Gladys Kammerer

Gladys Marie Kammerer (13 May 1909 – 17 July 1970) was an American political scientist. She was a professor of political science at the University of Florida from 1958 to 1970, where she was the Director of the Public Administration Clearing Service. She was a scholar of public policy, specializing in policy evaluation in the United States at both the local and federal levels. Kammerer was a member of the leadership or advisory councils for a number of national organizations involved in policy implementation and public administration in the United States, as well as several academic societies.

Life and career Kammerer attended Washington University in St. Louis, where she obtained an A.B. degree, followed by an M.A. degree at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a PhD in 1946 at the University of Chicago. In 1957 and 1958, Kammerer was involved in an academic freedom dispute, in which she was denied a pay raise for voicing public criticisms of the administration of the state of Kentucky, and in particular Governor Happy Chandler's handling of the 1952 Youth Authority Act. In 1962 she published British and American child welfare services: A comparative study in administration, a comparison of British and American policy systems. She was also an author on multiple books about city management. Following her death in 1970, the American Political Science Association established the Gladys M. Kammerer Award in her name, which has been awarded annually for the best publication on the topic of American national policy in the preceding year.

Selected works Kammerer's works included: Impact of war on federal personnel administration: 1939–1945 (1951) British and American child welfare services: A comparative study in administration (1962) City managers in politics, co-authored (1962) The urban political community, co-authored (1963)