According to Dean Dorn at the lunch a few weeks ago, the nonprofit concentration has been approved by the faculty and will eventually be implemented at the LBJ School. Despite the controversy about the nonprofit concentration, one of the things many students appear to agree upon is a desire for more courses to be offered that deal with nonprofit issues either as the focus of core classes or as seminars. Many of us have worked or will work in nonprofit organizations during the course of our careers. And according to the Jossey-Bass Handbook of Nonprofit Leadership and Management , the nonprofit sector has experienced exponential growth and remains the fastest growing organizational domain. Even as government employees, LBJ graduates are likely to work with nonprofits as government agencies turn to them to provide services.
Nonprofits also offer unique management challenges as the sector attempts to define itself.
Nonprofits are a new institutional form. Their emergence as a central feature of the polity represent a new configuration of public and private power. As we assume our roles in the public, private or nonprofit sectors after graduation, many of us will be involved with the challenges of emerging nonprofit organizations. Declaring a nonprofit concentration can help to bring resources to the school in this field. Eventually, the SW Center could increase the access that LBJ students have to training, mostly through an increase in faculty who specialize in nonprofit management, volunteerism and philanthropy.