In This Issue:

• Influential Political Scientist and Public Administrator Passes Away
• Introducing New ASPA Chapter-Section Coordinator
• Webinars, BookTalks and Student Series on the Horizon
• Last Call for PA TIMES Online Authors!
• Got Old PA TIMES Issues? We Want Them!
• SECoPA Expanded and Updated Call for Proposals
• New Books on Citizenship Published
• State and Local Government Review Special Issue: Deadline June 1
• PAR Update
• New on PA TIMES Online
• New on the ASPA Blog
• Career Resources

Influential Political Scientist and Public Administrator Passes Away

Author, professor, scholar and political scientist Susan Tolchin, best known for exploring the workings of political patronage, women in politics and the electoral power of voter anger, has passed away at the age of 75 from ovarian cancer.

With a career of teaching public administration at both George Washington University and George Mason University—from which she retired in 2007—Tolchin had a robust career dating back to 1974.

She grew up in Hollis Hills, Queens, and, after graduating from Jamaica High School, earned a Bachelor’s degree in political science from Bryn Mawr College in 1961. She went on to receive a Master’s degree from the University of Chicago in 1962 and, in 1968, a doctorate from New York University, where she wrote her dissertation on the politics of New York City police policy.

Married to Martin Tolchin, a former congressional correspondent for The New York Times and founding editor of The Hill, she joined with him to write several books warning of the dangers facing the United States. An ardent feminist, she also created The Washington Institute for Women in Politics at Mount Vernon College (where she was an assistant professor) in 1974, which ran conferences intended to help women enter politics.

Tolchin was a frequent speaker at ASPA conferences beginning in the 1980s and, among her many accomplishments, won the Marshall Dimock Award for the best lead article in Public Administration Review in 1996, provided keynote addresses for the National Capital Area Chapter and contributed to the ASPA Endowment. She was also a fellow with the National Academy of Public Administration and was elected to its Board of Directors in 2004.

Introducing New ASPA Chapter-Section Coordinator

ASPA is pleased to announce a new staff member has joined the national office’s team to coordinate efforts for Chapters and Sections and form a bridge between them and ASPA's national efforts. Melissa Jun, a recent graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University's Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs, earned her MPA with a concentration in policy analysis and evaluation this spring. She also holds a certificate in public management.

She started her career in association management for medical school and health care nonprofit organizations. Her background includes membership management, event planning, marketing and program management. Prior to joining ASPA, Melissa was appointed as a Wilder Graduate Scholars Fellow and worked at VCU Development and Alumni Relations as technical writer. She also served as the president of the Public Administration Student Association at VCU and has been active in ASPA's Central Virginia Chapter.

On the ASPA team, Melissa will be focusing on building relationships with Chapter and Section members and serving their needs, while also supporting ASPA's marketing, events and membership efforts.

ASPA is excited to have her on board and Melissa is enjoying getting to know ASPA members. Send her an email, introduce yourself and say hello!

Webinars, BookTalks and Student Series on the Horizon

ASPA's professional development webinars are ongoing throughout the year. Averaging 85 attendees per webinar and free to ASPA members, these e-learning opportunities provide you with valuable insights and information at your fingertips. Here's a quick look at upcoming opportunities. Make sure you register today for sessions that interest you and visit our website to review further details about all upcoming webinars and BookTalks.


Webinar: Nuts and Bolts of Grant Writing
Tuesday, June 7, 1 p.m.
Presenter:
Joseph (Jody) Holland, The University of Mississippi

You asked and we listened! ASPA is bringing back one of our most popular webinar sessions, presented in early 2015. This webinar will introduce participants to the world of grant writing and focus on the opportunities and challenges of writing grant proposals. From concept development to project deliverables, this webinar will highlight issues related to project design, implementing workflow processes, developing budgets and budget justification, as well as other major components of developing a successful grant proposal. In addition, the session will highlight the opportunities and challenges of administering a grant once it is funded.




Student Series: Resumes, Resumes, Resumes—Marketing Yourself on the Page
Tuesday, June 28, 1 p.m.
Presenters:
William Shields, Jr., Executive Director, American Society for Public Administration
Angela Kline (Moderator), ASPA National Council Student Representative and Ph.D. Student, University of Delaware

Students and professionals alike, our popular resume webinar is back! There are different perspectives and views on resumes—what should be on them, what should not, how long they should be, what they should cover, to name a few. The answers you get depend on whom you ask. What cannot be disputed is its importance. Your resume introduces you to a potential employer, sells your skills and attributes to that employer and hopefully gets you to the next step. There is no cookie cutter approach to resumes, but there are rights and wrongs. ASPA executive director Bill Shields will explain.




BookTalk: Public Participation for 21st Century Democracy
Tuesday, July 12, 1 p.m.
Presenter:
Matt Leighninger, Deliberative Democracy Consortium
Tina Nabatchi, Maxwell School of Government, Syracuse University

Written by two leaders in the field, Public Participation for 21st Century Democracy explores the theory and practice of public participation in decisionmaking and problemsolving. It examines how public participation developed over time to include myriad thick, thin and conventional opportunities, occurring in both face-to-face meetings and online settings. The book offers a practical framework for thinking about how to engage citizens effectively and clear explanations of participation scenarios, tactics and designs. Make plans now to participate!
Brought to you through the generous support of Routledge.

Last Call for PA TIMES Online Authors!



ASPA is seeking PA TIMES Online authors for its July-December 2016 rotation. If you are looking for a publishing opportunity, this is a great option!

If you are reading the nuanced articles we publish in this twice-weekly online forum, you know our authors provide the public administration community with idea starters and valued commentary. This is your chance to get involved!

We are looking for columnists who can speak to a range of subjects throughout the rest of the year. Topics include:

• Managing state and local infrastructure
• Effects of No Child Left Behind on today's students
• New models for social services
• Ethical treatment of seniors in public administration
• Technology and service delivery
• Urban planning for the 21st century

More topics are listed on our 2016 editorial calendar. Authors can sign up for monthly or quarterly columns through the end of the year, each focusing on our ongoing theme/sub-themes (though topics of your choice also are accepted).

Interested in joining our columnist pool? Submit a columnist application and a relevant writing sample to [email protected] so we can review your information. First-time authors and students are welcome!

All applications should be submitted by May 31, 2016 for consideration.

Current monthly authors with terms ending in June 2016 are welcome to reapply. Authors will not automatically be added back into the pool. Please contact us to ensure your request to continue is considered. Current quarterly authors can ignore this message.

Got Old PA TIMES Issues? We Want Them!

Thanks to a few very generous ASPA members, the PA Gateway's archive of old editions of PA TIMES has recently gotten a boost! New editions will be posted to the archive soon, where you will have even more historic data to review.

The editions currently posted go back to 1988, with a number of gaps in the collection in the earlier years. The Gateway host, Rutgers University at Newark, and ASPA is seeking those editions, especially those published in 1998 or prior.

If you have collected editions of PA TIMES throughout the years and have copies you can provide to complete this project, let us know! Contact PA TIMES managing editor Karen Garrett and she can work with you to donate these valuable historical contributions. The archives thank you!

Want to add an event? Email Melissa Jun with the details!

SECoPA Expanded and Updated Call for Proposals

The recent passage of measures like North Carolina's HB2 and Mississippi's HB 1523 raise important questions for public administration. These laws have touched off debates about equity, discrimination, privacy, public safety, intergovernmental relations and public administrators' ethical responsibilities.

In light of these developments and in hopes of advancing informed dialogue, the SECoPA 2016 conference planning team has updated its Call for Proposals to include a new track: "Diversity, Inclusion, and GLBT Rights."

To accommodate additional submissions to this and all other tracks, the call for proposals deadline has been extended to June 15.

Please visit the conference website for more details.

New Books on Citizenship Published

Dr. Kalu N. Kalu, distinguished research professor in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration of the College of Public Policy and Justice, Auburn University-Montgomery, has published two books: Technology, Culture, and Public Policy: Critical Lessons From Finland, the culmination and final study/research from his 2013-2014 Fulbright Scholar Award to Finland, and Citizenship: Identity, Institutions, and the Postmodern Challenge, which covers the full spectrum of literature on citizenship theory, including the state and structure of identity, the individual and the public and the challenges of civic engagement and collective discourse. The two books, published consecutively by Routledge, have received positive feedback around the world.

State and Local Government Review Special Issue: Deadline June 1

Editor Michael Scicchitano issued a Call for Proposals for the State and Local Government Review's 2016 Special Issue on Political and Ideological Polarization and Its Impact on Subnational Governments in March. The deadline for proposals has been extended through June 1, 2016. Interested parties now have an extra month to submit their papers.

Political and ideological polarization in the United States is evident at all levels of government—federal, state and local. While this polarization is interesting from a political or electoral perspective, it also has profound implications for governance. The goal of the 2016 State and Local Government Review Special Issue is to publish research that examines the impact of political and ideological polarization on governance at the state or local level and in the intergovernmental system.

The editor welcomes manuscripts that address these and related scenarios that are triggered by polarization. Proposals must outline a specific topic that conveys how state and local governments have been affected by political and ideological polarization and how they have responded to this phenomenon. Authors should clearly outline the empirical basis for the manuscript and indicate whether data have already been collected, when applicable. They should also identify the current status of the research and writing and the extent to which the manuscript can be completed on schedule (contact the editor for schedule details). Proposals should be submitted to [email protected].

PAR Update


Theory to Practice
Hal G. Rainey, Editor
The Theory and Practice of "Nudging": Changing Health Behaviors

Many of the most significant challenges in health care—such as smoking, overeating and poor adherence to evidence-based guidelines—will only be resolved if we can influence behavior. The traditional policy tools used when thinking about influencing behavior include legislation, regulation and information provision. Recently, policy analysts have shown interest in policies that "nudge" people in particular directions, drawing on advances in understanding that behavior is strongly influenced in largely automatic ways by the context within which it is placed. Ivo Vlaev (University of Warwick, United Kingdom), Dominic King (Imperial College London, United Kingdom), Paul Dolan (London School of Economics, United Kingdom) and Ara Darzi (Imperial College London, United Kingdom) consider the theoretical basis for why nudges might work and review the evidence in health behavior change. The evidence is structured according to the Mindspace framework for behavior change. The conclusion is that insights from behavioral economics offer powerful policy tools for influencing behavior in health care. This article provides public administration practitioners with an accessible summary of this literature, putting these insights into practical use. Link to PAR Early View

Public Administration and the Disciplines
Rosemary O'Leary, Editor
Drinking from the Talent Pool: A Resource Endowment Theory of Human Capital and Agency Performance

Manuel P. Teodoro and David Switzer (Texas A&M University) advance a resource endowment theory of human capital and performance in government organizations. Building on research on human capital and firm location in business economics and task complexity in public management, they argue that an agency's ability to implement policy is determined both by its scale and the human capital of the population from which it draws its employees. The authors cast labor as a factor of production in public agencies and argue that access to higher quality labor improves government effectiveness. The effect of human capital on performance is especially pronounced when agencies are charged with implementing technically complex tasks. The empirical subject is U.S. municipal water utilities’ compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act. Comparing records of compliance with more and less complex regulatory requirements provides evidence consistent with the general model. The findings carry important implications for public management and policy design. Link to PAR Early View

Research Articles
Organizing for Crisis Management: Building Governance Capacity and Legitimacy

Tom Christensen (University of Oslo, Norway), Per Lægreid (University of Bergen, Norway) and Lise H. Rykkja (Uni Research Rokkan Centre, Norway) ask: what makes a well-functioning governmental crisis management system and how can this be studied using an organization theory-based approach? A core argument is that such a system needs both governance capacity and governance legitimacy. Organizational arrangements as well as the legitimacy of government authorities will affect crisis management performance. A central argument is that both structural features and cultural context matter, as does the nature of the crisis. Is it a transboundary crisis? How unique is it and how much uncertainty is associated with it? The arguments are substantiated with empirical examples and supported by a literature synthesis, focusing on public administration research. A main conclusion is that there is no optimal formula for harmonizing competing interests and tensions or for overcoming uncertainty and ambiguous government structures. Flexibility and adaptation are key assets, which are constrained by the political, administrative and situational context. Furthermore, a future research agenda is indicated. Link to PAR Early View

What Determines Ethical Behavior in Public Organizations: Is It Rules and/or Leadership?

Leadership is widely seen as having an important role in fostering ethical conduct in organizations, but the ways in which the actions of leaders intersect with formal ethics regulation in shaping conduct have been little researched. James Downe, Richard Cowell (Cardiff University , United Kingdom) and Karen Morgan (University of Bristol, United Kingdom) examine this issue through a qualitative study of the operation of the "ethical framework" for English local government, which entailed all councils adopting a code of conduct to regulate the behavior of local politicians. Studying local government provides an opportunity to examine how personal and managerial factors combine to influence ethical conduct and to analyze the ways in which ethical leadership is exercised through multiple people in leadership roles (politicians and managers). The article finds that organizations that exhibit consistently good conduct have multiple leaders who demonstrate good conduct but also act to preempt the escalation of problems and thereby minimize the explicit use of ethics regulation. Link to PAR Early View

Creating Public Value and Institutional Innovations across Boundaries: An Integrative Process of Participation, Legitimation, and Implementation

Public value creation has become a critical challenge, but existing approaches have limitations and it is unclear how they can be integrated. Kaifeng Yang (Renmin University of China, China; Florida State University) addresses this issue by analyzing four best-practice cases in which public value was created through the integration of community indicators and government performance management. The article identifies an iterative process of participation, legitimation and implementation, with institutional innovations across boundaries between civil society, politics and administration. These institutional innovations help integrate the often fragmented arenas of participation, legitimation and implementation. Link to PAR Early View

Government Communication Effectiveness and Satisfaction with Police Performance: A Large-Scale Survey Study

For the last two decades, performance management theories and practices have focused on outcome-oriented management but have paid little attention to the role of public communication. Using multiple large data sets from Kansas City, Mo., for 2009-14, Alfred Tat-Kei Ho and Wonhyuk Cho (University of Kansas) suggest that the perceived effectiveness of public communication has a more substantial impact on public satisfaction with police protection and crime prevention than neighborhood crime rates and broken windows factors and that perceived effectiveness moderates the negative impact of crime rates. After controlling for residents' demographic characteristics, the authors find that the perceived effectiveness of communication is associated with public satisfaction with the content and quality of the city website and the government television channel. The implications for public safety management and police-citizen relations as well as directions for future research on public communication strategies and public performance management are presented. Link to PAR Early View

New on PA Times Online

New on the ASPA Blog


Looking for interesting commentary on news events and contemporary issues? Check out the ASPA Blog, which features a collection of authors writing on everyday life from the eyes of a public manager, student or young professional.

Featured recently on the Blog:

Setting the Stage for Political Support of the Public Sector

A Failure to Coordinate = Citizen Ridicule

Career Resources


Find your next career opportunity at publicservicecareers.org. This online job board is the perfect resource for making a career change or landing your first job in the public sector. It lists dozens of positions in academia, government and the nonprofit sector. Below are examples of current listings.

Specialist, California Child Welfare Indicators Project—School of Social Welfare – University of California, Berkeley

Visiting Professor in Applied Micro-Economics – Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA

HR Consolidation Project Manager – City of Seattle, WA