Jeffrey A. Raffel

Jeffrey A. Raffel received his undergraduate degree from the University of Rochester in political science and a Ph.D. from M.I.T. in the same field. He joined the University of Delaware’s faculty in 1971 and is now the Charles P. Messick Chair Emeritus of Public Administration in the Joseph R. Biden School of Public Policy and Administration. He has published articles in a variety of fields, including urban affairs, education, and public administration. Among his books is Public Sector Leadership: International Challenges and Perspectives, co-edited with Professor Anthony Middlebrooks of the University of Delaware’s Leadership Program and Peter Leisink from the Netherlands.

Dr. Raffel has served in a number of leadership capacities at the University of Delaware, the state level, and nationally. In the 1970s, he served as executive director of the Delaware Committee on the School Decision, a committee appointed by Delaware’s governor to prepare the Wilmington community for the pending metropolitan school desegregation federal court order. In 1978 he was “loaned” from the University of Delaware to be the University’s first Public Service Intern and, as such, served as Delaware Governor Pete du Pont’s Special Assistant for Intergovernmental Relations. Raffel was a co-founder and in 1999 the first director of the Delaware Academy for School Leadership (DASL) at the University of Delaware. Raffel also has chaired and served on various educational-reform task forces in Delaware and twice was an expert witness in cases related to the Wilmington metropolitan area school desegregation order.

Raffel is a past president of the Network of Schools of Public Affairs, Policy, and Administration (NASPAA), an international association of schools and programs with a mission to ensure excellence in public service education. He also chaired NASPAA’s Commission on Peer Review and Accreditation (COPRA). Starting in 1997, Raffel served 10 years as the first director of the School of Public Policy and Administration (now the Biden School) at the University of Delaware. He now chairs its Board of Advisors. In 2009 Dr. Raffel worked to reestablish a chapter and served as chair of Common Cause Delaware, a nonpartisan watchdog group whose mission is to promote open, ethical, and accountable government at the local, state, and national levels by educating and mobilizing the citizens of Delaware. Dr. Raffel also served as vice president of the ACLU of Delaware.

Raffel and his wife, Joanne, have three adult children with spouses, and six grandchildren.