Our Mission

It is the mission of the Department of Public and Nonprofit Administration to meet the diverse needs of the community, state and region for outstanding researchers and practitioners in public and nonprofit management. The department offers an array of graduate programs and on-going professional development that provides individuals with the knowledge and skill to be effective practitioners.

The Department of Public and Nonprofit Administration is associated with the Helen Bader Institute for Nonprofit Management (HBI), a nonprofit academic center whose mission is to improve the leadership and effectiveness of nonprofit organizations through education, research and service. While the programs emanating from the department are at the masters level, the department does offer some undergraduate courses in public and nonprofit administration. Doctoral students interested in focusing their studies on the nonprofit sector or public administration are able to do so through several PhD programs on campus, including Urban Studies, Political Science, and the Multidisciplinary PhD. Many students from other masters and doctoral programs have added coursework in public or nonprofit administration to enhance their degrees.

To carry out its mission, the department has established the following goals:

  • Delivering high quality academic programs in nonprofit management and leadership, public administration and other appropriate areas;
  • Equipping graduate students with the methodological skills, including applied quantitative analysis and research design, appropriate to their professional fields of interest;
  • Providing opportunities for graduate students to engage in experiential learning and the application of scholarly knowledge through such vehicles as internships and applied research projects;
  • Engaging in outreach with the appropriate communities and stakeholders to share knowledge and learning for community benefit;
  • Meeting the growing demand for professionally trained graduate level leaders in the workforce;
  • Assembling and supporting a faculty composed of individuals from varied disciplines with common interests related to public and nonprofit management, and social sciences;
  • Organizing teams of researchers/scholars with shared interest who will engage in multidisciplinary research focused on issues of public and nonprofit sector management and leadership