Message from the DPPA Chair Welcome to the website for the Department of Public Policy and Administration (DPPA) on Rutgers University’s Camden Campus, the only MPA degree program in the Delaware Valley accredited by NASPAA, the National Association of Schools of Public Policy and Administration.The DPPA also hosts the undergraduate interdisciplinary major in Urban Studies and is preparing to launch a Ph.D. in Public Affairs.Located at the center of the Boston-Washington corridor and 12 minutes from Center City Philadelphia, Rutgers-Camden provides easy access to major governmental, academic and cultural centers.

These concentrations, along with our dual degree programs with the Law School or Department of Criminal Justice, our joint MPH degree with the School of Public Health, and our 5-year accelerated BA/MPA option, ensure that our core courses present a rich learning environment in which students with varied goals, career paths, and backgrounds share a classroom experience; class projects can bring together experienced state or federal workers with undergraduates just finishing their degrees, school principals, and young adults preparing for community development placements overseas. The excitement of this experience carries over to our active student organization, the Public Administration Student Association (PASA) which organizes professional and social development activities.

Research opportunities, many of them funded, are available to MPA students through the department’s close relationship to the Senator Walter Rand Institute for Public Affairs, the Center for Strategic Urban Community Leadership and the Forum for Policy Research, all of which are directed by DPPA faculty members.

Our MPA program also reflects the reality that today’s public managers and policy analysts must understand not only how government organizations and processes function, but also how government interacts with the nonprofit and private sectors to craft policy and implement programs. Increasingly, leaders of community-based and social service organizations as well as government affairs specialists in the business world are finding that the MPA prepares them for success in this new world. A 2006 survey of Rutgers-Camden MPA alumni showed that: 70% earned a current income of more than $55,000, 40% over $85,000 and 20% over $100,000, showing that it is possible for our MPA graduates to “do well while doing good.