Academic Program

The Master of Arts in Public Policy and Evaluation (MAPPE) is a joint program between the School of Politics and Economics (SPE) and the School of Behavioral and Organizational Sciences (SBOS) that draws on public policy in SPE and evaluation in SBOS plus strong research methodology offerings in both schools to allow students to build a combination of skills that will prepare them for a wide range of attractive careers.

The MAPPE program has the advantage of drawing portions of the curriculum from two complementary domains—public policy and evaluation—and offering more extensive coverage of the relevant topics. In a single program, we can provide training on the organizational and process implementation techniques, plus training on the technical aspect of outcome evaluations. Courses from both the public policy and psychology/evaluation departments include a strong emphasis on the political issues involved in evaluations of any kind – including the stakeholder/constituent role in evaluation, empowerment aspects, and the ethical requirements of a policy analyst/evaluator. The program allows considerable individual flexibility (with approval of a faculty advisor) to construct a program that builds important skills for a wide range of careers.

FINAL PAPER PORTFOLIO
As for all Master’s degree programs in SPE, during their last semester in the program, students must provide the program office a copy of a paper that they wrote their first semester in the degree program they are pursuing along with a paper they wrote later that they consider an example of their best work in their respective degree program. (These papers will be used by CGU’s accrediting agency.)  [see SPE Student Handbook for detailed requirements]