The Public Administration Hall of Fame and Museum

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

By Ben Deitchman
April 29, 2024

Halls of fame for human endeavor celebrate the best in a multitude of disciplines. The most famous are the sports halls for professionals in Cooperstown, New York (baseball), Canton, Ohio (football) and Springfield, Massachusetts (basketball), among others. One does not even need to reach the highest level of sporting competition to earn enshrinement in Atlanta’s College Football Hall of Fame. Other diverse fields honor their best at sites such as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum, the Automotive Hall of Fame, the World Video Game Hall of Fame at the Strong National Museum of Play and even the Potato Hall of Fame at the Idaho Potato Museum. While some hall of fame awards exist for public and nonprofit leaders, such as the Government Executive Government Hall of Fame, there is not, however, a permanent physical hall and museum for honoring and educating about the achievements of global public administration. 

Halls of fame are aspirational and inspirational. They tell the story of the greatest of all time. They are career awards for longevity and enduring success that, unlike an annual or 30 under 30 type of listing, can drive participants as they advance throughout their entire career. The criteria for all halls of fame are analyzed and debated by those inside and outside of the field. Beyond just choosing the hall of famers, these contentious conversations help to define what exactly is greatness. This is a useful dialog for public administration as we consider how we can measure individual and group greatness in our governmental and independent sector endeavors. There would not be one simple set of metrics to choose the worthy few of enshrinement among the millions in relevant positions, but a discussion of shared values towards innovation, persistence and achievement in successfully serving the public would help advance the greater cause of our work.      

Halls of fame with museums are immersive and interactive. Many of our friends and family do not understand the roles and responsibilities of public administrators. In fact, there are many of us who do not fully recognize the efforts and contributions of others in our vast and diverse field. There are certainly excellent books and internet resources for laypeople to begin to learn our core theories and competencies, but a physical space is a more sociable setting to advance this knowledge. Museums are special places as the destinations help to manifest and bring life to facts and figures that we can explore in full dimensionality. They are also shared experiences that better engage the public. As the physical world of public administration changes with our increasingly remote and cyber-based activities, collecting and displaying objects from our history is necessary curation as we look towards the future.

Halls of fame congratulate and chastise. The best of the best may not need more recognition than they’ve already earned, but all hall of famers attain such acclaim because of the people that support and surround them. Any hall of fame is about more than individual accolades, but the greater good of the subject at hand. Halls of fame, however, also create a space to consider ethical considerations. The Baseball Hall of Fame, for example, has become a focal point to consider the stain of the game of prohibited betting and the illicit use of performance enhancing drugs. The fairness of excluding Pete Rose for his gambling on the sport or Barry Bonds for the illegal ingestion of substances to improve his play despite their statistics making them undoubtedly worthy of election is up for debate, but it also offers a forum to understand the unethical actions: the errors of their eras. A hall of fame is about greatness, but it also transparently raises the question of how to deal with lapses in judgment and moral failings in a field, even among its seemingly most successful people. The overlap of ethics and public administration would be ripe for consideration in a hall.        

Halls of fame are fun. No hall of fame is a perfect embodiment of its field of human endeavor, but they are public displays of the opportunity available to those who seek a particular pathway. My words here are simply a seed of something I have joked about with my friends since I was in graduate school, but I hope that somewhere, someday we will have an official Public Administration Hall of Fame and Museum.  No field is better positioned to seek the resources and execute the establishment of a hall of fame than our own, and I certainly hope that whoever makes good on this idea becomes one of the inaugural inductees. 

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Author: Benjamin Deitchman is a public policy professional in Atlanta, Georgia.  He is currently working to develop a book connecting public policy, public administration, and popular culture to introduce and inspire the next generation in our field.  His email address is deitchmanb at gmail dot com.

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