Online Master of Public Administration (MPA)
Enrich your Public Administration Career and Help your Community
Top-Ranked MPA in 2021, U.S. News & World Report
Accredited Curriculum
Optional Health Systems Management Specialization
Get More Information
We’re here to answer your questions about admissions, financial aid, transfer credits and more. Fill out the form below to get in touch with a helpful admissions counselor.
- Duration 30 months
- Cost per Credit $950
- Credit Hours 36
Program Benefits
- Ranked in the 2021 Best Public Affairs Programs by U.S. News & World Report
- Flexible 7-week online courses, ideal for working professionals
- No GRE required
Train to Lead and Manage Diverse Public and Nonprofit Organizations
Delivered by the prestigious Joseph R. Biden, Jr. School of Public Policy and Administration, our online MPA program allows you to practice leading-edge management and problem-solving skills as you enhance your knowledge of the field. Plus, you’ll gain the professional experience you need to make values-based decisions in your ideal public administration career.
What You’ll Learn
UD’s MPA online program teaches you to contribute solutions to the public challenges of our times through research and public service projects that involve you in experiential learning.

Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us for our virtual open house for the online Master of Arts in Strategic Communication at the University of Delaware. We’re going to do some introductions to get started here, but we’re so glad you could be with us tonight.
Our agenda is as follows, we’re going to start off with our introductions, myself, as well as our host and our program [inaudible 00:00:23], has a current student joining us as well today. And then we’ll go over the program overview, talk to you about why University of Delaware, and also focus on the curriculum. We’re going to get into some of the courses that you could be taking in this program and also focus on the big picture, career support, outcomes, where you’re headed after you finish this degree, and then we’ll wrap up with some details about the application and have a Q&A for anyone who’s watching live. All right, so David.
Hello, everybody. Like Tara said, welcome to our virtual open house. My name is David Hayes. I am an admissions counselor here at the University of Delaware. I’ve been doing this for about three years. Currently, I am also working on a master’s degree, but in business administration. And I got my bachelor’s in Information Management back in 2017. And, Stephanie.
Stephanie is one of our current students in the program. She’s going to be joining us tonight and talking with us in a little bit about some of the classes that she’s taking. And as you can see, she got her bachelor’s degree in Economics from Rutgers University.
For my background, there’s a lot of details on the screen there, so I won’t go over everything, but I do have a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in public relations. Very excited to be with you guys tonight. Public relations is near and dear to my heart. Strategic communication is again that umbrella field that serves what we do, and so this is a really exciting program to be a part of. I will also share that my background includes accreditation in public relations through the Public Relations Society of America. I have 15 years of industry experience, so this is my second career, if you will, transitioning into academia. And in this role I am the program director as well as an instructor at UD. So I teach both undergrad public relations courses and then I teach graduate courses in our strategic communication program.
Okay, so let’s get into why should you attend UD for your master’s in strategic communication? First off, it’s an asynchronous online degree program. And what does that mean? That means that you do not have to log on to Zoom at a particular time of day or night, like some of you are right now, and being able to just take your classes, do the work at a pace that works for you. As long as you’re meeting your weekly assignment deadlines in each module, you can log on whenever it works best for your schedule. People tend to find that really flexible and convenient, especially if you’re someone who is working full-time and taking this degree part-time, which many of our students do. That gives you a lot of flexibility. There’s live Zoom opportunities if you want to get to meet your classmates or if you’re having trouble in a class and you want to talk with an instructor, we absolutely have that option for you with our virtual office hours. So there are those live opportunities, but it’s not a requirement within this program, so a lot of flexibility there.
Another thing that’s really helpful is our program can be completed in as little as 18 months, and that’s on a part-time basis. So for a lot of people who are eager to get that degree, get through the curriculum and get those skills to really advance your career, this can be a really helpful way for you to do this with some time management, balancing life, work, school and not feel too rushed. But if you need a little extra time, you can take longer to complete the program as needed. We do have those semesters where life gets in the way and someone might need to take some time off, so there is flexibility for you to take a little longer if you need it, but if you’re planning to just go straight through, you can get done in 18 months.
Another thing that’s really nice about our program and a little unique to it is the fact that you can specialize in either public relations or digital and social media. Now, if you’re someone who would really like to get a little bit of both of those different areas, you can customize the degree to meet your professional and academic needs. We have a lot of students who do choose to [inaudible 00:04:16] a certain specialization because they know they need that skillset in their job or maybe the one that they’re hoping to transition into, and then we have a lot of students who decide to just do a little bit of both and they mix the electives so they can really tailor the degree to what suits them.
Our courses are taught by both full-time scholars and industry executives. We’re really proud of this because we think it’s important for you to have access to full-time faculty who are available to you year round, people who work at the university, in our department, can help you out again throughout the life of the program. They teach all of our required courses. Now, the elective courses are taught by industry executives who work in the area that you’re learning about. So if you are someone who wants to get more skills and user data analytics, we’ve got a director of user data analytics to help teach you, someone who does that work every single day and can really give you the ins and outs that can make that work applicable to your everyday job. We think it’s a really nice balance to have both full-time scholars, but also industry executives, so you get to have the theory and the practice really driving everything that you do.
Now, when it comes to community engagement, this is something I really like to emphasize about our program. Just because you’re online doesn’t mean that you’re just sitting at your computer getting your coursework done in a silo. We want you to feel connected and engaged. So one of the ways we do that is by offering you a monthly speaker series called Inside the Industry. Every month during the school year, we will bring you executives from multiple industries, different communication functions, to talk with you, to network with you, to teach you about best practices, how they are doing their job, how they got to where they are.
We’ve had a ton of amazing speakers in the past year. Just to give you some examples, we’ve had the head of advertising and social media for United Airlines. We also had the Senior Vice President of Culture and communication for the New York Times. So you imagine it, those are the people that we like to bring to you. So it’s a really great opportunity for you as a student to get to learn outside of the classroom and build those connections with a guest speaker just like you would if you were on campus in a classroom.
Another thing that we offer our students is free professional development workshops. Every semester we host a workshop, usually about 90 minutes to two hours, where you get a chance to deep dive into a topic that either isn’t already a part of our curriculum and maybe it will be one day or something that’s really cutting edge and new that we know a lot of people have interest in, and they want to get that skillset in and give you a hands-on ability to practice and learn. These are offered to you every semester free of charge, just again, give you that extra value beyond the coursework that you’re already taking. And they’re always recorded, so if you can’t make it live, you’re still able to access that as a student after they’ve occurred.
Last but not least, we have a LinkedIn group. We’re really proud of this LinkedIn group. We have, I think at this point, more than a hundred and some members in the group. This is a way for our current students and our alumni to stay connected. We share industry news in the group. We share job leads. Sometimes people in the group are hiring at their company and they want to obviously extend that opportunity to people who are part of this program because they know that it’s a quality program.
And sometimes people are also just looking for career advice. They just want to get a feedback from other people who know what it’s like to be in this program. So whether you’re a prospective student and just want to join us to see what stuff we talk about in the group and to get a feel for who we are, or if you’re a current student and are alum, we invite you to join this group. At some point tonight, I’ll put the link into the chat window, so if you’d like to join our group, we are more than happy to have you. These are just a few of the examples that we have in terms of engaging you outside of the classroom and staying connected so that you do feel part of the Blue Hen community.
Now let’s talk about curriculum. When it comes to the required courses, you see here on the screen, we have five of them. Now, these are the courses, again, that are taught by our full-time faculty who are here year round within the university. Principles of strategic communication is basically our introductory course to give you a survey overview of the field. Then we also have a course in communication research, communication theory, as well as ethics. And then when you are all done and nearing that final semester, you will complete a capstone. We really like the fact that our capstone is very flexible and is designed for you to create a campaign that hopefully aligns with either the work you’re currently doing, sometimes people will work with their current employer on a project that, let’s say, has been on the back burner for a while and you keep meaning to get to it, but you can never justify finding the time to do it, grad school as an excuse. It gives you a great chance to finally work on a passion project at work that maybe you haven’t had time to do before.
Other people will use the capstone as a chance to work with a nonprofit that they’re really excited to partner with and help them with an initiative. And other people will use this experience as a chance to showcase their skills to a small business or a prospective future client if they want to do some consulting on the side. It’s really up to you who your client is you get to work with and create this full-fledged comprehensive campaign for, whether it’s social media, public relations, event planning, you name it, it’s a really great experience and a great portfolio piece for you as you finish the program.
Now, in addition to the required courses, we have two tracks with our electives, which I’ll get into a little more on the next slide. And we’ll also have Stephanie share a little with us too, about some of these courses. We have a public relations specialization, as I mentioned earlier, or digital and social media. Now again, you don’t have to pick either direction if you want to get a little bit of both, but if you do want to really focus your coursework in one area, you can pick either of these specializations.
Now, our additional electives span both of these disciplines. As you can see, we have quite a few options here. If you are looking, for example, to boost your leadership skills, if you’re someone who’s mid-management trying to get into that senior executive role, our communication and leadership course might be a really excellent choice for you. We actually have a former chief communications officer and a member of the Arthur Page Society who helped us to develop this course. And in fact, during his course, you get to work with chief communication officers from around the country to actually complete some of your assignments and learn from all of their years of experience.
So really interesting, really tailored courses depending on your focus. We also have courses in health communication, sports communication, digital political strategy, and at the top, as you see, we also have campaigns, media analytics. These can be really helpful courses depending on, regardless, I should say, of which specialization you go into. So you can take these in addition to any specialization electives that you may choose.
Also, we’ll tout really quickly that our health communication course was developed by a specialist who works for the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and is also a health scholar in the field. So you get, again, that practitioner and academic perspective working in a field that’s very interesting right now. There’s a lot of opportunity, obviously, in health communication. But I’ll also just quickly point out, our digital political course was developed by someone who works here at the great state of Delaware for the governor of Delaware. Governor Carney’s, press secretary, former press secretary, now chief of staff actually helped develop our course and we’re really excited to showcase this. He’s put together an amazing class for you guys, and you’re going to get to learn a lot from someone who’s worked at a really high level in politics. Just wanted to give you a sample of some of those additional electives where you get a lot of great experience, and again, you can go really deep dive into some of these particular topics.
Moving into the specializations, I’m going to also have Stephanie chime in here in a minute too, to share her experience. As you can see, our public relations specialization is really focused on how you develop your brand and launch a campaign. We also focus a lot on best practices in the management of public relations initiatives, as well as understanding all of the theories behind persuasion and attitude change, really the bedrock of PR.
Now, in digital and social media, we focus on the platforms, the ecosystems, and the business models. It’s all about optimization when it comes to digital and social media. So this is an area where you can really hone your skills. We also focus on the user experience and looking at analytics. And yes, I know it’s a strategic communication degree, so some people are thinking math, oh no, but I promise no math is required. You can succeed without any real math experience and do well in these courses. We give you the tools you need to succeed, but it’s really helpful nowadays, and we all know those analytics are a really important piece of being successful in digital and social media. Last but not least, online consumer behavior. We really give you a good look at how to create content that will speak to the needs of the target audience you are trying to engage with.
Stephanie, I am going to pull up some of the elective courses now that we have in either specialization and maybe you can share with us a little about one or two of the courses you’ve taken so far and your thoughts on them, and we’ll see if anyone has questions too, at the end about that. But Stephanie, we have you back?
I think she’s still having issues. She got off again.
Okay. So we might have issues with sound. That’s always the case nowadays with Zoom and any kind of online thing. There’s always something that pops up, but the show will go on. If Stephanie comes back to join us, we’ll catch her at the end. But I’ll just highlight for you guys on the screen here, you can see we have a really nice roster of courses. Everything from campaign planning on the PR side to branding and crisis communication on the digital and social media side. We have again, a lot of courses that will give you expertise in writing for digital media content strategy, as well as things like social media management. There are a really great array of electives for you to focus and hone your skillset in either of these areas. There’s also a couple of electives we have at the bottom, as you’ll see there, reputation management and advanced strategic writing that do span both electives so they can count for either one.
Those are a quick look at our electives. I will also now share with you a little bit about that next step. When you are getting ready to complete the degree, or maybe while you’re still in the program, there’s an opportunity that comes up for you to transition somewhere new in your career and make a change, we’ve got a lot of great resources to help you out. As a University of Delaware student, our career center offers a variety of opportunities. There’s Handshake where you can get access to job listings, interview opportunities, digital events, and virtual workshops. We also have something called Big Interview, that gives you access to a virtual platform to help you prepare for your next job interview. Really helpful these days, especially with so many of us being online all the time, so that’s a really great feature to have.
We then also have VMock, which is an online resume critique system, specifically designed for Master’s students that they’re looking at the fact that you most likely have some professional experience already. How do you position yourself appropriately for that next job? And, do I have one more on this slide? I don’t. Okay.
In terms of career outcomes, one thing we would really love to share with you is a recent alum of our program, Ashley Nelson, graduated in December, 2021. She did an interview with our news magazine here at UD and shared some really great insights we thought you might find helpful in terms of knowing what alumni feel about the program. Ashley mentioned that UD’s reputation is extremely strong, but there was no way she could have attended classes in person, so she was really grateful she could earn this degree online.
Her capstone project addressed the COVID 19 vaccine hesitancy in 18 to 29 year olds, and she also shared with us that her UD MA immediately paid dividends. She received a job offer that was $20,000 higher because she had earned this master’s degree. She says she’s recommended to anyone who wants to advance or start a career in strategic communication, public relations, digital media, or social media. Great testimonial and great success story, and we have lots of students who obviously have great stories to share, but wanted to just give you one tonight to give you a sense of how helpful a lot of our students do find this program.
When it comes to the application process, this is the part where most people have questions. What do I need to do to apply? As you can see, there’s a list here of things that you do need to get started. A resume is one of the things that you’ll be uploading to the application portal. You’ll also need three letters of recommendation. Now, for those of you who have perhaps been out of your undergraduate career for more than five years let’s say, you might not necessarily have, still be keeping in touch…
(NOTE: speaker names may be different in each section)
… Five years, let’s say, you might not necessarily still be keeping in touch with some of your professors, right? If you’ve been out of school for a few years or more, we are absolutely fine with getting recommendation letters from people who have worked with you in current or former jobs. So that could be, again, hiring supervisors, colleagues, people who can really speak to your ability to do well in this field and to do well within this program.
Your personal essay is a really important part of the application. At the end of the day, we just want to know, what are you trying to get out of this degree? How can this help you succeed? Where are you trying to go? So you’ll address things like that within your personal essay.
We do accept unofficial transcripts, and when it comes to your application fee, it is $75. However, for those of you who are watching this recording or are here live tonight, we are going to provide you with a code to waive that application fee. Yay. So that’s one thing that we will make sure to get to you guys via email, and I will let… David, I think I might have stolen this slide from you actually.
It’s okay. You were in the zone.
I was.
Yes. I did just want to touch base for the unofficial transcripts, although we do allow unofficial transcripts, you do want to make sure that you have the conferred degree date on it, because that is one thing that we do need to verify for those unofficial transcripts. This is mostly my slide, yes, because I am the admissions counselor. So I will be the one that will also go over this application process with you. So if you ever have any questions, we do have our general phone number and email up there, but I also have my direct phone number and email address that I can give you. So if you ever have any questions and you want to go over the application with me, I’ll be more than welcome to do that for you as well. We’ll be here throughout the entire process to help you, make sure we can hopefully get you into the program as well.
Thank you so much, David. So David is a great point of contact if you have questions about the application process. He is your go-to and can really help you out with that. So I am going to… I think I’m going to stop sharing here. I’m going to stop sharing so that we can open it up in case there are any questions. Let me see here. I’m also going to drop the link to our LinkedIn group into the chat window. So I’m going to check right now, see if we have any questions. I think you can type it into the chat window pretty easily there. So I’ll just grab the link, and David-
And I will add my information as well.
Oh, good. Thank you. Okay. And for those of you watching the recording, again, we will send you the application fee waiver code. So hopefully you’ll get that actually when you receive the recording. And here is the link to our group. Okay, to everyone. Here we go. See, I do encourage you to join, because it’s a really easy way to also get to connect with other people who are currently in the program.
So do you want to share with us a little bit about the classes you’ve been in? We basically wrapped up our presentation and we’re just sitting here for some Q&A, and I see, actually we do have a question, but do you want to go ahead, Stephanie, first and then I’ll get to the question?
Sure. So I’m specializing in public relations. So one of the courses I took was public relations campaign planning, and for that one we were divided into groups and each was assigned a real nonprofit, and they were local nonprofits based in Wilmington, Delaware. So we just had to see a campaign through from start to finish, beginning with the research, and then finally with a plan with tactics and budget. So it was really very hands-on experience.
We also have taken a course in crisis management, and I took one on public relations writing. So I got a lot of benefits out of each one.
Awesome. Okay. So I saw that Diana asked a question, and Tara, I see that you are typing.
Yes.
Just for anyone that did not see the answer, I was also going to say it out loud as well, if you wanted to continue to type that for her. So we actually have three different start dates throughout the year. We have a spring, a summer, and a fall start date. So our next one coming up is the spring, starting February 6th. The application deadline for that is January 15th, I believe it is, right? Do you remember, Tara?
It’s actually January 21st. I’m going to hit send right now-
January 21st?
… So everyone hopefully can see it, January 21st.
But especially with the holidays coming up, we definitely encourage you to work on that now and get that out the way, because of the fact that the review committees, they also take holiday time off. So, that can also prolong your time on getting your decision. So we want to get you to get registered before that time comes, because class registration is open up, and sometimes classes can fill up as well.
Great point. Thank you for that, David. Yes, we also want to just make sure we have enough time to get you enrolled before the semester starts so you’ve got plenty of time to get set up. I also will share the deadline for the summer, if you are not ready to necessarily start in spring, is May 20th. So those are two days to keep in mind. January 21st, if you want to start in the spring semester, and May 20th is the deadline to apply for the summer semester. So I put those in the Q&A. Hopefully everyone can see those dates there.
And if you’re trying to wait until the fall, you do have until August 10th. So plenty of time for fall semester, if you’re planning to start then. I’m also going to put my email address here in the chat window, just like David, in case you need anything from me, and my phone number. Do we have any other questions? That was a great one. Thank you. And I think her name is actually Deanna. This is someone I think I met recently, so I’m pretty sure that’s Deanna. Thanks for joining tonight, Deanna. It’s great to see you. Do we have any other questions from our attendees? Okay.
So as we’re wrapping up, I’ll just reiterate again… We have a question here from Jess. Is there… Hi, Jess. I know who you are. Is there a separate application for prospective four plus one undergraduate students? Great question. So the application is still going to be the same application website, like anyone else applying to the program, but when you apply there will be an option to select four plus one. So that’s for our students who are currently an undergrad at University of Delaware and planning to enter our four plus one program, so they get their Master’s degree and undergrad degree in five years. Really great opportunity for them. So thanks for asking that question, Jess.
And I will say the deadline for our four plus one students is different. It is April 1st. I can remember that one because April 1st is easy. And if you’re someone who’s an undergrad here, if you’re watching the recording, or if you’re here live, April 1st is the deadline for the four plus one program, so that is different. All right. And then am I missing any Q&As? I feel like I might have missed one.
I answered the other one for her, for the summer and the fall start dates.
Great. Okay. So as we’re wrapping up, and I’ll give anyone who has maybe a last question a minute to post it, I will just share that, again, I think our program is really unique in the fact that we do offer our two specializations, so you really can focus your skills in a certain area that might help you out in the job you’re trying to get or the one you already have. And I also like the fact that we have that community engagement. We want you to feel a part of the UD community, whether you’re here on campus or you’re online with us. So we do our best to really bring you into the fold and help you feel part of that head network.
And hopefully Stephanie can attest to, we do have, again, a lot of great opportunities for students to connect with guest speakers and attend those workshops, and also just stay connected on LinkedIn.
All right. So I don’t think I’m seeing any additional questions, which hopefully means we answered any questions you might have had tonight. But, if you think of something after we log off, feel free to shoot David an email, or myself, or give us a call and we will be happy to get back to you. Thanks so much for taking the time to join us tonight. We’re really excited that you came to visit with us.
And I just saw I put .com. My email is definitely .edu.
Oh, that’s funny. Yes. David Hayes, it’s Dhayes, and it’s .edu. Good catch. Good catch. All right, so I think that will wrap it up for us tonight.
Everyone, you guys have a great evening.
Bye, everyone. Have a great night.
Good evening everyone. Welcome to the University of Delaware’s virtual open house for our online Masters of Public Administration Program. My name is David Hayes and I am an admissions counselor to help provide information for UD’s online programs. I also go over making sure you meet all the requirements before applying, and provide additional information if you are missing any.
For tonight’s agenda, you will get to meet some of the staff and faculty from the University of Delaware. We will then talk about why Delaware is a great choice. Next, we will go over an overview of the program. We will then explain some highlights of the curriculum. You will also get to hear information regarding career outcomes and then the application process and its details. And then we will finally wrap it up with a Q&A section at the end. So if you have any questions, you can type them in the Q&A section and we will answer those at the end.
Thank you very much, David. My name is Alisa Molvadanova and I’m an MP program director and associate professor in the Biden School of Public Policy and Administration at the University of Delaware. My own research and teaching area includes a variety of subjects in the public and nonprofit management field, and I also currently conduct research on how public and nonprofit sector organizations contribute to advancing community sustainability goals.
I also research the questions of organizational resiliency and how organizations are able to improve their strategic and professional management to be able to cope with the stress that exists in the external environment, to be able to continue functioning and delivering the public services now and for the generations to come.
I, myself have an MP degree, and I am excited to be here today on this webinar with my colleagues and current students, as well as program advisors, so we can discuss some of the program highlights and share some of the things that we find exciting about this program. And I’m now going to transfer this to my colleague, Steven.
Thank you, Alisa. I’m Steve Peuquet. I’m actually a retired professor in the Biden School, after spending 36 years as a full-time professor. And I’m now teaching part-time in the online MPA program and in other programs in the Biden School. I’m an economist and urban planner with a very strong interest in housing policy and issues of poverty, as well as the social determinants of health, which is essentially focused on the effect that different neighborhoods and communities have on individuals’ health and wellbeing.
I teach the economics course in the online MPA program. The primary goal of that course is to expose students to a variety of very important and fundamental issues in economics, with a particularly strong focus on microeconomics, which is a very important subject matter for students that are involved in public administration as well as public policy. I’ve done research in the area of homelessness, and I have worked internationally as well, and very much enjoy working with online MPA students.
Thank you, Steven.
Hello, everyone. My name is Breck Robinson. I’m an associate professor in the Biden School. My background is a little different. I am actually a private sector person that’s been trapped in a public sector school for the last couple of years. My PhD is in finance and I have an MBA, Master’s in Economics as well. And my area of teaching in our program primarily revolves with respect to financial management, economics, just like Steve, and I also teach the statistics course, all for our Master’s students.
I also created a course in personal finance for our leadership program, which I teach at the undergraduate level. My primary research area has been in financial institutions, banking, housing finance, community reinvestment. I’ve been a visiting scholar at the comptroller of the currency, the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. And when I was a young lad I was a research assistant at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, and I’ve been at the university for a long time. I was kidnapped as a child and I’ve been here for 28 years.
Thank you, Breck. Jessica?
Hi, I’m Jessica. So I’m a professor here in the Biden School. I joined the faculty in fall of 2020, which was obviously perhaps not the most ideal time joining the faculty, but I have no regrets about it. I’m thrilled to be here, and I’m thrilled to be back here in person. I’ve been teaching online actually, probably for about 12 years, and I started teaching online post-tenure, and I actually found it really is fun to try to think about how to create an engaging learning environment in a fully online classroom. So it’s something I love to push myself to think about.
My areas of research are public and nonprofit management. Human resource management is my primary focus. I study high performance work practices in human service organizations, volunteer management, and basically all sorts of different ways to try to create positive learning environments for public service employees, so they can pursue the public good.
Also, when I was an undergraduate, I was a political science major, and I didn’t really know what I wanted to do for a living, and I stumbled into the MPA and really fell in love, because for me it was where we take big ideas and actually make them work. And I try-
… Ideas and actually make them work. And I try to keep that love is still alive 20, many years past down the road, I won’t say 20 plus years, and trying to help students tap into that and think about what it means to actually serve the public good in so many different ways. I think we’re really blessed to do this for a living and we hope you join us.
Thank you very much, Jessica. As you can see, all of our faculty have quite a rich and diverse professional background, and many of our faculty also have experience of working and engaging in public service outside of the academic environment, which makes their expertise especially relevant to those of you who are choosing this area. And everyone is very excited about this program. David also already had a chance to introduce himself, but he will be a point of contact when it comes to enrollment and admissions, so he will have a chance to talk about more later during this presentation. And I’m especially excited to welcome the current UD MPA student in this program, Emily Thomas, who has graciously agreed to join the webinar today. And I would like to ask Emily to introduce herself and tell us a bit about your current employment and where she’s at in the program.
Hi everyone. Thank you for having me. My name’s Emily Thomas and I’m currently in my last course in the MPA program. So I’ll be graduating at the end of the fall session. And I work at Delaware Technical Community College in the office of the president as the college-wide director of grants. So I oversee the administration of all pre and post awards of federal and state grants that the college receives and I’m happy to be here.
Thank you so much, Emily. And one of the goals for this presentation is for us to tell you a bit more about the program and how the program is structured, as well as what kinds of skills and competencies you can learn through the courses in the program. But before we go into the program curriculum, I would like to briefly highlight several important features of the UD Masters of Public Administration Program, specifically the online program. First, this is a top-ranked program. It’s has been ranked consistently in the US News and World’s Report as one of the top online programs. And we have also several areas of professional specialization that have been ranked separately. This includes nonprofit [inaudible 00:36:39], public budgeting and finance and leadership in public management. This means that our coursework in this areas is especially strong.
The program is also accredited by the Network of Schools of Public Policy Affairs and Administration, and it is the only accredited MPA program in the state of Delaware. And currently it is the only accredited program in the Biden School of Public Policy and Administration. The accreditation is important because it tells you that the program nationally defined standards and that the program delivers the content that’s rich and practically relevant, and it actually does a very good job in placing students in the job market or enhancing their career prospects.
The program is held in the Biden School of Public Policy and Administration, and that means that the students and the program will have multiple opportunities to engage in interactions and networking with faculty and students in other Biden School programs. We have a number of professional development activities that the Biden School offers to students and alumni and MPA students, including online MPA students are always invited to participate in these kinds of events. This includes professional development opportunities, additional fellowships and things like that, but also opportunities to interact and be mentored by experienced professionals, faculty members, as well as part-time faculty members.
Another highlight of our program is that it is run as online asynchronous degree program, and it can be completed in slightly more than two years, in about two and a half years. And the program coursework is designed in a way that allows working professionals to combine the classes with their full-time employment or part-time employment. The way that we do it, we offer seven-week courses online asynchronous courses. So the students are able to take twice as many courses that they would usually take in a different degree program because they can take two classes per semester and finish the program faster.
So the courses are delivered by a mix of full-time and part-time faculty members. Our full-time faculty members, you have met several of them on this call today. They are award winning scholars, researchers, and instructors and our part-time faculty members are experienced public administration practitioners. And that’s something that we are really proud about that we are able to combine the faculty research and teaching expertise with the hands-on experience that many of our part-time faculty have. It is also important to know that the program offers the same tuition rate for those students who come from the state of Delaware as well as those who apply outside of the state. Not all MPA programs are able to offer this, but this is something that we have. And of course, regardless of where you are located, you may be in Connecticut or you may be in Michigan, this would be a great program for you to consider because you would get the same tuition rate and you can complete this program fully online and fully asynchronously.
I’d like to now talk a bit briefly about the program curriculum. So the program curriculum comprises 36 required credit hours, and that includes 27 courses, which we define as core courses and 9 credits of specialization courses. So as you can see by looking at this table, most of our courses have both the public and nonprofit in the course title. And that’s actually another highlight of this program because the program is designed to support a variety of careers in both the governmental organizations and the nonprofit organizations. And all of our courses deliver competencies that are applicable to both of these types of organizations. In terms of general overview and curriculum priorities, you can see that the curriculum emphasizes a variety of skills to include human resource management, financial management, economics, but we also emphasize the importance of innovation technology and performance management and program evaluation as some of the special skills.
In addition to going through the 27 credits of the core curriculum, students also have an opportunity to choose between the two program specializations. We have a general specialization and a health systems management specialization. So the health systems management specialization is rather new. This is something that we added to the program last year, but we expect that we will have a fair number of students specializing in health systems management because it’s an excellent and vibrant sector of economy. So that’s something to consider if you are considering this program.
So we have three courses that support each of the specializations. The general specialization includes courses that help students to develop their decision-making and analytical skills applicable to a wide range of organizations in the public and the nonprofit sector. And the health systems management specialization includes courses developed specifically to students who are seeking to enhance their analytical and managerial competencies necessary for the leadership in public and nonprofit healthcare organizations. These classes include the health policy, population health and health economics. And I would like to now invite my colleagues to talk a bit about each of their classes and to share maybe some of the highlights from the classes that they’re teaching. Steven, would you like to go first?
Sure, I’d be happy to. So the course that I teach is called Economics in the Public and Nonprofit Sectors, and it is focused on providing a very strong theoretical and practical understanding of economic theory and economic principles. It’s very strongly oriented towards microeconomics, but there is as well a fair amount of discussion of macroeconomic issues. My background is in urban and regional economics as well as urban planning. And I’m very focused on and very interested personally in how the environment around where people live affects their life chances and their health and their welfare as well. And my interest in issues like poverty and housing, affordable housing in particular, finds its way into this course and I use a lot of examples that pertain to those topics. But my entire career I’ve been very engaged in the broader community. So there’s a lot of practical examples that I infuse into the course.
I really am strongly committed to the idea that universities and colleges have a responsibility to be engaged in the broader communities in and around their universities as well as nationally and internationally. And I bring that kind of mindset into the course where we talk about economics, but in a very practical sense. The knowledge and the expertise that you’ll gain in the class is not just strictly theoretical, it’s practical as well. How does this information pertain to the real world and how can students utilize these principles and concepts as they’re engaged in their everyday employment settings? So that’s essentially economics in the public and nonprofit sectors and I’m very pleased to be able to teach it. I enjoy teaching it every time I have taught it, and I try to make it as an interactive as well. Even though it’s asynchronous, I have offered real time question and answer sessions. Students can log in to those sessions, but they can always send me a text message or an email message and I’m happy to respond as quickly as I can to inquiries made by students. Thanks.
Thank you very much, Steven. Jessica, would you like to tell us a bit about your class?
Sure. So I’ve taught the Human Resource Management in Public and Nonprofit Sectors for the online program. And in my courses I try to always combine a variety of exercises to help people understand both the theory and practice of managing people and organizations. And I love teaching the HR class. I’m an HR evangelist because even if our students aren’t going to go to work specifically in HR, everyone manages someone. So understanding sort of the principles to how to do effective management is really critical for me.
I try to do a number of hands-on projects, especially because my students are in practice a lot of times for the online program, so assignments that build on each other. So doing an analysis of a job and then building a performance appraisal assignment off of that, interviewing a manager to see some of the HR challenges, different assignments that tap both writing and analytical skills. And one of the assignments I really love that I use in this class is I have students actually design a training that they tape and then deliver to me as their final project. So they’re able to do a kind of audio visual component and really practice research, design and that overall putting all the pieces together. So that’s how I approach the course.
Thank you very much. Brock.
Sure. Yeah, I teach the Quantitative Analysis in Public and Nonprofit Sectors course. It is a course that for the most part it’s a challenging course. Most of our students tend do not enjoy the quantitative stuff as much, but they do [inaudible 00:47:11]. What we do in this course is the goal is to get students familiar and comfortable with collecting, analyzing data. And so the way that I do the course is that there’s a lecture part, which is more getting students familiar with different types of quantitative tools and concepts. We do homework associated with that. And then there’s also a computer lab component where the students get a chance to actually use computer software as a way of analyzing the data and the concepts that we discuss in class, being able to analyze and look at those concepts using computer software.
And so we talk about a lot of different statistical issues and data issues that in many instances, students will be using or that they use in their jobs because everything’s become more quantitative. You need to be able to quantitatively explain and analyze things in order to make a case for everything, for resources, to be able to talk about how program has impacted society or impacted a group. And so we go all the way up to, we talk about regression analysis, the students do it using computer software. And so it’s a very, I think a course that is very interesting and interactive because I don’t see how you can talk about statistics without actually seeing it done in action. And so that’s what we did in this course is to try to get [inaudible 00:49:02]. And we try to not only get students to understand and feel comfortable with data, but we also read articles about how these statistical tools are used in the academic research, but I use articles that are very applied, everything from looking at the impact of medicine on Covid, [inaudible 00:49:23]. And we talk about articles and sports that use different types of statistical techniques and just as a way of showing that these tools actually have real world application.
Yeah. So that’s [inaudible 00:49:38] Quantitative Analysis course.
Great. Thank you so much Brock. And I think to wrap up this discussion about the curriculum, I should probably mention to you all that the curriculum is structured in a logical way, meaning that the students typically start the program from one of the general classes. For example, the seminar and public administration. So those students who may be new to the public sector, that gets them into the public sector. It gives them an idea of the various actors that are included in the provision of the public services. But then what we do, students take some of these specialized courses about some of which you heard as part of this presentation, and then students finish up the curriculum by going into their specialization options.
And one of the last classes in the program that students take is the Capstone in Public Administration. And the Capstone provides an opportunity for students to apply the skills and knowledge that they gain through the entire MPA program curriculum to a very specific project. And typically students choose a project that’s based on their workplace, something that they wanted to do for a long time or some idea that they have and they would like to explore. And what they can do in that class is they can really work with the Capstone instructor to focus on that idea and use their knowledge that they gained in the MPA program to really make this idea-
… In the MPA program to really make this idea work. So we provide an opportunity in the final class in the program, the capstone class, to apply a lot of these ideas and skills and techniques that people learn in a variety of classes to a very specific project. So now I would like to shift a bit to discuss where our graduates end up or aspire to end up. So when we think about the Masters of Public Administration degree, we typically think about governmental employment and nonprofit sector employment. And I would say about 97% of all of our graduates end up in the public or in the nonprofit sector.
But we also have program students and program graduates who end up in the private sector as well. So an example of a student who would end up in a private sector would be somebody who works as a governmental relations specialist in a private corporation or somebody who feels passionate about the field of corporate social responsibility. So these are the examples of the fields or the professions that our students often find even in the private sector. And somebody with an MPA degree, also especially as a degree that combines the public and nonprofit competencies is quite mobile, meaning that students are able to switch the sector if they choose to do.
We are proud to share that 100% of all of the Biden school graduates are employed or pursuing further education, and that includes the Masters of Public Administration Program and the online Masters of Public Administration Program. Most of the students that we have in the online program are the students who aspire to move to more leadership types of positions from frontline positions, which is why they’re getting this degree that prepares and delivers the leadership and management competencies.
As you can see, based on this slide, we have the graduates who have gone into governmental employment, which includes the state, local and federal government. But we also have a fair number of graduates who have gone into the nonprofit sector focusing on specific functions or areas of the nonprofit sector as well as pursuing the CEO track. And we also have a fair number of current students and program graduates who are going into the field of fundraising and development. And it is actually one of the growing fields and it’s one of the fields that have healthy employment track where somebody can start from the frontline position, but then they can grow all the way to the chief fundraising officer or chief development officer for the organization.
I also have a couple of examples of positions that people take once they graduate from the MPA program, and you can see some of these examples on the screen. But what I would like to do, I would like to invite Emily to talk a bit about your experience in the program. This is the last semester in the program for Emily, so she will soon be a program graduate. And what I’m curious about and what I would like to ask Emily to reflect on is to talk a bit about your experience in the MPA program courses, specifically focusing on the online courses, the competencies and the interactions with program faculty.
And also talk a bit about how this coursework has enhanced your ability to excel in her current place of employment and how it supports your future career plan.
Thank you. So as I said, work for Delaware Technical Community College, which is a state agency. And what drew me to the MPA program originally, I think Dr. Sowa touched on in her introduction, was that it’s a field that is really concerned with understanding what the issues are and implementing solutions that will actually work in real time. So for me, I think one of the most valuable components of the MPA program has been the combination of not only the academic and technical concepts, but also applying those foundations of public policy and research to issues that affect my organization.
So just to give an example, you mentioned the capstone course, which focuses on a project that benefits our organization, but I found that it was a thread through a lot of our courses. So in our performance management and program evaluation course, I was able to create a program evaluation design that used performance measurement and program evaluation modeling techniques to address a problem that I had identified in my organization. And the process of just working through that using and applying those academic concepts to a concrete issue was, I think, really valuable and helped me to develop my critical thinking skills and just gave an example of what it looks like to work through that process, not just on a conceptual level.
I think also some of the courses that faculty members mentioned here tonight were pretty challenging for me. The quantitative analysis course and economics course were a little bit outside my comfort zone. But developing those technical skills, I think, is really essential to public service because we need to understand what the issues are that are facing our communities and understand the evidence-based solutions that will actually bring results. So I actually use those skills every day in my current position.
And even though it was a challenge, I think working through it was really valuable and helped me to become more well-rounded and competent as a public servant. And so currently I am in my role at Delaware Tech, and I think the program helped me to clarify what my goals are a little bit. My background is in fundraising. I’ve worked in fundraising for community colleges for about 10 years, and I’m interested in branching out into more leadership roles. Specifically, a lot of my work has focused on reentry students and students who are incarcerated.
That was the focus of my capstone project, and that process helped me to just gain a better overall understanding of the issues that are facing our current students and also gave me an understanding of what I’m looking for in the future as a public servant. I think that’s an area that is really expanding, especially because of some changes at the federal level to the Pell Grant program that is now previously incarcerated students weren’t eligible and going forward they will be. So, that’s definitely the one of the areas that I’m interested in branching out into.
I had a colleague who said a person can only apply for so many grants in their life. So I’m definitely looking to branch out from fundraising and just into more leadership roles, possibly executive director positions or other roles in my own organization. And this program, I think, has prepared me very well for those opportunities when they come up. But I actually am getting ready to go on maternity leave in the next couple months, so that’s my next big step. And once I come back, I’ll be looking to the future in my work in public service.
Thank you very much, Emily, for sharing this extremely helpful insights and a bit of information about how you are using the program competencies in your current employment. I was wondering if sometimes students or even prospective applicants contact me with a question about I really would like to start a graduate program and I’m really interested in your MPA program, but I work full-time and I’m not sure if I will be able to keep up with the coursework and all of the obligations that I have. And some of our students have other obligations outside of the workplace, so their caregivers for someone or they have children.
So in your experience of having taking our courses and holding a full-time job, what is your assessment of the situation? What would you tell to these students? Is it manageable? Is it doable? Can somebody in a full-time employment be effective and successful in this kind of program? And also maybe you have a couple of pieces of advice that you would give to people who are in this type of situation who are contemplating to apply to the MPA program.
Sure. Yeah, I definitely think the program is manageable. I have worked full-time the entire time I’ve been in the program and I have taken a few semesters off here and there. The staff and faculty were really flexible about that. It didn’t set me back at all. I think obviously the online format makes it very flexible. The asynchronous nature of the courses and also the seven week course format I think is helpful to be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel for each course and keep you motivated. As far as advice, I would say get things done early because the weeks do go by quickly.
Definitely reach out to faculty because in my experience, they’re really responsive and I think there’s an understanding that almost everyone in the program is a working professional. And so there’s just a respect and acknowledgement of that, that I found that all the professors were really helpful in that way. But yeah, I definitely think it’s a program that fits well with a full-time job or a part-time job. It has that flexibility and the flexible course format is definitely helpful.
Thank you very much, Emily. And I must also add that I heard from some other students that students in the same cohort, they often get through the program together so they’re able to connect. Although most of the classes are asynchronous, there is an opportunity sometimes to meet other students in professional development events or even as part of the virtual office hours that professors conduct. But certainly as I learned from many of our students are able to communicate with each other and even reach out to recent graduates for advice when it comes to courses and how to succeed in the program.
And we will be sure as a program to support these kinds of opportunities so you can connect with program alumni and current students if you are contemplating to start this program. So now I think it’s a good time for us to focus on the application and I’m transferring this back to David.
Hello again, everyone. So yes, as I said earlier, I do work with the admissions team as an enrollment counselor. So basically the very first initial call I like to have with students is just to talk to them about their interest in the program, just making sure this is exactly what they’re looking for, just try to figure out where they’re looking to go, their career opportunities, their goals, things like that. And then also we talk about what Emily and Alisa was talking about, just the flexibility of the program as well and how they can make sure that they can maintain going through classes as well as working on the program and working at the same time.
So with the application requirements we have, you need to make sure you have a personal statement. It needs to be at least no more than two pages long, so there’s no full requirement on how long it needs to be written. You need to have a updated resume, three letters of recommendation. With those three letters of recommendation, you want to make sure they’re either professional or academic. If you have no work experience, definitely have at least one academic reference. And then you’ll need to have your unofficial transcripts, make sure that they also have the conferred degree date on it so we can verify the program that degree is conferred.
And then the application fee, which is $75. For the application process, it is a rolling application system, so students can apply anytime whenever they want to for spring, summer or fall as early as about almost a year. We like to try to tell students to not apply super early. That way your application isn’t just sitting there while other applications are getting reviewed beforehand because we do prioritize what term is coming up next. So if you are looking to apply for the fall and it is right now in December, we would definitely say wait until about April or March or March or April and then start working on the application.
But we do have three different terms. With that being said, you don’t have to wait until the application deadline as well. Because as soon as you complete your application, you can go ahead and get a decision within about two to four weeks. But if there are not many applications, then you can also receive a decision as early as within one week as well. We do have my contact information down here, my direct phone number, as well as my email address. And then we also have our website, so you can take a look at the courses. If you ever have any questions, you’re more than welcome to reach out to me directly.
And then also on our very last slide, we have our general email address and our phone number, and I can still get in contact with you that way as well.
Thank you very much, David. And before we transition to the last slide, I’d like to open this up for any comments or questions in case if we have any questions in the chat, we can address these questions now. But also, I am opening this back to my colleagues and all the other attendees in case if there is anything else that you would like to add or would be a good time.
Sure. I’d like to congratulate Emily on her new addition. Congratulations.
Thank you.
Yes. Congratulations, Emily.
Thank you.
Congratulations.
Let me just add that having been with the Biden School for 36 plus years, one of the things that has kept me so interested and involved in the school and at the University of Delaware has been the commitment that the Biden School has to making a difference in society. When we teach classes, and this has been mentioned by several of the speakers, we really are focused on how to use theory and practice, skills and technology to truly make a positive difference in the communities that we seek to serve no matter what our job roles might be in the future.
So, I have to say that ethic is very prominent within the Biden School of Public Policy and Administration.
Thank you so much, everyone, and I would like to wrap up this presentation by thanking you for your attention and once again sharing the contact information. You’re welcome to contact David if you have any questions about the application process, and you’re welcome to reach out to me and I will be happy to connect you with relevant faculty members as well. If you have any general questions about the program, we will look forward to hearing from you and we will look forward to seeing some of you in our classes. Thank you very much.
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Meet the Program Director and learn about the curriculum, career outcomes, and how to apply for our Online Master in Public Administration (MPA).

Serve Your Community in Rewarding Public Administration Careers
With your master’s degree in public administration from UD, you’ll be ready to advance in positions that help shape policy and implement effective solutions in the government, nonprofit and private sectors. MPA graduates work for mission-driven organizations and engage in socially meaningful careers that advance common good.
- 100% of Biden School graduates are employed or pursuing further education.
- Mayors, city managers, county administrators and governors earned over $100,000, on average, in 2020.1
Optional Specialization
Learn to Address Complex Administrative Challenges
7-week Courses
Focus on Emergent Needs
Accredited by the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration (NASPAA), the University of Delaware’s online MPA features an instructional approach that combines theory, research and application-based solutions.
In 36 credit hours of public administration courses, you’ll study topics including:
- Human Resources in Public & Nonprofit Sectors
- Leading Organizations in Public & Nonprofit Sectors
- Financial Management in Public & Nonprofit Sectors
Application Requirements
Fully Online Application
No GRE required
Our graduate application system is designed to put you in control of not only the application but all documents associated with it. We have designated areas within the application where each required document should be uploaded. You’ll need:
A completed online application |
A bachelor’s degree from an accredited four-year university |
A current résumé |
Unofficial copies of your transcripts (we’ll need official versions once you’re admitted) |
Letters of recommendation |
A personal statement |
We’re Committed to Affordability
$950 Per Credit Hour
Scholarships Available
We work hard to keep our tuition affordable while maintaining the highest academic standards.
Financial Aid
In addition to a variety of scholarships, you could fund your program by receiving a grant, qualifying for federal or private loans, utilizing military benefits or pursuing employer tuition reimbursement. Our dedicated admissions and financial personnel will help you through the process, including enrolling in a payment plan if applicable.
Learn MoreProgram Outcomes
- Lead and manage in public governance
- Participate in and contribute to the policy process
- Analyze, synthesize, think critically, solve problems and make decisions
- Articulate and apply a public service perspective
- Communicate and interact productively with a diverse and changing workforce and citizenry.
Faculty Are Readily Available to You
Our faculty are highly qualified and highly engaged citizens of the Joseph R. Biden, Jr. School of Public Policy & Administration. Committed to the practice of Public Administration, they are deeply engaged in work with governments and nonprofits, bringing those experiences to their courses.
What it’s Like to Study Online
We pride ourselves on teaching and innovation, so you’ll encounter an advanced digital curriculum delivered by experts. Knowledgeable staff members are available to answer questions by phone, chat and email, and you can access technical support 24/7.
UD Online Student ExperienceAnswers to Common Questions
We’ve provided answers to the most commonly asked questions about UD’s online programs. If we missed anything, you can get in touch with a knowledgeable admissions counselor by phone at (844) 237-1338.
You can earn your degree in as few as 30 months full-time or complete the program part-time at your convenience.
Yes, UD’s MPA is ranked in 2021 Best Public Affairs Programs by U.S. News & World Report, including their lists of Best Nonprofit Management, Public Finance/Budgeting, and Public Management/Leadership programs.
The first step toward applying for this program is to complete your online application through the graduate student Application Management System.
Yes, this program accepts up to nine transfer credits with the approval of the program director.
You may start this program in the fall, summer or spring semesters. Applications are accepted at any time up until a week before classes begin. Applicants are considered for admission on a rolling basis, which makes now the perfect time to apply.
Yes, the online MPA degree offers an optional specialization in Health Systems Management. The nine-credit, three-course specialization teaches you to:
- Understand the U.S. healthcare system
- Analyze how health policy and reform affect the U.S. economy
- Evaluate, design and implement e-services in the healthcare industry
- Use healthcare information technology and public health data to manage and improve population health
- Understand legal, regulatory and ethical concerns in population health management