Center for Public Service

The Center for Public Service serves as a hub for applied research, consulting, and professional development within the H. Wayne Huizenga College of Business and Entrepreneurship.

Our mission is to bridge the gap between academic research and real-world public service by helping local governments, nonprofit organizations, healthcare systems, and community agencies address complex organizational and community challenges.

By combining faculty expertise, doctoral-level research, and student engagement, we deliver practical solutions that are both academically rigorous and directly applicable to the needs of our partners.

 

• Where Theory Meets Practice: Faculty-mentored student projects deliver measurable results for real-world challenges. 
• Built On Partnerships: Collaborations are formalized through MOUs, ILAs, and tailored scopes of work. 
• Flexible Delivery: Our services scale from short-term consulting to long-term planning and implementation. 

The LINC Research Protocol

Learning-Integrated Change, or LINC, is the Center’s developing theoretical and applied framework for technology adoption and organizational change. It integrates Kotter’s change model, technology acceptance theory, Senge’s learning organization, and the NIST AI Risk Management Framework. The framework grew directly out of the Center’s ongoing conversations with the government and nonprofit community about the challenges and opportunities of adopting artificial intelligence, beginning with a funded engagement for the Community Foundation of Broward. That initial work surfaced the larger questions the framework now addresses, and the Center is testing the protocol through two coordinated pilot sites, one municipal and one nonprofit, where it is being developed and prepared for peer-reviewed publication. Beyond its research value, LINC is being built so that, once validated, the Center can offer implementation of the framework to other government and nonprofit organizations as a consulting service, turning a research protocol into a repeatable offering.

AI Operations Assessment

Partner: Community Foundation of Broward | Consulting and Applied Research | Initial phase complete

The Center’s artificial intelligence work with the Community Foundation of Broward began with this initial engagement providing research and consulting services on how artificial intelligence could be applied to the Foundation’s operations. The work assessed the Foundation’s processes, surfaced practical opportunities and constraints, and clarified the human, organizational, and technical questions that responsible AI adoption raises in a nonprofit setting. Those findings directly seeded the Learning-Integrated Change framework and shaped the questions the protocol now investigates. The work has since evolved into the Foundation’s role as the nonprofit pilot site for LINC.

AI Roadmap and Implementation Pilot

Partner: City of Coconut Creek | Consulting and Applied Research | Active, municipal pilot site

The City of Coconut Creek engaged the Center to develop a practical, structured approach to adopting artificial intelligence across city operations. The project begins with a department-by-department readiness assessment, followed by a phased implementation roadmap and a staff training plan. It addresses both technical skill development and the broader governance concerns of privacy, fairness, transparency, and ethical use. As the first pilot site for the Learning-Integrated Change framework, the engagement also generates the empirical foundation for a replicable adoption methodology that other municipalities can apply. Data collection and staff interviews are underway, with phased roadmaps and governance recommendations as the principal deliverables.

AI Integration in Nonprofit Grant Operations

Partner: Community Foundation of Broward | Exploratory Applied Research | Active, nonprofit pilot site

The Center is engaged in an exploratory research partnership with the Community Foundation of Broward examining how artificial intelligence can be integrated responsibly into nonprofit grant operations. Beginning in early 2026, the work deepened through a focused engagement with the Foundation’s grants team, structured around three research areas: the human and behavioral dimensions of AI in grantmaking, leadership and organizational response to AI-enabled inquiry, and the data architecture required to support AI-assisted operations responsibly. As the nonprofit pilot site for the framework, it enables direct comparison with the municipal context. Deliverables include a scholarly research report and presentation materials.

Community Health and Wellbeing Assessment

Partners: City of Miramar and Memorial Healthcare System | Applied Research

The City of Miramar received a Community Health and Wellbeing Accelerator award from the National League of Cities to examine its capacity to deliver health and wellness services. After the City completed an internal assessment of its staff and organizational service capabilities, it engaged the Center to lead the second phase, which turns the assessment outward to the community. The Center is designing and conducting the community response and input component, gathering resident perspective on health and wellness needs, service awareness, and access, so that the City’s internal account of what it can deliver is tested against what residents report needing and experiencing. Memorial Healthcare System participates as a research partner, supplying an independent community health needs assessment dataset against which the Center triangulates its findings.

Senior Services Program Evaluation and Service-Delivery Pilot

Partners: City of Miramar and Memorial Healthcare System | Applied Research

A companion to the community health and wellbeing engagement, this project examines the City’s senior services program specifically. The Center is evaluating survey responses collected from city staff and pairing them with primary data gathered directly from senior program participants and their family members, a population the internal assessment could not reach. The analysis identifies weaknesses in current senior programming and produces an inventory of the outside service providers that partner with the City to deliver it, establishing who provides what and where coverage gaps fall. From those findings the Center develops candidate solutions, and a pilot project tests selected solutions in operation, measuring both their effectiveness and whether the City can sustain them beyond the pilot period. The design gives the City evidence on what works before it commits recurring resources.

Small Business Needs Assessment and Mentorship Feasibility Study

Partner: City of Miramar | Consulting and Applied Research

The City of Miramar engaged the Center to study its small business programs and identify opportunities for future growth. The project examines industry trends, barriers to small business growth, and benchmarks from comparable cities, while incorporating direct input from business owners, residents, and city staff through a targeted multi-channel survey and a town hall focus group. It also assesses the feasibility and design of a small business mentorship program. The final report will provide a clear picture of Miramar’s economic strengths, its opportunities for small business development, the structural challenges it faces, and where the city should direct its investment, partnerships, and policy efforts. The work is co-led with faculty from the Stiles School of Real Estate Development.

Procurement Policy and Code Reform

Partner: City of Miramar | Consulting and Applied Research

The City of Miramar engaged the Center to modernize its procurement policies and code, anchoring the work in a live reform effort within the City. The engagement begins with a comparative analysis of peer organizations’ policies and professional association best practices, paired with data gathering through surveys, interviews, and related methods. Those findings inform rewritten city code and procurement policies, delivered alongside a training program to support implementation. The engagement also supports doctoral research on how public organizations adopt best-practice procurement reforms and what drives successful policy implementation.

Job Classification and Compensation Study

Partner: City of North Lauderdale | Consulting and Applied Research

The City of North Lauderdale engaged the Center for a classification study addressing public sector human resource management and compensation systems. The work reviews and updates existing job descriptions, then develops a point-factor methodology to score and rank classifications against established criteria, paired with an internal equity analysis and an external market salary study to set defensible pay ranges. Deliverables include updated classifications, a scoring and ranking framework, recommended salary ranges, and an assessment of over-specialization across the classification structure.

Solid Waste Assessment Program Transition

Partner: City of Miramar | Advisory and Consulting

The City of Miramar engaged the Center’s advisory support in transitioning its residential solid waste assessment from monthly utility billing to collection on the annual property tax bill as a non-ad valorem assessment, using the Uniform Method under section 197.3632, Florida Statutes. Acting as an advisor and force multiplier, the Center assists the City Attorney’s Office with ordinance revisions and assessment resolutions, advises on statutory notice, public hearing, and certification requirements, and provides quality assurance review of the City-produced assessment roll, notice roll, and data exports ahead of the statutory certification deadline. The Center serves strictly in an advisory capacity.

Servant Leadership Training for School Resource Officers

Partners: City of Miramar Police Department and Broward County Public Schools | Applied Research, grant funded

The Center is co-leading a mixed-methods study that designs and pilot-tests a servant leadership-informed training model for School Resource Officers. Over twelve months, the project engages approximately 20 officers across one elementary, one middle, and one high school in Miramar, using stakeholder co-design sessions, iterative Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles, and Kirkpatrick-based evaluation to strengthen officer discretion, de-escalation, and diversion. Anticipated outcomes include improved relationships between officers, students, and families, increased use of diversion, and reduced school-based arrests. The project was awarded funding through NSU’s Quality of Life Grant program.

Project Empower: Digital Workforce Lab

Partner: United Way of Broward County | Professional Development and Workforce Pilot

Project Empower is a workforce development pilot delivered with United Way of Broward County at Hallandale High School, designed to equip participants with industry-recognized Microsoft certifications, foundational and intermediate AI skills, customer relationship management platform experience, and customer service competencies that lead to living-wage employment. Serving 15 to 20 participants per cohort, the five-week curriculum covers AI certification, the Microsoft Office suite, contract management, public speaking, emotional intelligence, professional mindset, and a capstone project. The first cohort ran from June through July 2026, and the next is scheduled to begin in October.

Nonprofit Executive Leadership Boot Camp

Partner: Community Foundation of Broward | Professional Development, recurring

In partnership with the Community Foundation of Broward, the Center developed an intensive five-day training program for executive directors and senior staff at nonprofit organizations across South Florida. Each day focuses on a single topic led by a faculty member with expertise in that area: financial management and fiscal sustainability, strategic planning and organizational leadership, human resources and employment law, board governance and community engagement, and a closing session that integrates the material. The first cohort was delivered in October 2025, with a second scheduled for October 2026.

Human Resources Capacity-Building Training

Partner: City of Miramar | Professional Development

The City of Miramar requested a program to build its Human Resources team’s internal capacity to manage workplace investigations, design and monitor performance improvement plans, resolve employee relations matters, and provide decision-making support to senior leadership. The curriculum delivers two parallel tracks, technical training for the full HR team and a peer-based coaching cohort for senior HR leadership, across two consecutive days. A one-day applied practicum follows 30 to 60 days later, in which staff bring real cases worked in the interim, serving as a behavioral measure of what the training changed in practice.

Reimagining Doctoral Education Through a Scholar-Practitioner Lens

Partner: NSU Doctor of Public Administration Program | Applied Higher Education Research

The Center is supporting a research project examining NSU’s redesigned Doctor of Public Administration program as a case for rethinking doctoral education in public administration and public affairs. The study explores how a professional doctorate can maintain doctoral-level rigor while focusing on applied inquiry, workforce relevance, and scholar-practitioner formation. It uses program document analysis, a scholar-practitioner survey, and focus groups with students and public service stakeholders, with particular attention to the doctoral closure project as a rigorous applied alternative to the traditional dissertation.

 

Human Resources Policy and Code Modernization

Partner: City of North Lauderdale | Consulting | Completed

The City of North Lauderdale engaged the Center to revise its employee handbook, which had not been substantially updated in decades, to reflect the operations and administrative functions of a modern municipality. The project included a review of policies from comparable municipalities, confidential interviews and focus groups across every level of the city’s workforce, analysis of an employee survey, and comparison against national human resources standards. The result is a fully revised policy manual covering hybrid work, artificial intelligence and technology use, and updated rules for discipline and performance review, accompanied by an implementation plan for city-wide adoption.

Leadership Alignment and Development

Partner: City of Miramar | Professional Development | Completed May 2026

The City of Miramar engaged the Center to design and deliver a leadership development program for senior staff at the director, deputy director, and assistant director levels, establishing a common approach to managing the organization. The 40-hour, six-module curriculum covered leadership foundations, communication and alignment, conflict resolution, team cohesion and culture, emotional intelligence, and accountability and performance management. The program was delivered twice, once for each of two cohorts, across consecutive weeks in May 2026, producing official NSU certificates of professional development for 64 participating leaders.

Local Government Academy Evaluation

Partners: City of Miramar and Broward County Public Schools | Applied Research | Completed

The Center evaluated the pilot launch of Miramar’s Local Government Academy, delivered in partnership with Broward County Public Schools, examining how the program shaped high school students’ civic knowledge, attitudes toward government, and awareness of public service careers. Built on a model of instruction, mentorship, internships, and applied learning, the Academy engages the business community and government agencies to strengthen civic awareness and workforce readiness. The work produced an evaluation framework for the Academy’s early instructional modules and identified how the model can support stronger school and municipal partnerships.

Joint Use Agreements as Economic Development

Partner: City of North Miami | Applied Research | Completed

This engagement examined how joint use agreements, the contracts that govern shared use of public facilities, can be repositioned as instruments of local economic development in fiscally constrained municipalities. Using the City of North Miami as the focal case, the research analyzed existing agreement structures and developed an implementation-ready framework for integrating joint use agreements into local economic development policy. The work demonstrates how municipalities can extract greater public value from facilities they already own, turning routine intergovernmental contracts into deliberate economic development tools.

Parc View Townhomes: Affordable Housing and Health Equity

Partner: City of Miramar | Applied Research, grant funded | Completed January 2025

Center-affiliated faculty conducted grant-funded applied research with the City of Miramar on Parc View Townhomes, a 66-unit affordable homeownership development in Historic Miramar. Funded through NSU’s PathWELL Health Equity Seed Grant program, the study treated housing as a social determinant of health and examined the project from conception and participatory decision-making through implementation, at a time when Broward County had identified Miramar as carrying the sixth highest housing demand among the county’s thirty-one municipalities. The mixed-methods case study combined semi-structured focus groups drawn from city staff, community organizers, area residents, and prospective homebuyers with GIS spatial analysis mapping access to healthcare, food, transit, parks, and social services. The City used the resulting report to help assess project feasibility and inform funding and development decisions.

 

The Public Service Forum

Partner: NSU Student Chapter of the International City/County Management Association | Practitioner Engagement, monthly

The Public Service Forum is the Center’s practitioner engagement series. It brings together elected officials, public sector leaders, faculty, and students around questions of public administration practice through speaker events, roundtables, industry talks, and organization tours. Its inaugural event convened three sitting mayors and more than fifty attendees for a roundtable on municipal leadership. Beginning in the 2026 to 2027 academic year, the Forum moves to a monthly calendar, maintaining a strong connection between students, faculty, alumni, and practitioners as the Master of Public Administration program transitions to an asynchronous online modality.

Broward County City Managers’ Association Training Series

Partner: Broward County City Managers’ Association | Professional Development, quarterly

The Center delivers training sessions at the quarterly meetings of the Broward County City Managers’ Association, a not-for-profit organization that has operated for more than twenty years to bring together local government professional administrators across Broward County’s thirty-one municipalities under the principles and code of ethics of the International City/County Management Association. Sessions are developed for an executive municipal audience and address the operational and governance questions currently facing city management, including a session on artificial intelligence adoption delivered in August 2026 that covered practical implementation alongside public records implications for AI-generated content. The Center provides these sessions at no charge.

Student Researchers Program

Partner: NSU Center for Public Service | Fellowship Program, launching 2026 to 2027

The Student Researchers Program launches in the 2026 to 2027 academic year as the third tier of the Center’s Scholar-Practitioner Fellowship, complementing its faculty leads and doctoral fellows. The program engages master’s and undergraduate students from across the Huizenga College of Business in supporting roles on Center projects, where they are trained to assist with data collection and other aspects of the research and consulting process. It builds durable research capacity for the Center while giving students hands-on experience in real public administration work.

Cross-Discipline Marketing Collaboration

Partner: Huizenga College Department of Marketing | Internal Academic Collaboration

The Center partnered with an undergraduate marketing class in the Huizenga College’s Department of Marketing to develop marketing strategy proposals for the Center. Student teams researched the Center’s positioning and presented their work at the close of the semester, with selected ideas now in consideration for implementation. The collaboration offers a replicable template for engaging other academic disciplines in the Center’s work and extends experiential learning opportunities beyond public administration into adjacent fields.

NSU Business Function Collaborations

Partner: Internal NSU Units | Internal Consulting and Professional Development

This internal-facing initiative turns the Center’s community service model inward onto the University’s own operations. Current threads include AI implementation workshops for the Graduate Academic Advising team and a partnership with NSU Central Human Resources on employee development and related training. The aim is to extend the Center’s applied research, consulting, and professional development capabilities beyond external municipal and nonprofit partners to the University’s own business functions, helping internal units maximize their capabilities and service delivery.

 

This first annual report of the Center for Public Service reflects the work completed during the 2025–2026 academic year, a launch point and proof of concept for the Center’s role within Nova Southeastern University and the broader South Florida community.

The pages that follow highlight the work of faculty and students in partnership with public agencies and nonprofit organizations across the region. Each project reflects the Center’s core purpose: bringing academic rigor, applied research, and practical problem-solving together to help organizations improve their communities.

This year helped clarify the Center’s strategy of strong partnerships with local governments, nonprofits, and community-based institutions to create a living laboratory for applied research. These partnerships give faculty and doctoral students opportunities to conduct research in real organizational settings, while allowing partners to benefit from data-driven analysis, consulting support, and fresh perspectives.

The Center’s work is grounded in the scholar-practitioner model, which integrates theory, research, and professional practice in real-world settings. Applied research that takes place in organizations and communities responding to real challenges. This approach helps researchers and practicioners  better understand problems and identify realistic solutions.

During the 2025–2026 academic year, the Center advanced this model through partnerships with the City of Miramar, the City of Plantation, the City of Coconut Creek, the City of North Lauderdale, the Broward County School Board, and the Community Foundation of Broward. The Center has secured contractual services that will continue into the next fiscal year and generate over $100,000 in revenue for FY 2027, in to other proposals and research currently in development.

Additionally, the 2025–2026 academic year also marked an important milestone for NSU’s first cohort from the Doctor of Public Administration (DPA) program. Four doctoral candidates,  Leslyn Benjamin, Stuart Boucaud, Shalima K. Mohamed, and Shaun Gayle, completed closure projects under the Center’s applied research and engagement model and graduated from the DPA program.

Another important upcoming change is the transition of the Master of Public Administration program to an asynchronous, online modality. The Center will help maintain a strong connection between students, faculty, alumni, and practitioners through the Public Service Forum: speaker events, roundtables, industry talks, organization tours, and other outreach activities.

Looking ahead, the Student Researchers program will come online, the Public Service Forum will host monthly events in collaboration with the NSU Student Chapter of ICMA, and new partnerships with healthcare systems, nonprofits, and local government organizations are in development.

On behalf of the Center staff, we look forward to the work ahead.

Randy Cross, Ed.D.

Director of the Center for Public Service

Assistant Professor of Public Administration

The City of Coconut Creek engaged the Center to develop a practical approach for using AI in city operations. The project begins by assessing how prepared each department is, followed by a phased plan to introduce AI tools and train staff. It addresses both technical skills and broader concerns including privacy, fairness, transparency, and ethical use. Data collection and staff interviews are underway. The methodology is designed so other cities can apply the same approach.

The City of Miramar engaged the Center to conduct a study of its small business programs and identify opportunities for future growth. The project examines industry trends, barriers to small business growth, and benchmarks from comparable cities, while also incorporating input from business owners, residents, and city staff. The final report will provide a clear picture of Miramar's economic strengths, opportunities for small business development, the structural challenges it faces, and where the city should direct its investment, partnerships, and policy efforts.

The City of Miramar engaged the Center to design a leadership program for senior staff, establishing a common approach to managing the city. The program runs 32 hours across six sessions, covering the fundamentals of leading people, coordinating across departments, communicating with staff and the public, managing performance, leading change, and a final session to integrate the material.

The City of North Lauderdale engaged the Center to revise its employee handbook, which had not been substantially updated in decades, to better reflect the operations and administrative functions of a modern municipality. The project included a review of policies from comparable municipalities, confidential interviews and focus groups with staff, analysis of a 2024 employee survey, and comparison against national HR standards. The result is a new handbook covering hybrid work, AI and technology use, and updated rules for discipline and performance reviews, with an implementation guide.

In partnership with the Community Foundation of Broward, the Center developed an intensive five-day training program for executive directors and senior staff at nonprofit organizations across South Florida. Each day focuses on a single topic and is led by a faculty member with expertise in that area: financial management and fiscal sustainability, strategic planning and organizational leadership, human resources and employment law, board governance and community engagement, and a closing session that integrates the material.

• Closure projects for DPA students
• Practicum and capstone projects for MPA students
• Research assistantships and fellowships

• Project management
• Client presentations and reporting
• Policy analysis and negotiation strategies
• Government and nonprofit consulting

Each student-led project is mentored by expert NSU public administration faculty and supported by the Center Director.