Foundations of Public Administration
Provides an overview of the practice of public administration, including key current and future issues, basic concepts, and intellectual history. Addresses a variety of topics such as the changing scope and role of governments in American society, cross-national comparisons of political cultures, leadership roles of administrators in government, administrative responsiveness and accountability, and ethical analysis. Student should take this course during their first two quarters.

Understanding Organizations
Reviews classical and emerging perspectives from organizational theory; focuses on improving student’s effectiveness in public and nonprofit organizations. Develops capacities to understand and address issues concerning organizational values, assumptions about human nature, and organizational structure, culture, politics, psychology, and learning.

Policy Formation and Implementation
Analyzes processes by which various issues become public policies and public programs. Addresses the interplay of executive, legislative and judicial branches. Special consideration is paid to the impact and influence of special interest groups, public bureaucracies, ethical issues, and intergovernmental administration on the stages of policy formation and implementation.

Management and Human Relations Skills
Study and practice of management/human relations skills for successful leadership in public and nonprofit organizations. Topics include self-awareness, team-building, stress management, communications, empowerment, power and influence, and conflict management. Emphasis on experiential learning.

Management Analysis and Control
Examines primary concepts and purposes of management control in public and nonprofit organizations; defines terminology and addresses principles of financial accounting. Concepts include responsibility and program structure, audit responsibility, analysis of financial statements, cost accounting, and pricing. Emphasis is upon student analysis of management.

Policy and Program Research
This course provides an overview of the research methodologies used for public decision-making. Concepts include specification of questions to guide inquiry, basis for causal inference, acquisition of quantitative data, reliability and validity issues, descriptive statistics, and the logic of statistics. Provides students with an opportunity to build skills in designing, conducting, and analyzing research.

Economic Analysis
Provides students with fundamental economic content and knowledge to understand issues of public policy and management. Focus on concepts of cost, market dynamics, inflation, demand elasticity, welfare, employment theory, and stabilization policy.

Prospectives in the Public Service
Capstone course integrates knowledge and skills from required course work in the analysis of a policy or management problem. Students work individually or in pairs in identifying a problem, researching its background, formulating and analyzing alternative solutions, and recommending a course of action. To be taken during the last or next-to-last quarter of study. Required capstone course Prerequisite: PUBM 541.

Human Resource Management
Analyzes effective human resource management in public and nonprofit organizations. Addresses topics of human resource planning, equal employment opportunity laws and programs, recruitment, selection, and compensation of personnel, performance appraisal, organizational development initiatives such as TQM and re-engineering, and selected contemporary topics.

Public Budgeting
Discusses the role, types, and uses of budgeting in public and nonprofit organizations. Specific topics include capital budgeting, the link between planning and budgeting, and performance budgeting. Learn key technical and political issues involved in budgeting. Course relies heavily on case studies and simulation. Suggested Prerequisite: PUBM 530

Policy Analysis - Government Specialization
This course addresses the systematic analysis of policies that are under consideration or, after having been implemented, are under review. Emphasizes logical and prescriptive techniques for analyzing public policies and making decisions regarding policy change. Among the approaches and issues considered in this course are modeling, decision making under risk and uncertainty, and risk preference. Emphasis is on conceptualization, interpretation, and analysis of selected policies. Required Prerequisite: PUBM 540

Information Management for Nonprofit - Nonprofit Specialization 

This course is an introduction to the effective use of information and communications technology (ICT) in public and nonprofit organizations. The course consists of a seminar and lab. The seminar explores the vision, history, politics, and policy relating to ICT change as well as the implications of managing it in complex environments. The lab will focus on mastery of the common ICT applications used by administrators and collaborative techniques in making effective use of them in a network environment.

Oral Communication for Administrators
This course addresses oral communications within the context of the contemporary organization. Discusses theories of techniques, but emphasizes performance and analysis of public speaking. Assignments are differentiated according to the needs and professional applications of individual students.

Communication and Advocacy
Explores issue advocacy and campaigns to help students understand the methodology behind successful advocacy. Covers how to develop communications strategies, create a media plan, select appropriate tactics, and design actions for maximum impact. Also stressed are persuasive communications skills and argument deconstruction, legislative communication in a direct clash setting, and risk communication strategies for the public manager.

Computer Applications for Public Administration
Hands-on computer applications training. Teaches students the fundamentals of computer applications essential for effective public administration in an increasingly technological world. Course covers computer stewardship, electronic communication options, and Microsoft Word, Access, Excel, and Powerpoint. Provides students familiarity with the key functions within these applications that increase their ability to harness and communicate information to the public, other agencies, and constituents.

Strategic Planning
Understanding the function of strategic, long range and tactical planning, developing the framework and tools to design a variety of planning models, motivating and managing stakeholder involvement with different planning initiatives, integrating learning organization and systems principles, creating vision, mission, values, strategic thinking.

Social Marketing
Exposes students to the application of traditional marketing principals and techniques to the challenges and rewards of influencing positive public behavior. Social marketing offers a revolutionary approach to solving a wide range of social problems. Social marketing offers a revolutionary approach to solving a wide range of social problems. Students learn the function of strategic, long range and tactical planning and develop the framework and tools to design a variety of planning models. Includes: how to motivate and manage stakeholder involvement with different planning initiatives, integrating learning organization and systems principles, creating vision, mission, values, and strategic thinking.

Community and Economic Development
Students will read and discuss a common core of books and articles on community and economic development topics, including material on typical economic development practices, tools of community development, and revitalizing distressed areas. In addition to the reading and discussions, students will have an opportunity to apply these perspectives through group projects focused on several significant issues in the Seattle area. This course has a service learning aspect, since projects are being developed with local public and non-profit organizations.

Government Finance
Analyzes the revenues, expenditures and debt of federal, state and local governments. Uses economic theories and models to understand the role of the public sector as means of social reform, economic efficiency, and distributional equity. Prerequisite: PUBM 570 or equivalent

Administrative Law - Government Specialization
Exposes students to the background and applications of the legal system’s central components: regulatory process; rule making; investigation; and adjudication. Utilizes Constitutional framework for statutory analysis, legal research, and liability of governmental units and officials. Assists the administrator in recognizing the legal parameters of decision-making.

Administration of Justice
The local government’s justice system is very costly, consuming nearly three-fourths of county government resources and as much as half of city resources. The course provides students with the background to appreciate theoretical perspectives on justice. It also considers the empirical research describing the impacts and cost-effectiveness of competing models of policing and corrections. This course equips the public manager to critically examine the justice system’s approaches and resource requests.

Social Justice and Social Policy
Examines the extent to which the United States is “fair” in the distribution of wealth, power, and privilege. Students will develop systematic understanding of the cultural context and dynamics of distributive justice in the United States. The course analyzes arguments, assumptions, and values that set the context for policy questions and social programs to become more articulate and effective citizens.

Introduction to City Management
Provides an overview the fundamentals of local government issues and concerns. Focuses on revenue structures, service responsibilities, organizational structures, stakeholder analysis and ordinances specifically relating to cities. This course is aimed at those considering a career in city or county management, whether the student is currently employed in that sector or exploring local government opportunities.

Digital Government
Analyzes the impact and implications of e-government through the lenses of social justice and human development. Surveys the evolution and development of digital information technology considering security and privacy issues, civil liberties, and the international, cultural, and economical digital divide.

Comparative Public Administration
With a focus on comparative dimensions, this course examines nonprofit and public organizations. This is a study-abroad program that has recently been offered in Oaxaca, Mexico and Uppsala Sweden. The outcomes and the processes of our own public agenda become clearer when one considers a very different public agenda.

Creating and Sustaining the Livable City
This course is aimed particularly at those who work or might be contemplating work in local government. Working within an urban planning framework, this course focuses on observing, interpreting, and managing urban environments. Tools such as planning and zoning will be put into the context of their impact on the quality of life and the level of economic activity. There will be an emphasis on the application of qualitative research to better understand the evolution and design of ordinary cityscapes.

Comparative Social Policy
The course considers different ways of organizing the state’s response to social problems. The Scandinavian Social Democratic model is compared with the liberal American model. The course examines the reasons that some states become welfare states and others evidence much less interest in developing public solutions to problems in social welfare. The course further considers how the welfare model may be affected by the European Union and the future of this model over the long term.

Legislative Policy Making
Considers the play of forces that shape state policy-making within the various branches of government with specific attention to “legislative policy-making”. Using current and recent campaigns for public offices and initiatives, the course examines the confluence of cultural and political issues raised there and likely to shape future policy-making. Through texts, readings, and guest speakers, the course utilizes seminar discussions to critically examine state policy-making. Major focus is on individual research paper on a current policy issue.

Labor law and Collective Bargaining
Examines the legal foundations and organizational and behavioral relationships in the field of labor law and collective bargaining. Explores the history, legislation, and court intervention in labor relations. Students will engage in research and undertake other practical applications of the course concepts.

Nonprofit Law - Nonprofit Specialization
Exposes students to the legal structures within which nonprofit organizations function and are regulated.

Mediation and Negotiation Skills
Discusses conflict resolution and the principles, methods, and dynamics of negotiation and mediation processes. Students develop awareness and personal skills to become more effective in negotiating and resolving conflicts, especially in public service work environments. A large portion of class time is devoted to experiential learning situations including bargaining and mediation simulations.

Information Management for Government - Government Specialization

This course is an introduction to the effective use of information and communications technology (ICT) in public and nonprofit organizations. The course consists of a seminar and lab. The seminar explores the vision, history, politics, and policy relating to ICT change as well as the implications of managing it in complex environments. The lab will focus on mastery of the common ICT applications used by administrators and collaborative techniques in making effective use of them in a network environment.

Leadership, Learning and Change Management
The practice of leadership, learning, and change management in relation to self, others, teams, and organizations. A conceptual and experiential exploration of contemporary theories of leadership, personal and organizational learning, and the related dynamics of personal and organizational change. Emphasis on application to public and nonprofit organizations.

Fundamentals of the Nonprofit Sector
The roles played by various types of not-for-profit organizations in American communities, and the traditions, laws, regulations, and customs which influence their operations. Considers the public policy environment that influences the character and operation of not-for-profits, as well as the roles of nonprofits in influencing public policy.

Nonprofit Resource Development
Explores the principles of philanthropy and fundraising as applicable to private non-profit and governmental agencies. The key role of resource development in effective nonprofits is emphasized. Through lectures, discussion groups, guest speakers and panels, in-class exercises, and class projects, students practice resource development skills.

Nonprofit Governance - Nonprofit Specialization
Explores the new governance environment in which boards and volunteers operate, including the roles of boards and volunteers and how they perform in changing times.

Policy Reform
Students create reform proposals based on data collection, ethical reasoning, and field interviews with public officials, policy advocates and affected populations. Focus on the intersection of diverse policy issues and the implications for public revenue. Requires advanced skills in writing and public speaking.

Special Topic
Special Topics