Joel Vallett
Assistant Professor of Public Administration
Department of Political Science & Criminal Justice
College of Humanities & Social Science
Southern Utah University
Teaching
PADM 6620: Critical Thinking and Ethics in Public Administration
In this course, we will prepare students with critical intellectual and ethical skills to successfully execute the multi-faceted responsibilities of public administration. Students can see how these course outcomes align closely with the NASPAA core competencies of 1, 3, 4, and 5. Students will learn how to manage ethical conduct at three levels – personal ethical issues, as a manager, and from the broader perspective of the organization (either public or non-profit). The focus will be on applying this awareness and knowledge to make informed, well-reasoned decisions in cases of ethical issues that will impact the students personally, the people they work with, and their organization.
PADM 6440: Research Methods for Public Administrators
The overall goal of this course is to provide students with a basic understanding of how scientific research is conducted in the field of public policy and administration. The course is comprised of two parts: research design and basic statistics. This is a graduate-level course requiring work using the statistical package IBM SPSS to practice research methods and quantitative analysis techniques, including descriptive statistics, inferential statistics, and regression. Students will develop a research orientation among public administration managers and to acquaint them with the fundamentals of research methods in order to make intelligent data-driven decisions.
PADM 6615: Comparative Public Policy
This course is an introduction to the comparative public policy process and will examine why some problems make it onto the public agenda and ultimately, appear to succeed while others appear to fall by the wayside or ultimately fail. This course is meant to provide you with exposure to some of the core readings related to the important theories, approaches, and frameworks of the public policy process so that you can apply them in various national and regional contexts.