威斯康星大學(xué)麥迪遜分校

The Master of Public Affairs (MPA) Program provides education in public management and policy analysis that prepares students for careers in public policy and administration within the public, private, and nonprofit sectors.

The award-winning La Follette School faculty includes economists, political scientists, sociologists, and public affairs scholars who teach the skills and tools needed for a career in public affairs. They are experts in social policy, health policy and management, public administration, public policy analysis, environmental policy and management, poverty, and tax policy and government finance.

Beyond campus, the city of Madison, as the state capital, provides a wealth of opportunities for La Follette School students to participate in outreach and acquire practical experience as professional project assistants or interns with public and private entities. Students benefit from the strong relationships that La Follette School faculty have with these organizations, in keeping with the Wisconsin Idea of public service. This includes the Family Impact Seminar and Committee Connect- opportunities that use evidence-based research to inform policymakers and improve public policy.

Learning outcomes

• (Knowledge) Demonstrate understanding of major current and past policy debates, research findings, and analytical methodologies in each of the following core areas: microeconomic policy analysis, quantitative tools for policy analysis, policy analysis, the policymaking process, and public management.
• (Knowledge) Demonstrate critical thinking skills. They will retrieve and examine the policy literature and evaluate evidence for and against hypotheses, identify knowledge gaps, strengths and weaknesses in existing literature, synthesize knowledge, and develop conclusions.
• (Applied Research Skills) Read, comprehend, and effectively summarize policy research and policy-relevant academic research.
• (Applied Research Skills) Effectively summarize data for a general (non-academic) or policy audience.
• (Applied Research Skills) Demonstrate competency in methods of inferential statistics including those associated with multivariate regression models.
• (Professional and Ethical Conduct) Identify and appropriately respond to scenarios involving the ethical and professional responsibilities of public administration.
• (Professional and Ethical Conduct) Demonstrate the ability to maintain human subject’s protections when designing studies, collecting data and reporting results.
• (Professional and Ethical Conduct) Know and adhere to high levels of professional conduct, ethical decision-making and legal and regulatory compliance.
• (Professional and Ethical Conduct) demonstrate the ability to maintain fidelity to objective social science-based research methods.
• (Communication) Communicate in clear written language: a real-world policy problem, relevant scholarly studies and practical applications, a policy-analytic method to investigate the problem, and client-oriented advice to mitigate the problem.
• (Communication) Communicate substance of point 1 highly concisely and in language understandable to a non-specialist.
• (Communication) Communicate substance of point 2 orally.
• (Professional Skills and Career Preparation) Develop effective job-seeking tools and utilize job-seeking techniques.
• (Professional Skills and Career Preparation) Complete high quality group projects, including demonstration of effective project management and teamwork.