A Report: Higher Education for Public Service

pUBLIC ADMINISTRATION as a field of graduate study was for many years widely identified with the central staff or management services of government, i.e., budgeting, organization and management, personnel administration, program or management planning, and the managerial functions of cities (especially the tasks of city managers). In an increasing number of institutions it has become, or aspires to become, concerned with the development and conduct of public policy in such areas as transportation, urban affairs, natural resource administration, health and welfare administration, and scientific research. In some places public administration programs emphasize the relationships between the behavioral sciences and decision-making; in some, quantitative approaches to decision-making within the framework of systems analyses. Recently, it has also been associated with the management of overseas technical assistance programs, with the administration of social and economic change in modernizing governments as well as assistance in developing the traditional staff services, and with the administration of international organizations. Despite these developments, the view of American public administration both at home and abroad continues to be that of a field of training and practice centering on budgeting, personnel, and organization and management problems. This Report, in its conception of public administration, goes well beyond. The realities of governmental operations dictate the pursuit of a much broader outlook and indeed of equating public administration with the total governmental process (executive, legislative, and judicial), in both its career and political manifestations. The important issues for the universities, in training for the public service, relate to the education being provided undergraduates and also graduates in many professional and specialized fields which are either public-service related in their nature (e.g., public health) or significant as suppliers of large numbers of highly trained personnel to all levels of government (e.g., law and engineering) . The questions, for graduate schools and programs of public administration and public affairs, lie not only in how well they are fulfilling their responsibilities in the commonly held limited view of the field, but, more importantly, in how well they serve the larger needs of the university in the undergraduate programs and the professional and graduate programs, which are the principal suppliers of highly trained manpower to all governments. The schools of public administration and public affairs are the prime repositories of competence and interest in government and of concern with the study of practical operating problems of government. If they fail to exert leadership with respect to preparation for public service, they do less than their role requires and less than all governments urgently need. Emphasis is given in this Report to a substantially enlarged conception, in the universities and in the professions, of public service responsibilities to be recognized and met. It is suggested that, at least in some universities, there must be a new role for schools and programs of public administration and public affairs, namely, that of leader, animator, and stimulator with respect to the public service. There are no formulas; each educational institution has its own dynamics and imperatives. Such changes as may occur will take a