Delaware Association for Public Administration DAPA Public Service Reader
ASPA National News
—by Jonathan Justice | download PDF 
Over the past year, ASPA’s national membership has held steady at around 8,000 (for comparison purposes, this is a bit more than half of ASPA's all-time peak membership), a welcome change in the declining trend of the past decade. New memberships are up, in fact, but member retention continues to be a challenge. One key to stabilizing and strengthening the national organization is to have active, flourishing local chapters with solid connections to a national network of chapters and professionals under ASPA’s overall umbrella. DAPA’s involvement in the Baltimore conference will be an opportunity to highlight our chapter and its work, continuing the outreach begun with President Julia O’Hanlon’s poster presentation at the San José conference, and to develop further ties with our national and international colleagues.
During the past year, under the leadership of ASPA president Paul Posner, ASPA worked to establish itself once more as an important source of management guidance and assistance for the federal government. Appointees of President Barack Obama have sought advice from ASPA experts on reforming federal personnel-management systems and other topics. The “without borders” theme for the coming year will encompass not only international collaborations and learning but also a continuing project to work across and dissolve borders among academics, practitioners, and students. There will also be a focus on working across multiple levels of government and reaching out to nonprofit- and government-sector public managers, as well as strengthening local ASPA chapters and their interrelationships. University of Delaware (UD) professor Maria Aristigueta is a key member of current ASPA president Meredith Newman’s leadership team and will no doubt be presenting DAPA members with a number of interesting opportunities to get involved.