Political Science Department Welcomes New Director Of MPA Programs

By Erika Mantz, Media Relations

Reflecting the university's commitment to public service education, UNH announces the appointment of Melvin Dubnick, newly appointed professor of political science, as director of its MPA programs in Manchester and Durham. The program, first initiated in 1963, currently has 65 students enrolled.

Dubnick, whose research focuses on accountability and governance in public and private sector organizations, comes to UNH from two years as a visiting professor and senior research fellow at Queen's University Belfast in Northern Ireland. For the past 12 years he has also been professor of public administration and political science at Rutgers University-Newark and also holds adjunct professorships at Columbia University and the University of Oklahoma. He received his PhD from the University of Colorado-Boulder, and over the past three decades has published numerous articles and books on topics ranging from American government and regulatory policy to administrative ethics and performance management. Recently cited as "perhaps the leading American academic authority on accountability in government," he has won several awards for his contributions to the field and has served as co-editor in chief of the Policy Studies Journal (1985-1990) and managing editor of Public Administration Review (1990-1996), the premier journal in the field of public sector management.

"I am quite excited at the prospect of helping establish a first rate program in New Hampshire and Northern New England devoted to improving the delivery of public services in the region," said Dubnick, who has experience directing and chairing MPA programs at the University of Kansas, Baruch College/CUNY and Rutgers-Newark. "We plan to work closely with professional administrators and elected officials to enhance an already quality curriculum relevant to the needs of the communities and people of New Hampshire and New England."

As the first Fulbright-Queen's University of Belfast Fellow in Governance, Dubnick has been actively involved in studies of democratic inclusion in Ireland and Northern Ireland as well as playing a major role in establishing a five nation study of changing corporate regulatory regimes. In October 2005 he will convene an international conference on "accountable governance" in Belfast that will bring together the world's top scholars of accountability from the fields of politics, education, accounting, local governance and corporate governance.

In addition to his directorship of the MPA, Dubnick will teach both graduate and undergraduate classes in the political science department at UNH.