Professor's work seeks to identify public values
One of the most highly-respected scholars in the field of public administration joined ASU this fall, after many years of collaborating with ASU faculty members on research. Barry Bozeman is the Arizona Centennial Professor of Public Management and Technology Policy and also the director of the Center for Organization Research and Design, in the College of Public Programs.
He comes to ASU from the University of Georgia, where he was Ander Crenshaw Endowed Chair of Public Policy. He also was a Regents’ Professor at both Georgia and Georgia Tech, and he was founding director of the Center for Technology and Information Policy at Syracuse University.
Bozeman has examined the ways in which all organizations are part of the policy process, including nonprofit companies and non-governmental entities. His work seeks to identify public values that aren’t tied directly to economic benefits, such as environmental sustainability, social justice and equal opportunity.
At the core of his recent work are two fundamental questions: What are the public values that justify particular science and innovation policies, and what is the capacity of a given policy to yield a positive outcome?
Author of 16 books, this year he won the Herbert Simon Award of the American Political Science Association for the best book in public administration, “Public Values and the Public Interest.” He also won the Frederickson Award for life contributions from the Public Management Research Association.
“The best honor this year was a going-away present from my University of Georgia doctoral students, who presented me with a professionally manufactured, one-of-a-kind Barry Bozeman bobblehead doll. It doesn’t get any better than that,” says Bozeman.
Bozeman’s research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Rockefeller, Kellogg and Sloan Foundations. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement Science and the National Academy of Public Administration.
Bozeman is proud to have his roots in rural Alabama. His working-class parents did not attend high school but, according to Bozeman, "they encouraged and fought for me, and any success I have had is directly attributable to their intelligence, strong will and character. It is in tribute to them that the degree on the top of my office wall is not my doctoral degree but my associate's degree from a community college."
In Arizona he looks forward to pursuing his interests in sports, jazz and blues, performing arts, reading, hiking and cooking Middle Eastern foods.