In the May 2005 issue of the Harvard Business Review, Professors Warren Bennis and James O’Toole, both well-regarded experts in the business management arena, argued that academic institutions are missing the boat with regard to teaching managerial principles for the new millennium. Bennis and O’Toole argue that business schools are packed with professors who have limited real-world experience and who have all been trained to follow the scientific model of the hard sciences rather than the professional model adhered to by schools of medicine and dentistry, for example. They believe this is having a significant impact on the business world because these professors are graduating students who are not equipped to deal with the complexities of the real world of business.

Although Bennis and O’Toole base their argument on the need for a more practical focus in schools that produce management personnel for the private business sector, few articles have resonated as much with me as a public-affairs-practitioner-turned-academic who teaches public management courses. If one considers that public administration, particularly with regard to public management, is widely considered to be a “professional” discipline, this is especially intriguing. Public administration is taught either through schools of public affairs