Students will gain knowledge and skills that are associated with advanced degrees in public administration.

Students must demonstrate competency in the some of the core areas of public administration including financial management, research methods, and ethics.

We utilize written comprehensive exams as a tool for measuring students' knowledge and skills. Prior to graduation students complete three written comprehensive exams in areas relevant to their coursework. Exam questions are written by faculty with expertise in the students' areas of study and the questions are based on the comprehensive exam reading lists and the content of the overview courses (see department level goal of revise written comprehensive exam process for more information on the reading lists and overview courses). Students' exams are graded by at least two faculty members (more when possible) who have expertise in the areas of study pursued by students. Exams are assigned one of the following scores: high pass, pass, and no pass. If the two faculty members issue conflicting scores (e.g., pass and no pass), a third faculty member will be asked to score the exams and issue a final ruling.

We expect that at least 80% of our students will pass their exams on the first attempt and that 100% of the students who have to take the exam a second time will pass. Efforts noted in our 2008-2009 actions will be implemented, specifically, we require students to attend a comprehensive exam study skills session conducted by the graduate director and graduate faculty members. Utilizing a rubric developed in the spring of 2010, graduate faculty will determine low pass, pass, and high pass. We believe that this will produce at least 2 high passes for this year's cohort.

12 students completed their comprehensive exams. All 12 passed on their first attempt. However, only one student received a high passes. The other 11 received passes. Thus, while we exceeded our expectations regarding students passing exam on their first attempt, we failed to meet our expectations regarding the number of high passes.