John Clayton Thomas

    John Clayton Thomas is a Professor and the Chair of the Department of Public Administration and Urban Studies at Georgia State University.

    Thomas is known nationally for his research on public administration and urban affairs, with three books and more than 40 articles in print. Underlying much of this research is a concern for how citizens connect with their governments and how those connections can be improved. His most recent book, Public Participation in Public Decisions: New Skills and Strategies for Public Managers (Jossey-Bass, 1995), is designed to assist public managers, other public officials, and business executives in increasing public involvement in the making of public decisions.

    Thomas has extensive experience in applied research and consulting with governmental and nonprofit agencies. He specializes in survey research and program evaluation, and has conducted citizen and employee surveys at the state and local level for governments in Ohio, Missouri, Kansas, and Georgia. He has also worked extensively on measuring government performance and on using that measurement to improve public management.

    His teaching interests include leadership in the public and nonprofit sector, program evaluation, urban politics and governance, and economic development. Thomas has also conducted training workshops on public involvement in public management for state and local officials in New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Texas.

    He has held leadership posts in several national urban affairs and public administration     organizations. He served from 1990 to 1992 as President of the Urban Affairs Association, and served as Program Co-Chair for the 1994 National Conference of the American Society for Public Administration. He was also a member of the Governor's Commission on Child Support in Georgia in 1997-98.

    Thomas holds a Ph. D. in Political Science from Northwestern University and a B.A. (magna cum laude) and M.A. in Journalism and Mass Communications from the University of Minnesota. He previously served as director of the L. P. Cookingham Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and earlier taught at Texas Christian University and the University of Cincinnati.

Teaching

Georgia State University Andrew Young School of Policy Studies  Department of Public Administration and Urban Studies

Contact Information:
Dr. John C. Thomas, Chair
Department of Public Administration and Urban Studies
Andrew Young School of Policy Studies
Georgia State University
Atlanta, GA  30303-3083
(404) 651-4591
Fax (404) 651-1378
Mailto: padjct@panther.gsu.edu