Louise Roy (administrator)

Transcription

My name is Patrice Dutil, I'm a professor in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at Ryerson University and I'm here to talk about the Post-Baccalaureate certificate in Public Administration and Leadership. The Post-Baccalaureate certificate in Public Administration and Leadership at Ryerson is especially good for people who graduated with a Bachelor of Arts or a Bachelor of Science or a Bachelor of anything, but have really not been able to find a place to work. Some people are thinking about government, government is hiring, there's going to be a wave of people leaving government and naturally people are thinking maybe there's a place for me in government, how do I get a job there? The Post-Baccalaureate certificate prepares people who have a degree already to find work in government. It's a six-course program. It covers some of the basics in public administration. But it's also going to teach students about how to think about government in the longer term. Who's writing good stuff? Who's doing research in this area? It's a big part of the way we teach at Ryerson. To leave something for the students so that they... once they leave our university, they know what to look for in terms of good reading, good writing, good websites. They have a knack for research, they've developed an ability... they've built on their ability to find material that'll be relevant to good policy-making, and good program-making at the government level. Education doesn't stop with your degree. It's never stopped me with my degrees, it doesn't stop people who want to be successful. You always have to be on the lookout for learning. You have to be on the lookout for new ideas, new concepts, new ways of doing things. For most of our students in this program, this is completely new. They've studied History, English, Psychology, Nursing, Engineering; they've never studied the way government works. Half the people who are teaching are people who have spent their lifetimes in research, who are passionate about the world of government, who studied the world of government but from an academic perspective. The other half are people who have worked in government for a long time, or are still working in government. And they bring a more practical perspective to the area of public administration. So the net effect is that at the end of the certificate, you've got a blend. You've got a scholarly perspective, a theoretically minded perspective, but at the same time, you've been exposed to the practitioner who says "Well, this is the way it goes in theory but let me tell you about the way it really worked for me in my life when I was confronted with this kind of situation." You get the best of both worlds, that's really the Ryerson way of doing things, and I think it works in this program particularly well.