Doctor of Philosophy in Public Administration

Advisor: Dr. Matthew Mingus
Room 220E
Walwood Hall

The mission of the Doctor of Philosophy in Public Administration program is to give students a deep and extensive knowledge of the history, theory, practice, and future of the field. The curriculum encourages broad intellectual inquiry with a scholarly perspective and seeks to prepare students for careers in teaching, research, administration, and consulting. The doctoral program is designed for those who have experience in a supervisory or administrative position with a federal, state, or local government or nonprofit agency and those wishing to teach public administration in a college or university setting. The program is structured to provide decision makers, researchers, and future professors with a more sophisticated understanding of the governing process.

The curriculum incorporates a diversity of viewpoints, gathered from classical and contemporary readings in the discipline, examination of the contributions of its seminal thinkers, analysis of the institutions and processes of governance, exploration of emerging theories and trends, and an investigation of the challenges of leadership and public management in a democracy. Public administration is multidisciplinary and so during the coursework phase each student will be able to develop substantive and/or methodological knowledge in one or more of the many related disciplines, including sociology, economics, educational leadership, interdisciplinary health sciences, political science, statistics, and communication.

Integral to the program is the development and refinement of the skills to conduct both qualitative and quantitative research, practice in statistical and quantitative analysis, and experience with applied skills of leadership and ethical decision-making.

Students should graduate with the ability to perform independent research on theoretical public administration concerns and substantive issues, to analyze a wider range of alternative policies, and to weigh competing choices in the decision-making process.

Admission Requirements

Applicants can obtain a doctoral student information packet from the School of Public Affairs and Administration for complete details concerning admission to the Ph.D. program. The following criteria will be used to make admissions decisions. In order to be competitive, applicants must:

Have an undergraduate degree with at least a 3.00 grade point average.
Have a master’s degree in public administration or a related academic discipline with at least a 3.25 grade point average in all graduate coursework.
Have at least four years of supervisory or administrative experience, preferably in public serving organizations.
Provide three letters of recommendation, at least one of which should be from a person acquainted with the applicant’s professional work and at least one of which should be familiar with the applicant’s graduate-level academic work (use the WMU Graduate Reference Form).
Submit the completed Departmental Application Form, including responses to the required essay questions.
Submit a complete and up-to-date professional resume.
Provide Graduate record examination (GRE) scores for the quantitative, verbal, and analytical written parts of the examination.

All application materials should be submitted by April 30 to ensure consideration for the Fall semester. Late applications may be considered on a space available basis while earlier applications may be required for a student to meet university financial aid deadlines. An interview with members of the School’s faculty may be requested as part of the admissions process.

Program Requirements

Students should meet with the Doctoral Director after being accepted into the program and before the end of their first term of coursework to develop an initial program of study. Forty-eight semester hours of credit are required beyond the master’s degree, including the statistics requirement (3 hours), the public administration core (15 hours), the methods requirement (9 hours), the elective requirement (6 hours), the dissertation seminar (3 hours), and the minimum hours of dissertation credit (12 hours). This may be reduced to 45 semester hours if the statistics requirement is deemed to have been met at the time of admission to the program. Successful performance on the comprehensive examination and the submission of a scholarly article, is required of all students in order to continue in the program. Finally, successful annual reviews are required of students at all stages in the program.

Statistics Requirement

Each student must take PADM 6070: Data Analysis for Administrators, or an equivalent statistics course. Students should be aware that many of the methods courses will require this background and so they are encouraged to meet this requirement early in the program. If this has been done in the five years prior to program admission, this requirement may be waived at the student’s request and the credit hours required for the doctoral degree may be reduced by 3 credit hours.

Public Administration Core (15 hours)

PADM 6610 - Intellectual History of Public Administration Credits: 3 hours
PADM 6630 - Leading the Public Organization Credits: 3 hours
PADM 6650 - Public Policy, Theory, and Research Credits: 3 hours
PADM 6660 - Contemporary Issues in Public Management Credits: 3 hours
PADM 6840 - Management of Public Financial Resources Credits: 3 hours

Comprehensive Examinations

After completing the public administration core, students will be eligible to take the written comprehensive examination. The exam will be offered once each year and will be prepared and graded by a group of faculty who teach the public administration core courses. Outside readers may be used to assess the comprehensive examinations as well. Results will be honors, satisfactory, or unsatisfactory. Students with a score of unsatisfactory will have one opportunity to retake the comprehensive examination. A score of unsatisfactory on the retake will result in program dismissal.

Methods Requirement (9 hours)

Each student will be required to successfully complete three methodology courses beyond the general statistics requirement. This will ideally include a two- or three-course methodology sequence in a specific discipline and include courses that have components covering research design, qualitative research, and quantitative research. The methodology requirement will be tailored to meet the needs of individual doctoral students and must be approved by the Doctoral Director in the student’s Program of Study. Examples of relevant courses include, but are not limited to: