Campus News

Public administration professor to receive John Gaus Award

Athens, Ga. – Hal G. Rainey, Alumni Foundation Distinguished Professor in the University of Georgia School of Public and International Affairs has been selected to receive the 2011 John Gaus Award and Lectureship.

The Gaus Award is given by the American Political Science Association and is designed to “honor the recipient’s lifetime of exemplary scholarship in the joint tradition of political science and public administration.”

A professor in the department of public administration and policy, Rainey joined the UGA faculty in 1988. He is considered one of the nation’s leading experts on public management and organizational theory, and has published extensively on the similarities and differences among organizations and managers in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, and on the privatization of public services.

“Dr. Rainey has long been one of the top scholars in the field and this award is richly deserved,” said J. Edward Kellough, head of the department of public administration and policy. “He is the author of one of the most influential books on public management, and his numerous research articles have shaped the study of public management in fundamental ways.”

Rainey is the recipient of many awards and honors, including the Dwight Waldo Award and his election as a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, an association of experts chartered by the United States Congress to conduct studies and offer advice to Congress and other federal authorities on administrative and policy issues.

The Gaus Award will be presented to Rainey at the fall meeting of APSA, where he will deliver the annual Gaus Lecture. Rainey is the second member of the Department of Public Administration and Policy to win the award. Lawrence J. O’Toole was the recipient of the 2010 Gaus Award.