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Public Service Recognition Week Begins May 7!
National Public Service Recognition Week (PSRW), an annual opportunity across the United States to pay tribute to public service employees, begins on May 7. We are excited to see a number of ASPA Chapters are hosting events in honor of PSRW, including:
- May 2: Central Florida Chapter Public Service Awards Ceremony
- May 3: Rhode Island Chapter 12th Annual Public Service and Leadership Conference
- May 9: Evergreen Chapter PSRW Awards Celebration
- May 10: Sacramento Chapter 41st Annual Awards Dinner
- May 17: New Jersey Chapter Public Service Awards Reception
- May 20: CenTex Chapter PSRW Luncheon
- May 23: New York Metropolitan Chapter Annual Meeting and Awards Dinner
- May 24: Utah Chapter Annual Award Luncheon
- May: South Carolina Chapter PSRW Awards Ceremony
If you are a member of any of these groups, make sure you join your Chapter in honoring your public servants—and, of course, anyone can participate in the virtual events, so feel free to join a Chapter for their event if yours isn't holding one! Find more information on our online calendar.
You do not have to attend one of these events to honor your public servants! From letter-writing campaigns to social media posts to op-eds in your local newspapers, there are plenty of ways to show public administrators at the local, state and federal level that their work is valued. If you need help getting started, the Partnership for Public Service has put together a wide range of tools and resources you can use to amp up this year's celebration. (Thanks, Partnership!)
However you choose to get involved this May, make sure you show your hard-working public servants—who remain demoralized, underpaid and attacked for their efforts—that you value them. Make plans now and spread the word with your network!
For the public servants reading this message, happy PSRW! The American Society for Public Administration—all 12,000 members and partners—appreciates you! Thank you for your service!
If you are affiliated with an ASPA Chapter or Section hosting an event that is not on the list above, please let us know so we can include you on future lists!
E-Learning at Your Fingertips
ASPA staff work tirelessly to keep your skills up to date and the information flowing all year long through our e-learning program. Visit our website to see more details about upcoming KeepingCurrent, BookTalk and Student and New Professional series programming.
BookTalk: Technology and Public Management
April 27 | 1 p.m. EDT
Presenter:
Alan Shark, Associate Professor, Schar School, George Mason University
Students of public administration, public policy and nonprofit management require a strong foundation in how government and NGOs are connected with information technology. Whether simplifying internal operations, delivering public-facing services, governing public utilities or conducting elections, public administrators must understand these technological tools and systems to ensure they remain effective, efficient and equitable. Technology and Public Management explores the latest trends in technology, providing real-life examples about the need for policies and procedures to safeguard technology infrastructure while providing greater openness, participation and transparency.
Coming This May:
BookTalk: Crisis Communication Planning and Strategies for Nonprofit Leaders
KeepingCurrent: Looking at Policy Pathways
KeepingCurrent: What Do the Keys Say? A Look Ahead to 2024 with Allan Lichtman
From the Archives
KeepingCurrent: Local Government Communications—Lessons Following COVID and Crisis
Local government communications with the public experienced significant disruption and change during the pandemic. The public health crisis required cities, counties and other local units to convey public health information that was not traditionally within their sphere of policy responsibility, and residents needed to be informed about modifications to government operations. During this time, local governments also continued to cope with other communications challenges, including natural disasters and emergencies. This webinar discussed front-line experiences from local governments across the United States including lessons learned from the pandemic for the future of public communications.
New to the ASPA Bookstore!
You may have missed ASPA's 2023 Annual Conference, but you don't have to miss this excellent book from our keynote speaker, Anne Applebaum: Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism. We have a limited number of signed copies on hand; purchase yours from our bookstore for only $18.
In this book, Applebaum explains with electrifying clarity why elites in democracies around the world are turning toward nationalism and authoritarianism.
From the United States and Britain to continental Europe and beyond, liberal democracy is under siege, while authoritarianism is on the rise. In Twilight of Democracy, Applebaum (an award-winning historian of Soviet atrocities who was one of the first American journalists to raise an alarm about antidemocratic trends in the West) explains the lure of nationalism and autocracy. In this captivating essay, she contends that political systems with radically simple beliefs are inherently appealing, especially when they benefit the loyal to the exclusion of everyone else. Elegantly written and urgently argued, Twilight of Democracy is a brilliant dissection of a world-shaking shift and a stirring glimpse of the road back to democratic values.
It's not too late to receive access to this year's conference recordings and access Applebaum's keynote address—and the rest of the presentations. Contact us for more information.
2023 "Best Places to Work" List Released
Based on research conducted by the Partnership for Public Service and Boston Consulting Group, the most recent rankings for this annual rating of government workplaces were released earlier this month. The overall score for all federal agencies is 63.4 out of 100, a 1.1 decrease from 2021. As noted in the release:
"This downturn in employee engagement and satisfaction, following a 4.5-point decrease a year earlier, occurred at a time when agency leaders were making difficult decisions about whether employees should return to the office or work remotely part or full time due to the pandemic. Employees also were uncertain about pay raises for 2023 amid soaring inflation, while a number of agencies faced increased demands to implement major legislative initiatives. These changes left the workforce in flux."
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) remains at the top of the list of large agencies; the Government Accountability Office is in first place among medium-sized agencies; the Congressional Budget Office is in first place for small agencies.
The point of the list is not only to categorize current agency environments for employees, but also to compare that data over time so agencies can continue to make their environments as appealing to current and future employees as possible. However, notably, only 42 percent of those surveyed for these rankings believe the rankings "will be used to make my agency a better place to work." This indicates that while employees are willing to share their opinions, they do not have faith that their leaders will take action.
The Washington Post provides a user-friendly analysis of the report here. Access the complete information from the Partnership for Public Service online here.
Public Administration Today Highlight
Public Administration Today features white papers, research and blogs from across the profession. This edition's highlight looks at urban structures! If you're interested in more—especially your own curated news feed in your inbox every week—visit the website, create an account and check off your interest areas so you can stay up to date about the latest research being released!
Is It Time to Change Our Hurricane Rating Systems?
From the Government Technology blog: It is that time of year. June is the start of the official hurricane season here in the United States. There are two developments that can be anticipated in the future in relationship to hurricanes. First of all, there is when the season begins and when it ends. With a warming climate, ocean temperatures will continue to increase and thus the onset of the time when hurricanes traditionally appear may become earlier and later. Just like the wildfire season, we are likely to see earlier and later storms forming outside of the traditional six-month period....
NISPAcee 2023 Conference in Belgrade, Serbia
NISPAcee has announced its 2023 conference will take place May 25-27 in Belgrade, Serbia, with the theme, "The Future of Public Administration Enabled through Emerging Technologies."
Contemporary public administration is tackling the challenges of globalization, social and demographic changes, migration and climate change. Layered and complex reform trajectories and instruments are needed to modernize public administration, improve the efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery and achieve high standards of reliability and accountability. All sectors of society, including public administration, will have to play a role in the effort toward a green transformation. Faced with rapid and accelerating socio-economic change, public administration needs to take into account the opportunities offered by new technologies, as well as develop new services aimed at openness, transparency and citizen participation accordingly. The conference will pay particular attention to the topic of the digital transformation of public administration. The issues to be taken into consideration are: the role of the public sector in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, as well as the challenges of implementing new technologies in the transformation of public administration. Moreover, in the knowledge society, the capacity to innovate and ability to implement innovations are very important for the public administration of the future.
Click here for more information and to register.
Policy Pathways Summer Academy Accepting Applications
Policy Pathways’ Summer Academy for Policy Leadership and Public Service Online (SAO) is accepting applications. This year’s session of SAO will be held June 25-July 8.
Policy Pathways offers the Summer Academy as an engaging remote learning experience for youth to learn the foundations of policy formation and analysis to jumpstart future degree programs and careers in public policy, public administration and international affairs. They seek to provide students with college preparedness skills and experience to visualize such a career as both a reality and a means to utilize their passion for change and advocacy in the real world.
Its educational programming and real-world capstone projects draw upon an international network of professors, policy decisionmakers and corporate and nonprofit leaders who teach on a wide variety of related topics: critical thinking, foreign policy, statistics, data analysis, advocacy and persuasion, economics, leadership and citizenship development, and more.
Individuals ages 15–25 are encouraged to apply; no prior experience in civics or policy is required for participation. The application deadline has been extended: applications are due May 31, 2023. Click here for more information.
Public Integrity Special Issue: Ethical Challenges in Higher Education in the Contemporary Policy and Political Climate
Current politics, policy debates and the continued fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic have put an increased amount of pressure on the higher education system (Blakenberger & Williams, 2020). State policies that have been adopted or discussed in places such as Florida have created a different institutional system for colleges and universities to operate in. This new policy and political landscape are causing issues of faculty migration, enrollment shifts and funding changes that create difficult administrative decisions evidenced by reducing faculty positions and the battles between unions and institutions over fair pay and working conditions. From a faculty perspective, there are concerns regarding their shifting roles and how they can continue to be effective as the system goes through a significant shift (Lovell, 2023). Trust in public figures is a common topic in administration (De Boer, 2020; Wade & Fiorentino, 2023), especially where education and politics are concerned (Bell et al, 2021).
As policy feedback has hit a new high with the salience of state policies that inhibit academic freedom rising, higher education administrators and decision-makers are faced with a new set of challenging decisions (Jeon & Exmeyer, 2022; Mettler, Jacobs, & Zhu, 2022). With shifts in challenges comes shifts in how administrators approach managing their institutions and how these structures are evolving (Borry, 2017; Khelifi, 2017). This new set of challenges include topics from changes in curriculum to managing faculty positions and power. Morality and ethical shifts have caused changes in higher education (Prisacariu & Shah, 2016) and set standards that administrators and faculty have to respond to in order to evolve. Analyzing these morality and ethical shifts, what these challenges are, and the results of them is the subject of this special issue with the overarching objective being to provide a new platform to expand this discussion within higher education.
The main objective of Public Integrity is to expand the discussion of ethics, morality and administration. This special issue aims to bring together contributions from multiple disciplines and encourages interdisciplinary work that address this focus within higher education. In addition, researchers using a variety of methodologies and approaches (quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods) are encouraged to submit their work.
Those wishing to have their work included in the special issue will submit an abstract of no more than 500 words to the guest editor. Submissions should include the scope of the project, the foundations of the work, how the work fits the issue and journal’s aims, and an explanation of the question, methodological approach, and anticipated findings and impacts on the field of research. All accepted papers will go through the double-blind peer review process at Public Integrity and acceptance of an abstract does not guarantee publication.
All abstracts are due May 1. Click here for more information.
Tips and Resources
Model the Civility and Civic Behaviors We Want the Next Generation to Learn
It is essential—in our self-governing society—to ensure each and every student in our country attains the knowledge, skills and dispositions to be informed and engaged participants in our constitutional democracy.
Is Your Workplace Plagued By Disrespect? Take This Step to Disarm It
Name-calling. Stereotyping. Micromanaging. Foul language. Is your workplace a hotbed of disrespect—and are productivity and collaboration tanking because of it?
Getting Credit for Your Work
Carefully documenting previous military or civilian service can lead to an earlier [government] retirement and a bigger benefit.
Short, Sweet, Simple: Tips For Effective Government Communications
When it comes to communicating vital information to residents, a “clarity before clever” strategy works best, one expert says.
Social Media Scatters Your Brain, and Then You Buy Stuff You Don't Need
Experiments suggest prolonged social media use changes the way users respond to ads.
In the News
Today's headlines contain plenty of news coverage of some of our nation's most pressing public administration challenges. ASPA has curated some of the most important stories from recent weeks. If you have not seen these yet, make sure you read them now!
Infrastructure
Public Finance
Public Service
Social Equity
Members in the News
Can Performance Pay Help States and Cities Hang onto the Best and Brightest?
By Katherine Barrett and Richard Greene
Tell Me Something Good...
Need some good news in your world? Check this out:
A Young Person’s Guide to Spotting Fake News
You are not powerless against the influence of the news media... As a critically news-literate person, you can investigate news content and the process behind its production and dissemination. One way to begin is to familiarize yourself with who is likely to produce fake news.
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