Master of Public Administration

• GAFL 6110 Statistics for Public Policy: The modern world is built on data. How can public managers, policymakers, and political leaders learn to use data to make informed decisions and improve public policy outcomes? This class covers the data and statistical tools students will encounter in the public sector. Students will also learn to use the R statistical computing language, which is widely used across both the public and private sectors.
• GAFL 6210 Public Economics: How can—and how should—governments manage a market economy? To understand how to design and implement public policies, as well as lead public agencies, students need to understand the economic behavior of citizens, governments, and private entities, how they interact, and how this affects the design and administration of government programs.
• GAFL 6340 Writing for Public Policy and Administration: This course covers techniques in effective writing for policy and public sector audiences. Students will learn how to effectively draft policy memos, public comments, crisis management communications, professional emails, and persuasive Congressional Hill materials. Students will gain a persuasion toolkit and be able to pitch ideas to diverse sets of stakeholders.
• Elective #1: Chosen in consultation with the student’s advisor. Review the full graduate course catalog.

• GAFL 6400 Program Evaluation and Data Analysis: How do we know if a given program is effectively achieving its goals? How can we compare which of several programs is actually producing the most benefit to society? Students learn the tools needed to analyze policies, with a particular emphasis on presenting the results of quantitative analysis effectively for a non-technical audience.
• GAFL 6510 Public and Non-Profit Finance: Government budgets are expressions of public policy and carry the authority of the law; non-profit budgets express the commitment to the mission of the organization and are the blueprint for meeting obligations to donors and funders. Both types of budgets and the accounting systems that support them are subject to legal and professional standards. The course is designed for students with little or no background in financial reporting, budgeting, and financial management and intends to provide an understanding of the primary financial management issues and decisions confronting senior management in nonprofit and government agencies. 
• GAFL 7320 Public Management: How can you become an effective public manager? Technical skills in budgeting, organization, and management are not enough; you need to understand the social and political context of the organization and be able to effectively coordinate with relevant stakeholders to produce change. Working with real-world examples, this class helps students develop this competency.
• GAFL 7980 MPA Capstone I (0 c.u. course): This required non-credit class is the first part of the MPA Capstone, which is a requirement for the Master of Public Administration program at the University of Pennsylvania’s Fels Institute of Government. During MPA Capstone I, students work through the early stages of their capstone projects, including project planning and project research and design. Examples of early-stage work include conducting background research, creating an annotated bibliography, designing the project, and planning and executing data collection. Students work with their capstone instructor, advisor, and community partner organization. MPA students take MPA Capstone I during the spring semester. 
• Elective #2: Chosen in consultation with the student’s advisor. Review the full graduate course catalog.

• GAFL 7990 MPA Capstone II: Successful completion of a capstone project is one of the academic requirements for the Master of Public Administration program at the University of Pennsylvania’s Fels Institute of Government. During MPA Capstone II, students work through the middle and final stages of their capstone projects, including conducting analysis, writing, and creating and presenting deliverables. Students work with their capstone instructor, advisor, and community partner organization. This core course is designed to give students direct guidance as they apply and consolidate knowledge and skills gained across the curriculum through the completion of a rigorous capstone project. Capstone students are responsible for designing and completing a public policy or public administration-related project and presenting to the Fels community and other stakeholders. MPA students complete MPA Capstone II during the summer semester.  
• Internship: Students are required to complete an internship to gain experience addressing real-world problems on a day-to-day basis. Your advisor will work with you one-on-one to assist you with finding and securing an internship that aligns with your career goals: to put your classroom knowledge to work, to deepen or diversify your skill set, to expand your professional network, and to make an impact in the public sphere.

• GAFL 5020 Public Communications: Successful leaders must be able to convey their integrity and their ideas, their vision, and their values clearly and convincingly in public settings. By analyzing great political speeches and affording students the opportunity to prepare and deliver different types of speeches, this course teaches the fundamentals of persuasive public speaking while encouraging students to develop their own voice. This is a performance course. Students will gain skill and confidence in their speech writing and public speaking skills through practice, peer feedback, and extensive professional coaching. Class lectures and discussions will focus on persuasive strategies and techniques for handling community meetings, Q & A sessions, and interactions with the media.
• GAFL 5220: Applied Impact and Performance Evaluation for International Development: This course is focused on designing and implementing large-scale impact and performance evaluations for international development. We explore real-world management considerations and best practices for field-based data collection, in conjunction with research design, data sources, instrument development, budgets, contracting, and managing large-scale data collection efforts. Although mostly focused on large-N household surveys, we also discuss complementary qualitative methods, as well as design considerations for more complex interdisciplinary evaluations that combine social science methods with biophysical data collection. Overall, this course will expose students to the A to Z of impact/performance evaluation for international development through the use of a number of evaluation case-studies from Africa.
• GAFL 5310 Data Science for Public Policy: In the 21st century, “big data” surrounds us. Data are being collected about all aspects of our daily lives. To improve transparency and accountability, an increasing number of public organizations are sharing their data with the public. But data are not information. You need good information to make sound decisions. To be an effective public leader, you will need to learn how to harness information from available data. This course will introduce you to key elements of data science, including data transformation, analysis, visualization, and presentation. An emphasis is placed on manipulating data to create informative and compelling analyses that provide valuable evidence in public policy debates. We will teach you how to present information using interactive apps that feature software packages. As in all courses at Fels, we will concentrate on more practical skills than theoretical concepts behind the techniques.
• GAFL 5490 Leading Nonprofits: This course is designed for those interested in leading and managing a nonprofit organization. It takes a practitioner’s perspective on strategic realities of modern practice. Each section will seek to rapidly orient a new manager to the complexities, strategic issues, and politics. The course is taught through a combination of theory and practice using selected readings, lectures, guest presentations, group activities (mock senior staff discussions) and field assignments (pairing with an area nonprofit leader and attendance at one of the organization’s board meetings).
• GAFL 5510 Government Relations: In a system of representative government, organizations and individuals with interests at stake often seek the support of a government relations professional. This course addresses government relations from the varying perspectives of the current or aspiring professional, the client, and the government official.
• GAFL 5900 Use and Misuse of Data for Policy Challenges: "Data-driven policy-making" has become a popular phrase, but what does it actually mean and how can aspiring policy-makers meet its lofty goals? This class will help students understand how data of all sorts (administrative, observational, experimental, "big") can be used to shed light on various policy issues. To do this, the class teaches students a set of computational tools (centered on the R statistical programming language), and shows them how to gather, analyze, and present data in useful ways. It does so by working through a number of important policy issues, including policing, campaign finance, public health, political polling, and many others.

Students in the MPA program may pursue an optional concentration in one of six areas. Each concentration requires the completion of two elective courses and a capstone project related to the concentration area.

• Political Advocacy Concentration: The political advocacy concentration allows MPA students to deepen their understanding of government relations and the policy process, develop their communication skills, and learn how to engage diverse stakeholders to achieve change. This concentration is ideal for students seeking a role as a lobbyist, elected official, community organizer, legislative staffer, communications specialist, and other public sector and advocacy-related roles.
• International Affairs Concentration: The international affairs concentration equips MPA students with the skills they need to engage in international relations work and public sector administration in a global context. Students develop an understanding of the “international order” and how it affects trade, politics, and security, the ability to synthesize primary source texts, data, and other research to inform policy recommendations on contemporary international policy issues, and strong written and oral communication skills.
• Nonprofit Management Concentration:The nonprofit management concentration equips MPA students with the skills they need to lead and manage a non-profit organization. Students completing this concentration will be well-prepared for a career as an executive director or other senior leadership roles in a nonprofit organization.
• Domestic Policy Concentration: The domestic policy concentration equips MPA students with the skills they need to analyze and assess policy in the US context. Students completing this concentration will be able to analyze and evaluate policies with economic, social, and political lenses, synthesize complex information for public decision-makers, and make evidence-based policy recommendations.
• MPA in Quantitative Policy Analytics (STEM-designated degree): The Master of Public Administration in Quantitative Policy Analytics allows students to develop their skills in data gathering, data analysis, data visualization, and data presentation. The degree features extensive experiential learning as students put their skills into practice for real-world public sector client projects. Students completing this degree will be able to apply a wide range of applied statistics and program evaluation methods, use R for data cleaning, analysis, and visualization, apply data insights to inform program or policy design, and communicate technical findings to non-expert audiences. This major prepares students to serve as policy analysts, policy advisors, data analysts, data scientists, data analytics managers, data managers, and more.
• MPA in International Impact Evaluation (STEM-designated degree): The International Impact Evaluation major equips MPA students with skills in quantitative program and impact evaluation in diverse global settings. Students completing this degree will have expertise in data collection strategies for survey and administrative data, particularly in developing contexts, the ability to design rigorous impact evaluations that apply statistical methods to social science evaluation questions, advanced coding abilities in R and/or Stata, practical project management skills, and proficiency in effectively presenting impact evaluation results. The degree features extensive experiential learning as students put their skills into practice for real-world evaluation projects. It prepares students for roles as policy analysts, data scientists, evaluation project managers, and more.
• Individualized Concentration: Any MPA students who do not select another major or concentration are considered to have an individualized concentration. This allows the greatest flexibility for elective courses and one’s capstone project.

Through the capstone project, you synthesize what you’ve learned across your coursework to demonstrate the ability to produce change in the public sector. With guidance from Fels advisors, you evaluate and analyze a real-world challenge facing a government or nonprofit organization in order to propose practical solutions.

Learn more about capstone projects >