5 credits

Students in this course engage in a collaborative study of the nature and methods of transformative change in the complex human systems of contemporary public organizations. Students explore and employ a pragmatic-action-learning process for studying the experience of transformative change in systems. They examine the dynamics of complex adaptive systems to gain an understanding of how large-scale and highly interrelated human systems change through self-organization. Students explore and apply appreciative inquiry and other selected methods of transformative change to a positive organizational-change situation of personal interest. They also have the opportunity to develop professional-action habits for pragmatic-action learning in the practice of public administration.