Mid Career Option
In-service professionals with a minimum of three to five years of progressively responsible experience may select the Truman School’s Mid-Career MPA program, which is offered in Jefferson City, Missouri’s state capital.
The Mid-Career option requires thirty-three semester hours of courses to fulfill requirements for the degree. Students who have not completed prior coursework in microeconomics and statistics must take these two prerequisite courses, adding either three or six hours to the total program.
Students in the Mid-Career option complete an MPA Core courses, as follows:
- PA 8150 Foundations of New Governance
- Political, economic, and social context of government and public service; examines theories and models of new governance and implications for policy-making, public management, and public service delivery.
- PA 8160 Organizational Dynamics and Leadership
- Focuses on understanding human action in administrative situations and on developing personal capacities for effective action in varied and difficult organizational situations.
- PA 8170 Public Policy Processes and Strategies
- Processes through which public demands are generated, converted into public policy, and implemented. Examines the intersection of politics, policy, and management as well as the diverse strategies and tools of public action.
- PA 8180 Research Methods & Inquiry in Public Affairs
- Introduction to research methods for graduate students in public affairs. Topics include: measurement; quantitative description; problem definition; the policy research process; basic analytical tools commonly applied in public affairs.
- PA 8190 Economic Analysis for Public Policy
- Application of tools of economic analysis to understand and interpret the behavior of government, consumers and producers. Sources of economic inefficiency, including market failures and limitations, and policy solutions.
- PA 8210 Ethics, Democracy and the Public Service
- Uses the concepts of ethics and democracy to explore the historical, political, economic, organizational, professional, and interpersonal aspects of public service in American society in the context of globalization. Integrates learning from the MPA core curriculum and the specializations into a comprehensive view of the contemporary, multi-sectored public service.
The internship requirement (PA 8280) and the Capstone applied project (PA 8211) are waived for in-service students electing the Mid-Career program. PA 8181 and PA 8191, the advanced quantitative and economic analysis core courses, are available to Mid-Career students as elective courses.
Mid-Career students will normally take the Public Management area of specialization, although they may choose one of the MPA specializations on the Columbia campus.
The Public Management specialization requires the following courses:
- PA 8510 Public Budgeting and Taxation
- Intensive study of the institutions, processes, politics, and social and economic impact of public taxation and expenditures.
- PA 8520 Human Resource Management and Development in the Public and Nonprofit Sector
- Examines the political, economic, and legal context of the personnel function, as well as the technical aspects of the personnel administrator’s job. Stresses the dynamics of bureaucratic organizations.
- PA 8530 Strategic Planning and Performance Measurement
- Presents the rationale for strategic planning and techniques and processes to develop and implement strategic planning in the public sector.
- PA 8540 Local Government Management
- Organization and division of service responsibility within local governments. Problems of managing delivery of services with special emphasis upon program implementation, productivity, planning, and responsiveness.
- PA 8181 Research Methods and Inquiry in Public Affairs II
- PA 8320 Spatial Analysis for Public Affairs
- PA 8420 Public Program Evaluation
- PA 8430 Public Policy Analysis
- PA 8610 Group Dynamics and Conflict Resolution
- PA 8620 Organizational Analysis and Change
- PA 8630 Organizational Change in a Community and Global Context
- PA 8710 The Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector
- PA 8720 Financial Management in the Public and Nonprofit Sector
- PA 8850 Policies and Institutions of the European Union
- PA 8864 Administrative Law
- PA 8866 Local Government Law
Along with ONE of the following:
In addition to the nine hours of coursework in an area of specialization, Mid-Career students may take two elective courses. Choose from the list below:
Other elective courses may be taken from other schools and colleges of MU in constultation with the Director of Graduate Studies.