For almost 150 years, the theory and literature of the professional and academic discipline of Public Administration (PA) has been almost entirely Euro-American-centric. The “founding fathers” of the discipline are such notable figures as Woodrow Wilson (1887), Frederick Taylor (1912 and 1916), and Max Weber (1922), among others. Their notions of meritocracy, non-partisanship, professionalism, and rationalistic measurement purported to be neutral (Knott & Miller 1987). However, they were deliberately exclusionary towards women and racial minorities, who were unable to gain entrance to public employment because of systemic discrimination in the educational system and other avenues of professional development, until the civil rights era. Despite initial progress in the late 1960s-1970s (Herbert 1974), pathways for advancement in public sector agencies for women and minorities stagnated by the 1990s (Murray et al. 1994). To this day there remains implicit bias in hiring and promotions (“glass ceilings”), as well as serious omissions about female and minority administrators in the literature. Solutions to these dilemmas involve reforming our professional associations, updating our professional ethics, and encouraging these changes in our instruction and literature by including intersectionality as part of the curriculum (Guy & McCandless 2020). The traditionally interdisciplinary nature of the PA literature allows this to happen somewhat organically. Where there might be resistance to such updates, we can use the accreditation process to push reluctant programs and individuals to accept meaningful changes. This study uses the case of the Master of Public Administration (MPA) program at California State University, Fresno as an example.

Authors:
Kenneth Hansen, California State University, United States

About the Presenter(s)
Professor Kenneth Hansen is a University Professor/Principle Lecturer at California State University, Fresno, United States

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