JPAE: At the vanguard of public affairs education

This first issue as the new co-editors-in-chief is especially important to us. This issue is intentionally structured around articles that progress the intersection of the future of public affairs education and diversity, equity, and inclusion practices, which reflects our goals for JPAE during this editorship.

The future of public affairs education, much like higher education as a whole, is at a tipping point. Higher education is facing an epidemic of change with changing populations, demands, and educational needs, which will force institutions to rethink how we prepare the future workforce (McGowan & Shipley, 2020, 2023). The article “The scholarship of teaching and learning in public administration: An agenda for future research” by McDonald et al. (2024) points out that this precipice is especially salient in public affairs education. The demands, skills, and emotional capacities required of public servants are rapidly evolving, and with it, public affairs programs must adapt (Rinfret & Wise, 2023). The next article “Meeting the moment: Trauma responsive teaching for student success” by Miller et al. (2024) moves the needle in adapting public affairs classrooms by outlining an innovative approach to promote anti-racist educational environments and enshrining emotionally adaptive, trauma-responsive curricula.

In a separate but related vein, there has been a continuously developing body of literature¹ on the need for equity practices to evolve in the workforce (Bukalova & Maland, 2023), in public service (Lopez-Littleton et al., 2018; Svara & Brunet, 2005; Young et al., 2023), and more specifically, within public affairs education programs (Gooden & Wooldridge, 2007; Jordan et al., 2024; McCandless & Larson, 2018; Rosenbloom, 2005; Thomas, 2019). Jordan et al. (2024) take this challenge head-on by providing “Training for the reality of diversity: Applying the DEI training ladder to a MPA core course.” This article offers a scaffolded approach for faculty preparing future public servants in diversity equity, and inclusion. The following article by Bishu and McCandless (2024) “Tracing and teaching gender across core public affairs curriculum” takes this work a step further by critically assessing historically gender-blind pedagogical practices in public affairs classrooms and providing an alternative, gender-sensitive pedagogical approach.

The final research article in this issue, “Retention and recruitment of minority students and faculty in public affairs and administration programs” by Menifield et al. (2024), also takes a critical eye to a prominent equity issue, the underrepresentation of minority faculty. The study identified a student pipeline problem feeding a lack of racial diversity in public affairs faculty and surveyed programs’ efforts to increase minority students. The authors provide specific recommendations for programs to recruit and retain minority students and faculty. Finally, the two case studies in this issue, authored by Bharath et al. (2024) and Moore and Okhai (2024) provide excellent teaching tools to address the everyday and major disaster-related issues faced by public servants, which specifically impact diversity, equity, and inclusion outcomes.

We use this first issue to interweave what we consider to be two of the greatest challenges facing public affairs education; the necessary innovations and adaptations higher education must undertake; and the incorporation of diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts as a routinized cultural practice. Like many in the field, we recognize that these two evolutionary challenges are dangerously close to converging (Powell et al., 2017). Public affairs education must make meaningful changes before intractable public systems and minority-held obsolescent values irreparably damage the social contract we all cherish. As the new editors of the preeminent public affairs education journal, our goal is for JPAE to be the vanguard in tackling these issues.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. See Sabharwal et al. (2018) for a breakdown of 75 years of diversity research in public affairs or Cepiku and Mastrodascio (2021) for an excellent systematic literature review.