Since September 2024, nearly a dozen members of New York City’s top leadership have stepped down, from deputy mayors to senior advisors and commissioners. Most recently, Maria Torres-Springer (First Deputy Mayor), Chauncey Parker (Deputy Mayor for Public Safety), Meera Joshi (Deputy Mayor for Operations), and Anne Williams-Isom (Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services)– resigned jointly, creating uncertainty around organizational stability and continuity of operations. This prompted city and state officials to consider how best to support leadership continuity during complex periods, which Comptroller Brad Lander referred to as an “unprecedented leadership vacuum,” urging proactive contingency planning.

This moment raises a broader question that extends beyond the immediate needs of running the city: what does a future career in public service look like when trust in institutions is strained, and leadership changes occur at the highest levels of management?

In order to put the events in New York City into context, Layana Abu Touq, Senior Program Manager at the Moynihan Center of The City College of New York, offered some thoughts on this topic exclusively for Barrett and Greene, Inc.”

The good news she shares is that at “institutions like City College of New York, interest in public service remains strong. The Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership, for example, has seen record enrollments in Spring 2025– up 9.6% over the previous spring and the highest since the school’s creation in 2013. Students across disciplines, including social sciences, engineering, architecture, and medical programs, remain actively involved in service-oriented programs, fellowships, and internships that have a community and public impact.”

But she points out that “in conversations with students, a shift is emerging. While many remain interested in public sector roles, fewer see government administration as the only pathway. Instead, many are pursuing policy research and data analysis at think tanks, international and nonprofit organizations. These are not retreats from service but reflect an evolving landscape of career planning based on changing external dynamics and observations of how politics, policy, and power affect public institutions.”

As Abu Touq concludes: “Moments of uncertainty often create new windows of opportunity. This is one for public service programs, universities, and research institutions to adapt. Students need both flexibility in career planning and foundational, transferable skills and core competencies in communications, adaptability, data analysis, management and critical thinking that allow them to succeed in the public sector but also navigate complexity across sectors over time. Rather than preparing students for a singular, linear path into a government role, we must help them develop competencies that apply across government, NGOs, academia, journalism, and research centers . . .

“The question isn’t whether students will continue to pursue public service. They will. The real question is whether our institutions and leaders are ready to subvert and support a broader, more adaptive, cross-sector model of public service.”

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