Academically qualified faculty member: A faculty member who holds a terminal degree related to his or her teaching responsibilities and received within five years of the self-study; who publishes peer-reviewed (both collegial and editorial) scholarship, whether in print or electronic format, related to the instructor’s course topics and dated within five years of the self-study; who uses class syllabi that demonstrate current knowledge and technique; or who engages in professional and community service in the area of the instructor’s teaching responsibilities.  

Accountability: Having identifiable responsibility for making a decision or taking an action with the capacity to supply a justifying analysis or explanation.  

Administrative Infrastructure refers to the coordination of management arrangements that support Program delivery, including but not limited to student admissions, student advising, student services, course scheduling, course reviews and student assessment, library and research support and faculty program coordination and assessment.  

Competencies: Expected skills, knowledge, aptitudes, and capacities. Student competencies must be defined by each program consistent with its mission.  Goals to be considered when developing competencies can include, but are not limited to:

1. the extent to which the competencies contribute to a collective identity in education for public service, broadly defined;
2. the extent to which the competencies acknowledge and encourage diversity;
3. competencies should ensure that students will be capable of acting ethically and effectively in pursuit of the public interest.¹

COPRA Liaison: The liaison is a member of the Commission on Peer Review and Accreditation and plays an important role in the peer review and accreditation and site visit process. The liaison is assigned to a program or group of programs by the chair of the Commission. The role and responsibilities of the liaison are to:

1. Analyze Self-Study Reports and draft preliminary response to program
2. Serve as an intermediary between the Site Visit Team, the Commission, and the program under review.
3. Answer any questions about the site visit process that may be raised by the program under review but not satisfactorily answered by the Site Visit Team.

Conditional Admissions/Enrollment:    Students admitted under this category are typically granted specified exceptions to the program admissions criteria, subject to “performance conditions” after enrollment.  

Diversity: Differences relating to social identity categories such as race, ethnicity, gender, class, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, disability, age, and veterans status. NASPAA is using the Common Data Set (CDS) categories for US-based programs, Non US-based programs will define their own diversity categories based upon their own context.  

Ethical Practice: Acting in a manner that conforms to moral duties and obligations, as well as legitimate codes of conduct, by being able to identify moral duties and obligations, reason about their application in particular circumstances, and have the courage and ability to follow through.  

Enrolled Student:  Any student admitted to a program who has registered for at least one class in the semester for which he/she was admitted.  

Extended Faculty Member: Include faculty within the current department or from other departments that teach a course in the program but do not have a primary responsibility for the program in terms of governance, program development or program implementation.   

Full Time Equivalency Staff (FTE): The full-time equivalent (FTE) of staff is calculated by summing the total number of full-time staff and adding one-third of the total number of part-time staff.  

Full-Time Student:  A student enrolled in the program who meets the institutional definition of a “full-time” graduate student.  Typically, on a semester credit hour basis, this is defined as 9 credit hours or more per semester.  

Governance: The legitimate institutions and processes, including the creation and implementation of policy, for authoritatively directing resources and activities in the public domain, broadly defined to include political jurisdictions and nonprofit entities.  

In-Service Student:  Any applicant to a program, or student admitted to a program, that has at least one year of relevant post-baccalaureate work experience.  

International (faculty or student): A person who is not a citizen or national of the United States and who is in this country on a visa or temporary basis and does not have the right to remain indefinitely. (For purposes of Diversity Data)  

Leadership:  A process whereby an individual influences others to achieve a common goal.  The means of influence may use analytical, managerial, interpersonal, communicative, and other skills. Some people are leaders because of their formal position within an organization, whereas others are leaders because of the way other group members respond to them. (These two common forms of leadership are called “assigned leadership” and “emergent leadership.”  This is a more inclusive view than charismatic or positional leadership. In the context of the NASPAA standards, leadership does not define the individual’s formal position or role but rather the result of his/her ability to move an entity—an individual, group, organization, government, community, nation, etc.—to achieve enhanced or new outcomes, using means appropriate to his or her role and areas of responsibility.   Examples of such enhanced or new outcomes include, but are not limited to, designing, adopting and implementing desirable policy or administrative initiatives; achieving goals; and/or facilitating major rethinking about or transformation of processes or systems.  

Non-US Based Program:  A program located outside the geographical boundaries of the United States or its territories (not to include branch campuses of US programs located abroad).  

Nucleus faculty member:  A faculty member who participates in the program’s 1) governance by participating in faculty meetings, area of specialization committees, student admissions, curriculum planning and overall program administration; 2) instruction by teaching an average of at least one course per year in the program; advising students and supervising them on analytical papers, theses, or applied research and public service projects, and 3) research and/or professional and community service activities significantly related to public affairs.  This designation refers to full-time tenured or tenure-track faculty and full-time clinical or professors of practice (or comprobable titles at institutions). The members of the nucleus faculty need not all be in the same department or unit at the University.  

Part Time Instructional Faculty: Adjuncts and other instructors being paid solely for part-time classroom instruction.  Also includes full-time faculty teaching less than two semesters, three quarters, two trimesters, or two four-month sessions.  Employees who are not considered full time instruction faculty but who teach one or more non-clinical credit courses may be counted as part-time faculty.  

Part-time Student:  A student enrolled in the program who does not meet the institutional definition of a “full-time” graduate student.  Typically, on a semester credit hour basis, this is defined as fewer than 9 credit hours per semester.  

Pre-Service Student:  Any applicant to a program, or student admitted to a program, that has less than one year of relevant post-baccalaureate work experience. 

Probational Students:  (See “Conditional Admissions/Enrollments.)  Typically applies to currently enrolled students who do not meet the program’s continuance standards.  However, as applied here, includes students admitted to, and enrolled in the program under pre-specified conditions.  

Program Faculty: Refers to Nucleus, Extended and Part-Time Instructional Faculty as a whole.  

Professionally qualified faculty member:  A full-time faculty member can be professionally qualified by virtue of having a record of outstanding professional experience directly relevant to the faculty member’s Program responsibilities.  In general, a professionally qualified faculty member will have a terminal degree in his or her area of responsibility.  

Public organization: an operating unit within an international, federal, state, or local government; a supplier of services or products operated on a not-for-profit basis.  

Public Service Values: Public service values are important and enduring beliefs, ideals and principles shared by members of a community about what is good and desirable and what is not. They include pursuing the public interest with accountability and transparency; serving professionally with competence, efficiency, and objectivity; acting ethically so as to uphold the public trust; and demonstrating respect, equity, and fairness in dealings with citizens and fellow public servants. NASPAA expects an accreditable program to define the boundaries of the public service values it emphasizes, be they procedural or substantive, as the basis for distinguishing itself from other professional degree programs.  

Scholarship: the development of new knowledge, the re-synthesis or re-conceptualization of existing knowledge, and/or the creative application of theory to practice.  

Student Services: includes but not limited to advising students about their decisions regarding financial aid, completing their program of academic study, and pursuing their careers.  

Student-to-faculty ratio: The ratio of FTE students to FTE instructional staff, i.e., students divided by staff.  Each FTE value is equal to the number of full-time students/staff plus 1/3 the number of part-time students/staff.  

Transparency: Processes, procedures, identify of decision-makers, information, rationales and justification for decisions can be easily understood by parties who participate in the decision and those who do not.  

Specialization: is used to refer to all advertised areas of emphases, whether they are called specializations, concentrations, foci, areas, cognates, etc.  

Student Services: includes but not limited to advising students about their decisions regarding financial aid, completing their program of academic study, and pursuing their careers.