Appendix The Diversity Plan of MPA Program
The Shanghai University of Finance and Economics (SUFE) offers its Master of
Public Administration (MPA) program within the context of the highly diverse and
richly multicultural environment of Shanghai. The University, the School of Public
Economics and Administration, and MPA program welcome students of all
backgrounds, and prepare them for effective public managers and leaders at all
levels of public sectors with widely divergent perspectives and backgrounds.
The following initiatives are reflective of our MPA program’s commitment to
embracing diversity in our faculty, student body, and curriculum.
1. Faculty
Consistent with the mission of SUFE United Front Department, the MPA Diversity
Plan will continue to recruit and retain a richly diverse faculty body. Our MPA
faculty staff consists of overseas returnees and domestically trained PhDs from a
variety of ethnicity, academic background and regions. Our nucleus MPA faculty is
highly diverse in terms of academic background, national origin, and party
membership. Of eight nucleus faculty, five received their Ph.D. degrees in the U.S.,
demonstrating a high level of internationalization, especially when compared with
other public administration faculties in China. The engagement of adjunct faculties
from government adds different perspectives and professional opinions. Moreover,
our MPA program requires some courses to adopt an open-discussion format which
ensures diversity plan remains up-to-date.
2. Students
The initiative Efforts for the MPA Program’s Diversity Plan aims to recruit students
from diverse background groups. China’s National College Entrance Exam has
ensured the diversity of our MPA program’s applicant pool due to the reserved
quota for less developed regions and lower admission scores for certain ethnic
groups. Located in Shanghai, the majority of SUFE MPA students who are
in-service professionals are from Yangtze River Delta - China’s most economically
and technologically developed region. Our MPA program also reaches out to
historically underrepresented populations through recruiting and educating
professionals in inland China such as Henan Provinces. Our program plans to
continue this practice of training public servants inland in the future.
Our enrolled MPA students are diverse in terms of gender, origins, academic
training, and positions at different levels of government and non-profit
organizations.
Take AY2013 cohort for example 87 out 148 enrolled students (59%) are female.
Political diversity can be reflected in the cohort of AY2013, where 18 students are
members of the Communist Youth Leagues, 14 are nonpartisans, 95 are Chinese
Communist Party members, and the party status of the remaining 21 are not
reported. Our student body is also diversified in terms of age distribution. Again
take the cohort of AY2013 as an example. Although all of the students are
mid-career professionals, the age difference between the youngest and oldest
student is 14 years. With regard to academic background, 71 students were trained
in economic or financial management disciplines, 12 in jurisdiction, 24 in social
science (the majority in public management), 32 in science and engineering, and 8
in foreign languages. The cohort of AY2014 has a similar diversity pattern in terms
of gender distribution, age, and students’ academic backgrounds.
3. Curriculum
Our program’s commitment to diversity is not only reflected in the
composition of faculty and students, but also demonstrated in program management
and student support services. We will continue the dual-advisor mechanism such
that students can apply knowledge and skills they learned from our program to
solve problems in their working agencies. We also invite guest speakers from
different backgrounds each semester to give the lectures. All these combined
together contribute to our MPA students’ awareness of the diverse needs of citizens
and workforce they serve. Additionally, several foundational courses shall discuss
the topic of diversity as prime public service values. When making decisions for our
program, such as the recipients of student awards, practitioner advisors, members of
our Advisory Board, and guest speakers, the balance and inclusion for gender and
the types of working units (such as whether they come from a Shanghai municipal
organization or from a grassroots unit) should be highly valued.
The MPA Diversity Plan is available at http://mpa.shufe.edu.cn/