Students with seven years or more of relevant experience may be eligible to take the Anna Maria College Mid-Career Track, allowing them to complete the degree program with 10 courses (six from the MPA curriculum and four Health Care Administration concentration courses).

For students who have recently graduated or are looking for a career change, the Direct Track is 14 classes, including the Public Administration curriculum and four Health Care Administration concentration courses.

Public Administration Curriculum:

GRS 600 Ethical Theory
Examines the intellectual and theoretical perspectives that form ethical theory and practice within the Judeo-Christian and liberal arts traditions.

PPO 604 Executive Leadership
Focuses on the study and analysis of human behavior patterns. Special consideration is devoted to the role of the public manager as a leader and motivator of people.

PPO 629 Public Labor Management Relations
Covers the development, structure, and current status of labor unions in the United States. The course examines management attitudes toward the bargaining process, the evolution of labor legislation, and government policy toward labor management relations.

PPO 633 Organizational Theories and the Public Sector
The course examines the fundamental theory of the management development process and the analysis of employee behavior patterns.

PPO 711 Managerial Statistics for Public Managers
Focuses on probability and statistics with an emphasis on data analysis, including univariate and multivariate techniques. Statistical problem solving is engaged using various data sources.

PPO 721 Management Policies in Government Finance
This course focuses on management principles and practice while outlining the financial and economic context within which public financial management takes place.

PPO 740 Public Policy
Drawing on case studies and previous coursework in ethics, quantitative analysis, and management, students will develop models for solving significant problems in the public arena coupled with strategies for implementing these policies.

PPO 745 Professional Government Management
Professional Government Management This course provides a thorough grounding in the theory behind successful management practices as well as how they work in practice. Emphasis is on such tasks as providing community leadership; working with the governing body; promoting the community's future; managing people, money, and information effectively; implementing policy; raising productivity; evaluating programs; and working with other organizations to achieve your goals. The course also focuses on the human side of professional government management.

PPO 824 Stress Management for Public Managers and Organizations
This course gives senior leaders the skills to manage their own health and stress as well as the skills to support and lead others in crisis situations. Students will be called on to develop their own stress management plans and to develop plans for crisis situations, such as an organization's response to the death of a member in the line of duty.

PPO 891 Strategic Planning for Public Managers
Students will use critical thinking to plan an organization's long-term and short-term goals, considering issues such as the most effective allocation of resources and staff motivation. The importance of planning units and quality reviews to assess organizational outcomes will be stressed.

Health Care Administration Concentration Courses:

PPO 634 Healthcare Information & Technology
Provides an overview of quality and information management systems for health care leaders. Quality management models, approaches, tools and techniques are presented in the context of organizational culture and leadership.

PPO 635 Legal Issues in Health Care
This course will give students an understanding of the regulations, statues and cases that control the delivery of health care in America. Special emphasis will be placed on helping students to think about these issues in a way that avoids problems and helps in avoiding pitfalls in delivering quality service.

PPO 636 The Economics and Financing of Health Care
This course explores the economics and financing of health care services in the United States and provides an understanding of how decisions are made by providers, consumers, and the third party payers for pricing and the quantity of health care services. The effects of financing methods on the availability, quality, and planning of health care are also explored. It covers decision-making models, analyzes policy issues, and investigates political and economic aspects of the health care industry.

PPO 637 Analysis of the Quality of Health Care Delivery
Systematic introduction to the healthcare delivery system with emphasis on interactions of governmental authorities, delivery systems, financing of health care, regulation, competition, organizational innovations in healthcare services and alternate strategies.