Norma Riccucci is Named Rutgers Board of Governors Professor of Public Administration

Norma Riccucci, School of Public Affairs and Administration (SPAA) at Rutgers University-Newark (RU-N), has been named to the highest academic rank at Rutgers: Board of Governors Professor.  The announcement was made April 2 by the Board of Governors.

Riccucci’s distinguished career spans more than three decades. She is nationally and internationally recognized for her scholarship and service in public management and administration.  She has published extensively in top-tier academic journals, including Public Administration Review and the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory.  She holds numerous honors for her scholarship, service and commitment to the field.

“There are two primary areas of research to which Professor Riccucci has made significant contributions,” noted SPAA Dean Marc Holzer. “The first and foremost area is social equity. The second has been the broader segment of public management with a focus on leadership and human resources management. Given her extensive career in public administration, it is not an exaggeration to say that Professor Riccucci helped define and shape this segment of the field.”

In addition to journal articles, Riccucci wrote the widely praised book, Managing Diversity in the Public Sector. She has given keynote addresses on this topic and contributed book chapters and symposia articles, and chaired conference panels in the field.  She also has served on national panels and commissions to share her expertise in social equity.

Riccucci is nationally and internationally recognized for her work in public sector leadership and human resources management (HRM) in government.  She has authored and co-authored several books in these areas, including the leading textbook on public sector HRM, now in its 7th edition.  Her edited book, Personnel Management in Government, now in its 5th edition, is a leading reader in the field.  She has also written extensively in the area of leadership and management; her book How Management Matters: Street-Level Bureaucrats and Welfare Reform received the best book award from the American Political Science Association’s Public Administration Section.  Her book profiling federal government leaders was honored as one of the top 20 most influential books published during the last 20 years in the field.

Riccucci has also made an impact on the field from the standpoint of logic or epistemology.  Her book, Public Administration: Traditions of Inquiry and Philosophies of Knowledge, illustrates the history of the field from the standpoint of theory, practice and methodology.  The book was honored with the Best Book Award from the Research Section of the field’s leading professional association, the American Society for Public Administration.

Riccucci has spoken at conferences all over the world, and she was invited to serve as special editor of the “Administrative Profiles” series for one of the leading journals in the field, Public Administration Review.  She also was elected president of the Public Management Research Association, the leading research association in the field, and has served on editorial boards for a number of national and international journals, including the top two, Public Administration Review and Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory.  Most recently, she was invited to co-chair the prominent international conference, the Trans-Atlantic Dialogue, held in Lugano, Switzerland in June  2014. 

Riccucci’s honors include the Charles H. Levine Memorial Award for Demonstrated Excellence in Teaching, Research and Service to the Community, 2006; ASPA/NASPAA’s Distinguished Research Award, 2002; the ASPA Section of Women in Public Administration’s Rita Mae Kelly Award for Research Excellence, 2005; ASPA’s Section on Personnel Administration and Labor Relations’ Scholarship in Public Human Resources Award, 2000, and Rutgers Board of Trustees Award for Excellence in Research, 2010.  In 2005, Riccucci was inducted as a fellow into the most prestigious organization in the field, the National Academy of Public Administration.

Riccucci received her doctoral degree in public administration in 1984 from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. She graduated from the University of Southern California in 1981 with a master's degree in public administration and from Florida International University in 1979 with a bachelor's degree in public administration.