Measuring the practice of engagement in public administration
| DOI | 10.1177/0144739418775783 |
| Author | Stephen R Neely,Johanna Phelps-Hillen,Jerrell D Coggburn |
| Published date | 01 October 2018 |
| Date | 01 October 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Measuring the practice
of engagement in public
administration
Stephen R Neely
University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida, USA
Jerrell D Coggburn
North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA
Johanna Phelps-Hillen
Washington State University, Pullman, Washington, USA
Abstract
Following recent calls for greater synergies between public administration’s (PA)’s
academic and practitioner communities, this paper examines the prevalence and use of
engaged teaching and faculty practices in Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and
Administration (NASPAA)-affiliated schools. Results are reported from a survey of PA
academic program leaders that includes specific practices – such as the use of service-
learning pedagogies, teaching-cases, and faculty–practitioner exchange programs – sug-
gested in the literature. While anecdotal evidence suggests that these practices promote
connectedness between PA’s scholarly and practitioner communities, little is known
empirically about how widely they are employed or how their use differs across faculty
cohorts and institutional settings. This study attempts to address that gap, providing both
empirical context and a baseline against which future studies can be compared.
Keywords
Engaged teaching, engaged scholarship, service learning, teaching cases, case study
Corresponding author:
Stephen R Neely, University of South Florida, 4202 E. Fowler Avenue, SOC 107, Tampa, FL 33620, USA.
Email: srneely@usf.edu; Telephone: (813)974-3347
Teaching Public Administration
2018, Vol. 36(3) 276–300
ªThe Author(s) 2018
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/0144739418775783
journals.sagepub.com/home/tpa
Introduction
The political economy of higher education in the USA has created a challenging oper-
ating environment for colleges and universities. Multiple stakeholders (e.g. lawmakers,
students, and community leaders) are raising tough questions about the costs of higher
education, the value and relevance of what faculty are teaching and researching, and
various aspects of student performance, including learning outcomes, time-to-degree,
degree completion, and job readiness (Arum and Roska, 2011; Doyle, 2006; Driscoll and
Sandmann, 2004; Vogelgesang et al., 2010). Helping to drive these questions is a general
and pervasive sense that higher education is increasingly disconnected from the nation’s
important problems (Boyer, 1996).
As both an academic discipline and field of professional practice, these concerns are
particularly salient to public administration (PA). Indeed, several PA scholars have
sounded the alarm about the declining value ascribed to the discipline, a development
that calls into question the viability of its academic programs (Rich, 2013; Shand and
Howell, 2015). A key contributor to this state of affairs is PA’s ongoing struggle to
maintain meaningful and productive linkages between its academic and practitioner
communities. These “struggles for connectedness” (Newland, 2000) have been the
subject of frequent examination over recent years, resulting in a number of strategies to
bridge the so-called “theory–practice gap” (e.g. Battaglio and Scicchitano, 2013; Bolton
and Stolcis, 2003; Bushouse et al., 2011; Gibson and Deadrick, 2010; Ospina and Dodge,
2005; Posner, 2009; Wang et al., 2013). Scholars and administrators alike tend to agree
that PA would be better served by a greater level of collaboration and share a consensus
that growing and persistent disconnectedness leaves both communities lacking (e.g.
Battaglio and Scicchitano, 2013; Posner, 2009). Nonetheless, achieving lasting con-
nections within the field has proven elusive.
A variety of proposals have been offered to address these concerns. Some have called
for a reexamination of the quality, relevance, and accessibility of PA’s scholarly research
(e.g. Bolton and Stolcis, 2003; Ospina and Dodge, 2005; Wang et al., 2013), believing
that a realignment of research priorities would facilitate renewed engagement between
academics and practitioners (Martin, 2016). Others have focused on PA education. For
example, one of Denhardt’s (2001: 527) “big questions” of PA education focuses on
whether to teach to theory or practice, a question that is characterized as the field’s
“central tension.” For some (e.g. pre-service) students a practical focus, coupled with
engaged pedagogies, has great appeal (Denhardt, 2001; Gerlach and Reinagel, 2016).
Finally, more recent critiques draw upon Boyer’s (1990) framework of engaged scho-
larship to offer a more holistic solution to the connectedness problem (Bushouse et al.,
2011; Koliba, 2007; Rich, 2013; Schweik et al., 2011; Volcker Alliance, 2017). An
engaged approach to addressing the theory–practice disconnect spans the research,
teaching, and service realms of faculty work and entails partnering with communities to
address practical problems.
Of the various calls for engaged scholarship in PA, Bushouse et al.’s (2011) work is
most relevant to current purposes. While acknowledging the need for practitioner-
oriented research, the authors go further to propose more deliberate efforts to link
Neely et al. 277
To continue reading
Request your trial