“Teaching a Graduate Course in Social Equity and Public Policy:

One Instructor’s Recent Experience”

2010 NASPAA Conference

Transitions in Public Service

1 October, 2010

Presented By

Blue Wooldridge

Fellow, and Member of the Board of Directors

National Academy of Public Administration and Chair

NAPA’s Standing Panel on Social Equity in Governance

and

ProfessorThe L. Douglas Wilder

School of Government and Public AffairsVIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY

Richmond, VA 23284-2028

bwooldri@vcu.edu

NASPAA STANDARDS 2009:  Defining Quality in Public Affairs

Educationhttp://www.naspaa.org/accreditation/standard2009/docs/NS2009FinalVote10.16.2009.pdf

2. Public Service ValuesThe mission, governance, and curriculum of eligible programs shall demonstrably emphasize public service values. Public service values are important and enduring beliefs, ideals and principles shared by members of a community about what is good and desirable and what is not. They include pursuing the public interest with accountability and transparency; serving professionally with competence, efficiency, and objectivity; acting ethically so as to uphold the public trust; and demonstrating respect, equity, and fairness in dealings with citizens and fellow public servants. NASPAA expects an accreditable program to define the boundaries of the public service values it emphasizes, be they procedural or substantive, as the basis for distinguishing itself from other professional degree programs. (p. 2, italics and underlining, mine).

Standard 5 Matching Operations with the Mission: Student Learning (p. 7)5.1 Universal Required Competencies: As the basis for its curriculum, the program will adopt a set of required competencies related to its mission and public service values.The required competencies will include five domains: the ability• to lead and manage in public governance;• to participate in and contribute to the policy process;• to analyze, synthesize, think critically, solve problems and make decisions;• to articulate and apply a public service perspective;• to communicate and interact productively with a diverse and changing workforce and citizenry.

At the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Policy we integrate Social Equity into many of our “core” graduate courses, including: Principles of Public Administration; Human Resource Management (see JPAE award-winning article by Gooden & Wooldridge), Government Financial Management, Research Methods, Public Policy Analysis, and sometimes in our “Capstone” course.

In addition, led by NAPA Fellow, Dr. Susan Gooden members of the Wilder faculty designed a course in social equity and public policy (GVPA 672) which has been offered since 2007 and is open to all students in the Wilder School. This presentation will describe the objectives, topics covered, resources used and graded assignments in this course as I taught it in the Fall of 2009. This particular course had four Ph.d students (one in Education) and two MSW students. I would be delighted to make available the printed sources used in this course.

GVPA: 672 Social Equity and Public Policy Analysis

Virginia Commonwealth University

Fall 2009

Tuesdays 4-6:40 pm

First meeting Tuesday August 25, Room Temple 2223

Course Description

Recently, the National Academy of Public Administration’s Board of Directors adopted social equity as the fourth pillar of public administration, along with economy, efficiency, and effectiveness. Social equity is defined as, “The fair, just and equitable management of all institutions serving the public directly or by contract, and the fair and equitable distribution of public services, and implementation of public policy, and the commitment to promote fairness, justice, and equity in the formation of public policy’ (National Academy of Public Administration, 2000). This presents a unique set of opportunities and challenges to public policy researchers and practitioners in terms of defining, measuring, assessing and promoting social equity in public policy. This interdisciplinary survey course is designed to introduce graduate students to the concept of social equity and its relationship to public policy.

Course ObjectivesThis is a reading intensive course that will be taught in a seminar style and require active participation. The course will help students better understand social equity in the context of public policy analysis in an active learning environment. At the end of the course, students will be able to:

Define the concept of social equity and describe its emerging importance in public policy

Explain the theoretical and philosophical underpinnings of social equity

Provide a “social justice” and an “economic benefit” rationale for the pursuit of social equity

COURSE OBJECTIVES (con’t)

Explain the importance of social equity to public sector organizations, public policy analysis, and applied research

Describe social equity’s relationship to on-going racial, ethnic, gender, and class inequalities

Understand and explain measurement issues relating to social equity analysis of public policies

Describe and analyze Government actions that contribute to social inequities

Evaluate and analyze political, organizational and methodological approaches to reduce or eliminate social inequities

Conduct an assessment of social equity in a specific public policy area (see Social Equity at www.people.vcu.edu/-bwooldri for examples).

COURSE SESSIONS AND TOPICS:

SESSION I INTRODUCTION: SOCIAL EQUITY: ESSENCE-EVOLUTION-EMERGENCE

SESSION II THE MINNOWBROOK TRADITION-THE ROAD FROM MINNOWBROOK I-CLARIFICATION OF TERMS AND CONCEPTS

SESSION III THEORETICAL-PHILOSOPHICAL- RELIGIOUS BASIS OF SOCIAL EQUITY

SESSION IV SOCIAL EQUITY AND HEALTH

SESSION V INTEGRATING SOCIAL EQUITY IN TO

THE MASTER'S CURRICULUM

COURSE SESSIONS AND TOPICS (con’t)

SESSION VI SOCIAL EQUITY AND ECONOMY

MANAGEMENT

SESSION VII SOCIAL EQUITY AND EDUCATION SESSION VIII SOCIAL EQUITY AND RACE

SESSION IX SOCIAL EQUITY AND THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

SESSION X SOCIAL EQUITY AND MEASUREMENT

SESSION XII STATE CAUSED SOCIAL INEQUITIES

COURSE SESSIONS AND TOPICS (con’t)

SESSION XII SOCIAL EQUITY AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT/ SOCIAL EQUITY AND THE DIGITAL DIVIDE

SESSION XIII USEFUL THEORIES FOR RESEARCH IN SOCIAL EQUITY

SESSION XV DEVELOPING A SOCIAL EQUITY IMPACT INSTRUMENT

SESSION XVI ORAL PRESENTATIONS ON GROUP PROJECTS

Course Assignments

First Assignment You will write a scholarly essay describing the Theoretical/philosophical/and-or Religious rationale for support or opposing the concept of Social Equity as defined by the NAPA Standing Panel (if you want to use a different definition, please describe it).

Course Assignments (con’t)

Assignment II: Scholarly essay on “State Caused social Inequities”.

We have discussed the “dysfunctional” consequences of the “Cash for Clunkers” program, and my attached ppt describes other examples of either intended or unintended consequences leading to social inequities because of government (state) programs.

Assignment II (con’t)

In this assignment you are to:

1. Write a scholarly essay describing and critiquing Robert Merton’s Unanticipated Consequences of Purposive Social Action (Am. Soc. Review, Vol. 1, No.6, Dec. 1936) using the original and other sources. 40%

2. Describe a series of “state” programs that caused social inequities;

3. For each describe the program, the dysfunctional consequences, and whether these consequences were intended or unanticipated. 30%

4. Apply Merton’s theory to these programs. To what extent could this theory anticipate the dysfunctional consequences. To what extent could this theory suggest ways to mitigate the dysfunctional consequences. 20%

5. What advice do could you provide public affairs practitioners as to detecting and avoiding “unintended dysfunctional state caused social inequities?” 10%

Course Assignments (con’t)

Third Assignment

Paper on Developing a Theory of Social Equity:

Using the literature on “Theory Building” describe and discuss various methods of developing a theory. 15%Describe several theories that would be useful in building a theory of Social Equity (following Silverman’s definition of a Theory). 45%Develop, discuss and justify your “theory” of Social Equity.

40%

GROUP ASSIGNMENT ON SOCIAL EQUITY

1. Prepare a scholarly essay on the origins, essences, pros and cons of the existence of the concept of Social Equity and Governance. 15%

2. Briefly, but thoroughly describe and discuss the Public Policy Area and the specific sub-public policy (SPPA) area in the Richmond Metropolitan Area that your group is studying. 10%

3. Describe and discuss the most important Social Equity (SE) issues and concerns in this sub-public policy area. 20%

4. Identify and discuss the most important indicators and score cards needed to track Social Equity issues in this SPPA. 20%

5. Recommend and discuss strategies to improve Social Equity in this SPPA in the Richmond Metropolitan Area. Identify possible obstacles to the implementation of these strategies 20%

ACTIVITIES AT THE WILDER SCHOOL 6TH ANNUAL SELC

MYERS AND GOODEN SYMPOSIUM IN JPAE GOODEN AND WOOLDRIDGE ARTICLE ON HRM GOODEN AND WOOLDRIDGE ARTICLE IN ATP

GOODEN, JONES,MARTIN, ARTICLE IN STATE & LOCAL GOVT. ACTIVE PARTICIPATION IN NAPA’S PANEL

ACTIVE PARTICIPATION IN NASPAA COMMITTEE INTEGRATING SE IN PADM COURSES

GVPA 672 SE & PUBLIC POLICY GOODEN ET AL PAPER FROM MINNOWBROOK III

NORMAN-MAJOR-WOOLDRIDGE CHAPTER NUMEROUS PARTICIPATIONS AT CONFERENCES

WOOLDRIDGE REINVENTING GOV’T AND SE LEADER IN SOCIAL EQUITY AND PA EDUCATION

THE 10TH LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE ON SOCIAL EQUITY

WILL BE HELD ATBINGHAMTON UNIVERSITY

JUNE 8-10, 2010For more information contact

Dr. Nadia Rubaii-BarrettChair Department of Public Administration

Binghamton Universitynbarrett@binghamton.edu

FOR REFERENCES CONTACT ME

AT

bwooldri@vcu.edu