Gooden honored for sustained scholarly impact on the field of public administration

Dr. Susan T. Gooden has spent her career asking public administration to take a deeper look at equity—not as an afterthought, but as a central measure of how government serves its people.

Next week, she will be recognized with one of the field’s most distinguished honors. The American Society for Public Administration has named Gooden the 2025 recipient of the Dwight Waldo Award, a career achievement that recognizes sustained, influential scholarship. With her selection, Dr. Gooden joins a legacy of scholars who have shaped the foundation of public administration as a discipline. She is the first African American to receive the award and one of only a handful of women to be honored in its more than 40-year history.

Gooden serves as dean and professor of the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University. Over more than three decades, she has authored six books and more than 100 refereed articles and chapters—work that has defined and expanded the field of social equity in government. Her 2014 book, Race and Social Equity: A Nervous Area of Government, introduced a groundbreaking framework for understanding the role of race in governance and was honored with the Herbert Simon Best Book Award by the American Political Science Association. Her more recent publications, including Global Equity in Administration: Nervous Areas of Governance (2023) and the co-authored Why Research Methods Matter: Essential Skills in Public Affairs (2021), reflect her continued leadership in advancing inclusive governance, applied research and global equity in public administration.

Gooden’s scholarship includes multiple articles in Public Administration Review, the discipline’s flagship journal, where her work has helped shape national conversations on equity, ethics and public management. Her articles, including “PAR’s Social Equity Footprint” (2015) and “Frances Harriet Williams: Unsung Social Equity Pioneer” (2017), have provided critical insight into the evolving role of equity in public service. In addition to Public Administration Review, her work has appeared in leading journals such as the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, The American Review of Public Administration, Administration & Society, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, and Review of Public Personnel Administration.

An internationally recognized scholar, Gooden has secured more than $2.4 million in research funding from institutions including the Russell Sage Foundation, the Kellogg Foundation and MDRC. Her research has addressed issues ranging from welfare reform and racial disparities in health to vaccine equity and census participation. In 2014, she was awarded a Fulbright Specialist Award to Zayed University in Abu Dhabi, further expanding her global footprint as a scholar of social equity.

At VCU, Gooden co-founded the Research Institute for Social Equity and co-founded the Journal of Social Equity and Public Administration, a scholarly platform advancing equity-focused research. She is a former president of both the American Society for Public Administration and the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration, and an elected fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, where she serves on the Standing Panel on Social Equity in Governance.

Her honors include the Charles H. Levine Memorial Award for Excellence in Public Administration, the Joan Fiss Bishop Leadership Award and the Gwendolyn Bullock-Smith Public Service Award.

“Dr. Gooden’s impact on the field of public administration has been both profound and enduring,” said Rosemary O’Leary, emerita distinguished professor at the University of Kansas, and Norma Riccucci, Board of Governors distinguished professor at Rutgers University, who co-nominated her for the award. “Her scholarship not only expands the boundaries of the discipline—it transforms it.”

The 2025 Dwight Waldo Award was presented earlier today at the ASPA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C.