First Illinois CPM Cohort Starts in August 2025
Illinois Certified Public Manager® Program
Illinois is known for many things: it’s the land of Lincoln, the most populous state in the Midwest, and, of course, home to the metropolis of Chicago, the third-largest city in the United States. Yet, unless you’re deep in the world of government policy, you might not know that the state is also home to the largest number of government bodies, with more than 8,000 units of government spread out amongst towns, counties, subdivisions, special governing districts, and more. Despite having the most governing units among all U.S. states, Illinois has not had its own dedicated Certified Public ManagerÒ (CPM) program, one of the most essential accredited programs to help government officials work as effective bureaucratic leaders, for many years.
Into that void steps a new program launching this August out of UIC. Delivered by the Government Finance Research Center (GFRC), the CPM program is geared towards those already working in government or the nonprofit sector and looking to boost their careers to new levels. Those with CPM certification are trained in the essentials of project management, government leadership, and more, giving their career an immediate boost. The program being launched by the GFRC will take 300 hours of study covering seven core competencies, all of which are pursued in the span of one year. For Public Policy, Management, and Analytics professor and department head and GFRC director, Deborah A. Carroll, the program is an obvious fit for both the university and something desperately needed within Illinois as a whole.
“At one point, this was offered out of the University of Illinois at Springfield, but they dismantled the program many years ago,” Carroll says. “It’s been a long time since there was anything like this in the state, and I’m so happy to bring it back to the state of Illinois.”
In other places, CPM programs are offered by a variety of institutions: from extension campuses at universities, to departments like CUPPA, to state governments running their own programs, and at research centers like the GFRC. Thanks to its position within the research center, Carroll says the new program will hopefully be of interest to those already working within the field, but will also be attractive to current CUPPA students who might be interested in gaining even more hands-on skills that will help them pursue this work out in the world.
“Students who are coming out of our degree programs might want more of that technical, hard skill, practical application of what they’ve learned in their programs, and this will give them that leg up as they start to seek employment once they’re done with their degrees,” Carroll says.
Drawing lessons from the last four years of online and hybrid learning, the new CPM program will blend one full day a month of in-person learning with a flexible online schedule in the interim. While in-person classes will happen on Fridays in Chicago, Carroll says that in the long run, the program will have offerings throughout the state, making sure to balance the best parts of in-person education with the flexibility provided by virtual education.
“Illinois folks are really busy, and they like to get through things quickly, so we want to make this as accessible as possible to the broadest number of people,” Carroll says. “But having that in-person component can help expand an individual’s professional networks and develop some of those interpersonal skills that you can’t always get from online learning alone.”
After an introduction to the program, students will take courses in self-development, personal and organizational integrity, work management, public service, systemic integration, and leadership amongst other people and in a changing world. Two modules will be dedicated to developing a capstone project and completing it, allowing participants to engage with the appropriate stakeholders to bring what they’ve learned in the program back into the wider world.
“It’s just imperative for us to have a professionalized public sector workforce,” Carroll says. “I’m really excited to be able to bring this to the state of Illinois, and I think it will lift the visibility of the GFRC and of CUPPA and UIC as the provider of this program throughout the state.”