The Spirit of Frederickson: Move Forward Boldly

The author was fortunate to work closely with H. George Frederickson while completing his doctoral studies at the University of Kansas. As far as he's aware, one of the things that all Frederickson students had in common is receiving short notes at the end of their papers that said simply "Move Forward Boldly." There were times when that was the only comment on the entire paper. They enjoyed the personality and eccentricity of both the phrase and its regularity but rarely pondered their professor's substantive challenge to be daring and forward thinking. Reflecting on Frederickson's own work, it is clear that moving forward boldly defines his approach to scholarship, and they would all do well to heed his challenge. Jonathan G. S. Koppell and Jennifer Claire Auer's article nicely honors the boldness of The Spirit of Public Administration. The authors illustrate the continued relevance of Frederickson's ideas to public administration scholarship and to contemporary public service delivery.