Eller Executive Education Hosts Foundations of Public Sector Management Program

March 17, 2023

In March, 2023, Eller Executive Education hosted the Foundations of Public Sector Management (FPSM) program.

The FPSM program was designed to prepare new and emerging public sector managers to navigate in a rapidly changing and complex environment.

This year, the program was led by expert faculty and offered experiential learning to support attendees in developing skills they need.

The program helps to accelerate public sector careers by advancing management skills, allows those participating to learn from MBA faculty with expertise in public sector leadership and featured live faculty instruction, peer and small group learning activities.

The FPSM program featured six different sessions:

  • Driving Innovation
  • Strategic Communication
  • New Perspectives in Negotiations
  • Team Dynamics
  • Extracting Value from Big Data and AI
  • Ethical Leadership

A key component of the FPSM program involved an experiential learning exercise called the Organizational Process Improvement (OPI) project—a small project which calls on program participant to tackle a shared challenge within their organization by applying what they have learned in each program module and deliver a presentation of their proposed solution to the larger group.

This year’s cohort was made up of six teams and each team had 10 minutes to deliver their findings.

“This year’s Foundations in Public Sector Management drew public sector participants from the City of Tucson, Pima County, and the City of Sierra Vista,” says Paul Melendez, University Distinguished Professor and founder of the Center for Leadership Ethics, who served as the academic director for the program. “After a week of interactive modules lead by top Eller faculty, participants incorporated their learnings in group presentations to their organizational leaders on organizational process improvements. Eller Executive Education is deeply appreciative of the trust placed in us by our local government leaders, alumni, and friends.”

Other Eller faculty members who participated in the program were Mikel Chertudi, senior lecturer in business communication, Michael Fricke, associate director of the Center for Leadership Ethics and senior lecturer in management and organizations, Barry Goldman, associate professor of management and organizations and McClelland Fellow and Nathan Podsakoff, management and organizations department head and Eller Professor.