A new SPPD professorship honoring Chester A. Newland, the Duggan Distinguished Professor of Public Administration, has been created at the USC State Capital Center in Sacramento.

Sterling and Larry Franklin, sons of the late Carl M. Franklin, USC vice president emeritus, made a pledge of $500,000 to fund the Professor Chester A. Newland Endowed Professorship in Public Administration in the USC School of Policy, Planning, and Development.

The USC State Capital Center educates more than 70 students annually who work full-time in state and local government agencies while pursuing master’s degrees in public administration and health administration.

“I suspect the Franklins, like their father, wanted a professorship that is oriented to teaching in a very strong way and also oriented to giving USC major visibility in the state capital,” Newland said. “What you have to keep in mind is the capital of California really is a global center. And so it’s necessary to note that while the USC State Capital Center focuses in part on state government and state entrepreneurial leadership in business and in nonprofit affairs, that it really is an effort by USC to stress California as a great, disciplined global center of education and of lifetime leadership.”

Richard F. Callahan, associate dean for State Capital and Leadership Programs, said, “Newland has taught generations of students in Sacramento, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. His life’s work has been teaching two sets of core values: the search for human dignity and reasonableness under the rule of law.”

Sterling and Larry Franklin said, “This endowment honors Dr. Newland for his outstanding career in public administration. He is truly a giant in the field. This endowment will support the USC State Capital Center in perpetuity.”

Newland has an impressive record of public service, having served as a research fellow for the U.S. Supreme Court; city councilman of Denton, Texas; director of the Lyndon B. Johnson Library; task force head for President Jimmy Carter’s civil service reform project; two-time director of the Federal Executive Institute; and government consultant to 10 nations in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

He has written more than 100 articles and books on public administration. He served as editor of the Public Administration Review for eight years and as national president of the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA). In April, the ASPA bestowed its highest award, the Dwight Waldo Award, on Newland for his “outstanding contributions to the professional literature of public administration over an extended career.”

“Professor Newland is one of the most respected figures nationally and internationally in the field of public administration,” said Jack H. Knott, C. Erwin and Ione L. Piper Dean and Professor at SPPD. “He is to public administration what USC’s professor Warren Bennis is to leadership. To create an endowed SPPD professorship in his name is to honor Chet Newland for his lifetime of commitment to teaching and to the field of public administration.”

Sterling Franklin earned his Bachelor of Arts from Stanford, MSEd from USC and JD from Loyola Law School. He earned his Master of Public Administration from SPPD in 1976. He has worked for nonprofit organizations and practiced law in Los Angeles.

Larry Franklin holds a Bachelor of Arts in French and a dual JD/MBA from Stanford. He has worked in Hong Kong since 1981 as a commercial banker, investment banker, equity investor and consultant. He is currently a business school professor at the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology.

He has taught more than 140 MBA and executive MBA courses around the world for business schools including Stanford Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, MIT Sloan School of Management, University of Virginia Darden School of Business and the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.