Kenneth Kernaghan and Canadian Public Administration: editor's note and remembrances.

Lindquist, Evert A.

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Ken Kernaghan died on September 14, 2015 at 74 years of age. Ken's struggle was a private one, with only his family and a few colleagues aware of it. But even for those who knew, the announcement of his passing was devastating, despite his retirement at the end of 2007 and no shortage of recognition of his many accomplishments.

Ken was the first winner of the J.E. Hodgetts award for best English article in Canadian Public Administration (1992), and he received Brock University's Award for Distinguished Research and Creative Activity (1996). He received the Institute of Public Administration of Canada's (IPAC) top honour, the Vanier Medal for Excellence in Public Administration (1996), and was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (1997). His teaching skill was recognized with the Pierre De Celles/IP AC Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Public Administration (2003) and Brock University's Faculty of Social Sciences Award for Excellence in Teaching (2004) and Award for Distinguished Teaching (2004). In 2008, Ken was recognized as a Member of the Order of Canada and honored by colleagues with a festshrift (Siegel and Rasmussen 2008). His co-authored The Responsible Public Servant has long been IP AC's best-selling publication (Kernaghan and Langford 1990). But listing such recognition does not capture the extent of the fieldbuilding he undertook for the field of Canadian public administration and his mentoring, collegiality and service for scholars, students, and practitioners alike.

Our remembrance here naturally stems from his many connections to Canadian Public Administration (CPA). In addition to having contributed 26 articles to our journal from 1968-2014 (see Annex 1), Ken served not only as Editor (1979-87), but also as Book Review Editor (1969-79), as Assistant to the Editor (1972-73), Associate Editor (1973-79), and as a member of the Editorial Advisory Board (1968-87). From 1968 he contributed mightily to IP AC in numerous capacities, eventually serving as its President (1987-88), and was founding director of the Case Program in Canadian Public Administration (1975-79). He also contributed extensively to the Canadian Association of Programs in Public Administration as well as to International Institute for Administrative Sciences and the International Association of Schools and Institutes of Administration, serving on many committees and involved in many projects. This provided a launching pad for his appointment as Editor, International Review of Administrative Science (1989-2005). He also served on the editorial boards of Canadian Public Policy, Public Administration Review, Public Administration Theory and Praxis, and International Review of Public Administration, among others. As an expert, he served on many task forces and advisory committees for government, and on selection committees, and published may reports and other publications, detailed in Siegel and Rasmussen (2008: 329-338).

Ken was a top-drawer, incredibly disciplined, hard-working, productive scholar: his books, articles and service laid the foundation for our held (Kemaghan 1968,1969; Kernaghan and Siegel 1987; Kernaghan et al. 2000), and he was a celebrated teacher. However, the remembrances which follow repeatedly show that he was also a mentor, colleague, and boundary- spanner. He found time to listen to, encourage and mentor students and colleagues alike, many becoming steadfast friends. Ken had appointments at the University of Waterloo (1965-67) and Carleton University (1967-68) before landing at Brock University, and I suspect this was where his interest developed in mentoring students and colleagues alike. While he was beyond exemplary in providing service to our field of public administration and to its key institutions, Ken also served as Chair of his department at Brock University in the early 1970s and was founding Dean of its School of Administrative Studies (1974-79)--while contributing to IP AC, this journal, and the case program. Ken gravitated to "pracademics," but himself was equally interested in and easily straddled the boundaries of research and practice (Kernaghan 2009)--over his career he demonstrated how these realms can and should inform each other. Despite all of these virtues and accomplishments, Ken always made it clear that his marriage and family came first.

The ten remembrances from eleven colleagues that follow were invited to show how Ken exemplified the many dimensions of being a scholar with a focus on his personal qualities and how he touched people. These perspectives come from colleagues across generations and sectors (universities, government, professional institutes). They variously show Ken as teacher and mentor, research collaborator and text-book writer, journal editor, boundary-spanner, and institution-builder. They have been ordered on the basis of when the authors first remembered, worked with, or focused on an interaction with Ken. I want to thank the contributors for so quickly drafting their remembrances, the Wiley-Blackwell team for allowing extra space in this volume, and Christy Paddick handling this late addition so professionally. EAL

Ken Kernaghan: Teacher, mentor, and colleague--Barbara Wake Carroll

It is September 1968. I am a young graduate student entering the Master's program in Public Administration at Carleton University. My classmates at the Master's and PhD levels included Jim Benning, Sandy Burch, Don Dennison, Audrey Doerr, Sonya Ignatieff, Bill Matheson and Bob Sedgeworth. The faculty included well-known established senior academics such as Henry Mayo, R.O. McFarlane, and Don Rowat. There also were rising young stars of the field of public administration, such as Bruce Doern and, obviously, Ken Kernaghan. Ken taught us public administration. He would have been 27 that year, and younger than many of his students. Some were mid-career civil servants, and others were returning from CUSO assignments abroad. It must have been difficult teaching students some of whom were older than him. But he was very good, knowledgeable, always interested, polite and good-natured. He could always find a lesson in the anecdotes his students told. He also introduced us to the case study method of teaching, which I used my entire career. But Ken taught not only public administration-for me, at least, he also taught how to teach. It was a great year. Many of my classmates went on to very successful public service and/or teaching careers. Many of the people I met at that time remained lifelong friends, including Ken Kernaghan.

Over the years, Ken and I crossed paths many times as my husband was a colleague of Ken's in the Political Science faculty at Brock at a time when the department was known for its collegiality and there was considerable social interaction. I remember croquet parties where Ken earned and wore proudly the bright orange beanie hat, with the rotary wheel on top, which went to the winner of the "rough course croquet tournament." During this period we often reminisced about Carleton, and Ken also enjoyed hearing stories about hijinks in the federal bureaucracy.

Fast forward 25 years. After several years in the public service, I am now a professor of Political Science at McMaster University teaching in the Guelph/McMaster Master's program in Public Policy and Administration, and in the McMaster PhD program in Comparative Public Policy and Administration. Several of our PhD students had been M.A. students of Ken's at Brock. For a number years there was a well-worn track of students between the two universities. I realized what an influence Ken had on these students from the excellence of their preparation when they arrived at McMaster. Several of the students whom we shared during that period were devastated when they learned of his death in 2015.

In 2004, I was the Book Review Editor of CPA and Alan Tupper's term as Editor was about to end. One day, I received a call from Ken in which he suggested that I should apply for the job of editor. Frankly, it had never occurred to me. I had not even bothered to read the specifications. Having entered academic life as a second career, I was often considered not to be a "real" academic. Ken had always been the exception, treating my experience in government not as a liability, but as an asset. He also felt strongly that it was time for a woman to be the editor of our national journal. In my case, Ken thought it an advantage that I was someone who could bridge the academic/practitioner divide. When Audrey Doerr also added her support, I agreed to apply for the editorship, and my application was successful. Ken was the first person to offer me congratulations.

One of Ken Kemaghan's many great strengths was in supporting and encouraging others. He never felt that someone else's success took away from his own. Like everyone who knew him, I will miss his presence very much.

Barbara Wake Carroll, Professor Emerita, McMaster University

Ken Kernaghan: Colleague, collaborator, and friend--David Siegel

We lost a wonderful colleague and friend with the recent passing of Ken Kernaghan. I had the privilege and the pleasure of knowing Ken Kernaghan as an esteemed colleague and a warm and loyal friend for almost 40 years. I met Ken in a way that was fairly typical for Ken. He was already a recognized luminary in the field of public administration; I was a brash, wet-behind-the-ears PhD student who was several notches below him in status, social skills, and pretty much any other measure that you could imagine. For some foolish reason, Ken took an interest in me and my work. I say this is fairly typical of Ken because he always had time for others especially his students and other young people who needed some advice and assistance to start their careers. Ken helped introduce me and many others into the academic and professional community and introduced me to all the other great luminaries of our time.

Ken contributed a great deal to the public administration community, and he brought a great deal of credit to Brock University. He was a prolific scholar who wrote about virtually every aspect of public administration. He was a visionary thinker. When you take the long, historical view of his scholarly publications, you realize that you can plot the evolution of the field of public administration by recognizing that what Ken is writing one day is where the field will be heading over the next few years.

I was honoured to work with him on four editions of Canadian Public Administration: A Text, used by generations of students and is still found on the desks of academics and senior public servants. Ken was particularly proud of this book because he saw it as the first point of contact that many new students would have with the field. Quickly dashing off an introductory textbook would have been an easy task for someone with Ken's encyclopedic of the field. However Ken was a perfectionist, conscious that this book would be many students' first (and some students' only) brush with the field of public administration. He wanted to be certain that everything was precisely accurate and written in a way that could be easily understood by a neophyte.

Ken had many great achievements on the national and international stage, but I think the professional achievement he took the most pride in was his teaching and the success of his students. Even in the last few months when we would talk, he always had something to tell me about the achievements of one of his students. And his students returned that feeling. He was discussed in the hallways with a mixture of warmth and awe. He was recognized as a very demanding professor, but students never resented that in him because they knew that he had demanded so much of himself that he had a right to demand the same level of rigour in others. He is one of the few people to win the Brock award for both outstanding researcher and outstanding teacher.

When Ken's obituary appeared, I received many communications from mutual friends and acquaintances in our field. There was a remarkable similarity in the comments. They all began by lauding his academic achievements, but every one finished by mentioning what a genuinely wonderful human being he was. Many also commented to me on how lucky I was to have had the opportunity to share so many years with him as a colleague.

Ken was a great scholar, a great teacher, and a wonderful colleague, but family always came first for him. He and his wife Helgi had one of the warmest and most loving relationships I have ever seen. He also loved his sons and grandchildren and was always exceptionally proud of their achievements.

It is a tragedy that Ken has been snatched from us much too soon. In one sense, his passing will leave a void in all of our lives. In another sense, Ken will live on in the way that he has touched all of our lives. He certainly had a huge impact on making me the person that I am today, and he had that same impact on anyone that he touched. I am a better person because my life has been incredibly enriched by my time with Ken.

David Siegel, Interim Dean, Faculty of Education and Professor of Political Science, Brock University

Ken Kernaghan: Professional colleague, mentor, and friend--Paul G. Thomas

Kenneth Kernaghan was an individual of outstanding character, intelligence, talent and dedication. His accomplishments as a scholar, adviser to governments and teacher were many, but it was his consistently principled, honest, balanced, fair and generous approach in dealing with people and issues that most impressed me. He was also humble, taking ideas and professionalism seriously but never exhibiting a trace of self-importance.

Ken and I were approximately the same age, but I regarded him as a mentor and role model. I came late to the study of public administration when, as a young department head, I decided to fill a gap in our teaching schedule by taking over an existing course in public administration. Not having studied in the field, I approached "Mr. Public Administration" for advice, and Ken was remarkably generous and helpful in his advice to an obscure academic in Manitoba.

As I moved more fully into the field, Ken encouraged me to conduct research and publish in the field. As a department head, I had little time for this, but as Editor of CPA, Ken came up with offers to write review articles and book reviews. His encouragement allowed me to gain my voice in the field. If I am now known as a public administration specialist it is because of Ken's help, not just during my early efforts in the late 1970s and 1980s, but throughout my career.

Ken was a superb editor. Editing a journal that serves the interests and needs of both academics and public servants involves inherent challenges. Ken knew that CPA could not, and should not, become the exclusive preserve of academics writing for fellow academics. Encouraging public servants to write for the journal and encouraging academics to demonstrate the relevance of their research to the practice of public administration was a prominent part of his approach. Under his leadership, the quality of the content and the scope of the impact of the journal increased significantly.

As a humanist and ethicist, Ken had the ideal background to edit CPA. His intellectual curiosity and sense of fairness meant that he encouraged and supported contributions across a wide spectrum of topics and methodologies. He welcomed controversy but insisted that it be based on evidence and be conducted with a tone of civility. Ken recognized that editors are more collaborators and counselors than they are judge and jury. With that wise and witty sense of humour that we all loved, he once told me: "No author likes to be reviewed and edited as much as she/he likes to be published." Ken recognized that in the relatively small community of Canadian scholars of public administration, the anonymity that is supposed to be part of peer review process for manuscripts was almost impossible to maintain so he handled the task of selecting reviewers and communicating with authors with sensitivity and diplomacy.

During his long tenure as editor, Ken worked closely and ever so productively with the late Joseph (Joe to everyone who knew him) Galimberti. They were a powerful tandem that contributed enormously to IP AC over many decades. More than just professional collaborators, they were also close friends. To sit at an IP AC dinner with the Kernaghans and Galiberitis, as my wife and I did on several occasions, was a wonderful, warm, engaging experience.

In 1995 I had the privilege of being appointed by the IP AC Board of Directors to serve as Editor of CPA. Ken was one of the first to send a note of congratulations and an offer to provide advice if I wanted it. It was a period of strained finances for IP AC and all its programming was under review including the journal. I came up with a plan for cost saving and achieving greater relevance for public service readers. Cost saving involved shrinking the outside dimensions of the journal and moving from footnotes to endnotes. Increased relevance for the practitioner community involved a new column space called Managerial Perspectives and a regular Point-Counterpoint Exchanges on topical issues. I remember previewing these ideas with Ken and Joe. They listened politely and the first response from Ken--reminiscent of Sir Humphrey Appleby in the popular Yes Minister Series--was: "Don't you think, Joe, that Paul's plan is really courageous." To which Joe replied, "Yes, I bet the academics will be most upset by the replacement of footnotes with endnotes." Both had a twinkle in their eyes.

I cherish that and many other memories of Ken Kernaghan, professional colleague, mentor and friend. He exemplified the highest ideals and aspiration of IP AC.

Paul G. Thomas, Professor Emeritus, Political Studies, University of Manitoba

Ken Kernaghan: On the international stage--David C. Brown

Ken Kernaghan will rightly be remembered for his signal contribution to Canadian public administration as a teacher, researcher and editor and as a leader in the profession. In reflecting on these accomplishments, we should also recognize his international stature. Ken was one of Canada's greatest exports to public administration internationally, and we only fully honour him by weaving his global reach into the narrative of his legacy in Canada.

At the heart of Ken's international standing was his role in the International Institute of Administrative Sciences, IPAC's international counterpart. He first became involved in an IIAS sister organization, the International Association of Schools and Institutes of Administration, the counterpart of CAPPA. This flowed naturally from his work with IPAC, and he served on the IASIA board from 1980-92, the last six years as Vice-President. Here he was able to connect with kindred spirits--public administration teachers, researchers and leaders in their own national public administration professional and academic communities--but against the diversity of geographic, systemic and cultural environments that is found in international discussion.

Ken then brought his editorial experience with CPA into the mix. In 1989, he joined the HAS executive committee as chair of its editorial committee and the following year became editor of the IIAS's journal, the International Review of Administrative Sciences. He remained editor until 2005, overseeing the publication of identical English and French editions, as well as an Arabic translation. Dealing with authors, reviewers, administrative support and publishers scattered around the world was a major logistical and inter-cultural challenge, yet Ken made it look almost easy. Throughout that period he was an active member of the HAS executive committee and of its research committee, helping to shape a program of work that is similar to IP AC's but on a global scale. In a unique recognition of his contribution, the HAS statutes were twice amended to enable him to remain on the IIAS executive and editor of IRAS.

This is only to state Ken's formal roles in the IIAS and IRAS. He was ambitious for IRAS and for the scholarship it enabled. He built up the journal's reputation by attracting high quality and wide-ranging articles; he was also an astute talent spotter and assembled a respected, truly global, editorial committee. I was particularly impressed by the way that he sought out material and talent from all regions and administrative and scholarly traditions. While the focus of IRAS is on comparative public administration, Ken also used the journal to support new public administration scholars and emerging scholarly institutions in developing and transitional countries, encouraging efforts to grow research and publishing capacity where it had not previously existed.

Ken's tenure as editor of IRAS coincided with the emergence of the Internet as a global means of networking in every sense. He started in an era when the primary means of communication among international scholars was still by mail, supplemented by fax, telephone and periodic meetings. While the Internet rapidly extended its reach throughout the 1990s in countries like Canada, its global spread was much less smooth. By the time he retired as editor, the means of communication for authors, reviewers and editors had been transformed into essentially the environment we work in today. This was not always an easy transition, but again Ken was able to make it look natural, seeking out the advantages of the new technologies while ensuring that the basic integrity of scholarly publishing was maintained.

The IIAS, IASIA and IRAS were only part of Ken's international story. His graduate studies were in the United States, and throughout his career he remained in close touch with American academics individually and with the American Society for Public Administration, including serving on the editorial board of ASPA's journal, Public Administration Review. When the OECD wanted an authoritative overview of post-employment ethical issues, they turned to Ken. When the United Nations Public Administration Program wanted expert insights into integrated service delivery, they turned to Ken. I could go on.

Ken's international contributions were rooted in his Canadian experience, and he always retained a recognizably Canadian voice. But he also had an ability to recognize the distinctive voices of others. He used his international role to provide a medium for those voices and through engaging them with their peers to help build and strengthen the international public administration community. This is a legacy that will keep on giving.

David C. Brown, University of Ottawa and former President of the HAS

Ken Kernaghan: Visionnaire calme, methodique et resolu--Jacques Bourgault

J'ai rencontre Ken Kernaghan pour la premiere fois lorsqu'il est venu s'asseoir a mes cotes lors d'un diner du Congres de l'IAPC. Il etait deja tres connu et j'etais assez impressionne, alors je lui donne du Monsieur Kernaghan, il m'a tout de suite repris : s'il-te-plait, appelle-moi Ken! Avec lui j'avais toujours l'impression qu'il me traitait comme si j'etais une sommite mondiale et lui un novice! Ceci temoignait de son humilite et de sa volonte de mettre les gens a Taise.

Dans la conversation, il s'est interesse a mon travail sur les sousministres du Quebec. Je l'interroge sur l'existence d'un travail similaire pour les federaux et il me repond tout en ironie et en mystere : << Personne n'a jamais ose! >> Plus tard, il me fit profiter de sa sagesse pour aborder ce sujet.

Son influence a l'IAPC faisait des envieux qui le traitaient de courtier de pouvoir. Rien n'etait plus faux. Son influence etait a la hauteur de sa contribution a l'IAPC. Il s'est toujours range du cote des meilleurs interets de la communaute professionnelle de la fonction publique et des serviteurs d'un bon gouvernement.

Ken etait un visionnaire en un temps oU la fonction publique etait vue comme un acquis empoussiere. Il etait un homme de principes et croyait profondement en l'apport unique de la fonction publique a la societe, a condition qu'on lui permette de formuler ses avis independants.

Puis j'ai apprecie et utilise ses travaux sur l'importance de dire la verite au pouvoir et surtout de pouvoir le faire en toute impunite! J'etais tres impressionne par le caractere fondamental et exhaustif, ainsi que par la qualite de son manuel redige avec David Siegel. En ce sens, il etait visionnaire et des scandales auraient ete epargnes si on avait plus souvent suivi ses principes.

Puis, ses travaux sur la fonction publique, sur l'ethique lui ont merite de nombreuses distinctions. Il etait chercheur, consultant et servait souvent de temoin-expert dans des proces oU les droits et devoirs des fonctionnaires etaient en cause. Les juges citaient ses temoignages dans leurs decisions. Tout un hommage! A ces egards, sans qu'il ne s'en apercoive, Ken etait un modele pour plusieurs d'entre nous de la generation suivante.

Un jour, Ken fut choisi editeur de la prestigieuse Revue internationale des sciences administratives. Quinze jours plus tard, Stephane Dion et moi recevions une lettre de lui pour s'enquerir du statut de notre proposition d'article soumise 18 mois plus tot et pour laquelle nous n'avions eu aucune nouvelle. Il prit les choses en main et, trois mois plus tard, nous avions des commentaires utiles.

Homme tres genereux, un chic type qui tentait toujours de mettre en valeur ses collegues, vers la fin des annees 1990 il me presenta lors d'un Congres international a Bologne. Il le fit avec tellement de grace et de generosite que j'avais peine a reconnaitre de qui il parlait.

Lorsque David Siegel et Ken Rasmussen entreprirent de rediger un ouvrage collectif pour celebrer son oeuvre, j'avais tellement a dire sur ses ecrits concernant les valeurs de la fonction publique, que les editeurs ont du couper le chapitre en deux.

Ken Kernaghan a beaucoup contribue a la reflexion et aux pratiques, sur le sujet du statut des fonctionnaires. Sa sagesse, sa curiosite et son intelligence etaient tres recherches et il participa a plusieurs initiatives sur la livraison des services, sur la consideration de l'usager et sur la digitalisation de l'administration.

Ses idees sur le statut constitutionnel d'autonomie de la fonction publique creaient une certaine controverse, eu egard a la doctrine de la responsabilite ministerielle. Cependant, ses ecrits a ce sujet ont plaide pour renforcer la voix des professionnels de l'administration afin qu'elle soit entendue par les politiciens. Ken Kernaghan a eu une influence tant directe qu'indirecte sur le Code des valeurs et d'ethique des fonctionnaires, et surtout sur le maintien de la qualite de notre fonction publique canadienne : une fonction publique sensible aux projets des dirigeants politiques, droite, professionnelle, non partisane et desireuse de bien servir le public.

A de tres nombreuses occasions, j'ai entendu Ken traiter de sujets touchant la fonction publique canadienne. Et chaque fois, il trouvait un aspect nouveau a traiter qui suscitait notre attention, notre curiosite et notre interet.

Ken Kernaghan a maintenant passe le relais et il nous appartient d'etre a la hauteur de l'exemple qu'il nous a legue. Je regrette que la vie passe si vite et que l'on ne puisse mieux profiter de ces geants qui nous cotoient.

Jacques Bourgault, Professeur associe, ENAP

Ken Kernaghan: Ethics, values, and optimism--Ken Rasmussen

I was fortunate enough to meet Ken at the very beginning of my academic career when he was the external examiner on my PhD thesis in 1989. From that point forward, Ken treated me as a colleague and an ally in his effort to promote public administration as a rigorous academic discipline. Based on his prodigious efforts in developing and expanding the discipline, he will rightly be remembered exemplar of his generation of scholars.

One of his most distinctive contributions to public administration was his examination of the professionalism associated with public service, which he believed needed to be firmly defined in the face of the erosion of the traditional foundations of the public service. He saw clearly that the principles that underpinned the public service were weak and crumbling and that the respect for the old traditions was eroding among politicians and citizens alike. In the face of this deterioration, he almost single- handedly developed the urgent push towards a new regime based on ethics and values that would help shore up the creaky conventions surrounding ministerial responsibility. Nearly 40 years ago he began to sound a warning about how these pillars of the public service were eroding. This alarm is still being sounded by many of his colleagues who will continue his important work.

Through his promotion of the "values and ethics" framework, Ken tried to reconcile the classic public administration quandary that pits democracy against bureaucracy. To ensure that we have an effectively administered government, we must have vast amounts of delegated authority transferred to public servants. However, to ensure that this is used in ways that furthers and enhances the legitimately established agenda of government it should be based on a solid values and ethics foundation. He was of the belief that you must have a public service capable of using its authority in a way that would enrich democratic government and not cripple it.

In all of his efforts, Ken wanted more than anything to see the public service adapt and evolve along with other institutions of government and with society. Ken maintained that the public service has an intimate relationship with political institutions and with citizens, and any move away from this would eventually weaken and harm all parties. Ken was never shy about taking on new subjects, but at the core was an abiding respect for the professionalism of the public service that was based initially on merit appointment, neutrality and anonymity. But because politicians did not agree with the sanctity of these values was not a cause for despair in his mind, and indeed the sort of world-weariness associated with some scholars was never part of his repertoire. In this regard Ken was never one to suggest that the relationship between public servants and politicians had its final articulation in the Westminster/Whitehall conventions. Instead he believed that the crucial relationships are amendable to changes that can improve performance and embrace new values without destroying earlier traditions of the public service.

Throughout his career Ken was an optimist who saw the public service becoming a more values-based organization that continued to operate with respect for Parliament and citizens while increasingly conscious of its own special role in producing democratic administration. Thus Ken was no "originalist" and did not see the revival of old traditions as the only chance for the public service. Likewise the idea that the public service could be reduced to a set of bureaucratic rules associated with multiple accountability regimes would not strike him a much of an alternative.

A merit-based public service animated by a regime of values and ethics was key because despite the smokescreens that exist to hide it, public servants exercise real power in our system of government. As such, it is not administrative power that is a problem but the irresponsible use of this power. Ken focused on this notion of subjective responsibility for much of his career, especially the belief that administrative power can be effectively checked by examining and focusing on public servants' values.

Ken's voice of sensible moderation and thoughtful examination followed by principled compromise is something we need more of. Heavy-handed legislation, political directives and finger pointing were always anathema to his way forward. Let's hope his strong ethical and values-based approach to public administration scholarship remains an active and vital part of our discipline well into the future.

Ken Rasmussen, Professor, University of Regina

Kenneth Kernaghan: A tribute--Ralph Heintzman and Brian Marson

Ken Kernaghan was a leading Canadian scholar of public administration who did not hesitate to leave the haven of his university department to contribute to the practice of public administration. He always sought to build bridges between those who practice and those who study the practice. We had the honour of working with Ken in many of his involvements with the wider world of public administration. Brian worked closely with him when he succeeded Ken as the national president of IP AC, in 1988. As successive IPAC presidents, they worked together to establish the IP AC International Program, the IPAC Awards, the IPAC Public Sector Management magazine, the IPAC Case Study Program, and many other initiatives that are still pillars of IPAC today.

In 1994, Ralph invited Ken to join a CCMD Study Team on Public Service Values and Ethics, chaired by John Tait, which, as a federal Deputy Minister Task Force, produced the famous "Tait Report," entitled A Strong Foundation. Ken's influence on the Task Force can be clearly seen in its comments on the nature of an "ethics regime." After its release, Ken was a tireless advocate of the Tait report's ideas, helping to make them known to scholars across Canada and around the world.

Almost ten years later, Ralph invited Ken to chair the federal government's external Working Group on the Disclosure of Wrongdoing. In difficult circumstances, Ken's chairing of the Working Group was exemplary, and its report, published in January 2004, prepared the way for the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act, unanimously approved by both houses of parliament in December 2005. Ken was a witness in the parliamentary hearings on the draft bill, and a vigilant advocate for the ideas advanced in his Working Group's report. He continued to contribute to the federal government's values and ethics agenda in other important ways. For example, in 2005, Ralph invited him to prepare a history of the public service ethos since 1840. Ken chose the title, A Special Calling: Values and Ethics and Professional Public Service, as an implicit nod to the concluding paragraphs of the Tait report.

Meanwhile we had, together, begun to involve Ken in the public sector's service delivery improvement agenda. Ken was a participant in a key summit meeting of public sector service delivery leaders from across Canada at CCMD in July 1997. The 1997 meeting led to the creation of an inter- jurisdictional Citizen-Centred Service Network (CCSN) whose work won the IPAC Gold Award for Innovative Management in 1999, and the CAPAM Silver Award for International Innovation in 2000. As part of the CCSN, Ken collaborated with Brian and Stephen Bent to prepare a book of case studies on single-window service, which helped lead the way to the creation of Service Canada. The CCSN laid the foundation for many other innovations in public sector service delivery over the next two decades: including the Citizens First service satisfaction surveys, a Common Measurements Tool (now used across all three levels of government and internationally), and the panpublic-sector Institute for Citizen-Centred Service (ICCS). After his involvement in the CCSN, Ken continued to make important research contributions to the public sector service community. He was the lead academic in documenting innovations in service delivery for ICCS, including international developments in one-stop service delivery. He also led a landmark study, Beyond the Barriers, for ICCS and the public sector service community, documenting legal and other barriers to inter-jurisdictional collaboration on service delivery. In 2008, Ken undertook a study on governance models for the ICCS service certification program, which led to the creation of the ICCS Service Certification Board in 2010.

We had the pleasure of collaborating with Ken in many other ways. Brian and Ken collaborated with Sandy Borins to write The New Public Organization, for example. It was a special pleasure that Ken was still the long-serving editor of the International Review of Administrative Studies, when IRAS published our 2005 paper on the Public Sector Service Value Chain.

Ken was a mentor, advisor, editor and critic, to whom we could always turn for wise advice and counsel. Because Ken's instincts and judgments were always right, and honourable.

For us, the most important thing about Ken Kernaghan was, in the end, neither his scholarship nor his contribution to practice--important though they certainly were--but, rather, the kind of man he was. Ken was the very embodiment of both a scholar and a gentleman: considerate, caring, collaborative, and charming. A man of decency, honour, integrity, judgment, discretion, kindness, thoughtfulness, generosity--and wit!--whom we loved. And whom we were proud and privileged to call a friend. Ken Kernaghan was a great Canadian and a great human being, who will live on in the hearts of all of us who were privileged to share life's journey with him.

Ralph Heintzman is a senior fellow in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa. Brian Marson is an OECD International Advisor, and a faculty member at the Development Academy of the Philippines

Kenneth Kernaghan as mentor--Carolyn Johns

I was introduced to Ken Kernaghan's work as an undergraduate student. His textbook co-authored with David Siegel was the bible of public administration in Canada and planted the seeds for my growing interest in public administration as a profession and field of study.

While in graduate school at McMaster in the 1990s, I was exposed to Ken's scholarship and case studies on values and ethics, accountability, partnerships and public sector reform. I became an IP AC member and heard Ken present his research and receive awards at IP AC conferences. But his reputation as a scholar was formidable, and I didn't have the courage to meet him until I was a part-time PhD student at McMaster, working in the Continuing Education Department.

As a new Program Coordinator, I assembled an advisory committee to develop the curriculum for a continuing education program in public sector management. After approaching Mark Sproule-Jones and Barbara Carroll from McMaster, I asked Ken if he would serve on this committee. He graciously accepted, provided wonderful input, and later taught some of the modules for practitioners in the Hamilton and Niagara regions.

When I applied for a one-year contract position at Brock, Ken was on the hiring committee. During the interview he asked whose thinking I agreed with on the classic Savoie-Borin's debate on the New Public Management published in CPA. I cannot recall my exact response but do remember thinking that I hope it reflected Ken's balanced and thoughtful approach in his commentary, "Keeping the New Public Management Pot Boiling," published in CPA in 1995.

I was thrilled to be offered the position to teach public administration at Brock in 1998-99. Ken was the first person I went to see, and he quickly became my mentor as a new teacher. He was so helpful, providing me with resources and advice. His encouragement to use case studies as the foundation of my course seminars was the beginning of my interest in writing and using case studies. Only later, when drafting a chapter for the 2008 festschrift in Ken's honour, did I learn of the extent of his pioneering contributions to developing and using case studies in Canadian public administration and his role as founding editor of the IP AC Case Study Program. Some years later I followed in Ken's footsteps and became the editor of the IPAC Case Study Program.

When a tenure-track position in public administration was posted at Ryerson, Ken helped me with my application and provided a reference letter. Years later a member of the hiring committee told me that Ken's letter was influential in the committee's decision to hire me and take a chance on a young scholar a year away from completing her PhD. Ken also provided me with my first opportunity to serve on a graduate thesis committee and encouraged me to get involved with the IP AC Regional Group in Toronto and the Commonwealth Association for Public Administration and Management (CAPAM).

In 2002 we attended the CAPAM Conference in Scotland. Ken was there as Editor of International Review of Administrative Sciences (IRAS), and I as a Rapporteur. I vividly recall sitting in the breakfast lounge reviewing my copious notes, trying to summarize the numerous, varied and important themes presented over three days for my presentation during the closing session. Ken offered me some helpful advice to just focus on the three most striking and enduring themes. I never forgot this simple but very wise counsel.

Over the years we kept in touch. Ken nominated me for a position as the CAPAM member on the IRAS editorial board, my first experience on an editorial board. I invited Ken to give a guest lecture to our graduate students at Ryerson and more than once to members of the IP AC Toronto Regional Group. He always graciously accepted and spoke so eloquently. We would also correspond occasionally via email. We had sad correspondence about the passing of scholars like Ted Hodgetts and Peter Aucoin, and happy correspondence about his recent publications that I was using in my courses at Ryerson. At his retirement party from Brock, I told Ken and his family how influential and important he was as a mentor for me as a young teacher and scholar.

Above all, Ken was a wonderful, warm, caring and thoughtful man. I am truly honoured to have had the pleasure of knowing him. His contributions to the field of public administration are remarkable and his influence will live on: through his writings, through all the practitioners and colleagues he worked with, through all the students he taught and mentored, and through the values and ethics he wrote about and exemplified in public service.

Carolyn Johns, Associate Professor, Department of Politics and Public Administration, Ryerson University

Ken Kernaghan: evidence-based, continuing scholarship--Sandford Borins

Ken Kernaghan and I began collaborating two decades ago because we both thought that the reforms and innovations practitioners were introducing were of great significance and deserved serious study. Ken outlined his approach to this research in a short article in this journal, offered in response to the debate about the merits of New Public Management between Donald Savoie and me (Kernaghan 1995: 482-3). With its emphasis on balance and rigour, this statement became Ken's personal manifesto:

Surely the important question is not whether a proposed reform can be characterized as part of NPM, but whether it will improve the performance of a particular organization without undermining such public service values as accountability, integrity, efficiency, effectiveness, and responsiveness.... We should assist and encourage [practitioners'] efforts by a rigorous analysis of the political and managerial implications and the purposes, benefits and limitations of these new approaches. Moreover, we should avoid the appearance of 'one sidedness' by presenting a balanced examination of the virtues and deficiencies of reform proposals....

Ken, Brian Marson, and I co-authored The New Public Organization (2000), but Ken was undoubtedly the lead. He sought to synthesize the tenets of the reform movement by arguing that the complete package of reforms--restructuring and reengineering, innovation, enhanced public service, empowerment, consultation and partnering, organizational learning, and information technology--was giving rise to a new post-bureaucratic paradigm. The book included a discussion of the origins, rationale, and characteristics of each reform, as well as numerous case studies. Consistent with his manifesto, he concluded each chapter by examining managerial, political, and ethical implications.

My own research on public sector innovation led me to identify information technology (IT) as having a crucial role as enabler or facilitator. I was influenced by both the successes (and failures) of the dot-com revolution of the nineties as well as my own experience on the board of the Crown corporation that oversaw the development of leading-edge tolling technology for Ontario's Highway 407. In organizing a research team to apply to SSHRC's Initiative on the New Economy program, Ken was an obvious choice for a key role. He contributed three chapters to Digital State at the Leading Edge (Borins et al. 2007), on integrated service delivery, on online campaigning, and on the use of IT by parliamentarians. For the two latter chapters, he designed and implemented surveys of federal MPs and Ontario MPPs in both 2003 and 2005. In the chapters on politics and politicians, Ken weighed carefully whether the application of IT was having a transformative impact on political life and concluded that, by and large, it was. I intended Digital State to be a cohesive and focused collaboration among six co-authors (in three countries) rather than just an edited volume. In my efforts to keep the team on track, Ken was the person I turned to most often for advice and collegial support. Ken's well-known ability to meet deadlines for three chapters--served as inspiration to the others.

After our collaboration on Digital State, Ken deepened his interests in integrated service delivery and IT, themes animated his last three articles for CPA. "Changing channels" (Kernaghan 2013) discusses the integration of service delivery channels and the sometimes forced migration of users to self-service channels that are of lowest cost to the government. In "Digital dilemmas: values, ethics, and information technology" (Kernaghan 2014a), Ken brought together his interest in IT with his life-long interest in public service ethics to assess the implications of developments in open data, big data, and the Internet of Things for public service values such as political neutrality, transparency, accountability, fairness, responsiveness, service, and innovation. Ken's last article "The rights and wrongs of robotics: ethics and robots in public organizations" (Kernaghan 2014b) was the most path-breaking. The increasing use of robots in three major areas of public service--national defence, health care, and care for the elderly--will require consideration of the rules and practices--robot ethics--used to govern their routines. Again, he argued that robot ethics should be influenced by public sector values.

Ken was in declining health when he contributed these three articles. Yet he kept on exploring and writing. There are 63 items in the reference list for the article on robotics; the only two authors I recognized were Bill Gates and Isaac Asimov. At the end of his life, Ken retained his intellectual curiosity and was delving into an entirely new literature and linking it to the literature on public service ethics that he had played such a key role in creating. By any standard, Ken Kemaghan had an exemplary scholarly career. What impresses me so enormously is that as a scholar he persisted in exploring new terrain to the very end. As a friend and colleague, he remained what he always was, an exemplar whose presence and scholarship will be greatly missed.

Sandford Borins, Professor of Public Management, University of Toronto

Working with Ken: the Responsible Public Servant and Kernaghan's elixir John Langford

As many readers of the journal will be aware, Ken and I collaborated on writing two editions of The Responsible Public Servant (1990, 2014), a book published by IP AC and designed to engage public servants and students of public administration in the debates about the nature of good and bad professional behaviour.

Writing about how to act as a professional is not like explaining and appraising an expenditure budgeting system or a new approach to service delivery. This is about individual integrity and focuses on inherently difficult personal choices that public servants face, such as how far to go in supporting and protecting political masters, the nature of the obligation to share information with affected stakeholders, the tradeoffs to be made among conflicting goals such as security, public safety and the privacy of citizens and groups. It's hard enough doing this well on your own, but it's a potentially explosive set of topics when two co-authors are trying to accommodate different and deeply held world views and personal convictions to produce a shared analysis of what defensible professional behaviour would look like.

And Ken and I had our share of explosive moments especially in producing the recent edition of The Responsible Public Servant. I particularly recall the difficult discussions we had on the degree to which contemporary public servants accepted personal responsibility for their contributions to government actions or inactions that evidence suggested would produce harmful or even illegal outcomes. I thought we had reached a tipping point and that too many Canadian public servants, facing difficult political pressure and more stressful work environments, were tending to deny their personal responsibility to protect the public interest. Ken saw the glass as being more than half full, disputing the argument that public servants were increasingly willing to do what they were told, to "spin" evidence, implement harmful policies and programs, etc. and thus rejecting their obligation to "step up." He saw the world of public service as evolving more slowly. He recognized that there were political and environmental threats to the traditional role of public servants but believed that the fundamental tenets of Canadian public service were still being widely observed.

Back and forth we went, exchanging drafts of the chapter festooned with marginal comments dissecting the available cases, examining the tone of various sentences, and defending and questioning possibly "inflammatory" adjectives. We both recognized that this was a critical building block of the book. If public servants were unwilling to take personal responsibility for their actions, hiding behind the orders of their political masters or the smokescreen of collective teamwork, then what would be the point of engaging them in discussions of making tough choices for which they did not feel ultimately accountable?

But after reaching an impasse in any one of our cross-country e-mail exchanges, we always ended up on the phone. And this is where Ken's even temperament and amazing collaborative skills really came into play. He was a master of the cool, relaxed dialogue. As we reviewed a contentious issue, he would listen carefully and patiently, ask friendly, non-threatening questions, show sympathy, add a little joke or funny story relevant to the topic at hand (clearly illustrating that he understood and appreciated my point of view), hesitate, and sometimes go silent for seconds at a time (he was thinking hard or perhaps wondering how to deal with this excitable character on the other end of the line) and then, in the end, suggest solutions that in most cases seemed to satisfy both of us. All in his lovely musical, baritone voice that I have always presumed owed a great debt to many generations of Irish forbearers.

As I write this, it occurs to me that I have never asked David Siegel if he had similar curative experiences with Ken in the course of their long partnership coauthoring the textbook Public Administration in Canada. The difference, of course, is that David had the advantage of regular face-to-face contact as they worked together on successive editions of this iconic text. My guess is that the Kernaghan Magic Collaborative Elixir would have been even more effective delivered in person and accompanied by Ken's always-infectious grin.

John Langford, Professor Emeritus, School of Public Administration, University of Victoria

In reviewing these reflections, one can see that scores more people could have been approached, who would have provided additional perspectives on Ken and his many diverse contributions; all would have been equally heartfelt and pointed to his personal qualities. Stepping back, it seems clear that it would be difficult to chronicle the trajectory of our field of Canadian public administration with respect to general knowledge, scholarship, this journal and the case program, and institutions such as IP AC without considerable mention of Ken Kernaghan.

When one arrays all of his responsibilities and accomplishments on a timeline, one wonders how it was possible for Ken to do so much, on so many fronts, touching thousands and thousands of people, for such a long time, and remain an exemplary colleague. When submitting manuscripts, they were always close to ready for "prime-time" but he took advice and quickly turned around manuscripts. He was ever-curious, always willing to re-visit and rethink his own work, and keen to share what he had learned with others. He sought to stimulate interest and debate in public administration in a balanced way, whether through teaching, research or service to professional organizations.

For Ken, his public administration work was a passion and vocation. As his last article--"The rights and wrongs of robotics," which was partially stimulated by his recent experiences with the health system--went to press, I recall his sadness when he confided that he needed to stop his research to focus fully on his family, household and farm matters, and to gird for rounds of treatment. It was difficult for him to let go, but he did. He leaves an impressive corpus of work, multiple institutional and programmatic legacies, and most importantly, a deep influence on generations of colleagues, students, and professionals who will find ways to further the personal and professional values he exemplified.

Finally, I extend condolences to Helgi and the entire Kernaghan family on behalf of our community of public administration scholars and pracademics, and from our journal Canadian Public Administration, IP AC's Research and Professional Practices Committee, and the executive of the Canadian Association of Programs in Public Administration. Thank you for sharing him: as you can see from the remembrances above, he made a profound difference to the field of Canadian public administration and well beyond.

Evert Lindquist, Editor, Canadian Public Administration, and Professor, School of Public Administration, University of Victoria

References *

Borins, S., Kernaghan, K., Brown, D., Bontis, N, Perri 6, and Thompson, F. 2007. Digital State at the Leading Edge. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Kernaghan, K. (ed.) 1968. Public Administration in Canada: Selected Readings. Toronto: Methuen (the last edition appearing in 1975).

--. (ed.) 1969. Bureaucracy in Canadian Government, Second Edition. Toronto: Methuen. (2nd edition, 1973).

Kergnaghan, K., Borins, S., and Marson, B. 2000. The New Public Organization. Toronto: Institute of Public Administration of Canada.

Kernaghan, K., and Siegel, D. 1987. Public Administration in Canada: A Text. Toronto: Nelson (three editions followed, the last in 1999).

Kernaghan, K., and Langford, J. 1990. The Responsible Public Servant, Second Edition. Toronto: Institute of Public Administration of Canada. (2nd edition in 2014).

Siegel, D., and Rasmussen, K. 2008. Professionalism and Public Service: Essays in Honour of Kenneth Kernaghan. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

* References to Ken's articles in CPA can be found in Annex 1; a more extensive list of his publications, until 2008, can be found in Siegel and Rasmussen (2008: 329-338). Annex 1. Articles by Ken Kernaghan in Canadian Public Administration/Administration publique du Canada # Title Volume/Date[Page numbers 1 An overview of public 11:3 (Sept. 1968), 291-308 administration in Canada today 2 Responsible public bureaucracy: A 16:4 (Dec. 1973), 572-603 rationale and a framework for analysis 3 Codes of ethics and administrative 17:4 (Dec. 1974), 527-541 responsibility 4 Changing concepts of power and 21:3 (Sept. 1978), 389-406 responsibility in the Canadian public service 5 Representative bureaucracy: The 21:4 (Dec. 1978), 489-512 Canadian perspective 6 Canadian public administration: 25:4 (Dec. 1982), 444-A56 Progress and prospects L'administration publique 25:4 (Dec. 1982), 457-470 canadienne: situation actuelle et perspectives d'avenir 7 Merit and motivation: Public 25:4 (Dec. 1982), 696-712 personnel management in Canada (with P.K. Kuruvilla) 8 Political rights and political 29:4 (Dec. 1986), 639-652 neutrality: Finding the balance point 9 The Statement of Principles of the 30:3 (Sept. 1987), 331-351 Institute of Public Administration of Canada: The rationale for its development and content La Declaration de principes de 30:3 (Sept. 1987), 352-375 l'Institut d'administration publique du Canada: les fondements de son elaboration et contenu 10 Managing ethics: Complementary 34:1 (March 1991), 132-145 approaches 11 Career Public Service 2000: Road 34:4 (Dec. 1991), 551-572 to renewal or impractical vision? 12 Empowerment and public 35:2 (July 1992), 194-214 administration: Revolutionary advance or passing fancy? 13 Partnership and public 36:1 (March 1993), 57-76 administration: Conceptual and practical considerations 14 Reshaping government: The 36:4 (Dec. 1993), 636-644 post-bureaucratic paradigm 15 The emerging public service 37:4 (Dec. 1994), 614-630 culture: Values, ethics, and reforms 16 Keeping the new public management 38:3 (Sept. 1995), 481-484 pot boiling 17 Towards a public-service code of 40:1 (March 1997), 40-54 conduct--and beyond 18 An honour to be coveted: pride, 44:1 (March 2001), 67-83 recognition and public service 19 Bricks, clicks and Calk: 44:4 (Dec. 2001), 417-440 Clustering services for citizen-centred delivery (with J. Berardi) 20 Integrating information technology 47:4 (Dec. 2004), 525-546 into public administration: Conceptual and practical considerations (with J. Gunraj) 21 Reflections and prescriptions 50:4 (Dec. 2007), 511-513 22 Speaking truth to academics: The 52:4 (Dec. 2009), 503-523 wisdom of the practitioners 23 Getting engaged: Public-service 54:1 (March 2011), 1-21 merit and motivation revisited 24 Changing channels: Managing 56:1 (March 2013), 121-141 channel integration and migration in public organizations 25 Digital dilemmas: Values, ethics 57:2 (June 2014), 295-317 and information technology 26 The rights and wrongs of robotics: 57:4 (Dec. 2014), 485-506 Ethics and robots in public organizations