Program Overview

Public Service Leadership Program

The Public Service Leadership program at Loyola University Chicago is designed to equip students with the knowledge, skills, and values necessary for effective leadership in public service organizations. The program focuses on developing critical thinking, problem-solving, and communication skills, as well as an understanding of the complex issues facing public service organizations.

Program Courses

The program offers a range of courses that cover various aspects of public service leadership, including:

• Introduction to Public Service
• Foundations of Global Strategic Communication
• Program Management and Development
• Data, Visualization and Evaluation
• Design Thinking in Mitigating Complex Social Problems
• Disaster Operations and Management
• Disasters and Vulnerable Populations
• Integrated Social-Medical Issues in Emergency Management
• Understanding and Mitigating Poverty
• Foundations of Social and Sustainable Development
• Gender Diversity & Sustainable Social Development
• Social Analysis Inequality Poverty and Development

Course Descriptions

PSLD 400: Introduction to Public Service

This course introduces students to organizational theories and practices useful to public service managers. It teaches students how to use structural, human resource, political, and symbolic perspectives to rethink public service organizations.

PSLD 402: Foundations of Global Strategic Communication

This course focuses on using strategies communication planning and management to guide communication activities in organizations.

PSLD 403: Program Management and Development

This course builds on the ecological systems perspective that views program development as an arena for social change. It introduces students to the skills and knowledge needed for planning new or adapting existing programs within the context of diverse communities.

PSLD 404: Data, Visualization and Evaluation

This course introduces students to the use of quantitative data in policy, public management, and non-profit decision making. Topics include causal inference, descriptive statistics, data visualization, probability, statistical inference, and regression analysis.

PSLD 405: Design Thinking in Mitigating Complex Social Problems

This course uses design thinking to address problems where not all knowledge is available at the outset. It analyzes current trends and issues within emergency management through a social-medical paradigm and their impact on public service models and leadership outcomes.

PSLD 420: Disaster Operations and Management

This course introduces students to emergency management theories and practices that are critical in the emergency management profession. It covers the phases of emergency management, human and political aspects, the importance of effective resource management, environmental concerns, and the threats and hazard identification and risk assessment process.

PSLD 422: Disasters and Vulnerable Populations

This course introduces students to emergency management concepts that ensure the needs are being met for citizens with access and functional needs, those living in areas with high social vulnerability, and other vulnerable populations throughout the community.

PSLD 423: Integrated Social-Medical Issues in Emergency Management

This course builds on existing leadership and public service knowledge with the application of emergency management principles under the shared perspectives of social-medical outlooks.

PSLD 430: Understanding and Mitigating Poverty

This course examines the nature, extent, and causes of poverty and inequality in the US. It analyzes the anti-poverty initiatives and policies launched over the past five decades and examines the role of culture, discrimination, and classism as well as policy issues.

PSLD 431: Foundations of Social and Sustainable Development

This course addresses global design for economic and social development via the UN adoption of Sustainable Development Goals and targets. It examines policies and programs that aim to achieve inclusive, people-centered, and sustainable development.

PSLD 432: Gender Diversity & Sustainable Social Development

This course uses the UNWomen's approach to gender diversity and sustainable development to encompass the issues that hinder and those that contribute to the progress of women and gender diversity within sustainable development.

PSLD 433: Social Analysis Inequality Poverty and Development

This course introduces students to key concepts and debates to enable critical evaluation of how well sociological understandings of development inform the social analysis of exclusion, poverty, and inequality.

Program Outcomes

The Public Service Leadership program is designed to equip students with the knowledge, skills, and values necessary for effective leadership in public service organizations. Upon completion of the program, students will be able to:

• Analyze complex social problems and develop innovative solutions
• Communicate effectively with diverse stakeholders
• Manage and evaluate programs and services
• Lead and motivate teams
• Understand the social, economic, and political context of public service organizations
• Apply ethical principles and values to decision-making and practice

The program is open to students admitted into the MA in Public Service Leadership program (PSLD-MA).