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The Center for Public Service at Nova Southeastern University turns academic expertise into practical solutions for real-world public service challenges. Through applied research, consulting, leadership development, and community partnerships, we help government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and public-sector leaders develop data-driven solutions that strengthen communities and improve organizational performance.
Making an Impact Across South Florida
In its inaugural year, the Center for Public Service established partnerships, launched research initiatives, and delivered consulting engagements that created meaningful value for public-sector and nonprofit organizations.
Multi-Year Partnership Agreements
Applied Research Projects
Consulting & Professional Development Engagements
Doctor of Public Administration (DPA) Students Engaged
Doctoral Closure Projects Completed
View the 2025–2026 Annual Report
Why Partner with the Center for Public Service?
About the Center
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.
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- 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 Scholar-Practitioner Model
The Center for Public Service operates as an integrated scholar-practitioner fellowship. The work that reaches the partners, organizations and communities the Center serves is produced through a coordinated structure of faculty leadership and graduate fellow execution, supported by research assistants drawn from across the H. Wayne Huizenga College of Business.
How the Fellowship Works
Faculty Leads
Public administration faculty design project scopes, set research methodologies, and serve as quality assurance on every deliverable. They are active contributors who hold the work to professional and scholarly standards. Faculty also chair doctoral committees, ensuring that fellow work translates into completed degrees and publishable research.
Doctoral Fellows
DPA students work on Center engagements that become the applied research for their degree completion. They serve as lead researchers and project managers on their engagements: conducting interviews and focus groups, analyzing data, drafting deliverables, and presenting findings to government, non- profit, and community leaders.
Student Researchers
Launching in AY 2026-2027, undergraduate and graduate students will be engaged in supporting roles on Center projects. Students will be trained to assist with data collection and other aspects of the research and consulting processes. The program formalizes and expands the role graduate research assistants played during 2025-2026.
Consulting & Professional Development
The Center's consulting engagement are both with partner organizations and one-time services designed to produce concrete deliverables within agreed timelines. Led by faculty with academic and practitioner expertise and supported by doctoral fellows researching those same areas, the work combines academic rigor with practical consulting value. This year's portfolio included five engagements, some of which will support closure projects for DPA students entering the dissertation phase next academic year.
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Partnership Opportunities
We partner with organizations to provide evidence-based solutions that improve operations, strengthen leadership, and address community challenges.
Partner Models
- Short-term: Internships, feasibility studies, and workforce training
- Long-term: MOUs, service agreements, and teaching cohorts
Services We Offer
- Strategic planning and workforce development
- City code and policy updates
- Survey design and data analysis
- Budget forecasting and performance audits
- Grant research, proposal writing, and project management
- Innovation labs and community engagement sessions
Partner Benefits
- Avoid procurement hurdles
- Cost-effective, university-backed solutions
- Access to NSU facilities
- Enhanced stakeholder trust and satisfaction
Student & Community Impact
The Center provides students with opportunities to engage in meaningful research, consulting, and community partnerships that extend beyond the classroom.
Through doctoral fellowships, student research opportunities, practitioner forums, and interdisciplinary collaborations, students gain valuable experience working alongside faculty and community leaders on projects that create measurable public impact.
The center's practitioner engagement series, which teams with NSU's student ICMA Chapter,
brining together elected officials, public-sector leaders, NSU faculty, and students
around questions of public administration practice. The first event brought three
mayors and more than fifty attendees together for a roundtable on municipal leadership.
The forum moves to a monthly calendar in AY2026-2027.
The Student Researchers program launches in 2026-2027 as the third tier of the scholar-practitioner
fellowship. It engages master's and undergraduate students in surpporting roles on
center projects. The program builds research capacity for the center and gives students
hands-on experience in public administration work.
The center partnered with an undergraduate marketing class in the Huizenga College's
Department of Marketing. Student teams developed marketing strategy proposals for
the center and presented their work at semester's end, with selected ideas now in
conversation for 2026-2027 implementation. The engagement offers a template for collaboration
with other disciplines and exposes students to public sector work.
Student Opportunities
- 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.
Meet the Faculty
Thomas Wuerzer, Ph.D.
Professor of Real Estate Development and Director of the Terry W. Stiles School of
Real Estate Development
Let's Work Together
Whether you're seeking applied research, strategic planning support, leadership development, program evaluation, or consulting services, the Center for Public Service can help your organization turn challenges into opportunities.
Partner with faculty experts, doctoral researchers, and emerging public service leaders to develop practical solutions that create lasting community impact.
Randy Cross, Ed.D.
Director of the Center for Public Service and Assistant Professor of Public Administration, Ed.D. from Barry University, and a 30-year career as a practitioner and college educator. Included 25 years at the City of Miramar in roles ranging from Police Bureau Commander to Procurement Director, Human Resources Director, Chief Operating Officer, and Assistant
City Manager. Twenty years of teaching in higher education as an adjunct professor at Barry University and FAU, and now Assistant Professor of Public Administration at NSU.
Office: 954-262-5027
Email: rcross@nova.edu
Casey Seidman, M.P.A.
Public Sector Business Relations Expert at the Center for Public Service, with an M.P.A. and B.S. in Political Science from Arizona State University, whose career in policy analysis, higher education advising, and nonprofit fundraising includes legislative advocacy work that contributed to Arizona's 2013 Medicaid Expansion.
Office: 954-262-5060
Email: cs1401@nova.edu