The Texas State MPA Program sent three students — Shifa Lateef, Nicole Foy and Krystal Muller — to the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration’s annual Batten competition which draws the best MPA/MPP students from across the nation. The preliminary round was held on the 24th of February at Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ and competition brought together 563 student participants who worked in teams of 3-5 taking on different roles to solve a public policy problem.
The topic for 2018 was Pandemic Crisis Management and Global Health Security. As indicated on NASPAA.org, “NASPAA believes it is imperative that MPA/MPP students’ knowledge on ‘global health security’ is furthered so they are prepared to act during a public health crisis.” There were several iterations of the simulation and each time our students had to think on their feet to come up with actionable solutions to the scenarios assigned to them. Shifa, Nicole and Krystal agreed that the conference helped them understand the real world implications of simulation based learning.
Although they didn’t advance to the final round, Shifa, Nicole, and Krystal enjoyed the competition and benefitted from networking with their peers from other NASPAA accredited institutions and gain a first-hand understanding of the merits of simulation-based learning in public affairs education. They were able to exercise their leadership skills, oral presentation competencies and policy memo writing abilities as they progressed through the day at the competition. The MPA program is grateful to the College of Liberal Arts, the department and the Hobby Center for providing the requisite funding for this trip. The program hopes to send a bigger contingent of students to this competition in the coming years.
