APSA Public Administration Section Officers,
2005-2006:

2005-2006 Chair:
Kathryn Newcomer, George Washington University

Chair-Elect:
Katherine C. Naff, San Francisco State University

2006 Program Chair (and future chair-elect)
Ed Kellough, University of Georgia

Treasurer: Sharon H. Mastracci, University of Illinois, Chicago

Council members:

• Roddrick Colvin, NYU

• Julie Dolan, Macalaster College

• Richard Feiock, Florida State University
  

• Dale Krane, University of Nebraska, Omaha
  

• Donald P. Moynihan, Texas A&M University

• Katherine Naff, San Francisco State University

• Suzanne J. Piotrowski , Rutgers University, Newark

• Christine Roch, Georgia State University

Webmaster & List Manager: Mel Dubnick, University of New Hampshire

Newsletter Editor: Domonic Bearfield, Texas A&M University

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Camilla Stivers

Jennifer Alexander

Michael Spicer

Larry D. Terry, Vice President for Business and Professor of Public Administration at the University of Texas at Dallas, died June 17, 2006 in Atlanta of respiratory arrest due to an allergic reaction. He was 52 years old.

Life and Career

He was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to Helen and the late Verbie Gene "Flash" Terry. His father was a noted blues musician, of whom Larry was very proud. He graduated from Booker T. Washington High School in Tulsa. He earned a bachelor's degree from Lincoln University, a master's degree from the University of Missouri at Columbia, and a PhD from the Center for Public Administration and Policy (CPAP) at Virginia Tech.

Larry was a faculty member at the Levin College of Urban Affairs, Cleveland State University from 1991 to 2001. In addition to teaching, he served as director of graduate programs and acting associate dean. He was selected as editor-in-chief of Public Administration Review in 1999 and served through 2005. He was a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.

Larry was the author of Leadership of Public Bureaucracies: The Administrator as Conservator (two editions). His 1993 article, "The Logic of a Constitution," co-authored with CSU colleague Michael Spicer, won the William and Frederick Mosher Award given annually for the best article by an academic in Public Administration Review. Larry organized a PAR symposium in 1998 on new public management that became a landmark in the field. His own contribution, "Administrative Leadership, Neo-managerialism and the Public Management Movement," has been widely cited. His essay, "The Thinning of Administrative Institutions," is included in the recently published volume, Revisiting Waldo's Administrative State.

Personal Recollections

From Cam Stivers:

Larry and I got to know each other 20 years ago at Virginia Tech. It happened that we took our prelim exams at the same time. I'm not sure why we hit it off the way we did. We were at opposite ends of the political spectrum and I was more than half a generation older. Larry told me he was a Black Republican and they met in a phone booth. (How times change.) We valued each other's perspective on the subtleties of making it through doctoral education successfully, and it just grew from there, especially after we were both at Cleveland State. We listened to one another a lot over the years. I believe Larry was savvy about academic politics beginning in his crib.

In the late 1980s I asked Larry to participate in an ASPA panel I was organizing on gender and leadership. Always game, Larry said yes. His presentation was the highlight of the panel. As an exemplar of masculine leadership, Larry offered Harriet Tubman; of feminine leadership, Martin Luther King.

Working with Larry on PAR was somewhat like holding onto a jet plane as it soared into the air. He had endless good ideas: the Building Bridges tour, the special issue on September 11, the Rapid Response system of manuscript reviews, the editors' choice awards, the affiliation with Blackwell. His vision of what PAR could become was completely clear to him almost from the day he took over. His political savvy made him a master at negotiating the various minefields that are the special challenge of a journal editor. He made PAR a great many friends and I believe virtually no lasting enemies. His center of gravity was his sense of the field and the significance of PAR in it. He was the kind of leader he wrote about: a conservator, one who preserves and protects the core values of the enterprise so that it can develop coherently. He was someone who took traditions seriously and at the same time was never afraid of new ideas.

Larry was intrigued by the historical roots of the field. The last time I talked with him, he spoke enthusiastically about his work on a re-discovered document connected to the Brownlow Committee. He talked about getting back to the work on Lorenz von Stein he had set aside in order to become editor of PAR, and about his unfinished manuscript on administrative interpretation of statutes and regulations. He had a lot left to write. The quality of the work Larry did produce hints at what public administration scholarship has lost because he didn't get a chance to bring the rest of his ideas and intellectual plans to fruition. Yet his intellectual legacy is rich.

Larry was always larger than life. His death has torn a hole in the fabric of the field and a hole in the hearts of his friends and colleagues. We treasure what he gave us and mourn, beyond words, what we have lost.

Cam Stivers Levin College of Urban Affairs, Cleveland State University

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From Jennifer Alexander:

Larry and I met when we were graduate students at Virginia Tech. We were 25 and 26 years young and like most people of that age, we thought we were going to walk off into the sunset together. Instead we walked into real life. We were married nearly 20 years.

In my life with Larry I learned how far belief in self can take us. Larry came from humble beginnings and achieved what he did because he believed that when someone gave him a sliver of a chance, he could make it happen. He also understood that luck is a magical combination of preparation meeting opportunity so he worked terrifically hard. Few people I've met in life work that hard.

Larry was a tumble of ideas, more than he could pursue, and he was delighted to share them. His excitement was contagious and it supported the intellectual work of friends, students, and colleagues. He was brilliant and not just intellectually curious but demanding of himself. On our first date, he handed me a paper he was working on and asked me to talk with him about it.

Because of his early life experiences, Larry opened doors for a number of people, many of them African -American, and gave them access to educational opportunity. Cleveland State University and, no doubt, University of Texas at Dallas, are proud to name several strong, bright, students who will make their mark on the field of public administration because Larry saw their potential. He knew that when we educate people who are first generation college students we change not only their lives, but the lives of their families. Education opens new horizons not only for the graduate, but for nieces and nephews, brothers and sisters. In academia, we celebrate educating the best and the brightest. Larry understood the "value added" when we nurture diamonds in the rough -- because he had been one.

Larry lived life at full bore - and in seeing the world through his eyes I learned what different worlds we live in together. I learned the work of bridging those worlds.
Through my life with Larry I learned about living to one's potential, faith that the best may actually result, the richness in soul, and most of all, the power of grace.

Jennifer Alexander Levin College of Urban Affairs Cleveland State University

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From Michael Spicer:

I first met Larry Terry when I interviewed him over lunch in early 1991 for a faculty position at our College. What struck me back then was his personal intensity, his energy, his wide-ranging scholarly interests in texts, both current and antiquarian, his sometimes mischievous sense of political incorrectness, his sharp sense of style in clothing and taste in food and drink, and, above all, his infectious laughter and personal warmth. When Larry joined us, I was delighted both professionally and personally. Because of similarities in our intellectual outlooks, it was just a matter of weeks before we decided to work on our first joint and somewhat controversial article that would blend together our interests in the Founders and American constitutionalism. I still remember hammering out some elements of this article over a couple of glasses of ale at a local brewpub after work. Our conversation was wide-ranging and turned to other matters including the work of some obscure nineteenth-century German Hegelian administrative theorist, whose ideas Larry related to me with a schoolboy-like enthusiasm. Afterwards, we walked over to a nearby used bookstore where he zealously perused the philosophy section and was overjoyed when he found and purchased a copy of some classic by Herbert Spencer.

Our initial collaboration worked so well that we collaborated again on a second article, but, after that, Larry became increasingly caught up in the academic administration of our College. One year, he actually held three different posts at the same time. He seemed to enjoy administration-he liked, as we say, to make a difference--but, despite his continued respectable scholarly output, he often expressed a wistful longing to devote more time to his research and writing. This was not to be. With the help of Camilla Stivers, whom he helped recruit to our College and others, Larry secured the editorship of Public Administration Review, a job he was to hold for six years and to discharge with his inimitable energy and creativity. Also, he went on to the upper echelons of academic administration at the University of Texas, returning to the region of the country he loved the best.

Over the past years, whenever we met at conferences, Larry was always cheerful and positive about the future. However, he was especially energized last April in Denver. Larry talked with me there about some previously undiscovered papers from the Brownlow Commission that he and a colleague were working on. There it was again--the same energy and enthusiasm, the same boyish excitement with scholarship. Now freed from his editorial responsibilities, Larry seemed eager to immerse himself once again more fully in his research and writing. Sadly, yet again, this was not to be and we are all poorer for it. Like many others, I shall miss him as a scholar, a colleague, and, above all, as a good friend, but I am happy he stayed at least awhile with us.

Michael W. Spicer Levin College of Urban Affairs Cleveland State University

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From his colleagues at VPISU Center for Public Administration and Policy:

The CPAP Community Remembers Larry Terry

Below are memories from members of the CPAP community.

Larry embodied leadership and the conservation of the best values surrounding our field. We at the Center for Public Administration and Policy, Virginia Tech, loved him as a student, admired him as an alumnus, praised him as a professional, and respected him as a scholar. Larry Terry indeed exemplified the best of Virginia Tech's Ut Prosim, that I may serve, and of CPAP's To the Life of the Mind. Larkin Dudley

No one showed more drive and persistence than Larry about the important matters of our field. His enthusiasm was infectious. More than that, he was kind and respectful of others' views, even while he pressed his own views in conversation. And he managed to keep a sense of humility and limits as he became more influential. Larry contributed
significantly to our literature, especially concerning the role of administrators as conservators, and many fine scholars found him amiable and helpful with advice and constructive criticism. Larry seemed to sense when a topic needed more attention, and he pressed others into service through his good natured persuasion and leadership.
He was born with the disposition to lead, and he cultivated his skills both academically and politically to succeed in our field. He has been recognized for this on several occasions, and we honor him now in memoriam. I offer heartfelt condolences to his family. He left them a legacy about which they can be very proud. I know I am, and I grieve for his loss. Rick Green

It seems to me what was special about Larry was that in his professional life he seemed to constantly be looking for ways to bring up the people around him. Certainly he was a complex person, but in my own experience above all he was an advocate for people--he was for me, for emerging scholars, for many people. Angela Eikenberry

I will pray for a very special friend to me, who was very, very close, during our golden years at Blacksburg. Larry Terry will stay inside of each one of us. Bianor Cavalcanti

The news about Larry Terry is so sad. He was such a good and positive scholar and person. Anne Khademian

I had worked very hard on an article about public guardianship, believing it an important one for PAR and also for me, but there was a split in the reviewers. Larry called me on the telephone to tell me that he was going to publish it. It was the first day I had returned to the office since my mother's death. I was exhausted from seeing to her, to my dad, and to my son and heartbroken for our loss. I can't tell you what that meant to me at that time. Pamela Teaster

Yes, indeed, it is very sad. He was so energetic, full of life. Goktug Morcol

Even I, with my background in hospice and health care administration and policy, find this news about a friend and colleague to be a shock. Too often we put into the back of our minds the reality that life is as fragile as it is precious. Cynthia Massie Mara

The news about Larry Terry is simply heartbreaking. A tragic reminder of just how short life really is. Susan Gooden

Too young, too much left to contribute. I'll be thinking and praying for Larry's family on Friday. Karen Evans

I am so sorry for CPAP and all PA community loss of Larry Terry. He was such a wonderful person and a great scholar. Alesya Bogaevskaya

How tragic! I am shocked and saddened. Please send my heartfelt wishes to all. Gary Marshall

Larry was a powerful force in shaping my life and is largely responsible for who I am now, where I've gone, and more specifically for directing me to CPAP which was a wonderful, life-changing experience for me that will always be dear to my heart...always. In many ways, Larry helped me to recognize and acknowledge my true passion in life...that is, public administration and the life of the mind. I am still having such difficulty in knowing that he's gone that it is beyond words. But also knowing that he is gone, makes me want to live harder and stronger and as vivaciously as he did....he truly embodied the notion of carpe diem. He was my "Captain" much like Robin Williams was to his students in the movie, Dead Poets Society. Susan Pandy

We wish to remember Larry Terry's love of CPAP and our respect for his contribution to the field of public administration and policy. Lori Anderson, Jennifer Alexander, Amos Avny, Kim Baker, Raquel Becerra, Missy Graham, Robert Griffin, Tammy Hall, Bryce Hoflund, Jean Hovey, Jeff Janosko, Ryan Lanham, Wanxin Li, Lluana McCann, Carol Neves, Stephanie Newbold, Michelle Pautz, M. A. Price-Rhodes, Reggie Shareef, Bethany Stich, Camilla Stivers, Lisa Tabor, Amporn Tamronglak.

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