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THE GRADUATE SCHOOL

MASTER OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

Mayor Riley

Arthur A. Felts received his B.A. from Miami University and his M.A, and Ph.D. from the Pennsylvania State University. Prior to coming to the College of Charleston as director of the Institute and MPA program in 1989, he was MPA program director and associate professor of political science at Appalachian State University, and director of the Master of City Management Program and assistant professor of political science at East Tennessee State University. He also served as assistant professor of political science at Morehouse College and was an Associate Researcher at the Institute for Policy Research and Evaluation at Penn State. Dr. Felts was instrumental in establishing the College's Master of Environmental Science program and served as its first director. He assumed the rank of professor of political science at the College of Charleston in 1993.

Under the guidance of Dr. Felts, the institute was renamed after Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley, Jr. in 2001. In taking on the name of Mayor Riley the institute enlarged its mission of being the major social science and public service research arm of the College of Charleston to include finding ways of institutionalizing his internationally recognized vision of healthy urban living.

As director of the Institute, Dr. Felts has served as principal investigator of numerous projects. Among these have been major evaluations of programs receiving funding from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of Justice, Department of Transportation, and Department of Health and Human Services.

Dr. Felts serves on the editorial board of Administrative Theory and Praxis and the American Society for Public Administration's Section on Public Administration Research. For several years now he has served as site visit chair for the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration's Commission on Peer Review and Accreditation. He has also served on the board of the Southeast Conference on Public Administration.

Dr. Felts has published articles in several major journals, including Administration and Society, the American Review of Public Administration, Western Political Science Quarterly, Policy Studies Review, and the Journal of Management History.