Political scientist Kettl to depart for Pennsylvania

Don Kettl, an expert in public management and a well-known political analyst, plans to leave his professorship at UW–Madison to take a faculty job at the University of Pennsylvania.

“It was an extremely difficult decision,” says Kettl, who has been a political science professor at UW–Madison since 1990. “With a base in Philadelphia, I’ll be closer to my research in Washington and New York, but after 14 years here in Madison, it will be very difficult to leave.”

As part of his new responsibilities, in July 2005 Kettl will assume the directorship of the Fels Institute of Government, one of the oldest public management programs in the nation emphasizing state and local government. He will join that institution’s faculty this fall.

Author of “Team Bush: Leadership Lessons from the Bush White House” and “The Transformation of Governance: Public Administration for the 21st Century,” Kettl is a frequent analyst and commentator on Wisconsin and national political issues.

The political science professor and former director of what is now known as the Robert M. La Follette School of Public Affairs is also known for his high-profile public service work.

In Wisconsin, he chaired the Governor’s Blue-Ribbon Commission on State and Local Partnerships for the 21st Century in 1999-2000 and another governor’s select panel on campaign finance reform in 1997.

Nationally, he has been executive director of the Century Foundation’s Project on Federalism and Homeland Security since 2002, and he is academic coordinator of a multiyear project to assess the management capacity of American states funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts. He is also a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Don Nichols, current director of the La Follette School of Public Affairs, called Kettl a “prolific scholar, a popular teacher and a tireless public figure.

“He brought in grants, he supported many of our students and he was the central figure in La Follette’s Public Management curriculum. Meanwhile, he played an important role in public debates over a wide variety of issues, including especially those over the possibilities for economy in state and local government,” Nichols says.