Public affairs professor, back at ASU after 3 years with NSF, is named Sackton Chair
After three years at the National Science Foundation, Professor Mary Feeney has returned to Arizona State University, where she intends to help early-career women and women of color succeed in academia as the holder of a prestigious chair in ASU’s School of Public Affairs.
Feeney, a full professor in the school, has been named its Frank and June Sackton Chair. She succeeds Professor Karen Mossberger, who retired in December 2023. Mossberger had held the Sackton professorship since 2018.
An ASU professor since 2014, Feeney returned to teaching and research at ASU in the fall 2024 semester following three years as program director for the NSF’s Science of Science: Discovery, Communication and Impact program.
The professorship is named for Frank Sackton, the founding dean of what today is the Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions, and his wife, June. Sackton died in 2010 at 97 following his wife’s death six years earlier.
Feeney said she is honored to be returning to campus in a position associated with Sackton.
“He was an influential actor in public affairs and Arizona but also at ASU as founder of the college,” Feeney said. “He clearly had a special interest in the School of Public Affairs and our students. It’s nice to receive a chair from someone who was so invested in the program. It makes it more meaningful as a researcher in this field.”
A passion for collaborative support
While at the NSF, Feeney worked to advance the mission of the Science of Science: Diversity, Communication and Impact program, which the agency’s website describes as focusing on “the mechanisms that improve the productivity of scientific workflows, the nation's capacity to do research accurately and effectively, and the measurements of the value of science for society.”
Feeney said she successfully distributed funding to more institutions and regions and involved more junior faculty and academics who were receiving grants as principal investigators, or PIs, for the first time.
In addition, Feeney said she strengthened partnerships between the NSF and other government agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health and the European Commission Joint Research Centre.
Feeney said she enjoyed engaging with first-time PIs and assisting researchers in fields that don’t usually receive large amounts of federal grant funding navigate the competitive grant proposal and NSF review processes.
Back at the Downtown Phoenix campus, Feeney said she will spend time augmenting her own research portfolio, using funding from the Sackton Chair’s endowment to examine how public libraries are centers for public service in local government and to network with and support junior faculty, “especially women and women of color, toward success in the academy.”
School of Public Affairs Director Shannon Portillo, the Lattie and Elva Coor Presidential Chair, said she looks forward to Feeney’s assuming the Sackton Chair.
“Professor Feeney is one of the leading scholars in public management, and we’re excited for her to take on the role of Sackton Chair,” Portillo said. “It recognizes her significant leadership within both the school and the discipline of public affairs.”
The Sackton legacy
Sackton, the endowment’s namesake, served 40 years in the U.S. Army, having led a battalion of 550 men in the Pacific during World War II. He was secretary to Gen. Douglas MacArthur during the reconstruction of Japan after the war. After his retirement as a lieutenant general at age 58, he served as a special assistant to Arizona Gov. Jack Williams for three years.
After earning a Master of Public Administration at ASU in 1976, then ASU President John Schwada offered Sackton a teaching position. In 1979, Sackton was named founding dean of what then was called the ASU College of Public Programs, today the Watts College.
Sackton taught courses at ASU, in one capacity or another, even after his retirement from the university and up until a year before his death in 2010. Before retiring, Sackton served ASU in many other capacities, including vice president for business affairs and athletic director.
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