Christie Bautista, Chapter President

The 2016 International ASPA conference was professionally stimulating.  Practitioners discussed issues they and their organizations face and students and professors presented research results on current issues in public and nonprofit organizations.  I especially found interesting a topic on why there is such a lack of trust in government.  One of the "super panels" was "Trust and Perception of Government" and included discussions from both academics and practitioners.  Dr. Stefanie Lindquist, Dean at the University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, presented findings on the effect of political party affiliation on the trust that the electorate has in government.  Her findings indicate that the extreme polarization in political views has caused not only a large divide in politicians' willingness to collaborate but a significant drop in citizens' confidence and trust in government.

 

Dr. John J. Dilulio, Jr., a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a former member of the Whitehouse staff under George W. Bush, presented the Elliot Richardson Lecture.  His speech highlights included the impacts to the control and cost of service from the practice of "contracting out" of government services by the federal government, especially by the military.  He alleges that many of the contracts lack competitive bidding and, as a result, the costs have escalated.  Furthermore, the oversight and control of these functions has also been diminished.

Conference participants hailed from 30 different countries and I thoroughly enjoyed presentations made by panelists from a variety of countries.  The challenges faced by governments in the international community are always of interest to me.  All in all, I found the conference speakers and panel presentations informative and stimulating.

I have no doubt that many of us selected public administration as our profession because we believe in equal opportunities and quality of life.  But our profession covers diverse areas, ranging from education, health care, healthy food and air, affordable housing, transportation, to justice system, to name a few.  This diversity often times creates disconnect among specialized areas to provide a uniform platform to holistically elevate quality of life.  A lingering question for me has been; which area do I want to focus on to make the most contribution to the society? 

A powerful speech by Ron Sims, a former executive director of King County, Washington, not only answered my question, but connected all the dots.  He described that all these areas are determinants of equity, and when the access to the determinants are blocked, human progress, and ultimately the progress of society are hindered.  Our job as public administrators is, therefore, to remove the barriers to allow for greater access to the determinants.  Mr. Sims emphasized that we are living in a world increasingly with definitive winners and losers, and that the process of this disparity is speeding faster than ever due mostly to the technological advancement.  To this point, he urged the audience that the world requires us to act with speed and precision, despite the norm imposed by bureaucracy. I walked out of the room, feeling a renewed passion for what I do, and thinking how I expand my connections to other professionals in this field for a better tomorrow.