The National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) has selected Professor from Practice Susan Page as a member of its 2023 class of Academy Fellows.
Page is among 60 leaders in the field of public administration chosen for the honor by NAPA, a congressionally chartered nonprofit that works to solve challenges of public management.
Page has a long and distinguished record of public service prior to joining the Michigan Law faculty in 2020. As ambassador to newly independent South Sudan from 2011 to 2014, she played a crucial role in navigating the instability and eventual eruption of civil war in the country and providing foreign policy options for change.
In her time with the US government, she also held a number of other important roles, including serving as attorney-adviser for politico-military affairs in the State Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser, as the United States Agency for International Development’s regional legal advisor in Kenya and Botswana (covering East and Southern Africa), and as a political officer in Rwanda.
More recently, she held a series of high-ranking jobs in the United Nations. She served as deputy special representative of the UN secretary-general, responsible for the rule of law at the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti, and then as special representative of the UN secretary-general for justice support in Haiti.
In addition to her appointment at Michigan Law, Page also is the director of U-M’s Weiser Diplomacy Center and a professor of practice of international diplomacy at U-M’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.
“We welcome these outstanding new Fellows and invite them to help us advance the academy vision—a just, fair, and inclusive government that strengthens communities and protects democracy,” said Terry Gerton, president and CEO of the academy.
Induction of the new NAPA Fellows will occur during the annual Academy Fall Meeting, which will take place in early November in Washington, DC, with a focus on “Grand Challenges in Public Administration.”
The 2023 class joins nearly 1,000 Academy Fellows—including former cabinet officers, members of Congress, governors, mayors, and state legislators, as well as prominent scholars, business executives, nonprofit leaders, and public administrators.