Standard E Narrative
Management skills are essential for a public servant. Participation in the MPA program allows students to help develop their management style while still in school. Management can come in many forms, from human resources to nonprofit, local, and federal government leadership. This program gives ample opportunities to develop all these skills while finding and narrowing down their passions and talents if they enter CPAP with multiple ideas of the career paths they wish to take. With these management skills, I can make impactful personnel and policy decisions to help the local government organizations I work for run smoothly and effectively. Effective leaders create healthy work environments where creative problem-solving and collaboration can occur.
Artifact I Narrative:
Artifact I “Case Analysis One” is a case study written for PAPA 5315 with Dr. Bredenkamp, satisfying Standard E: Objectives One and Two. This case study asked us to display our understanding of organizations and management by selecting effective strategies to address employee stress post-merger. One significant aspect of my own management style throughout my life is correctly placing personnel in positions within their organizations based upon their unique talents and personalities. Seeing principles I have already held so strongly being reviewed in class materials allowed me to understand more fully why this concept resonates with me, and then helped establish practices to assist me in making effective personnel decisions moving forward in the management roles I hold in my career.
Artifact II Narrative:
​​Artifact II, “Human Resource Management Plan,” is a Human Resource Management Plan from PAPA 6324 with Dr. Bredenkamp, satisfying Standard E: Objectives Three and Four. This assignment asked students to collaborate in teams and create an organization's human resource management plan. Emma Ruby and I collaborated on and developed a human resource management plan for her position at the Virginia Tech Procurement Office. Recommendations were made regarding recruitment, a sample job listing was created, interview procedures were recommended, and an incentive structure was set. This collaboration with Emma was rewarding and insightful as I learned more about her job at the procurement office, and the project proceeded smoothly. Included are my solo written drafts of several of the requirements and the final product, which was more collaborative as I learned about her position. CPAP’s emphasis on collaboration across all courses allows students to work on projects with one another multiple times throughout their program (this was at least my second opportunity to work with Emma), learning to collaborate with students of varying work styles and management types.
Artifact III Narrative:
Artifact III, “Case Response One,” is a weekly case study assignment written in PAPA 6324 for Dr. Bredenkamp. This assignment asks students to reflect upon Hilton’s diversity and inclusion initiatives and give a short response. Learning in Dr. Bredenkamp’s classes that diverse workplaces bring about greater opportunities for creative solutions and problem solving is one of my favorite things I learned at CPAP, and I reference it often in my management and system skills classes and assignments. I am excited to bring that knowledge to a future workplace so I can make diversity a priority to encourage creative problem solving
Artifact IV Narrative:
Artifact IV is a series of case studies from PAPA 5044, satisfying objectives one and two. In PAPA 5044, students were asked to respond to personnel and managerial situations in local government and justify their actions and recommendations based on leadership theories, in-class teaching, and class texts. The realism of these assignments allowed students to view patterns and trends in their own management recommendations and reflect upon their own personal management style. Students could discuss and defend these recommendations in class while reviewing these assignments and discussing the real-life outcomes of the situations we were asked to comment on, adding to the realism of the assignments and honing my managerial decision-making and leadership style. Assignments being formatted in brief sections and sentences rather than in paragraph form also helped with my brevity, and I adjusted to a new format that will be helpful in positions I hold in the future.
Stephanie Day
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