Encouraging University–Community Collaboration: Why, How and Towards What End?

Increasingly, all throughout the world, universities have begun to initiate activities and projects that go beyond the classroom and which profoundly impact both the communities of which they are a part and society more generally. In order to better understand how such initiatives work to benefit both university and community, we examine two very different projects emerging out of the private and public sectors in Bulgaria and the United States. The analysis is focused on two cases of university activities of quite different types, which impact their respective communities in very different ways. The purpose is to provide a better understanding of both the wide array of activities through which universities interact with their societies and communities, as well as to examine the consequences and benefits to both the institution and the society of such activity. The two projects presented in the article are very different in many respects but, at the same time, they serve to point out the many elements that such projects have in common and the many diverse ways in which they can benefit the institutions carrying them out. They also serve to tie the institutions involved much more closely to the various communities of which they were a part and resulted in significant engagement with those communities by the faculty involved in them.</p

Strengthening Governmental Effectiveness Through Improved Public Administration Education And Training: The United Nations/ IASIA Task Force And The Creation Of The International Commission On Public Administration Education And Training (ICAPA)

The aim of this article is to identify and outline the relationship between governmental effectiveness and public administration education and training. The recognition of some very basic realities of the worldwide political and governmental context within which public administrators of necessity must work is highly significant for this relationship. These basic realities are revealed and discussed.The new challenges place new demands upon the institutions preparing people to manage the governments and require a renewed attention to the manner in which the next generation of public administrators will be educated and the quality of education and training provided for them. The efforts to enhance the quality of the education and training led to the establishment of the International Commission on Accreditation of Public Administration Education and Training Programs (ICAPA) by the International Association of Schools and Institutes of Administration (IASIA).The article deals with the developed eight Standards of Excellence which, on the one hand, serve as the basis for IASIA accreditation assessments and, on the other, serve to provide critically needed guidance for encouraging greater excellence in education and training activities. In this way, building of more effective government is a consequence of promoting excellence in public administration education and training.</p

Institutionalizing Local Government as an Instrument of Democratic Consolidation: The Cases of Bulgaria and Paraguay

Multi-level governance is widely used throughout the world, especially in more economically developed countries. In part, this is due to the presumed benefits of decentralization in terms of public-service delivery, and in part, it is due to a desire to disperse political power and governmental authority. Thus, 25 years ago, when major governmental reform initiatives were begun in many countries around the world, especially in Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America, much attention was devoted to establishing and / or strengthening local governments. This was the case in Bulgaria and Paraguay, two countries from different parts of the world, but similar in size, economic development and a history of highly centralized and authoritarian regimes. The purpose of this paper is to examine and better understand the processes of decentralization as they took place in those two countries and those factors which facilitated and / or hindered efforts to initiate effective local government