Crossing the Lines: Preparing Students for Public Service Across Sectors

1. Crossing the Lines: Preparing Students for Public Service Across Sectors NASPAA 2012

2. Panel Members and Interests Eric Click, Park University: “Private vs. Public. vs. Nonprofit: Distinguishing the Public Partnership Purpose.” Richard Box, Park University, “Teaching What’s Important About Public Sector Practice.” Jerri Killian, Wright State University, “Public Values, Culture, and Capstone - Oh My!” RebekkahStuteville, Park University, “Crossing Boundaries Within the MPA Curriculum.”

3. Session Questions • This is a time when boundaries between the public, private, and nonprofit sectors are blurring, becoming less distinct. • MPA programs are faced with the challenge of becoming more cross-sectoral and interdisciplinary, while preserving public service values, protecting the “public interest,” and maintaining the centrality of the rule of law. • We address two questions: • How can we prepare students for public service across sectors? • How can we keep the “public” in public service?

4. First Question • How can we prepare students for public service across sectors?

5. Eric: The Sectors- Public vs. Private vs. Non-Profit • Public Sector: Government • Federal, State and Local • Pubic Good/Interest • Public Goods: Public Services & Infrastructure • Purpose Driven • Private Sector: Businesses/Corporations • Market Forces, Niche Market, & Bottom Line • Non-Profit Sector: 501.C3s • Specific Intent/Cause Interaction, Overlap and Blurring?

6. Richard: Focus on Institutional Basics A very traditional thought about preparation. Few students know much about work settings other than their own. For example, local government staff often know little about forms of government (such as weak mayor, strong mayor, commission, town meeting, varieties of council-manager) and what they mean for staff and citizens. Few can name unique characteristics of the public sector (transparency, roles defined in law, public purpose rather than profit, answering to elected officials, citizens versus customers, budgeting and personnel systems). For me, it is important that every MPA graduate have knowledge of structures and why they matter.

7. Jerri: Being Authentic • Reflecting espoused values in administrative actions and decisions • Communication with “others” • Collaboration with “others” • Cooperation with “others” • Reflecting espoused values in pedagogy • Experiential learning • Horizontal learning • Collective decisions/individual responsibility • Reflecting espoused values in service • To the profession • To the institution • To the community

8. Becky: An Example of A Client-Based Class Project We can help prepare students for public service across sectors through client-based projects that involve both public and private actors.  • Mark Moore’s (1995) “strategic triangle” was used a theoretical framework for a client-based public management course taught in spring 2012 at Park University. • Students worked with an economic development council on four projects in a local community’s historic downtown area. The issues included traffic flow, beautification, density, and parking in the downtown area. • The EDC is both publicly and privately funded, and the projects involved both public and private entities and funding sources. • The students had an opportunity to work with representatives from the city government as well as local business owners. As a result, they were exposed to a variety of perspectives and interests. • One benefit of this approach is related to Salamon’s (2005) notion of training “professional citizens.” Professional citizens are individuals who can work toward the public good and solve public problems regardless of whether they are employed in the government, nonprofit, or for-profit entities (Salamon 2005). _______________________________________ Works Cited: Moore, Mark 1995. Creating Public Value. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard. Salamon, Lester M. 2005. Training Professional Citizens: Getting Beyond the Right Answer to the Wrong Questions in Public Affairs Education. Keynote address delivered at the NASPAA annual conference in Indianapolis, Indiana on October 22, 2004. Journal of Public Affairs Education, 11 (1): 7-19.

9. Second Question • How can we keep the “public” in public service?

10. Eric: Role of the Public Sector in Partnerships • Fundamental Foundations • History and Purpose • Transparency and Accountability • Without Transparency, you have Conspiracy • Devil in the Details • Why? Goal: Public Interest and Mutual Satisfaction?

11. Richard: Focus on the Public Interest It’s not easy to focus on the public interest, for at least two reasons. First, the distraction of the supposedly “new,” for example networks and new governance. Citizen involvement since the 1960s; the “Lakewood Plan” in 1954; blending public and private since the 1980s. Second, economic thought reshaping the public sector beginning in the 1980s: “running government like a business.” Michael Sandel: everything seems to be for sale. Some things in the public sector, though, maybe should not be a market function. Are there really public goods? Everyone has a right to participate at some level in decision making. Economic gain is not the only value: rule of law, Constitutionalism, equal treatment, democratic decision making, social equity, and the public interest.

12. Jerri: Building Community • Develop, enhance, and sustain learning communities that are • Purposeful • Open • Just • Disciplined • Caring • Celebrative Boyer, E. Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1990.

13. Becky: An Example of A Client-Based Class Project • The students who engaged in the client-based project were in a public management course. Thus, they were required to view their issue from a public sector perspective. The students wrestled with the role of the public sector in these public-private projects: • They assessed whether public intervention was justified by using Moore’s (1995) two classic arguments for government intervention: 1) There is a defect in the market, or 2) Issues of justice and fairness are at stake. • They discussed whether or not public funds and/or authority should be used for projects that had both public and private benefit. For example, they tried to determine: • The feasibility of seeking voter approval for supplemental tax authority to support economic development in the historic area. The new tax would invoke public authority to produce a private benefit for the downtown merchants as well as potentially increase private investment and tax revenues. • Whether or not it was legitimate to consider issues such as private financial gain, an increased tax base, or broader social issues such as community livability and viability or quality of life (McGovern 2012) in the “public value” calculation. • Ultimately, exploring the challenges of public-private partnerships may help students prepare to serve as “professional citizens” (Salamon 2005) who understand multiple sectors, but using Moore’s (1995) theory encourages students to seek the preservation of the public in public-private partnerships. __________________________ Works Cited: McGovern, Molly. 2012 PA 511 Guest Lecture on February 20, 2012. Moore, Mark 1995. Creating Public Value. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard. Salamon, Lester M. 2005. Training Professional Citizens: Getting Beyond the Right Answer to the Wrong Questions in Public Affairs Education. Keynote address delivered at the NASPAA annual conference in Indianapolis, Indiana on October 22, 2004. Journal of Public Affairs Education, 11 (1): 7-19.