Kenneth Meier ’74 MA (PSc)/’75 PhD (PSc) was named the 2019 recipient of the William Duncombe Excellence in Doctoral Education Award from the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration (NASPAA) on September 4.

The Duncombe Award was established in 2014 and recognizes one faculty member per year who has gone above and beyond in educating doctoral students. It gives preference to faculty who have served as a mentor for more than 10 years and the selection is made in large part based on letters of support from former and current PhD students. This award honors William Duncombe ‘87 MPA/’89 PhD (PA), former professor of public administration in the Maxwell School with specializations in school financing and public budgeting. He was well known across public administration scholarship for his pragmatic emphasis on the tools and methods used in public budgeting, a departure from the theoretical lens many of his contemporaries applied to the topic.

Meier is currently a distinguished scholar in residence in the School of Public Affairs at American University. His research co-mines empirical and normative questions in order to apply institutional theories of organization and politics concerning how decisions are made about who gets what, when, and how. He has previously studied topics ranging from education policy and child support enforcement to political patronage and government corruption, while his current research focuses on developing new theories of representative bureaucracy, organizational stability, and organization environment.

The Duncombe Award will be formally presented in October at NASPAA’s annual conference in Los Angeles.

Read more about Meier and other NASPAA awardees in this press release.

10/17/19