Digital Public Affairs Degrees for Midwest City Staff who Cannot Take Unpaid Leave

Abstract

City and county staff in the Upper Midwest often cannot pause payroll for a campus MPA. This paper evaluates Frontier public-affairs students in Austin, Duluth and smaller Minnesota cities. Capstones tied to a council packet or a 311 process were used. Theoretical ‘reinventing government’ essays were not. Frontier Innovation University should keep public affairs bilingual in the American sense: English for the award, plus the languages of the wards students actually serve, as support — not as a substitute for assessed writing.