In This Issue:

• 2017 Annual Conference Event Salutes Public Servants
• ICYMI: Public Administration Review Editor in Chief Appearance on NPR
• Webinars, BookTalks and Student Series on the Horizon
• New Member Services Available
• And the News Keeps Coming!
• Global Conference on Transparency Research this June; Abstracts Due Feb. 17
• National Forum for Black Public Administrators Opens Scholarship Program
• FDA Fellowships Available
• 2017 Social Equity Leadership Conference
• International Conference on Public Administration Scheduled for November
• PAR Update
• New on PA TIMES Online
• Career Resources

2017 Annual Conference Event Salutes Public Servants

ASPA is proud to announce that, in keeping with the 2017 Annual Conference theme, “A Salute to the Public Service: A Bold and Noble Profession,” ASPA and COMPA will be hosting an event at the Georgia State Capitol to demonstrate our respect and gratitude toward public servants.

Taking place prior to the start of the ASPA conference, on Thursday, March 16, at 2 p.m. ET, this recognition event will warmly thank public servants in the Georgia area and beyond for the bold and noble service they provide to all of us across the United States and around the world every day.

The event will include remarks from ASPA 2017 Annual Conference Honorary Co-Chair Charles Goodsell, professor emeritus at Virginia Tech. He is also the author of The Case for Bureaucracy, which vigorously makes the argument that public servants and administrative government institutions in America are among the best in the world.

ASPA President Susan Gooden and COMPA President Michael Orok welcome all area public sector employees—as well as ASPA and COMPA conference attendees—to join them for this memorable salute. More details are on the Annual Conference website and you can download the flier here.

Make plans now to join us for this excellent opportunity to showcase the tremendous work public servants undertake year-round—and share this information with your network! We're excited to have a robust audience for this important and timely tribute.

This event is just the first of many being planned for the 2017 Annual Conference. Plenaries, panels, receptions, an exhibit hall, a Career Fair and many critical discussions are all being planned to provide public administrators with an environment in which to engage on today’s issues. We hope you have planned to join us. Register online and we will look forward to seeing you in Atlanta!

ICYMI: Public Administration Review Editor in Chief Appearance on NPR

Avid NPR listeners who are familiar with 2017’s new 10 a.m. program, “1A,” may have heard a familiar voice last week: Public Administration Review Editor in Chief Jim Perry!

Perry joined the discussion on Thursday, Feb. 2, to chime in about the career civil service and the state of the current presidential transition. "As it was described to me by a GSA bureaucrat in the late 1970s, the bureaucracy is like the ocean," Perry said. "There's a lot of 'chop at the top,' but beneath the surface, there's a lot of quiet and a lot of calm."

Find the recording online here. (Perry begins his remarks at the 26-minute mark.)

Webinars, BookTalks and Student Series on the Horizon

ASPA's professional development webinars are ongoing throughout the year. Averaging 75 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, BookTalks and Student Series.

Employee Engagement
Feb. 14 | 1 p.m. ET
Presenter:
Bob Lavigna, Institute for Public Sector Employee Engagement

Leaders need to pay attention to their workforces. It is no mystery that the more engaged your staff are, the more productive they are, the better they feel about their jobs and the more effective the organization is. Our expert will talk through the finer points of employee engagement—what it is, why it matters (especially in government), how to gauge it, how to foster it and how to sustain it.




BookTalk: The Presidential Appointee's Handbook
Feb. 16 | 1 p.m.
Presenter:
Edward DeSeve, University of Pennsylvania's Fels Institute for Government

The transition from one president to another means many things, one of which is that some 3,000 to 4,000 new senior presidential appointees will take office in the next few months. But the federal government has no formal, or even informal, continual learning program for its new high-level managers. This new, revised and updated edition of The Presidential Appointee’s Handbook is intended to fill the need for learning by helping new presidential appointees develop the knowledge, skills and capabilities they will need in their challenging assignments.




Student Series: Making the Most of the 2017 Annual Conference
Feb. 28 | 1 p.m.
Presenters:
Andrew Young School Career Services Representative
Angela Kline, Moderator (ASPA Student Representative and University of Delaware)

Join us for a chance to talk about how best to maximize your time at the ASPA 2017 Annual Conference. Get tips and tricks on where to spend your time—including the Student and New Professional Summit, panel sessions, networking opportunities and Monday afternoon's Career Fair! There are plenty of ways students can make new connections at the Annual Conference. Make the most of this opportunity to learn about all of them!

New Member Services Available

ASPA announced last month it has launched relationships with two new organizations to connect our members with the greater public administration community: SmartBrief and The Public Manager. We hope you are enjoying your daily SmartBrief e-newsletters; if you are not receiving a copy and would like to, please contact us and we will add you to the list!

We also hope you have signed up to receive a free copy of The Public Manager each month! This is an independent magazine that shares real stories of unstoppable innovation in U.S. government. Information for how to access this resource is on ASPA's website—make the most of it! (Please note: you must create a free account with The Public Manager in order to receive your free subscription.)

Both of these resources have been carefully chosen to provide our members with the news and information they need to stay connected with public administrators across the country. We hope you find them to be helpful benefits! Please contact us for assistance with either of these resources.

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

And the News Keeps Coming!

Public administration is busy! Awards deadlines, calls for proposals, calls for papers, conference announcements and more are being announced daily. ASPA's website lists all news we receive, both across the discipline and within our Chapters and Sections. Make sure you check out these news feeds and stay in touch about everything going on within the discipline. Below are a handful of the most recent news and alerts.

Global Conference on Transparency Research this June; Abstracts Due Feb. 17

The 5th Global Conference on Transparency Research, being held at the University of Limerick, June 19-21, 2017, has extended its deadline for those submitting abstracts for the conference. The deadline is now Feb. 17, 2017. Further details about the conference, its location, travel options and more can be found online. Registration for the conference will open shortly via this website. More details are also available on the ASPA website.

National Forum for Black Public Administrators Opens Scholarship Program

In conjunction with its annual conference, FORUM 2017, the National Forum for Black Public Administrators will be awarding scholarships to eligible students. The scholarships range from $1,000 to $10,000 and will be awarded during FORUM 2017, held in Little Rock, Ark., April 19-23, 2017. The deadline for this program has been extended to Feb. 28, 2017. To learn more, interested students can visit their website. Click here for more information.

FDA Fellowships Available

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has opened its annual application process for the Tobacco Regulatory Science Fellowships in the Center for Tobacco Products' (CTP) Office of Management. During this one-year, paid fellowship, CTP Fellows actively participate in the tobacco regulatory process. Candidates with an MPA, MPP or MBA are encouraged to apply. Fellows are awarded up to $95,000 based on salary history. The application process closes March 1, 2017. To find out more, visit the FDA Tobacco Regulatory Science Fellowship website.

2017 Social Equity Leadership Conference

The 2017 Social Equity Leadership Conference will take place in conjunction with 2017 MPAC and TPAC, May 31-June 2 at the University of Nebraska—Omaha. Themed, “Addressing the Complexity of Social Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in Public Administration: Identifying Issues, Crafting Innovative Solutions and Celebrating Successes,” this year's conference examines the rising complexity associated with social equity, diversity and inclusion in public and nonprofit organizations. Attendees will identify the problems and obstacles associated with these issues, explore the alternatives for addressing them and analyze strategies to build coalitions facing our world today. Proposals are due April 1, 2017. Click here for more information.

International Conference on Public Administration Scheduled for November

The 2017 International Conference on Public Administration (ICPA) and International Symposium on West African Studies (ISWAS) is scheduled for Nov. 14-17, 2017, at Accra and Cape Coast, Ghana. A Call for Papers, a schedule, a registration form, hotel information and more is now available. Paper abstracts are due June 1, 2017. Click here for more information.

PAR Update


Speak Your Mind
Behavioral Public Administration: Combining Insights from Public Administration and Psychology
"Speak Your Mind" is a PAR webpage feature that allows you to offer insights about big questions in public administration. The responses serve as a community forum for discussion of specific editorial contributions and the format provides a platform for exchange of different ideas about how we think of public administration as a professional and scholarly enterprise.

For the month of February, Stephan Grimmelikhuijsen (Utrecht University, The Netherlands), Sebastian Jilke (Rutgers University–Newark), Asmus Leth Olsen (University of Copenhagen, Denmark) and Lars Tummers (Utrecht University, The Netherlands) invite fellow colleagues to discuss and add to the following main issues: 1) A main goal we envision for behavioral public administration (BPA) is to foster cross-disciplinary conversations. To truly make BPA a "two-way street" we will also ask scholars working in psychology and the behavioral sciences how they think public administration can contribute to their field of study and what questions they have for us. How can we jointly develop cross-disciplinary lines of research? What are your insights on these questions? What future lines of research will be interesting for both psychologists and public administration scholars? 2) Some have argued that public administration scholarship has lost relevance and should therefore focus on "big questions" (Milward et al. 2016) and some might argue that the focus on the individual level could narrow the field, neglecting larger societal developments. We envision BPA to complement other approaches and that there will be other scholars who look at macro-level societal developments. What are your views about these issues? Link to "Speak Your Mind"

PAR Podcast
Interview with Paul O'Niell
Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill speaks out on the nation's tax system, veterans affairs and other key issues. O'Neill is interviewed by James L. Perry (Indiana University, Bloomington), editor of Public Administration Review, based at Indiana University’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs. Link to PAR Podcast

Perspective
The Future of Policing Reform: The Way Forward?
We are two and a half years past Michael Brown's death in Ferguson and two years since the White House Task Force on 21st Century Policing called for measures to build greater trust between police and communities—and issues of race and policing continue to reverberate across the country. But with a new administration arriving in Washington on a "law and order" platform, is policing reform still alive? Authors Laurie O. Robinson (George Mason University) and Charles H. Ramsey (Drexel University) are cautiously optimistic that the answer is "yes." Link to PAR Early View

Research Synthesis and Public Administration and the Disciplines
Michael McGuire, Editor, Research Synthesis
Rosemary O'Leary, Editor, Public Administration and the Disciplines
What Causes Unethical Behavior? A Meta-Analysis to Set an Agenda for Public Administration Research
Nicola Belle and Paola Cantarelli (Bocconi University, Italy) use meta-analysis to synthesize 137 experiments in 73 articles on the causes of unethical behavior. Results show that exposure to in-group members who misbehave or to others who benefit from unethical actions, greed, egocentrism, self-justification, exposure to incremental dishonesty, loss aversion, challenging performance goals or time pressure increase unethical behavior. In contrast, monitoring of employees, moral reminders and individuals' willingness to maintain a positive self-view decrease unethical conduct. Findings on the effect of self-control depletion on unethical behavior are mixed. Results also present subgroup analyses and several measures of study heterogeneity and likelihood of publication bias. The implications are of interest to both scholars and practitioners. The article concludes by discussing which of the factors analyzed should gain prominence in public administration research and uncovering several unexplored causes of unethical behavior. Link to PAR Early View

Communication
Ethical Safety Net Providers
Robin Mathews responds to the authors of "The Health Care Safety Net and the Affordable Care Act: Implications for Hispanic Immigrants" that appeared in Public Administration Review, Volume 73, Issue 6. Link to PAR Early View

Free Clinics as Safety Net Providers for Hispanic Immigrants
Carl F. Ameringer (University of Nebraska—Omaha) and Saltanat Liebert (Virginia Commonwealth University) respond to reader questions and concerns regarding some content in an earlier article titled "The Heath Care Safety Net and the Affordable Care Act: Implications for Hispanic Immigrants," published in Public Administration Review, Volume 73, Issue 6. Link to PAR Early View

New on PA TIMES Online

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 service. It lists dozens of positions in academia, government and the nonprofit sector. Below are just a few current listings.

Economist – NYC Independent Budget Office – New York, NY

Homeless Initiative Coordinator – Community Development Commission – Alhambra, CA

Assistant Professor of Political Science – Arkansas State University – Jonesboro, AR