Tell us about a woman who inspires you.
Ruth Bader Ginsberg was an amazing leader who made progress forward for gender equity, and she had the personal drive and courage to push on despite personal setbacks and opposition from many quarters.
Who is a woman that you believe has enhanced the field of public administration? And how?
Carol Weiss. While Carol Weiss is largely remembered as a thought leader in evaluation of social programs, she devoted much of her career to learning about and educating others about how we could better facilitate the use of social research and program evaluation to inform policymaking and public managers. She was one of the first evaluation experts to promote the practice of developing theories of change to clarify how we should design and then evaluate policies and programs to learn how, why, and when they may achieve success.
Why do you think Women’s History Month is important?
Most women and people of color have not been acknowledged nor celebrated in the history books used in our nation’s schools. Celebrating the achievements of women, including women of color, during Women’s History Month could encourage these conversations to become more common in schools and have lasting effects, and increase young girls’ confidence and aspirations.
What steps do you think still need to be taken to achieve gender equality?
Recognition by all of society that: first, neither gender nor racial equity exists; second, protection of voting rights is essential to make progress achieving equity of all kinds, and presents an especially vulnerable issue in our society right now; third, public policy and public management changes are needed to make progress on both gender and racial equity, and changes will require inclusive and extensive engagement of many who have not been heard; and fourth, talking openly about public policies and government actions that have perpetuated racial, indigenous and gender inequities, and other regrettable historical events, is necessary for our country to move onward toward healing and corrective policies.
The theme of Women’s History Month for 2022 is “Providing Healing, Promoting Hope,” is there a woman who you believe embodies this theme?
Yes - Eleanor Roosevelt (pictured right).
If you could choose any woman, dead or alive, to sit down and have dinner with, who would you choose? And what would you want to talk about?
Eleanor Roosevelt. I would ask her how she had the vision and courage to continue to try and try to push racial and gender issues (among many other important issues such as welcoming more European Jews into the U.S. in the 1930s) forward at a time when she was out there alone and became quite unpopular for it. (My favorite book about her is by Doris Kearns Goodwin, No Ordinary Time Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Homefront in World War II).
What is a women’s issue that is important to you, and why?
The urgent issue is provision of affordable and outstanding daycare for all. Now, this clearly should not be a women’s issue – but unfortunately, caring for children is still regarded as primarily the woman’s responsibility. The disproportionate number of women who voluntarily left their jobs during the covid pandemic illustrated that this is the case, with women leaving over 64 million jobs globally in 2020. This loss represents a 5% loss in jobs for women compared to a 3.9% loss experienced by men. The USA is woefully behind other developed countries regarding provision of daycare. Until affordable and outstanding daycare is available for all at all economic levels, we will continue to face, accept, and even drive all sorts of inequities. (See https://www.oxfam.org/en/press...).
Kathryn Newcomer is a professor in the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration at the George Washington University where she teaches graduate level courses on program evaluation and research methods. She was founding director of the Trachtenberg School in 2003 and served as its director for 14 years. She is a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, and currently serves on the Comptroller General’s Educators’ Advisory Panel. She is currently serving on the Board of Directors of the Data Foundation Board, as a Senior Fellow of the Geo-Tech Center of the Atlantic Council, and as a member of the Advisory Board of the Volcker Alliance's Public Service Education Accelerator (PSE Accelerator). She served as an elected member of the Board of Directors of the American Evaluation Association (AEA) (2012–2015), and served as AEA president for 2017. Kathryn served as President of the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration (NASPAA) for 2006–2007.
Kathryn has published several books, including: Evidence-building and Evaluation in Government (2022), Federal Inspectors General: Truth Seekers in Turbulent Times (2020), The Handbook of Practical Program Evaluation (4 editions, with the last one in 2015) and Transformational Leadership: Leading Change in Public and Nonprofit Agencies (June 2008), and over 70 articles in journals including the Public Administration Review and the American Journal of Evaluation. She has received many awards, including: The Elmer Staats Award for Achievements in Government Accountability, awarded by the National Capital Area Chapter of the American Society for Public Administration, 2008; the Peter Konwerski Award for Service, May, 2013; the Oscar and Shoshanna Trachtenberg Prize for Service, 2014; the Duncombe Excellence in Doctoral Education Award from NASPAA in 2016; and the 2021 Joseph Wholey Distinguished Scholarship Award for her scholarly work and lifetime achievement in the areas of performance management, government accountability, and program evaluation. Kathryn earned a B.S. in secondary education and an M.A. in Political Science from the University of Kansas, and her Ph.D. in political science from the University of Iowa.