Life

Luther Halsey Gulick was born January 17, 1892 in Osaka

Osaka

is a city in the Kansai region of Japan's main island of Honshu, a designated city under the Local Autonomy Law, the capital city of Osaka Prefecture and also the biggest part of Keihanshin area, which is represented by three major cities of Japan, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe...

, Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

.
His father was congregationalist missionary Sidney Lewis Gulick

Sidney Gulick

Sidney Lewis Gulick was an educator, author, and missionary who spent much of his life working to promote greater understanding and friendship between Japanese and American cultures.-Biography:...

 (1860–1945) and his mother was Clara May (Fisher) Gulick. He shared his name with his grandfather, missionary Luther Halsey Gulick Sr.

Luther Halsey Gulick Sr.

Luther Halsey Gulick Sr. was a missionary to the Kingdom of Hawaii, and several other places. Although educated in medicine, in later life he became a newspaper editor while several of his children became active in public health.-Life:...

 (1828–1891), and uncle physician Luther Halsey Gulick Jr.

Luther Gulick (physician)

Luther Halsey Gulick, Jr. MD was an American physical education instructor, international basketball official, and founder with his wife of the Camp Fire Girls, an international youth organization now known as Camp Fire USA.-Life:...

 (1865–1918). His great-grandfather was an even earlier missionary to the Kingdom of Hawaii

Kingdom of Hawaii

The Kingdom of Hawaii was established during the years 1795 to 1810 with the subjugation of the smaller independent chiefdoms of Oahu, Maui, Molokai, Lānai, Kauai and Niihau by the chiefdom of Hawaii into one unified government...

, Peter Johnson Gulick

Peter Johnson Gulick

Peter Johnson Gulick was a missionary to the Kingdom of Hawaii and Japan. He was patriarch of a family that also carried on the tradition of missionary work, and included several scientists.-Life:...

 (1796–1877).

Luther Gulick graduated from Oberlin College

Oberlin College

Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio, noteworthy for having been the first American institution of higher learning to regularly admit female and black students. Connected to the college is the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the oldest continuously operating...

 in 1914 and received his Ph.D. from Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 in 1920. He taught at Columbia from 1931-1942. In 1921 he became president of the Institute of Public Administration and served until 1982. He then became its chairman and served until 1982. From 1936-1938 he served on a three member panel appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...

 to reorganize the executive branch of the federal government. From 1954 to 1956, he served as city administrator of New York City.

Among many other accomplishments in the field of public administration

Public administration

Public Administration houses the implementation of government policy and an academic discipline that studies this implementation and that prepares civil servants for this work. As a "field of inquiry with a diverse scope" its "fundamental goal.....

, Gulick is perhaps best known for the functions of the executive represented in the acronym PODSCORB (or POSDCORB

POSDCORB

POSDCORB is an acronym widely used in the field of Management and Public Administration that reflects the classic view of administrative management. Largely drawn from the work of French industrialist Henri Fayol, it first appeared in a 1937 staff paper by Luther Gulick and Lyndall Urwick written...

 depending on the source). Each letter stands for Planning, Organizing, Directing, Staffing, Coordinating, Reporting and Budgeting.

Gulick's advocacy (with Alvin Hansen

Alvin Hansen

Alvin Harvey Hansen , often referred to as "the American Keynes," was a professor of economics at Harvard, a widely read author on current economic issues, and an influential advisor to the government who helped create the Council of Economic Advisors and the Social security system...

) during World War II of Keynesian policies to promote full employment post-war helped to persuade John Maynard Keynes

John Maynard Keynes

John Maynard Keynes, Baron Keynes of Tilton, CB FBA , was a British economist whose ideas have profoundly affected the theory and practice of modern macroeconomics, as well as the economic policies of governments...

 to help develop post-war plans for the international economy that included considerable emphasis on free trade.

In a time where the prevalent theme was the separation of politics and administration, Gulick advocated that it was impossible to separate the two.

Gulick in his recent writings (publication made after his highly famous Papers on the Science of Administration edited along with Lyndall Urwick in 1937) has noted that much has happened to affect the field of public administration and his analysis of his nature since he edited the Papers on the Science of Administration fifty years ago. Based upon fifty years of his analysis, he notes that "after all, governments are constituted of human beings, are run by human beings and have as their main job helping, controlling and serving human beings." He considers human beings as the major and essential variables for understanding the nature of Public Administration today and guiding the field into the future. On this foundation, he identifies as to how human beings constitute the dynamic factors that are intrinsic in the study of administration.

Gulick emphasizes that the main function of the state should be human welfare, survival and improvement to meet the challenges of every changing environment and not war. But unfortunately, the structure of the modern state is specifically designed for war. As a result, the structure of the modern state is distinctly military. It is authoritative, with all authority, concentrated at the top, and all the work, but not the authority, assigned to subordinate echelons and field commanders. He emphasizes the need for a new approach to the fundamental organization of the state introducing greater decentralization in place of present centralized, hierarchical, military structure. He also suggests that the Public Administration should forget the non-existing economic man, deal realistically with the non-existing free market and include human welfare and compassion in its embrace.

He also talks that time is the crucial factor in every event and that all public policy innovations are rooted in timing and in democracy timing is the hallmark of the statecraft. But he laments that time has been a neglected factor in Public Administration. Time as an input, as an output, time as the flow of events, time as a gap between two or more significant events or processes and finally, timing as a management policy, are the different aspects of time identified by him. It means that the principles of management of administration should be eternally tied to the culture in which they arise, and that the culture must evolve appropriately well before major changes in human organization can be achieved. Timing is essential for any organization as it is not a machine but an organism.

He died January 10, 1993 in Greensboro, Vermont

Greensboro, Vermont

Greensboro is the southernmost town in Orleans County, Vermont, United States. The population was 770 at the 2000 census. The town includes the places of Campbells Corners, East Greensboro, Gebbie Corner, Greensboro Four Corners, Greensboro Bend, The Four Corners, Tolmans Corner, and Burlington...

. His first wife Helen Swift died in 1969. His second wife, Carol W. Moffett, died in 1989. He had two children, Luther Halsey Gulick Jr. and Clarence Gulick.

External links