Walter Broadnax, distinguished professor of public administration at the Maxwell School,
has received the American Society for Public Administration's (ASPA) 2009 Elmer Staats
Lifetime Achievement for Distinguished Public Service Award. The honor recognizes a
public administrator's career accomplishments and contributions to the public service and to
ASPA over a lifetime.
Broadnax has been a scholar, administrator and public policy expert during his 40-year
career. He has served in executive-level positions in academia and in government at the local,
state and federal levels.
"Walter Broadnax's long and illustrious career epitomizes 'distinguished public service,'" says
Maxwell School Dean Mitchel Wallerstein. "Whether serving as a university president or
dean, as deputy secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, or in the
myriad of other appointments that he has held over the years, Dr. Broadnax has consistently
demonstrated a selfless commitment to the public service and to the betterment of the
human condition. The Maxwell School is proud to count Walter not only as a highly
accomplished alumnus (and former member of the SU Board of Trustees), but also as a
current member of the faculty of our highly ranked Department of Public Administration."
Immediately before joining the Maxwell School faculty, Broadnax was president of Clark
Atlanta University, the nation's largest United Negro College Fund institution, and he
previously was dean of the School of Public Affairs at American University and professor of
public policy and management at the University of Maryland. Broadnax served from 1993-96
as deputy secretary and chief operating officer of the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services, overseeing a major restructuring of the agency and the creation of the Social Security
Administration as an independent entity.
From 1981-87, Broadnax was a faculty member at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy
School of Government. While at Harvard, he served as chairman of the Massachusetts
Executive Development Program, advising the governor on effective leadership strategies and
new ways of training senior executives. He was the founding director of the Innovations in
State and Local Government Program, a joint venture between the Ford Foundation and
Harvard University to recognize and publicize exemplary government innovations. During
his career, Broadnax also served as president of the New York Civil Service Commission and
director of Children, Youth and Adult Services for the state of Kansas.
