Environmental justice champion Nia Robinson will kick off the Five College collaborative public policy practitioner residency program this semester. Robinson will spend the first two weeks of March on the campuses of each of the five colleges, offering lectures, participating in panel discussions and leading teach-ins.
The Social Justice Public Policy Practitioner-in-Residence program was created to offer Five College students and faculty opportunities to engage with and learn from individuals who have hands-on policymaking experience. By offering occasions to interact with those who have chosen lives of service, the residency program will help students imagine careers of their own that might advance the common good.
Robinson is the first of the program’s four residents, who were chosen for their commitment to social justice and their tireless efforts to effect change through policy reform. She co-authored A Climate of Change: African Americans, Global Warming and a Just Climate Policy in the U.S. and currently serves as the environmental justice representative for SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective.
While a resident, Robinson will be hosted by the Population and Development Program at Hampshire College, to which she has long-standing ties. Robinson has spoken several times at the annual conference held at Hampshire that focuses on reproductive rights as one strand of the broader social justice tapestry. And last fall, she helped organize a national climate justice convention co-hosted by the Population and Development Program, SisterSong and the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Katie McKay Bryson, assistant director of the Population and Development Program, said she and her colleagues were “excited by the opportunity to nominate Nia Robinson for this residency because of the innovative way that she approaches the intersections between environmental and climate challenges, reproductive health and racial justice. She lives these connections herself, and so can make them come alive for other activists and students.”
The residency program is one component of the Five College Public Policy Initiative, a collaboration that includes the UMass Center for Public Policy and Administration (CPPA). This budding partnership aims to enhance collaboration among Five College faculty and students who are interested in curricula, research and outreach related to public policy. The residency program was made possible by a generous grant from Five Colleges, Incorporated, with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
CPPA is the hub of interdisciplinary public policy research, teaching and engagement at UMass Amherst. Its faculty and alumni are effective policy leaders, from the local to the global levels, in addressing topics such as family and care policy, environmental issues, emerging technologies, social inequalities and governance. The CPPA program is the 2011 recipient of the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration’s Social Equity Award, created to honor a public administration, affairs or policy program with a comprehensive approach to integrating social equity into its academic and practical work.