Teaching Public Personnel Management in Three Types of Higher Educational Institutions
| Author | Jonathan West |
| DOI | 10.1177/0734371X9401400405 |
| Date | 01 October 1994 |
| Published date | 01 October 1994 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
22
TEACHING
PUBLIC PERSONNEL
MANAGEMENT
IN
THREE
TYPES
OF
HIGHER EDUCATIONAL
INSTITUTIONS
JONATHAN WEST
Some
of
the
most
crucial
and
contro-
Professors
o.=
versial
issues
facing
education ~,&dquo;v
managers
from
the
pub-
lic,
non-profit
and
pri-
to ensure iM*.
vate
sectors
in
the
1990s
_
deal
with
human
re-
offered
I
source
management.
a cf=i7n oM-
Drug
testing,
sexual
ha-
acquiring
i~&dquo;T-
rassment,
employees’
·
·’
·
rights
to
privacy,
and
k n c.7ii~Mo’M-M
affirmative
action
are
sa-
lient
issues
today
along
abilities
I
with
the
more
tradi-
f
f
KV.,
tional
concerns
of
labor
relations,
compensa-
c h uY7M*l
tion,
recruitment,
selec-
tion,
performance
ap-
praisal
and
promotion.
Professors
de-
signing
higher
education
curricula
need
to
ensure
that
the
courses
offered
to
future
administrators
aid
them
in
ac-
quiring
the
necessary
knowledge,
skills
and
abilities
to
cope
effectively
with
these
challenging
issues.
Accrediting
bod-
·
·
· -
ies
such
as
the
Ameri-
can
Association
of
Col-
legiate
Schools
of
Busi-
·
ness
and
the
National
Association
of
Schools
of
Public
Affairs
and
Ad-
ministration
stress
the
importance
of
person-
· ’
nel-related
coursework
in
professional
schools
of
business
and
public
·
administration.
As
a
consequence,
univer-
sity-level
instruction
in
personnel
administra-
tion
is
frequently
either
a
required
or
highly
rec-
ommended
component
of the
public
administration,
business
administra-
tion,
political
science
and
social
science
curriculum.
Academics
with
a
human
resource
management
specialty,
personnelists who work directly in this
field,
and
generalists
in
management
who
deal
daily
with
personnel
issues
23
are
likely
to
be
interested
in
an
analysis
of
the
basic
personnel
course-its
con-
tent,
instructional
methods
used,
and
other
course
characteristics.
The
personnel
course
is
likely
to
take
on
different
characteristics
de-
pending
on
the
setting
in
which
it
is
taught.
One
well
known
code
for
clas-
sifying
college
and
university
settings
is
that
developed
by
the
Carnegie
Foun-
dation.
This
widely
used
classification
groups
institutions
on
the
basis
of
the
comprehensiveness
of
their
missions
along
with
the
level
of
the
degrees
granted-ranging
from
pre-baccalau-
reate
to
doctorate.
The
Carnegie
typol-
ogy
has
been
used
by
scholars
to
exam-
ine
how
variations
in
institution
type
might
influence
faculty
goals
(Guthrie,
1992),
campus
life
(Carnegie
Founda-
tion,
1990),
and
student
outcomes
(Braxton,
Smart
and
Thieke,
1991).
However,
there
have
been
few
attempts
to
relate
the
Carnegie
classifications
to
curricular
matters,
although
models
of
curricular
decision-
making
suggest
the
link
between
institutional
environ-
ments
and
curriculum
structure
(Conrad
and
Pratt,
1983;
Hurtado,
Astin and Dey,1991).
This
exploratory
study
examines
the
public
sector
per-
sonnel
course
as
it
is
taught
in
different
institutional
settings
to
identify
varia-
tions
in
instructional
and
student
as-
sessment
methods,
course
characteris-
tics
and
substantive
content.
The
institutional
comparisons
that
are
contained
in
this
article
are
likely
to
be
of
interest
to
faculty
who
teach
the
public
personnel
administra-
tion
course
because
such
comparisons
can
bring
perspective
to
the
way
vari-
ous
instructors
approach
the
course.
A
knowledge
of
approaches
taken
at
peer
institutions
provides
a
useful
bench-
mark
for
comparison,
and
it
can
offer
new
ideas
which
may
in
turn
provide
an
impetus
to
change
and
improve.
Such
comparisons
allow
faculty
to
evaluate
the
strengths
and
weaknesses
of
current
course
offerings
relative
to
those
taught
in
peer
institutions
(Braxton,
Smart
and Thieke,
1991).
This
knowledge
may
also
be
useful
in
pro-
viding
better
justification
for
increased
resource
allocation
to
instruction
in
public
personnel
administration
(e.g.,
regular
faculty
vs.
adjuncts,
investment
in
teaching
materials).
FRAMEWORK
Existing
research
calls
attention
to
the
variations
in
normative
orientations
towards
teaching
among
faculty
in
higher
education
(Platt,
Parsons
and
Kirshstein,1978).
Six
goal
orientations
are
identified
by
Platt
and
colleagues
and
related
to
a
scale
of
institutional
differentiation.
The
goals
include
cog-
nitive
capacities,
liberal
arts,
moral
values,
personal
and
social
develop-
ment,
vocational
skills
and
professional
training.
These
authors
maintain
that
institutions
of
different
types
give
vary-
ing
emphasis
to
these
six
values.
They
show
how
variations
in
value
empha-
sis
across
institutions
have
implica-
tions
for
course
content
and
for
the
choice
of
instructional
methodologies.
Platt
and
associates
identify
four
dif-
ferent
teaching
environments
derived
from
the
teaching
goal
orientations
of
the
faculty.
It
is
plausible
to
hypoth-
esize
that
teaching
environments
in
research
universities,
comprehensive
universities
and
liberal
arts
colleges
may
influence
such
curricular
concerns
as
course
content
and
methods
of
in-
struction.
One
effort
to
explore
such
a
link
is
a
study
by
Guthrie
(1992).
His
research
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