Columns on Public Policy Professional Education

Erik Devereux is a columnist for the online edition of the PA Times, a publication of the American Society for Public Administration. 

Erik has a longstanding involvement with professional graduate education in public policy that began when he joined the faculty of the Heinz School of Public Policy and Management at Carnegie Mellon University in 1991 while completing his University of Texas PhD in Government. Erik eventually served as the program director the flagship professional degree at the Heinz School (1995-1998) before he left to be the executive director of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management in Washington, DC (1999-2010). Subsequently, Erik taught public policy analysis for the Carnegie Mellon DC program, the American University School of Public Affairs, and the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy. Erik is the author of policy analysis textbook available in PDF for free download here.

Through his three decades of experience in public policy education, Erik became critical of the drift in the focus of U.S. public policy schools. Four columns on this topic are available through these links:

• "For United States Schools of Public Policy, Is It Good Enough to Keep Muddling Through?" (2/4/2020)
• "Do United States Schools of Public Policy Have the Discipline to Grow a Discipline?" (4/28/2020)
• "United States Schools of Public Policy Should Operate as Professional Schools Rather than as Pseudo Think Tanks" (8/2/2020)
  
• "What Do You Do with a Degree Title Like MPP (or Worse)?" (11/5/2020)