GIS Education in U. S. Public Administration Programs: Preparing the Next Generation of Public Servants

Abstract

Geographic information systems (GIS), data, and analysis are common and crucial resources for public agencies throughout the United States. Applications of GIS run the gamut from delivery of emergency services to monitoring the spread of infectious diseases and environmental contamination and more. Today’s public sector job descriptions often identify GIS knowledge as a must-have skill for new public administration graduates. Thus, public administration programs have a responsibility to their students, to the public agencies who hire their graduates—and to the citizenry—to provide adequate preparation in GIS skills. This article reports the results of a survey of public administration programs in the United States to determine how well such programs have integrated GIS instruction. Our results suggest that although there is interest in GIS among public administration programs, GIS is not yet well integrated into their curricula; however, there is momentum to enhance the role of GIS.

Keywords:

• Public administration
• geospatial
• geographic information systems
• GIS
• education

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nancy J. Obermeyer

Nancy Obermeyer earned her Master of Public Administration from Indiana University’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs and her PhD in geography from the University of Chicago. She has worked in public transit and energy planning in Chicago and Springfield, Illinois. She is a co-founder of the GIS Certification Institute (GISCI) and served as board member of the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA) and as GISCI’s ethics officer. She was certified as a GIS Professional (GISP) in 2004, one of the first to earn this title. She is lead author of Managing Geographic Information Systems (2nd ed.; Guilford, 2008).

Laxmi Ramasubramanian

Laxmi Ramasubramanian is an associate professor in the Department of Urban Policy and Planning at Hunter College, City University of New York. She has written extensively about the complexities of GIS adoption and GIS use in different organizational settings. Her book, Geographic Information Science and Public Participation, was published by Springer in 2010. She is the past president of the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS), an alliance of over 65 universities focused on advancing research and education in GIS.

Lisa Warnecke

Lisa Warnecke began her career as a town administrator in Colorado after receiving a Bachelor of Science in public administration from Virginia Tech. Her research about nationwide public sector GIS started in 1982 through her professional (MBA) and academic (PhD) work, including with clients such as the U. S. Government Accountability Office, the National Academy of Public Administration, the National Academy of Sciences, over 10 federal agencies, various national organizations, and others.