WINTER 2012 - National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and ...

FROM THE GUEST EDITOR
A SYMPOSIUM IN THE MAKING
In May 2010, I attended the annual Public Administration Theory Network
Conference (PAT-Net) in Omaha, Nebraska, to present a paper about the social
class origins of deans at America’s top 50 law schools (Oldfield, 2010a). Our
panel’s theme was “Social Class and Marginalization.” After the session, I talked
with a few other public administration professors whose parents were working
class (never attended college and were employed in blue- or pink-collar jobs).
We discussed our frustration with mainstream academic public administration’s
reluctance, in the face of its supposed commitment to certain democratic ideals,
to pay more attention to socioeconomic inequalities, most of all the strong
relationship between class origins and educational attainment. Our discussions
included mentioning a growing body of literature showing the odds against
someone from humble origins becoming a professor—class-based affirmative
action in reverse.
A few weeks after the conference, I contacted the people I talked with there
and asked them about contributing a personal narrative to a symposium I was
orchestrating on public administration professors from the working class, as
I would call them. I said if I could assemble enough interested contributors,
I would search for a refereed journal to publish their papers. I promised these
potential authors considerable latitude in detailing their socioeconomic origins as
well as how their backgrounds now affect their approach to the discipline.
Of the five people I contacted, two—Heather Wyatt-Nichol, from the
University of Baltimore, and Cheryl Simrell King, from The Evergreen State
College—finished their manuscripts on time. One author failed to submit a
paper; and, unfortunately, along the way, two others had to withdraw after
completing part of their narratives. In response and given his enthusiastic
support for my original symposium proposal, I asked David Schultz, the
current JPAE editor in chief, if he would contribute a paper. In an earlier e-mail
discussing my symposium proposal, David mentioned his parents were working
class, so I knew he met the eligibility criteria. Despite his busy schedule, he
graciously accepted my offer, and I soon received his completed narrative.
I have published various papers on social class in Administration and Society;
and as these manuscripts moved through the publication process, I traded several
e-mails with Gary Wamsley, that journal’s editor and an emeritus professor of
public administration at Virginia Tech. In one e-mail, he mentioned in passing
that he had grown up in a working-class family in Nebraska. Knowing of Gary’s
long tenure in our field and his many notable accomplishments, I asked if he
would submit a personal narrative to our symposium. Notwithstanding his many
professional commitments involving dissertation committees, journal editing,
conference attending, and so on, Gary accepted the offer.
One of the contributors who had to withdraw after finishing part of a
manuscript—competing professional responsibilities were taking their toll—
Journal of Public Affairs Education 11