Fall 2018 | Vol 4 | Issue 3 Mixing Rigor with Relevance: Applying Public Administration Scholarship EDUCATION SUPPLEMENT PAGE 7 PAGE 16 PAGE 49 One-On-One with The Biden The Current State of Charles Menifield Challenge Public Administration ASPA 2019 ANNUAL CONFERENCE March 8-12 | Washington, DC | #ASPA2019 | www.aspanet.org/conference2019 PUBLIC FINANCE INFRASTRUCTURE SOCIAL EQUITY PUBLIC SERVICE GLOBAL PA IN THIS ISSUE 2 APPLYING SCHOLARSHIP 2 Increasing Public Service Career Interest and Confidence 5 Book Review: City on the Line FALL 2018 | VOLUME 4 | ISSUE 3 Copyright ©2018 American Society for Public Administration 6 COLUMNS 6 Public Administration Education in a Time of Crisis The American Society for Public Administration was 7 One-On-One: Charles Menifield established in 1939 to promote the advancement, 10 President’s Column teaching and practice of public and nonprofit 12 How Bureaucracy Can Save America administration. It is the largest and premier association for professionals in the field. 16 The Biden Challenge 1730 Rhode Island Ave., NW, Suite 500 19 Profiles of Excellence Washington, DC 20036 19 Maria Aristigueta, University of Delaware 20 John Bartle, University of Nebraska at Omaha 202-393-7878 main | 202-638-4952 fax 21 Leisha DeHart-Davis, University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill Online: www.patimes.org 22 Charles Epp, University of Kansas 23 Susan Gooden, Virginia Commonwealth University Editor in Chief 24 Marc Holzer, Suffolk University William Shields, Executive Director 25 Naim Kapucu, University of Central Florida Managing Editor 26 Jack Knott, University of Southern California Karen E. T. 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Contact the Membership 47 Addressing Gender Equity in Academia and the Department at [email protected] to start a Public Administration Field subscription. 49 Some Thoughts on the Current State of Public Single Copies Individual issues of PA TIMES are available for $3.50 Administration Research and Scholarship and $2.50 per issue for orders of 10 or more. Reprint Requests If you would like to reprint an article from PA TIMES, 56 SOCIETY NEWS please contact the editor at [email protected]. Article Submission/Author Guidelines 56 Honoring the Legacy of Paul Posner Deadlines for editions and author guidelines are available at www.aspanet.org under PA TIMES. 57 Innovation and Flexibility: Tailoring Public Letters to the Editor Administration Programs to Adult Learners Feedback on any article published in the print edition is welcome. Letters must be no more than 350 words 58 Emotional Labor in Public Service and must include author’s name and address. They can be submitted by email to [email protected] or by 60 Cultivating the Next Generation mail to PA TIMES Editor, 1730 Rhode Island Ave., NW, Suite 500, Washington, DC 20036. 63 Training Today’s Leaders Advertising Sales Representative Fox Associates Inc. 64 Department of Homeland Security Declares U.S. 116 West Kinzie Chicago, IL 60654 Election System Critical Infrastructure 312-644-3888 ext 116 67 60 Years of Preparing Local and Global Leaders 68 Members in the News 71 Recruiter PATIMES.ORG Increasing Public Service Career Interest and Confidence By Daniel Mallinson and Patrick Burns Declining interest in entering public service, coupled Partner with turnover and retirements in public sector with the jobs, provides a difficult yet critical challenge for career educating the future public workforce. Governments center. and nonprofits rely on our schools for a pipeline Faculty of qualified talent, which means schools are under and career increasing pressure to demonstrate career readiness counselors among their students. each bring unique skills Schools use myriad ways to enhance career to a course confidence among majors, from referring students like this one. to career centers to offering individual skills building Faculty have seminars, such as resumé building. We propose an connections alternative: Adopting a required career course that within increases career confidence and promotes public relevant service. Here is some advice from our experience in career fields piloting such a course. and are needed to Our half-semester course was offered to shepherd students at Stockton University, a mid-sized the course comprehensive school in southern New Jersey. It through the approval process, as well as teach it. had two components: career exploration and career Career counselors are more familiar with methods management. The former introduced students to for building career skills and can more effectively a range of public service careers through in-class deliver that content. We found this division of speakers with career backgrounds in federal, state responsibility made our course stronger. For faculty and local government; nonprofit management; who do not have career center support, many online policy research and advocacy; journalism; and resources are available for providing the career skills elected office. The latter prepared students for a content. 21st century job search; it included using LinkedIn to identify a target list of employers, conducting an Leverage internal resources. Public affairs schools informational interview with one of the employers, have a variety of connections with public sector completing a skills inventory and developing employees through alumni and adjunct networks. a compelling resumé and targeted cover letter. Use these connections to identify speakers. Students Through pre- and post-testing, we demonstrated that also may provide helpful connections through the course structure increased career maturity and recently completed internships. decisionmaking confidence. Consider your course’s timing. Given the need for One advantage of using this structure is that students outside speakers with “day jobs,” consider offering are a captive audience and more likely to complete the course at times that accommodate those assigned tasks and benefit from repeated exposure schedules. Our course was offered at 8:30 a.m.—but to instruction. Alternatively, when programs offer enrollment was lower than it may have been with resumé workshops or other periodic job skills an afternoon slot. We also recommend delaying programming, students may pick and choose speakers’ arrival until at least 15 minutes after which sessions to attend, even though they are not the official start of the class, allowing for minimal necessarily equipped to understand which career disruptions by students arriving late. APPLYING SCHOLARSHIP APPLYING skills they possess or lack. Students with high career maturity also may self-select into these programs at Give speakers space and they will do great things. a greater rate than others who need them more. If We provided minimal guidance or constraints your university program is considering an approach on speakers’ talking points during their sessions, like this, we offer these lessons learned from our resulting in creative and compelling presentations implementation. that went beyond just describing their careers. One 2 FALL 2018 INDIANA UNIVERSITY PA TIMES size: 3.87” x 10.36” SCHOOL OF PUBLIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS BLOOMINGTON issue: Fall speaker even conducted an impromptu advocacy simulation exercise. Protect question-and-answer time. Some speakers LOCAL GOVERNANCE will take more presentation time than you provide. This will take some finesse, but you must be willing AND MANAGEMENT to protect time for questions. This can mean helping Tenure-Track or the speaker transition to taking questions before Tenured Faculty Position they had planned. The School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana Make sure your course is interdisciplinary. It University is searching for an Assistant Professor or tenured may be tempting to offer this course only for Associate Professor with specialties in local governance majors within your school, but professors have a and management. Research focuses can be domestic, responsibility to promote public service careers to international, or comparative and may include (but are not students across your university or college. We had limited to) collaborative governance, participatory democracy, biologists, social workers and others in our class, community development, network modeling, local solutions adding a richness and broadening our impact. Part to compelling problems, urban planning, local or regional of the course’s goal is to help students understand economic development, performance of local government how they can use tools from their home disciplines services, management of local government, and information in public service. technology for local governance. Appointment at