The Romney Institute of Public Service and Ethics at the BYU Marriott School of Business presented Tina Nabatchi with the 2026 Gary C. Cornia Award. In her acceptance speech, she reflected on the responsibility of public service professionals to address social issues and the power that comes from collaboration.
The Cornia Award—presented at a luncheon during the winter semester—is given in honor of Gary C. Cornia, former Romney Institute director and former dean of BYU Marriott, and recognizes outstanding scholars in the field of public administration.
Nabatchi is a professor of public administration and international affairs at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. Her research, which she’s published in various journals, focuses on collaborative governance, conflict resolution, and challenges in public administration.
In her remarks, Nabatchi explained that in 1966, science philosopher, Karl Popper divided social problems into two categories: clocks and clouds. “Clock problems,” she said, “are orderly and predictable. To understand a clock problem, you just take it apart. It can be challenging, but ultimately, it’s solvable.”
“Cloud problems are very different,” Nabatchi said, because they’re irregular and more difficult to solve. “You can’t study these problems in isolation, but rather, you have to study the factors that both directly and indirectly shape the problem to begin with.”
Attempting to fix these cloud problems is a difficult task, but public service professionals can take steps to address them in better ways than have been done before, Nabatchi explained. She offered ten principles to address cloud problems through approaches designed to prompt accountability, transparency, and trust:
- Adopt a learning strategy
- Embrace diverse knowledge and new patterns of knowledge production
- Welcome the participation and input of multiple actors
- Encourage multidimensional methods of engagement
- Treat people like adults
- Give good process
- Focus on interests, not positions
- Develop theories of change and action strategies
- Reframe failure as a learning opportunity
- Nurture creativity, innovation, and experimentation
“These are not just about technical guidelines,” she said. “They’re ethical commitments. They call us to uphold humility and justice and courage.” She listed ways she has seen these principles in action as they help those in public administration solve global social issues, including the necessary relocation of a native Alaskan village and efforts to save tigers in India.
Nabatchi expressed her confidence that public service professionals will not be left alone in solving these problems. “People come together,” she said. “People come together because they, too, want to make the world a better place.”
