The Center for Public Administration and Policy, or CPAP, is an academic department focused on public administration

Public administration

Public Administration houses the implementation of government policy and an academic discipline that studies this implementation and that prepares civil servants for this work. As a "field of inquiry with a diverse scope" its "fundamental goal.....

 and policy

Policy

A policy is typically described as a principle or rule to guide decisions and achieve rational outcome. The term is not normally used to denote what is actually done, this is normally referred to as either procedure or protocol...

 at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia

Blacksburg, Virginia

Blacksburg is an incorporated town located in Montgomery County, Virginia, United States, with a population of 42,620 at the 2010 census. Blacksburg, Christiansburg, and Radford are the three principal jurisdictions of the Blacksburg-Christiansburg-Radford Metropolitan Statistical Area which...

. It is known for strong advocacy of an agential and moral perspective on government. Alumni scholars include Larry Terry and Camilla Stivers

Camilla Stivers

Camilla Stivers is Distinguished Professor of Public Administration at Levin College of Cleveland State University.She received an MPA from the University of Southern California and a Ph.D. in public administration and policy from Virginia Tech....

.

CPAP is famous for producing generalists and public administration theorists who often hold a relatively consistent view of government as a positive force in society. Well-known scholars associated with the program like Charles Goodsell

Charles Goodsell

Charles T. Goodsell is Professor Emeritus at Virginia Tech's Center for Public Administration and Policy. He is perhaps best known for his volume The Case for Bureaucracy, now in its 4th edition....

, Gary Wamsley

Gary Wamsley

Gary Wamsley is public administration specialist and professor emeritus at Virginia Tech's Center for Public Administration and Policy. He is perhaps best known as the coordinating editor of Refounding Public Administration, a work that followed from a well-known public administration paper called...

, and John Rohr

John Rohr

John A. Rohr is a Professor Emeritus at the Center for Public Administration and Policy at Virginia Tech. Rohr is particularly known as a leading scholar of the U.S. Constitution in relationship to civil servants and public administration...

 have been instrumental in creating an important scholarly program in the unlikely location of the mountains of western Virginia, but the program also maintains an active location in Alexandria, Virginia

Alexandria, Virginia

Alexandria is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of 2009, the city had a total population of 139,966. Located along the Western bank of the Potomac River, Alexandria is approximately six miles south of downtown Washington, D.C.Like the rest of northern Virginia, as well as...

 adjacent to Washington D.C.. As with any academic program, there are other views and approaches represented in the core faculty, but CPAP has long carried its association with the book Refounding Public Administration

Refounding Public Administration

Refounding Public Administration is a noted text in the public administration field that formulated a multi-faceted argument that government is properly an agential and active servant of the public good. It is among a very few books that have been pivotal in defining public administration as a...

 also known as the Blacksburg Manifesto which was in fact a forerunner article circulated first at an ASPA

ASPA

ASPA may be:*American Samoa Power Authority*American Society for Public Administration*Aotearoa Student Press Association*ASPA , located on the human chromosome 17*American Servicemembers' Protection Act*Antarctic Specially Protected Areas...

meeting in the late 1980s.

CPAP was founded by a number of faculty with strong interests in preserving an agential theory of government open to insights from sociology and philosophy as well as technical management approaches.

Thomas-Conner

• In Blacksburg the Center for Public Administration and Policy is located in the Thomas-Conner house on Draper Road. The scholarly life of the center is focused on the interactions in this building.

Blacksburg faculty

• Dr. Laura Jensen-Program Chair (Associate Professor)
• Dr. Larkin Dudley (Associate Professor)
• Dr. John Rohr (Professor)
• Dr. Karen Hult (Professor)
• Dr. Patrick Roberts (Assistant Professor)
• Dr. Joe Rees (Associate Professor)
• Dr. Aaron Schroeder (Visiting Assistant Professor)
• Dr. Gary Wamsley-Emeritus Professor
• Dr. Charles Goodsell-Emeritus Professor
• Dr. Sang OK Choi

Northern Virginia faculty

• Dr. Anne Khademian-Associate Chair (NOVA) (Associate Professor)
• Dr. Jim Wolf-Associate Chair (Richmond) (Professor)
• Dr. Matt Dull (Assistant Professor)
• Dr. Colleen Woodard (Adjunct Faculty)
• Dr. Phil Kronenberg-Emeritus Professor
• Dr. Orion White- Emeritus Professor