SPAA Associate Professor Suzanne Piotrowski Appointed to the Freedom of Information Act Advisory Committee

Suzanne Piotrowski, associate professor and director of the Transparency and Governance Center at Rutgers School of Public Affairs and Administration, has been appointed to the Freedom of Information Act Advisory Committee.

Established in 2013, the committee was created by the National Archives and Records Administration to improve the flow of information between the government and the public and increase government transparency. The committee is comprised of FOIA experts from varying sectors who will serve for a two-year term.

Piotrowski's appointment is the latest in a series of roles dedicated to the advancement of governance and transparency, including as former chair of the American Society for Public Administration’s Section on Ethics and Integrity of Governance, and founder of the International Transparency and Secrecy Research Network listserv. She writes widely on public management, accountability, and transparency issues and publishes extensively in academic journals and edited volumes.

She attended the first FOIA committee meeting on Sept. 6, 2018, at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., to discuss the challenges of managing and responding to FOIA requests and the critical roles of communication and technology. The committee will break into three subcommittees addressing those issues: Records Management, Vision, and Time/Volume. Piotrowski  will serve on the Vision subcommittee.

“It is a real honor to be appointed by the Archivist of the United States to the FOIA Advisory Committee,” Piotrowski said. “Over my career, the FOIA has been the focus of much of my research. I have used the FOIA to gather data for my research and I teach our students about its power and limitations. As a member of this federal advisory committee, if I can, in some small way, work to improve the implementation of the FOIA, I will be pleased.”

Piotrowski will reconvene with her fellow committee members at their next meeting on Nov. 29, 2018.