Teaching in uncertain times: The future of public administration education

Abstract

The outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), and its resulting coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19), needs no introduction. Since the outbreak began in December 2019, governments and nonprofit organizations around the globe have rushed to contain the pandemic and to assist those who have been impacted (McDonald and Larson, 2020; Wu et al., 2020). As the world struggles to respond, within the field of public administration, journals such as Public Administration Review, Administrative Theory and Praxis, and Review of Public Personnel Administration have led the charge to engage researchers on projects that may assist or inform the work of our practitioner counterparts (see Deslatte et al., 2020; Kettl, 2020; Maher et al., 2020; McDonald et al., 2020). While the research has assisted in moving the recovery forward, one area that still needs attention is what the outbreak means for public administration education. We are currently in a state of uncertainty. The spring 2020 semester that shifted programs online has ended, but the planning for the 2020–2021 academic year is still underway. Despite the reopening of many economies, the anticipated second wave looms over the heads of students, faculty, and administrators alike. It is in this purgatory that two questions of pedagogy come to mind: What does the pandemic mean for the state of online education in public administration. What does it mean for how we train students going forward? It is these two questions that I would like to address in this article.