Bedtime Stories for Public Servants

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ASPA as an organization.

By Mohsen Fatemi
July 21, 2025

In every city hall, campus office, nonprofit boardroom and Zoom square, there is a pause.

It might last two seconds or twenty. It might follow a tough vote, a classroom debate, a staff resignation or the fifth community comment about “the way things used to be.” In that pause lives a question—quiet, persistent, unspoken:

Am I doing this right?

Not legally. Not procedurally. But right—in the human, ethical, bone-deep sense of the word.
This series was born in that pause.

Bedtime Stories for Public Servants is not about bedtime. Not really.

It’s about the moment before sleep, when the spreadsheets close and the masks drop. When the day’s decisions linger longer than you’d like. When you wonder if what you did helped, hurt or simply… held things together.

This series is a monthly offering of three short components:

• The Story—a fictional narrative drawn from the dilemmas of public service life
• A Pause with the Civic Sage—a moment of dialogue between the Civic Sage and one or more characters where questions linger longer than answers and listening takes the lead
• Loose Ends—a brief reflection connecting the story and dialogue to foundational concepts in the research and practice of public administration

These aren’t fables with tidy morals. They are stories shaped like our shared dilemmas—rooted in the lived complexity of governing, managing, teaching, studying and serving.

Following each story, the Civic Sage quietly enters—not to solve dilemmas, but to sit with them. They don’t fix problems. They don’t spout answers. They hold space. They ask better questions. They are the quiet voice many of us have longed to hear when we were stuck between policy and people, principle and pressure.

Their presence connects the stories not by solving them, but by honoring the hard stuff we often rush past:

• What if the right thing to do is politically impossible?
• What if leadership means moving forward without clarity?
• What if progress feels like a burden to the very people it’s supposed to benefit?

Who’s this for?

If you’re a scholar or educator,

You’ve devoted your career to studying institutions and shaping public servants. These stories are a new way to teach: human-first, emotionally resonant yet firmly anchored in administrative values and theory.

If you’re a student,

You’re learning frameworks and reading cases. But you may also be wondering what this work feels like in the gut. These stories give you a glimpse—not just of what we do, but what it costs and why it matters.

If you’re a practitioner,

You’ve stood in rooms where people expect answers you don’t have. You’ve negotiated compromise, navigated burnout and carried responsibilities no job title fully captures. These stories speak your language.

If you’re a civic leader,

You serve on boards, mobilize your community or advocate for better systems. These stories help you see the public sector not as a machine but as a collection of people—struggling, learning and trying to do right by the communities they serve.

Why stories?

Because charts and statutes don’t capture what it feels like to disappoint someone you care about in the name of the greater good.

Because legislation doesn’t tell you how to respond when a student, resident or employee starts crying in your office.

Because sometimes, we need to sit in the complexity without rushing to resolve it.

Stories let us feel the dilemma before we analyze it.
They create space for humility, reflection and renewal.

This is not a rejection of research or rules. It’s a complement.
Where frameworks explain, stories explore.
Where theory builds structure, stories breathe.
Where policies push forward, stories pause and ask: Who might be left behind?

Why now?

Because public service is under pressure.
Because students crave meaning, not just methods.
Because scholars are looking for ways to connect research to real lives.
Because civic leaders are navigating broken trust and fragile systems.
Because in the long arc of policy and public life, the hardest questions are rarely answered by data alone.

So whether you’re here as a professor or practitioner, a first-year MPA or a seasoned board member: welcome.

May these stories offer a space to reflect, reset and reimagine.

May they remind us why we chose this work and how we might keep choosing it, with care.

Let’s begin.

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Author: S. Mohsen Fatemi is a Ph.D. candidate in Public Administration at the University of Kansas. His research explores how regulatory and institutional dynamics shape the organizational behavior of electric utilities. A fellow of the Eisenhower Institute, PAT-Net, and KU, he serves on Lawrence’s Sustainability Advisory Board and as Co-Director of the PMRA Secretariat. Email: [email protected] Website: www.mohsenfatemi.com

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