Category: Events

Amy Schalet, assistant professor of sociology, will discuss “Beyond Abstinence and Risk: A New Paradigm for Adolescent Sexual Health Policy” on Monday, December 6, at 12 p.m. in Thompson 620.  This is the final talk in this fall’s Center for Public Policy and Administration Faculty Colloquium.

Schalet’s talk will draw upon her extensive research of factors that foster and impede sexual health among adolescents. According to Schalet, policies and practices that help teens to make their own decisions, that support positive relationships with romantic partners and caregivers, and that recognize the diversity that shapes sexual experience are all important to fostering adolescent sexual health.

Schalet’s findings derive partly from her examination of adolescent sexuality in the Netherlands, where teenagers are eight times less likely to give birth than teenagers in the U.S.  Lower poverty rates and better health care in the Netherlands contribute to this disparity, but cultural differences between the two nations are critical.

More specifically, while sex education remains controversial in the U.S., with abstinence often promoted among teens, the Dutch view sexuality as part of an adolescent’s normal development and encourage responsible sex education and contraception.

Schalet’s analysis suggests the need for Americans to modify their current understandings of healthy adolescence and to promote policies that encourage personal empowerment and positive relationships among teenagers.

Schalet is the author of Raging Hormones, Regulated Love, which examines approaches to adolescent sexuality in American and Dutch middle-class families (forthcoming from the University of Chicago Press).  She received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley and an undergraduate degree in social studies from Harvard University.  Prior to coming to UMass Amherst, she held a postdoctoral fellowship at the School of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.  She is a founding member of the UMass Public Engagement Project Steering Committee, and works regularly with physicians, nurses, educators and youth advocates through mutually productive interprofessional exchanges.

Schalet’s work has been supported by two multi-year grants from the Ford Foundation.

This talk is free and open to the public.  Brownbag lunches are welcome. For additional information, go to www.masspolicy.org or contact Kathy Colón (kcolon@pubpol.umass.edu).

On November 4, 2010, Peter Levin, Chief Technology Officer and Senior Advisor to the Secretary in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, will speak on the UMass Amherst campus about the VA’s efforts to create a more open and transparent government. Dr. Levin’s seminar is 1:15 to 2:30 p.m. in the Computer Science Building, room 151.

As the first Chief Technology Officer for the VA, Dr. Levin has spent the past year identifying opportunities and implementing new technologies to better serve veterans and their families. The VA’s efforts – prompted by President Obama’s 2009 Open Government Initiative which challenged federal agencies to become more transparent, collaborative, and participatory – demonstrate how technology can be used to make government more accessible and responsive to citizens’ needs. For instance, the VA has used popular social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to connect veterans and their families online and to circulate important news and announcements.

The VA is also using technology to transform how veterans receive information about health care, disability benefits, and education opportunities. The “Blue Button” project and the “MyHealthVet Portal” are the Department’s attempts to not only electronically track the health, benefits, and administrative records of service men and women– encompassing information from enlistment all the way through retirement from the military and beyond – but to make that information accessible to veterans with the click of a button. Today, veterans can view their medical histories and refill prescriptions through the Portal. And they can securely download and share medical information with health care providers.

Dr. Levin has a long and distinguished career in both government and technology. Prior to becoming chief technology officer, he was a White House Fellow during the Clinton Administration; he was a Special Assistant to the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and the Assistant to the Counselor to the President. He was also an expert consultant in the Office of Science and Technology Policy, where he co-edited the 1997 Biennial Presidential Report to Congress on Science and Technology, and co-authored its chapter on technology.

The seminar is organized by the National Center for Digital Government and sponsored by the Qualitative Data Analysis Program, the Center for Public Policy and Administration, the Laboratory for Advanced Software Engineering Research, Electronic Enterprise Institute, and the Isenberg School of Management.

The UMass Amherst Libraries will host “Ethics Day: Engaging Librarians in the Responsible Conduct of Research,” a professional development program for New England area librarians, on Friday, October 8, 2010, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., on Floor 26, Du Bois Library, UMass Amherst.   For more information and to register for the free program by October 1, visit http://guides.library.umass.edu/ethicsday.  Lunch and other refreshments will be provided.

The Ethics Day program will include morning sessions, which will introduce research ethics and the responsible conduct of research, and afternoon sessions, which will explore some of the ethical concerns in the field of librarianship.

The keynote speaker, Sheila Bonde, is professor of art, architecture, and archeology at Brown University.  Bonde will give a talk, “Ethical Awareness in International Collaborations: A Contextual Approach.” Bonde is currently a Fellow at the Cogut Center for the Humanities. Formerly dean of the Brown graduate school, she led ethics training for graduate students for many years.  Her research and teaching on ethics in international collaborations is supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

Elizabeth Buchanan, Ph.D., director of the Center for Information Policy Research and associate professor in the School of Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, will give a talk, “On the Internet, No One Knows You’re a Researcher.” Buchanan teaches and researches in the areas of information and research ethics, in particular internet research ethics. She is currently working on two National Science Foundation projects on research ethics 2.0, as well as studying the ethical issues involved in social science data banking.  Buchanan is the chair of the Association of Internet Researchers Ethics Working Group and co-director of the International Society of Ethics and Information Technology.

John DeSantis, cataloging and metadata services librarian at Dartmouth College Library since 1988, will be speaking on professional ethics in librarianship.  His previous experience includes work as a catalog librarian at Amherst College.  He served as a member of the American Library Association’s Committee on Professional Ethics from 2007 to 2009, and as a Councilor-at-Large from 2004 to 2010.

Jennifer Donais, associate director, Office of Grant & Contract Administration, UMass Amherst, will give a talk about funder requirements for ethics training.

Nancy Harger and Judy Norberg, education and clinical services librarians at Lamar Soutter Library, UMass Medical School, will give a talk, “Embedded in the IRB.” Harger and Norberg will discuss their experience serving on the UMass Medical School’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) and describe how their roles have evolved over the years. They will give an overview of the IRB process and discuss their responsibilities in support of the reviewers.

Athanasia (Nancy) Pontika, adjunct faculty and doctoral student, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Simmons College; assistant editor, Open Access Directory; will speak on the ethics of open access and library publishing.  Pontika’s thesis, “Ethics, its codes and their application in Librarianship and Information Science,” was presented at the 14th Panhellenic Conference on Academic Libraries.

Hongjie Wang, head of Information and Education Services Department, Lyman Maynard Stowe Medical Library, University of Connecticut Health Center, will give a talk, “Mentoring Rocks!…..if done appropriately.” Wang is assistant professor in the Department of Community Medicine and Health Care at the UConn Health Center.  He is also a Distinguished Member of the Academy of Health Information Professionals.

Ethics Day is sponsored by the Science, Technology & Society Initiative, the UMass Amherst Libraries, the National Center for Digital Government, and the Ethics in Science and Engineering National Clearinghouse beta site. Funding is provided by the National Science Foundation.

For more information, contact Jessica Adamick, Ethics Clearinghouse Librarian, 413-545-6898, jadamick@library.umass.edu.

The Center for Public Policy and Administration (CPPA) is celebrating its move to Gordon Hall with an Open House from 3-5 p.m. on Thursday, September 23.  Senator Stan Rosenberg and Representative Ellen Story will make remarks at the event, along with UMass faculty and administrators.  All members of the UMass community are invited to the Open House, which will include a reception and tours of CPPA’s new space.

The move, which took place during the summer of 2010, enables CPPA to house student and staff offices in contiguous quarters, and also provides new office space for faculty. 

“We’re excited by our new home, and especially by its possibilities,” according to CPPA Director M.V. Lee Badgett.  “Gordon Hall is a beautiful building, both inside and out.  The additional space will also allow for CPPA’s continued growth in the years to come.”

CPPA offices are located on Gordon Hall’s first floor, while the National Center for Digital Government (NCDG) and the Science, Technology and Society Initiative (STS)—projects affiliated with CPPA—now has offices on the second floor.

Gordon Hall was completed in 2003 as the home of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI), housed on the second and third floors of the building.  The building was designed by noted architect Sigrid Miller Pollin, who also is a faculty member in Architectural Studies and Interior Design, a unit of the UMass Department of Art.

For additional information about the open house or CPPA’s recent move, please contact Kathy Colón (kcolon@pubpol.umass.edu or 413.545.3956) or Susan Newton (snewton@pubpol.umass.edu or 413.577.0478).