Answering the call for change: Developing and teaching social equity courses in public administration

ABSTRACT

Despite Minnowbrook’s call in 1968, social equity has been slow to be incorporated into public administration scholarship, teaching, and practice. However, recently, more organizations have promoted a social equity lens in their missions, strategic plans, budgets, hiring decisions, programs, and policies. As a pillar of public administration, this is long overdue. With this increased support, we have also seen a resurgence of dangerous policies and decisions that if successful, could undermine the work that has been done in support of diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ). In the face of such adversity, institutions of higher education have the obligation to give public servants the context, language, and skills to advocate for DEIJ. Some programs have thus begun to incorporate DEIJ topics and classes into their curriculum. This paper outlines the process by which a social equity in public service class was prepared and taught.

KEYWORDS:

• Interdisciplinary theory
• pedagogy
• social equity

Acknowledgments

I would you like to thank the many scholars, activists, and practitioners who have spent careers pursuing and promoting DEIJ in research, teaching, and practice. I want to thank the many people who met with me to give me advice about what to incorporate into this course and for the students and guest speakers who joined the class. A special thanks to Nuri Heckler, Domonic Bearfield, and Brandi Blessett for contributing quotes and reading early parts and pieces of this paper. Thank you to the anonymous reviewers and the editors for your valuable feedback and support.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alexis R. Kennedy

Dr. Alexis R. Kennedy is an Assistant Professor with the Masters in Public Policy and Administration program at Colorado State University, located in Fort Collins, Colorado. She has a PhD from the University of Colorado Denver, School of Public Affairs and holds an MA in Economics from Rutgers University, Newark.