Nonprofit public service exhibit at SU brings attention to civic duties
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Straight from the Library of Congress, “The Promise of Public Service” exhibit arrived at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs Thursday, highlighting public workers across America.
Professors, students, fellows and faculty of National Academy of Public Administration and SU met in Maxwell Friday for a launch event of the traveling exhibit, organized to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary. The exhibit contains large posters displaying public sector workers in America as well as quotes from figures like George Washington and Felisa Rincón de Gautier, former mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico.
The exhibit will be on display until Dec. 18 on the first floor of Maxwell Hall.
“We really wanted to spotlight 250 years of people dedicating their lives to service,” said Gillian Townsend, NAPA’s senior manager, who led the development of the exhibit.
Maxwell School Dean David Van Slyke, a longtime NAPA fellow, connected SU to NAPA, Townsend said.
“The DNA of both Maxwell and NAPA is a commitment to public service, a respect for those who undertake it and a belief that citizenship carries responsibilities to one another and to the greater public good,” Van Slyke said in his speech.
NAPA exists to make government more efficient, effective and transparent, Townsend said. Through research, working with agencies and self-driven initiatives, she explained that NAPA relies heavily on the knowledge of its over 1,000 fellows nationwide.
“This exhibit was created to highlight much of what goes unseen, yet impacts us every day,” James Christian Blockwood, NAPA CEO and adjunct professor at Maxwell, said.
Blockwood also addressed public service amid growing political division and the declining trust in American institutions.
“The promise of public service helps us respond to this disruption by reminding us where we’ve been, who has helped us to get here and gives us hope that we are capable of charting what comes next,” Blockwood said.
SU graduate student Nabeel Siraj, who attended the exhibit’s launch event, also works as a public servant in Pakistan. As a Hubert H. Humphrey fellow, Siraj said he’s directly involved in policy making and implementation within his government.
Like Blockwood, Siraj emphasized the importance of public service during troubling times. He highlighted the value of exhibits and stories of public service that prompt engagement in bigger conversations and inspire younger generations to get involved.
One of the last posters in the exhibit titled “A New Chapter Starts Now” invites passersbys to fill out a survey. It poses the question of what should guide public service in the next century.
In his speech during the launch event, Steve Hagerty, an SU alum and NAPA fellow, emphasized the impact of travelling exhibits. He referenced Undesign the Redline, an exhibit aiming to expose deep-rooted racism in housing policies, as a powerful display of history.
“We were having a big conversation in this country,” Hagerty said. “We continue to have a conversation about race, about harms that we have done through our policies and our practices towards Black Americans.”
Hagerty served as the 21st mayor of Evanston, Illinois from 2017-21 and said he witnessed the Undesign the Redline spark change. He said the exhibit helped Evanston become one of the first cities in the United States to have a local reparations movement.
For Van Slyke, public service takes competency and integrity as well as humility, courage, curiosity, perseverance and a willingness to work with people whose experiences and perspectives differ from our own.
“It asks us to see public problems not as someone else’s responsibility but as an invitation to contribute,” Van Slyke said. “That is the promise of public service. It is the promise to leave what we inherit better than we found it and to help build institutions and communities worthy of those who will follow us.”
Siraj said the promise asks us not to lose hope, and that people should trust their representatives or those who are working for their safety.
“The world is becoming uncertain day by day,” Siraj said. “So that is where the promise of public service comes in. You trust your people. You trust your government that they will provide for you. They would step forward. They would hold your hand when you need it the most.”
