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The Global Honor Society for Public Affairs & Administration

Photo It is an honor to work with PAA members because they always represent themselves and our program with distinction. John McCaskill, PAA Advisor - The University of Texas at Dallas
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NASPAA’s Inaugural Student Simulation Competition

Posted 01/26/2015

"Public policy and management problems have been described as poorly defined, messy, squishy, unstructured, intractable, and wicked. In a word, they are complex," states Anand Desai, professor at the John Glenn School of Public Affairs, at The Ohio State University, in his book Simulation for Policy Inquiry. To educate students so they are best prepared to understand, analyze, and solve these problems, many programs are implementing simulations in their curriculum. To supplement the excellent work that schools are doing and to bring awareness to the field of public service, NASPAA has created a daylong immersive competition in which students work in teams to propose a solution for a complex and wicked problem.

NASPAA's competition, which occurs on Saturday, February 28, 2015 at six regional U.S. sites, uses a simulation to imitate a current policy problem facing local, state and federal legislatures. Students will need to apply the crosscutting skills they learn in the classroom and consider a variety of intervention tactics, stakeholder needs, and financial models when devising a fair solution. During the competition, students will also implement systems thinking and gain skills that will make them marketable during the job search and in their careers.

Each regional site will have a winning team, and on Monday, March 2, 2015, the overall national winner will be announced. Through the generous contribution of the Global Honor Society in Public Affairs, Pi Alpha Alpha, the competition is at no cost to students. The first student to register from each school is guaranteed entry, and registration is open until Friday, February 6, 2015. Interested students should apply now!

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