A Picture of the Human Resource Specialty Offered By MPA Programs

• Author: Joy A. Clay,Thomas J. Barth
• Date: 01 October 1994
• Published date: 01 October 1994
• DOI: 10.1177/0734371X9401400412
• Subject Matter: Articles

127

A PICTURE OF

THE

HUMAN

RESOURCE

SPECIALTY

OFFERED

BY MPA PROGRAMS

THOMAS

J. BARTH

AND

JOY A.

CLAY

ow

do

educators

assess

the

qual-

Hity

of

their

programs?

Analysis

of

the

structure

and

content

of

counter-

part

programs

across

the

country

in

order

to

identify

other

models

is

an

important

first

step

(Camp,

1989).

In

the

public

administra-

tion

field,

this

is

one

of

the

purposes

of the

bi-

annual

directory

of

pro-

grams

published

by

the

National

Association

of

Schools

of

Public

Affairs

and

Administration

(NASPAA).

In

addition,

individual

academics

have

conducted

more

in-depth

surveys

of

ei-

ther

the

entire

Masters

in

Public

Administra-

tion

(MPA)

program

(Cleary, 1990)

or

of

spe-

cific

core

courses

(see

Lovrich

and

Nelson

ar-

ticle

in

this

symposium).

This

article

presents

the

results

of

a

survey

focused

on

the

human

re-

source / personnel

specialty

within

MPA

programs

nationwide.

Accord-

ing

to

NASPAA’s

1992

Directory

of Pro-

grams,

85

of

their

217

member

schools

offer

this

specialty,

following

only

pub-

lic

finance/budgeting

(94)

and

health

services

administration

(91)

as

the

most

frequently

offered

spe-

cialty.

Despite

the

ap-

parent

popularity

of

this

specialty

within

MPA

programs,

and

the

emerging

interest

in

hu-

man

resources

in

the

public

sector

(National

Commission

on

the

Pub-

lic

Service,

1990;

Hyde

and

Rosenbloom,

1993;

National

Commission

on

the

State

and

Local

Public

Service, 1993),

no

summary

information

exists

on

how

students

are

being

educated

in

human

resource

admin-

istration

by

MPA

pro-

grams.

This

survey

is

an

attempt

to

fill

this

gap

by

answering

the

following