology skills among public managers. To address these challenges, public affairs programs must include into their curricula courses that would prepare cadre qualified for the era of e-government. Survey results are presented outlining efforts of graduate public affairs programs to meeting demands related to the e-government model. Major components of the model are outlined and the extent to which these components are covered in graduate courses in leading public affairs programs is assessed.


Author(s):  
Lourdes Moreno ◽  
Elena Castro ◽  
Dolores Cuadra ◽  
Paloma Martinez

Internet growth makes use feasible by an increased number of people around the world. For this reason, several approaches must be taken in order to get a universal access for all kinds of users, independent of their capabilities. Nowadays, it is difficult for disabledd people to use the Web in the same way as non-disabledd people, even though the use of this technology is a right for everybody and more in the public administration scope in which, a lot of services must be available for users and on a correct way.


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