For the eighth consecutive time, the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University has been ranked the No. 1 graduate school of public affairs by U.S. News & World Report.

Program rankings are calculated according to a nationwide survey of deans, directors and department chairs at 272 different master of public affairs and public administration programs, according to an SU News release. Maxwell has held the top spot since 1995.

David Van Slyke, associate dean and chair of the public administration and international affairs program at Maxwell, said he believes the school’s consistent No. 1 position speaks volumes about the caliber of its program.

“We believe that this is a strong testament to the quality of the program, the quality of the students, faculty and staff engaged in that program and a very nice recognition about the strength of our alumni and the types of students that we are attracting here at Syracuse University,” Van Slyke said.

Maxwell’s Master of Public Administration program was created more than 90 years ago, and was the first of its kind, according to the release. The school is sharing this year’s No. 1 spot with Indiana University-Bloomington.

“Most schools of public affairs have programs in international relations, public administration, public policy, but they do not then have side by side the complementarities of economics, political science, history, sociology, anthropology and geography,” Van Slyke said. “And that really is what makes Maxwell so different.”

While most MPA programs span two years, Maxwell’s is only 12 months. Students come in the first Monday of July and graduate the last Friday in June, Van Slyke said. He added that although there are schools attempting to replicate this structure, Maxwell still remains, by and large, the original proprietor of such a format.

“Certainly people see this as a real opportunity to be able to take advantage of some of the real strengths of the school while being out of the paid labor market for a shorter period of time,” Van Slyke said.

About 120 students are accepted to the full-time program each year. Then, they are grouped into a cohort, with which they also graduate, so they have the chance “to work closely with faculty, to work individually and to work as small groups and teams on a host of both assignments and experiential opportunities,” Van Slyke said.

The cohesion and collaboration between students of the same cohort is another defining characteristic of the Maxwell program, said Scott Barrett, associate dean for external affairs at Maxwell.

“What I see here from the graduates of the MPA program is that tight cohesion in the cohort … they know each other very, very well. They seem to know the faculty very, very well. And there’s a great pride among them, and so the number one ranking is a great point of pride for them, as well,” Barrett said. “They love it and they talk about it and they celebrate it and it is definitely part of their identity that we celebrate too. It’s kind of a neat feel here at Maxwell in that regard.”

Van Slyke added that, in the future, he would like to see Maxwell work on strengthening the depth of its involvement in interdisciplinary integration and global perspective — recognizing the opportunities to provide public affairs education not just within the U.S. but around the world as well.

Both Barrett and Van Slyke agreed that Maxwell’s curriculum and values are echoed both nationwide and across the SU community, and that relevance sets the school up as No. 1 for years to come.

Published on March 20, 2016 at 11:00 pm

Contact Brigid: brkenned@syr.edu