Below is information received from Erik Bergrud of ASPA regarding the SECoPA Distinguished Public Service Practitioner Award:

Dear ASPA Colleague:

The SouthEastern Conference for Public Administration (SECoPA) hereby announces and invites nominations for the Distinguished Public Service Practitioner Award. This award recognizes sustained, outstanding achievement in, and contributions to, public administration and public service through applied practice in the field.

The deadline for receipt of all materials for the 2003 award will be March 31, 2003. Only nomination packets completed by this date will be considered.

You can access the nomination materials on ASPA's web site (MS Word format) by clicking HERE.

Erik Bergrud
ASPA

Mark your calendars now for March 14, 2003. SPALR, in conjunction with the federal section of IPMA, is planning a one day conference on the human resource management implications of the new Homeland Security Department. The conference will be held at the Bookings Institute in Washington, D.C. on the Friday immediately prior to the national ASPA conference. The conference is still in the planning stages but is tentatively scheduled to start at 12:45 with a keynote address and continue with several panels, concluding at around 5:30. A reception and possibly a dine-around will follow.

There will be no conference registration fee for SPALR members of IPMA Federal Section members. ASPA members may register for $25 (this includes a one year membership in the section as well as a subscription to ROPPA). Individual non-affiliated registration fees are $35. Further registration details will follow in the next several weeks.

As section chair, I urge you to make plans to attend this important event. Many thanks to Al Hyde and Dahlia Lynn for the work they have done (and continue to do) in making this event a reality.

Public Administration and Management: An Interactive Journal (PAMIJ) has issued a Call for Papers. The symposium is entitled Public Policy Impacts on Organizational Behavior. The deadline for submissions is March 1, 2003; persons interested in submitting a paper should either e-mail their manuscript in Microsoft Word format to Dr. Breena E. Coates or mail 3 hard copies to Dr. Coates at the address shown in the official Call for Papers. To view the official Call for Papers, click HERE.

Jonathon Walters of Governing magazine has written a study on civil service reform in Texas, Georgia, and Florida under the auspices of the IBM Endowment for the Business of Government. You can download/view his report by clicking HERE.

The International Personnel Management Association's Federal Section would like to announce that registration for its 2002 Annual Conference is currently open. The conference is entitled "Adding Value Through Human Capital Management: Changing Roles for Changing Times." This conference blends plenary sessions offering perspectives from leading practitioners or thought leaders and concurrent sessions that provide insight into specific human capital issues or illustrate solutions to human capital challenges. The concurrent sessions are organized into three tracks: Getting to Green (managing human capital), The Changing Role of HR, and Providing Expert Service. Other pertinent information follows:

Dates: December 17-18, 2002
Location: Academy for Educational Development (AED) Conference Center
1825 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20009-5721
Tuition: $395 ($350 for registrations received by November 1, 2002)

For a complete conference outline including a full agenda, click HERE. To view/download the registration form, click HERE.

The SPALR Strategic Planning meeting on July 25-26 in Athens, GA was a success. A mission statement was drawn up and a number of pertinent issues were discussed. Click HERE to review the proposed changes and related notes.

The Review of Public Personnel Administration has issued a Call for Papers. The symposium is entitled Personnel Management Challenges in Government Information Technology. The deadline for submissions is March 14, 2003; persons interested in submitting a paper should e-mail their manuscript in Microsoft Word format to David Coursey. To view the official Call for Papers, click HERE or visit ROPPA Online and click the Call for Papers link.

You are invited to submit proposals for panels, papers, workshops, training and development sessions, or other presentations related to the 26th Annual National Teaching Public Administration Conference. The conference will be held at Wright State University February 6 – 8, 2003. This year's theme is "Teaching Change and Innovation." Proposals/manuscripts are invited from practitioners, academicians, students, and others who are involved with teaching public administration. Persons interested in submitting a proposal/paper should e-mail their manuscript in Microsoft Word format to Catherine Crosby by October 30, 2002. To view the official call for papers, click HERE.

The new issue of Periscope is up and available for your perusal and enjoyment. It can be found in the Issues Online section of this very site.

Hello all. I am excited to report that our beloved Periscope Online will be receiving a facelift in the near future; all content will remain the same and navigation will be identical, but the site will be significantly brightened and prettied up. One section that will be eliminated is the current Happenings section. Response to that section has been unexpectedly poor (i.e., absolutely NO submissions), so we are doing away with it to save server space and make the site less cluttered. As always, questions or comments can be directed to your humble webmaster, Jason Fleury.

Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal is an international interdisciplinary forum for the publication of peer reviewed original papers of interest to those concerned with the constant tensions and changes associated with the rights and responsibilities of employers and employees.

Submissions may derive from a broad range of disciplines, including law, economics, organization studies, sociology, social psychology, industrial relations, management and administration, and ethics. Within these ranging viewpoints, we encourage a variety of research methods and approaches, including conceptual, theoretical and empirical analyses. Multidisciplinary submissions are especially welcome.

The journal intends to foster the development of the field of employee responsibilities and rights by encouraging basic research and by linking systematic studies to practical issues. Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal publishes general articles, research articles, research reports, case studies, comments and book reviews. All manuscripts are subject to peer review and approval by the Editors.

Papers submitted should follow the Instructions to Contributors, which can be found at the official ERRJ web site

As mentioned previously, we have compiled a membership directory for the Section. A draft copy of the directory was distributed at the annual Section meeting at the ASPA National Conference in Phoenix, Arizona, and the final copy is nearly ready to go to press. However, we need to ensure the accuracy of as much of the information as possible. Please review the PDF version of the draft copy HERE and verify that your information and the information of others at your institution is 100% correct and current. If you spoke with me in Phoenix, the corrections you requested have already been made. If I didn't speak with you or if your information still isn't accurate, please send all necessary changes and corrections to Jason Fleury no later than May 13. We hope to have the final copy printed and mailed by the first of June. Thank you.

Thanks to all of those in attendance at SPALR's annual business meeting at the ASPA National Conference in Phoenix, AZ. The meeting provided a forum for excellent discussion and exchange of ideas. Additionally, all of the nominees for Officer positions were voted on and confirmed. The confirmations are as follows:

Kathy Naff, Chair-elect
Ed Kellough, Board member
Dahlia Bradshaw Lynn, Board member
Michele Hoyman, Board member

Congratulations to our new Board members and to the new Chair-Elect. Congratulations also go to our new Chair, Steve Condrey, who took office at the business meeting. Thanks to our outgoing Chair, Bob Lavigna.

Dear SPALR members:

Bob Lavigna will be unable to attend the SPALR business meeting and has asked me to coordinate officer elections. The following individuals have been nominated to serve SPALR for two-year terms:

Kathy Naff, Chair-elect*
Ed Kellough, Board member
Dahlia Bradshaw Lynn, Board member
Michele Hoyman, Board member

*Upon completion of the term as Chair-elect, this position assumes the position of Chair for a period of two years.

Please click on a candidate's name to read their biographical sketch and reason for wanting to hold office. The election will be held at the section’s annual business meeting in Phoenix. Additional nominations may be accepted from the floor at that time. Dennis Daley will coordinate the election process at the business meeting.

Thanks! I hope to see you in Phoenix.

Steve Condrey

O. Glenn Stahl passed away January 29, 2002 at the age of 91. Professor Stahl's work has helped served as the basis for much of the current research in the field. His family has asked that anyone wishing to commemorate Professor Stahl to please contribute to the O. Glenn and Marie Jane Stahl Public Service Administration Scholarship Award Fund, The University of Evansville, Evansville, IN 47722.

The 2001 SPALR Awards Committee is proud to present this year's SPALR Award recipients:

Outstanding Service to the Public Sector Human Resources Profession:
Donald A. Wills, Maine Director, Bureau of Human Resources

Outstanding Service to the Section on Personnel Administration and Labor Relations:
Charles W. Gossett, Georgia Southern University
Jason M. Fleury, University of Georgia

Scholarship in Public Sector Human Resources:
Gerald T. Gabris, Northern Illinois University

Best Public Sector Human Resources Book:
Public Personnel Administration: Problems and Prospects
Steven W. Hays, University of South Carolina
Richard C. Kearney, East Carolina University

Best Article, Review of Public Personnel Administration:
"The Civil Service Under Clinton: The Institutional Consequences of Disaggregation"
James R. Thompson, University of Illinois- Chicago

This year's Awards Committee was comprised of Dixon Southworth, Chair, Norma Riccucci and Joan Pynes, with help from Bob Lavigna and Evan Berman. Mary Ellen Guy, ROPPA's Editor-in-Chief and her subcommittee members of Richard Kearney and Rex Facer selected the SPALR Award recipient for Best ROPPA Article. Arnie Steigman ordered the plaques and will be personally delivering them to the SPALR breakfast meeting in Phoenix, provided they make it through airport security. Thanks to everyone who made the task a pleasure, and congratulations to our most deserving award winners!

During the next several months, SPALR will begin a strategic planning process to help better focus the Section's mission and goals. Rex Facer, Assistant Professor at Brigham Young University, has agreed to chair the committee. The Section is looking for volunteers to serve on the committee. We are particularly interested in having a broad cross-section of our membership (practitioners and academics) included in the process. The majority of the committee's work will be accomplished by e-mail and phone; however, we may schedule a one-day meeting during the summer months (most probably in Athens, GA). Transportation to and from the meeting will be the responsibility of committee members. If you are interested in serving on this important committee, please contact Steve Condrey by phone at (706) 542-6251 or via e-mail at condrey@cviog.uga.edu or Rex Facer by phone at (801) 422-9321 or via e-mail at rfacer@byu.edu.

Jason Fleury, Program Specialist with the Carl Vinson Institute of Government at the University of Georgia, and Mary Ann Feldheim, Assistant Professor at the University of Central Florida, have compiled a membership directory for the Section. A draft copy of the directory will be distributed at the annual Section meeting at the ASPA National Conference in Phoenix, AZ. The directory is also available for review in PDF format HERE. Please send address changes or other corrections to Jason Fleury at fleury@cviog.uga.edu. A copy of the directory in its final form will be mailed to the membership in April.

The next SPALR Business Meeting will be held at in Phoenix, Arizona at the National Conference of the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA). The SPALR meeting is scheduled for Monday, March 25, from 9:00am-10:30am. The location of the meeting will be posted as soon as it is determined. The meeting will include a buffet breakfast for those in attendance. If you are planning on attending the meeting, please contact Bob Lavigna so that we have an approximate number for food and drink. For more information about the conference, please click HERE.

As a reminder, nominations for SPALR's annual awards are due by Monday, February 25. Dixon Southworth's original announcement follows:

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I invite you to consider nominating one of your colleagues for one of SPALR's annual awards in the field of Public Sector Human Resources. Awards will be presented for service to the field as well as for research/scholarship. Service awards were presented last year to Rosslyn Kleeman, Steven Hays and Nicholas Lovrich, Jr. and research/scholarship awards were presented to Norma Riccucci, Evan Berman, James Bowman, Jonathan West, Montgomery Van Wart and Joan Pynes.

This year's awards will be presented at the Annual SPALR Business Meeting/Breakfast on Monday, March 25, 2002 during ASPA's 63rd National Conference in Phoenix, Arizona. Nominations should be received no later than February 25, 2002.
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Click HERE to view the official announcement.

The Review of Public Personnel Administration has issued a Call for Papers. The symposium is entitled Human Resource Management in Nonprofit Organizations. The deadline for submissions is June 30, 2002; persons interested in submitting a paper should e-mail their manuscript in Microsoft Word format to either Dahlia Bradshaw Lynn or Meredith Newman. To view the official Call for Papers, click HERE or visit ROPPA Online and click the Call for Papers link.

A research symposium in honor of Paul Van Riper will be held on Saturday, March 23, in conjunction with the 2002 American Society for Public Administration Conference in Phoenix, AZ. The Symposium has received generous support from Texas A&M University, where Dr. Van Riper has served as a professor since 1970. You can access a tentative schedule for the Symposium, including details for many of the 30 panels, by clicking HERE.

The Symposium is open to all registrants of the ASPA conference. One-day registrations are available. For general conference information, visit the main conference site by clicking HERE.

Dr. Van Riper is a member of SPALR. His work serves as the foundation for most of the current research being performed in the field of human resources.

From: Dixon Southworth, Chair, SPALR Awards Committee

I invite you to consider nominating one of your colleagues for one of SPALR's annual awards in the field of Public Sector Human Resources. Awards will be presented for service to the field as well as for research/scholarship. Service awards were presented last year to Rosslyn Kleeman, Steven Hays and Nicholas Lovrich, Jr. and research/scholarship awards were presented to Norma Riccucci, Evan Berman, James Bowman, Jonathan West, Montgomery Van Wart and Joan Pynes.

This year's awards will be presented at the Annual SPALR Business Meeting/Breakfast on Monday, March 25, 2002 during ASPA's 63rd National Conference in Phoenix, Arizona. Nominations should be received no later than February 25, 2002.

Click HERE to view the official announcement.

Dave Patton (Boise State University) operates a listserv which distributes a variety of general information related to the field of public HRM. Although the list itself is not affiliated with the Section, many of our members subscribe to the list. If you would like more information or are interested in joining the listserv, please contact Dave Patton at dpatton@boisestate.edu.

Holiday greetings and a Happy New Year to all! SPALR and the staff at Periscope Online would like to welcome everyone back from what we hope was a safe and joyous holiday season for you and your family. This year should be an exciting one for the Section. As we enter into 2002, our membership numbers are climbing, our financial status is secure, and our journal (ROPPA) thrives under its new leadership. All of these things we accomplished in a 2001 shadowed by the veil of September 11. However, as we have seen, it sometimes takes a tragedy to fix the problems that you never knew you had. Patriotism is at an all-time high, morale is soaring, and people have come together like they never have before. 2002 is a rethinking and rebuilding year for the American people and their governments; we too should strive to make the Section the best it has ever been. Our goals and standards are high, but our ability and motivation is higher. Happy New Year to all; we'll see you in Phoenix this March for ASPA's 63rd National Conference!