By Matthew Kredell
Students in the Master of Public Administration online program at the USC Price School of Public Policy competed in an inaugural Capstone Case Challenge to apply their studies to the complex real-world issue of excessive force in metropolitan police departments.
MPA online students always finish the program with an in-person residency on the USC University Park Campus in the days leading up to graduation, but this time Professor Dora Kingsley Vertenten added a new wrinkle by placing the 60 students together into assigned groups of four and giving them five days to prepare professional-level presentations analyzing a pressing topic with no clear solution and then deliver them in front of a panel of expert practitioners.
“What sets us apart is our on-campus residency component — it’s a distinctive feature Prices offers that you don’t get in other online Master of Public Administration programs,” Kingsley Vertenten said. “Our students, who are among the best both nationally and globally, come to Price because they’re looking for that unique experience.”
Kingsley Vertenten noted that the students, in particular, “are looking for additional challenges and ways to enhance their resumes even further, so we changed the residency curriculum to give them the opportunity to work on a case competition with a current issue and win an academic award.”
USC Price Dean Jack H. Knott spoke to the students and helped hand out medals with the university insignia to members from the top three teams.
“Our online program has the same curriculum we provide on campus, and students must complete the same quality of academic rigor,” Knott said. “While we recognize that you can truly develop important relationships online, we also wanted to build in the opportunity for you to meet each other face to face.”
Students were put into 15 groups and told the topic on the Saturday prior to the May 15 commencement ceremony, and by Wednesday they had to prepare 15-minute oral presentations with PowerPoint slides defining the problem, explaining a proposed solution and identifying an implementation plan.
“This is a great way to get you thinking and applying all the knowledge you have gained, working together in a group and having to do this under fast-paced circumstances,” said MPA director Peter Robertson.
Assistant Adjunct Professor Diane Yoder administered the competition and came up with the focus for the presentations.
“It became apparent to me, when we saw the things happening in Cleveland, in Ferguson and in Baltimore, that this issue of the use of excessive force was extremely relevant, and yet very challenging — it’s a problem that deserves solutions on all levels and one that no city yet has been able to solve,” Yoder said.
A judging panel of John Calanni, a USC Price online lecturer who serves as vice president at Techlaw Corporation; Josh Cook, Chief of Staff to California Assemblyman Brian Dahle; Gregory Curtin, Founder and CEO of Civic Resource Group; and USC Price Adjunct Professor Michael Paules peppered the groups with tough questions before determining the winners.
The winning team of Elly Garner, Stephanie Marquis, Nicholas Morales and Ashlee Stratakis took a whole-of-community approach laying out local government (addressing systematic poverty with housing initiatives), law enforcement (community policing, requiring officers to live in area they serve, community involvement program) and civilian (citizen police academies) solutions. The creation of a Community Action Council would bring it all together by formulating a strategy to maintain the community identity.
“I think the biggest benefit of the Capstone Case Challenge was the opportunity to interact more with some of our fellow students,” Morales said. “I really enjoyed working with my teammates. We see each other all the time on the web cam, but it’s nice to have that face-to-face interaction, get to know each other and share in some of the camaraderie of the unique challenges to being in the online program.”
The runner-up team of Brian Barcelona, Ashley Dittmar, Rebecca Raber and Jason Shofner went in a different direction, focusing on the one area of how physical fitness workouts could help build up the emotional health of officers to better manage stress and fatigue.
Third place went to Jessica Barker, Joshua Hoover, Christopher Ramirez and Amy Smith, who recommended an accountability system and police monitor to assess citizen complaints. Colin Eakins, Heidi Kato, Jessica Liu and Erik Newland took honorable mention certificates for proposing a civilian oversight commission to promote transparency and a formal partnership between school districts and police departments.
“All the teams did a fantastic job,” Calanni said. “The winning group had a holistic approach that tried to break down a lot of those barriers from multiple facets. They had the three-pillar approach, and I think that really embodied a lot of the things we teach at the Price School in terms of the interdisciplinary needs to resolve these sort of problems.”