Abstract
The 2013 Teaching Public Administration Conference (TPAC) centered on widely observed changes in the 21st-century workplace, workforce, and educational institutions. The discussion focused on pedagogical strategies for building cutting-edge competencies in the public and nonprofit education and resonated strongly with the evolving nature of the public administration education across the globe. Presentations focused on meeting mandates to demonstrate and document success in developing professional competencies across student populations from diverse backgrounds, developing robust, innovative, and pedagogically sound curricula, incorporating new technologies and e-learning, and supporting junior untenured faculty who function in changing and increasingly challenging academic settings. One hundred and five public administration faculty and doctoral students from North America, Asia, and Europe attended the conference, which highlighted over 40 presentations including 21 panels, workshops, and roundtable discussions.
The outstanding research presented at TPAC 2013 was a testament to the forward-looking topics, fresh ideas, and the participants’ deep involvement in public administration theory and practice. According to Dr Thomas Bryer, Chair of the Section on Public Administration Education Committee of the American Society for Public Administration, ‘TPAC is always an extraordinary opportunity for committed and passionate educators to come together, share best practices, new and novel ideas, and to seek feedback on course design, delivery, and evaluation’. Bryer added, ‘Whether you are interested in service learning, use of technology in teaching, developing competencies, or forging community partnerships through and for teaching, TPAC is a valuable stop along the conference circuit. TPAC 2013 was no exception, and had the added benefit of international participation’. Many attendees were of the opinion that the conference raised the bar for future conferences, both in programming and sheer hospitality, as was reflected in the post-conference survey.
Among the research highlights of the conference, the following panels and workshops clearly stood out in terms of currency and scope of the scholarship: ‘Program Curriculum Development in the Contemporary Socio-Political Environment: International Perspectives’, ‘Challenges of Teaching Personnel Management, Governance, and Leadership in the Contemporary Cross-Generational Classroom’, ‘Instructional Pedagogies of E-Learning in Delivering Innovative Curriculum’, ‘Fostering Diversity- and Inclusion-Specific Competencies through a Variety of Curricular Methods’, ‘Supporting Faculty and Fostering Academic Success in the Contemporary PA Education’, and some others. Authors examined the current and emerging trends in public administration education in the U.S. and internationally, reviewed the dynamic nature of current organizational changes in academia, reflecting these trends, and analyzed a variety of pedagogical and educational technology-driven methods and tools that public administration educators and practitioners utilize in a variety of curricular and co-curricular settings.
The highlights of the conference also included keynote addresses by Professor Michelle Saint-Germain, a renowned scholar in the area of public administration learning and assessment, and one of the authors of the revised accreditation standards of the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration (NASPAA), and a luncheon talk by Dr James L Llorens, Chancellor of Southern University and A&M College, who discussed the dynamics of professional transitions between faculty and professional administration realms in the contemporary educational environment. The pre- and post-conference program included a guided tour of the San Francisco City Hall ‘San Francisco History and Civic Pride’ as well as a tour and a picnic in the enchanting Sonoma county wine country of Northern California.