Encouraging Cognitive Flexibility and Interdisciplinarity in Public Administration Programs

In response to the increased complexity that comes from a shift away from government and toward governance, public administration programs need to adjust their traditional curriculum and encourage interdisciplinarity perspectives in students. Given the proper mind-set, administrators can be better prepared to face the challenges of governance in a highly integrated, real-life setting by having the capacity to integrate competing viewpoints, which includes a reintroduction of interdisciplinary theories, methods, and best practices to the classroom. Cognitive flexibility-the ability for an individual to understand, appreciate, and make use of various epistemological approaches-offers a theoretical perspective to guide practical pedagogy and practice.