ERIC Number: EJ1471981
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025-Mar
Pages: 21
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0144-7394
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: 0000-00-00
Experiential Learning in the Master of Public Administration Classroom: An Application of the Family-Friendly Campus Toolkit
Cecilia Idika-Kalu1; Aaron Smith-Walter1; Jenna Vinson1
Teaching Public Administration, v43 n1 p75-95 2025
Public administrators can play a vital role in the articulation of demands emerging from the community and can serve to advance these demands by their position of authority, skills and knowledge to help facilitate the development of programs and projects to address public needs. This article describes the role that a small Master of Public Administration program and several of its faculty and students played to support a project which sought to aid the development of family-friendly policies and programs on the campus of the University of Massachusetts Lowell, a mid-sized, public university in the Northeastern United States. The article lays out the personal experience of the authors as they relate to their decision to participate in the program, a description of the project and the assistance that MPA students were able to render the initiative, the manner in which integrating the commitment to campus improvement for pregnant and parenting students influenced the content of several MPA courses, and the synergies which developed as students worked to develop skills in communication, focus-group moderation, qualitative data analysis, presentation delivery and report-writing.
Descriptors: Public Administration Education, Policy Formation, Program Development, School Community Relationship, Educational Policy, Student Characteristics, College Environment, Graduate Students, Nontraditional Students, Pregnancy, Parents, Student Attitudes, Experiential Learning
SAGE Publications. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: journals@sagepub.com; Web site: https://sagepub-com.bibliotheek.ehb.be
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Massachusetts
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: 1University of Massachusetts Lowell, USA