Glenn College Remembers Professor Charles Adams

Published Date August 05, 2024
News Type College News

John Glenn College of Public Affairs Professor Emeritus Charles “Chuck” F. Adams Jr. passed away July 24 at the age of 79.

Adams, an internationally known public economics policy expert, joined Ohio State in 1977 and taught in the economics sequence of the Master of Public Administration and doctoral programs. His interest and expertise in local finance led to his work in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union and in South Africa at the end of Apartheid where he supported the work of local communities in building fledgling democracies.

“Chuck served as director of the School of Public Policy and Management as we navigated through challenging times in the 1990s. He also served as director of doctoral studies. Most importantly, he was committed to our students. Many doctoral alumni count him as a mentor and friend,” said Glenn College Dean Trevor Brown.

John Bartle, left, Dean Emeritus at the University of Nebraska at Omaha College of Public Affairs and Community Service, poses for a photo with his mentor, Glenn College Professor Emeritus Chuck Adams, when receiving the college’s Distinguished Alumni Award for Career Achievement last fall.

Adams, who retired from Ohio State in 2003, conducted research on a variety of public economics and policy topics, including fiscal federalism, welfare reform, child support enforcement, public service employment, urban development and citizen engagement in local self-government. His work was published in academic journals including the Journal of Public Policy and Management, Public Administration and Development, Urban Affairs Quarterly/Review, Social Service Review, Political Science Quarterly, and Journal of Human Resources. He co-authored two books, “Revenue Sharing: The Second Round” and “Public Service Employment: The Experience of a Decade.”

Glenn College Professor Rob Greenbaum, associate dean for curriculum, said Adams helped recruit him to the faculty of what was then the School of Public Policy and Management.

Greenbaum said that after Adams retired, he was still always interested in what was going on in the college and was very proud of its accomplishments. 

“While he stayed busy in retirement with travel and visiting his children and grandchildren, he could not shake the academic bug,” Greenbaum said. “He recently published a set of articles critiquing the standard undergraduate economics textbook treatment of the demand curve because it ignores the role that quality differentiation plays in consumer choice. So, hopefully, another generation of students will benefit from Chuck.”

Adams served as a consultant with a variety of public and not-for-profit agencies including the U.S. State Department/South Africa; Open Society Institute of Budapest/Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development; Government of Belize/U.S. Agency for International Development; Center for Local Autonomy at Hanyang University in Seoul, South Korea; Federal Employment Services of Russia/World Bank; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services/Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation; Ohio Department of Job and Family Services; Great Lakes Consortium for International Training and Development; Brookings Institution; and Princeton University’s Center for Urban and Regional Studies.

He chaired the Doctoral Studies Committee of NASPAA, the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs and Administration, as well as the Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award Committee of APPAM, the Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management. He also was a discussant for the annual National Tax Association’s Outstanding Dissertation Award and served on advisory committees at federal offices such as the Government Accountability Office, Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Health and Human Services, as well as the Urban Institute, the Ohio Child Support Advisory Committee, and the Franklin County Metropolitan Human Services Commission.

Prior to joining Ohio State, Adams was an economist with the Illinois Economic and Fiscal Commission and a Research Fellow in economic studies and research associate in governmental studies at the Brookings Institution. He received his doctorate in economics from the State University of New York at Albany.

A celebration of Adams’ life will be held at The Ohio State University Faculty Club at 2 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 22. 

Read Chuck Adams’ obituary.
 

The Glenn College family shares some memories about Adams:

John Bartle is a Distinguished Professor of Public Administration and Dean Emeritus at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, College of Public Affairs and Community Service and will join the Glenn College this fall as a Visiting Fellow. Adams last year successfully nominated him for the college Distinguished Alumni Award for Career Achievement.

Chuck Adams was a wonderful mentor and role model to me and many others. When I started the doctoral program (1987), he had become chair of the program. I had come to Ohio State to study under him because of his research on the federal revenue sharing program. 

Two of his great qualities were calmness and an ability to see the next steps, so a panicked student could see that the task was possible. In doing so, he showed confidence in us that made us believe we could do it. Whether it was a class assignment, a doctoral dissertation or a major career move, he was in our corner and gave us the confidence we needed. His fatherly demeanor was a source of strength to many — not just his advisees but all doctoral students and the master’s students he taught. 

Beyond the classroom, he was all you would want in a friend: kind, caring, accessible, funny and ironic. Our conversations could have gone on forever: talking about economics, baseball, food, politics, hockey, children and grandchildren, public policy and ideas. He will be missed by his many students.

Adams helped recruit Glenn College Professor Rob Greenbaum, associate dean for curriculum, to the faculty of what was then the School of Public Policy and Management.

Chuck was very helpful when I started out as a new assistant professor in terms of allaying my fears when the director who hired me left before I started, in terms of integrating me into the school and in terms of helping me get started teaching economics and public finance courses. I think he talked about what it took to get tenure in the college with just about every job applicant he interviewed, and I was no exception. Chuck was never someone to sugarcoat things, and he was always very direct. That said, he was also always very supportive.

Beyond the people he touched, one of his lasting legacies was to help push along the merger of the school and the Glenn Institute. During his stint as the interim director of the school during the academic year 2000, he used whatever political capital he had to tell anyone who would listen how obvious it was that the two should merge.

David Landsbergen, Glenn College associate professor, worked with Adams for five years and with him conducted research about human services-based child support systems.

Just at the time I was joining the School of Public Policy and Management, I remember Chuck, as part of the new leadership, working to reinvigorate the school. Chuck’s particular passion was in strengthening the PhD program though we did not have many resources at the time.

Chuck played an important role in sustaining a sense of community within the school. I remember Chuck and his wife, Connie, hosting holiday parties and inviting me for dinners and lunches as a new assistant professor.

As a new arrival to the faculty, I was able to work on some research projects with Chuck and a couple of PhD students, Larry Cobler and Dan Hecht. We had a big field research project, and we would all climb into Chuck’s great big van and tour some regional cities to compare the efficacy and equity of their paternity establishment programs. I still remember the fun we had on those road trips. Chuck always appreciated a good joke, and I will always remember his big smile and hearty laugh.

Every once in a while, as I am circling up the levels of the parking garage to find a parking spot for my “Daddy van,” I have a flashback of me sitting in the passenger seat of Chuck’s much larger van returning from one of those road trips. I remember always being on the edge of my seat wondering how he managed to not hit the garage ceiling. And then I remember those road trips and working with Chuck.