Time Schedule:
Keith Akio Nitta
BPOLST 504
Bothell Campus
Addresses how organizational cultures, processes, and resources create and limit policy options in local, state, and national context. Examines how an organization's strategies, perspectives, and patterns of resource management shape organizational responses to a variety of policy issues and problems. Prerequisite: minimum grade of 2.7 in BPOLST 500, BPOLST 502, and BPOLST 503.
Class description
This is the first in a two-course sequence. The second, BPOLST 505, will focus on improving personal leadership capacity and leadership development. This first course will focus on developing skills necessary for managers, for example: understanding organizational environments, building and maintaining a team, mapping stakeholders, drawing conclusions using available data, and making recommendations.
Student learning goals
1. Provide a theoretical overview of organizations and organizational environments. Readings and lectures will provide models and typologies to understand internal processes of organizations, relations among organizations, and the effect of the external world on organizations.
2. Introduce students to diverse real-world management issues and contexts, with an emphasis on multi-cultural and international situations. Through case studies and community-based projects, students will apply management frameworks and models to real world problems.
3. Practice critical thinking skills in a professional policy context during class discussions and through written assignments.
4. Develop shared leadership and collaboration through group work and common writing tasks.
5. Develop communication skills through writing memos and presenting case studies.
General method of instruction
Lecture, case discussion, seminar discussion
Recommended preparation
Minimum grade of 2.7 in BPOLST 500, BPOLST 502, and BPOLST 503.
Class assignments and grading
Two short projects with required revisions, a team community-based project, and one written reflection.
All assignments will be graded according to the following criteria: 1) analytic rigor, 2) logical clarity, 3) factual accuracy, and 4) quality of written expression.
