O'Neill School Of Public and Environmental Affairs
Graduate
Student Learning Outcomes
Graduate Certificates
Crime Analysis Certificate
Upon completion of this certificate program, students shall:
- Empirically analyze criminal justice system data to develop strategic, operational and tactical outcomes
- Conduct geographic information systems analysis
- Conceptualize and translate raw data into valid criminal and intelligence information
- Detect and understand the distinction between crime patterns, series and trends
- Demonstrate a familiarity with motives for crime and types of criminals
- Articulate crime problems to individuals and groups through written reports and data visualization
- Identify, analyze and deconstruct the complex intersection of social problems related to criminal justice policy
- Evaluate criminal justice policy and generate innovative solutions to improve those policies
Homeland Security and Emergency Management (HSEM) Certificate
Upon completion of this certificate program, students will:
- Manage and lead individuals and organizations with an understanding of the ethical underpinnings and professional standards of criminal justice and public safety agencies.
- Communicate effectively and interact productively within a complex and diverse criminal justice or public safety environment.
- Identify public safety risks using various risk analysis tools, and describe ways to plan, prepare, manage, and mitigate natural and human made risks.
- Critically discuss criminal justice and public safety system actors, agencies, and processes, describe the underlying operations of police, emergency management, courts, and corrections agencies, and identify the major policy issues in criminal justice and public safety systems.
- Define and describe homeland security, how federal state and local agencies work to maintain homeland security, and how it relates to public safety, in theory and in practice.
- Describe the elements of effective leadership before, during, and after major public safety events.
Nonprofit Management Certificate
Upon completion of this certificate program, students shall:
- Students shall demonstrate the ability to lead and manage public and nonprofit organizations.
- Students shall demonstrate the ability to analyze, synthesize, think critically, solve problems and make decisions.
- Students shall demonstrate the ability to communicate and interact productively with a diverse and changing workforce and citizenry.
Public Management Certificate
Upon completion of this certificate program, students shall:
- Demonstrate the ability to lead and manage public and nonprofit organizations.
- Demonstrate the ability to analyze, synthesize, think critically, solve problems and make decisions.
- Demonstrate the ability to communicate and interact productively with a diverse and changing workforce and citizenry.
Analytics in Public Affairs Certificate
Upon completion of this certificate program, students shall:
- demonstrate a firm understanding of fundamental statistical terms,
- test and interpret hypotheses about sample means and goodness of fit
- derive and interpret regression analyses
- understand and apply “logic models” and a theory of change
- identify and explain alternative data sources and (data) analytical approaches common to program evaluation
Environmental Policy and Sustainability Certificate
Upon completion of this certificate program, students shall:
- demonstrate the ability to rigorously analyze public policies using a variety of tools, including microeconomics, institutional analysis, and other common public affairs models of policy analysis
- understand and define urban sustainability
- understand core factors explaining urban and community development
Innovation and Social Change Certificate
Upon completion of this certificate program, students shall:
- understand and be able to explain the various elements of social entrepreneurship, as articulated by various scholars and writers, including the particular challenges of applying various entrepreneurial approaches to create social change
- understand and be able to articulate the relationship between social entrepreneurship and other organizational functions, and explain if and how social entrepreneurship can contribute to sustained organizational performance and effectiveness of nonprofit organizations
- understand and be able to articulate the primary theoretical frameworks by which different scholars explain and apply the construct of entrepreneurship
Policy Analysis Certificate
Upon completion of this certificate program, students shall:
- synthesize different sources and types of information to make recommendations
- present original ideas and engage in dialogue with experts and peers
- provide actionable and measurable recommendations to community organizations
Public Finance Certificate
Upon completion of this certificate program, students shall:
- demonstrate the ability to analyze the fiscal and governance challenges of a state/local/nonprofit organization through discussions, group assignments and the final paper
- demonstrate the ability to analyze the impact of political, economic, and organizational factors on budgetary decision-making through case study assignments and the final paper
- demonstrate the ability to utilize spreadsheets to conduct budget and financial statement analysis
Urban and Regional Governance
Upon completion of this certificate program, students shall:
- demonstrate the ability to identify, analyze, and think critically about the challenges to collaborative governance, including conflicting interests, bureaucratic inertia, constraints on decision-making, and legacies of the past such as systemic racism
- synthesize different sources and types of information to make recommendations
- incorporate knowledge and skills of geographic information systems into practice
