Category: Events

Watch for CPPA events, such as guest speakers, throughout the semester.

Rose to Speak on Root Causes of Poverty in Springfield

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Post date April 19, 2012

On April 30, Fred Rose will discuss his recent work in a talk titled “Addressing the Causes of Concentrated Poverty: The Case of Springfield.”

Rose is a lecturer for the Center for Public Policy and Administration and directs its Springfield Initiative, which provides a bridge between university research and resources and city residents who are working to build a stronger community. Currently Rose is working closely with the Center for Popular Economics and the Springfield-based Partners for a Healthier Community on the Wellspring Initiative, a budding economic and community development project in Springfield. Before coming to CPPA, Rose was the staff director and lead organizer at the Pioneer Valley Project in Springfield.

This is the final lecture in the spring 2012 CPPA Faculty Colloquium series and will be in Thompson 620, from noon to 1 p.m. The talk is free, and brown bag lunches are welcome.

Events PAGC

PAGC Hosts Screening of Labor Documentary and Q&A with Filmmaker

Post author By policy
Post date April 18, 2012

On April 27, the Policy and Administration Graduate Council (PAGC) will host a screening of “Stitched Together: Workers, Students, and the Movement for Alta Gracia.” Filmmaker Will Delphia, a Hampshire College student, will lead a Q&A session immediately afterward. PAGC will provide free pizza.

Alta Gracia is a unique factory in the Dominican Republic where workers participate in a strong and independent union, receive a living wage of more than three times the local minimum wage, and are afforded dignity and respect on the job. These workers cut and sew fabric into T-shirts, hoodies and other apparel destined for universities and colleges. Alta Gracia is the exception to the norm of unsafe working conditions, poverty wages and repressive work environments at many other garment factories.

The story of Alta Gracia is that of a hard-won victory. The brick-and-mortar factory and many of the workers at Alta Gracia were once a part of another firm called BJ&B, which produced clothing for Nike and other brands. After a long battle, workers won a collective bargaining agreement with the factory owners at BJ&B, only to face mass layoffs and eventually a factory closure. “Stitched Together” explains how workers, conscientious investors and student activists collaborated to bring life to this new and important project.

Delphia, an aspiring documentary filmmaker, is a senior at Hampshire College. This film was independently produced as his senior thesis.

April 27, Gordon Hall 304, noon.

Download a poster for this event.

Environmental policy Events Social inequality & justice

Five College Policy Resident Engages Community in Environmental Justice Issues

Post author By policy
Post date March 27, 2012

Earlier this month, environmental justice champion Nia Robinson engaged and energized about 200 Five College students, faculty members and community activists around issues having to do with race, the environment and reproductive rights.

Robinson was the inaugural Five College Social Justice Policy Practitioner-in-Residence. The residency program is part of a growing effort to enhance collaboration among Five College faculty and students interested in curricula, research and outreach related to public policy. It offers members of the local academic community unique opportunities to engage with and learn from individuals who have hands-on policymaking experience.

During Robinson’s two-week residency, she led a teach-in on race and the environment at Mount Holyoke College; spoke with a Hampshire College group about reproductive politics; gave a workshop during a Hampshire College student activism conference; participated in a panel discussion at UMass on race and the environment; was interviewed on WAMC’s Midday Magazine and WMUA’s TRGGR Radio; met with community activists in Springfield; and spoke during some classes at UMass, Hampshire and Smith colleges. Though the focus of each event was slightly different, Robinson worked throughout her residency to highlight the connections between racial justice, environmental justice and reproductive justice.

“Women of color and poor women need to no longer be the mules on which the rest of the world develops,” Robinson said during the climate justice panel, a public event that brought about 45 people from across the Five Colleges and the community to the Center for Public Policy and Administration.

Robinson currently works as the environmental justice representative for SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective. From 2006 to 2011, she served as director of the Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative, bringing the voices of low-income communities, people of color and indigenous communities to the debate over national climate policy. She is the co-author of A Climate of Change: African Americans, Global Warming and a Just Climate Policy in the U.S. Robinson also has worked as part of the National Wildlife Federation’s Earth Tomorrow program and served as an organizer for the Service Employees International Union.

In October, Kim Gandy will serve as the next resident in this Five College program, which has been made possible by a generous grant from Five Colleges, Incorporated, with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Gandy is the vice president and general counsel of the Feminist Majority and served as president of the National Organization for Women (NOW) from 2001 to 2009. More information about Gandy’s residency will be coming soon.

Events Faculty Research

Bushouse to Speak on Universal Preschool and State Budgets

Post author By policy
Post date March 15, 2012

On April 2, Brenda Bushouse will discuss her recent research in a talk titled “Universal Pre-K in Tough Budgetary Times: Variations in State Responses.”

Bushouse, an associate professor of political science and public policy, conducts research on the role of nonprofits in the U.S. and is an expert on the national universal preschool movement. Her recently published book, Universal Preschool: Policy Change, Stability and the Pew Charitable Trusts, examines the rise of state-funded preschool education and the role of private foundations in policy change. The book received the 2011 Virginia Hodgkinson Research Prize, a national award for the best book on the nonprofit sector that informs policy and practice.

This and all lectures in the Spring 2012 CPPA Faculty Colloquium series will be in Thompson 620, from noon to 1 p.m. The talks are free, and brown bag lunches are welcome.

Environmental policy Events

Expert on Chinese energy and environmental issues to speak April 5

Post author By policy
Post date March 13, 2012

The Center for Public Policy and Administration will welcome Jennifer Turner, director of the China Environment Forum at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, to campus on April 5. During a public lecture, Turner will speak about the important role that water plays in energy development and economic security in the United States and China.

In her talk, “Water-Energy Choke Points in the United States and China,” Turner will examine the intersection of the growing demand for energy and the shrinking water supply in both countries. Because access to water is among the most significant barriers to developing new reserves of oil, coal and natural gas, countries that consume a lot of energy, like the U.S. and China, have much to gain from addressing these water-energy choke points. Turner will explore both countries’ opportunities to do so.

Turner’s expertise lies primarily in environmental and energy policy in China, with a strong background in water governance and environmental civil society development in China. For this talk she will draw on nearly two years of research and reporting by the China Environment Forum at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., and the Michigan-based research organization Circle of Blue.

April 5, 2012, noon to 1 p.m., Campus Center 803.

Download a poster for this event.

Events

Nancy Whittier to Speak on Social Movement Coalitions

Post author By policy
Post date February 29, 2012

On March 5, Nancy Whittier will present the second lecture in this semester’s CPPA Faculty Colloquium Series during a talk titled “Social Movement Coalitions with and within the State: Discourse, Policy and the Violence Against Women Act.”

Whittier is a sociology professor at Smith College. Her research examines the contributions of social movements to changes in public policy and culture, the construction of collective identity in social movements, connections between cultural and institutional social change, and transformations in feminism over the past 30 years. Whittier’s latest book, The Politics of Child Sexual Abuse: Feminism, Social Movements, and the Therapeutic State (Oxford University Press, 2009), received the 2010 Charles Tilly Award for Best Book in Collective Behavior and Social Movements. Whittier is co-editor of Feminist Frontiers, an anthology in the sociology of gender, and of Social Movements: Identity, Culture, and the State, which focuses on new directions in social movement theory.

This and all lectures in the series will be in Thompson 620, from noon to 1 p.m. The talks are free, and brown bag lunches are welcome.

Environmental policy Events Grants Social inequality & justice

Inaugural Five College Public Policy Resident to Focus on Environmental Justice

Post author By policy
Post date January 19, 2012

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.

Events Faculty Research

Fuentes-Bautista to Kick Off Spring Faculty Colloquium Series

Post author By policy
Post date January 17, 2012

Martha Fuentes-Bautista will start off the spring semester’s Faculty Colloquium Series on Feb. 6 in a talk titled “Rebuilding Local Public Spheres: Mapping Information Needs of Communities in the Digital Transition.”

Fuentes-Bautista is an assistant professor of public policy and communication. She conducts research on the social and policy implications of information and communication technologies, with a particular focus on how those technologies exacerbate or alleviate social inequalities.

A recent Faculty Research/Healey Endowment grant is supporting data collection and analysis concerning the role that local broadband interventions are having on the ability of western Massachusetts communities to expand universal service. Fuentes-Bautista’s findings will inform state and federal programs charged with advancing broadband coverage.

This and all lectures in the series will be in Thompson 620, from noon to 1 p.m. The talks are free, and brown bag lunches are welcome.

Events Faculty Research Uncategorized

CPPA Announces Spring 2012 Faculty Colloquium Schedule

Post author By policy
Post date December 15, 2011

Three members of the UMass community and a Smith College professor will speak during the CPPA faculty colloquium series this spring. The colloquia enable members of the UMass community to discuss research that has significant policy implications. The talks are informal and often are about works-in-progress, with presenters providing a significant amount of time for audience discussion and feedback. All talks this spring will be in Thompson 620, from noon to 1 p.m. They are open to the public and brown bag lunches are welcome.

February 6: Martha Fuentes-Bautista (communication and public policy): “Collaborative Governance and Sustainability of Local Broadband Projects: Lessons from Underserved Communities in Western Massachusetts”

March 5: Nancy Whittier (Sociology, Smith College): “Social Movement Coalitions With and Within the State: Discourse, Policy and the Violence Against Women Act”

April 2: Brenda Bushouse (political science and public policy): “Universal Pre-K in Tough Budgetary Times: Variations in State Responses”

April 30: Fred Rose (Center for Public Policy and Administration): “Addressing the Causes of Concentrated Poverty: The Case of Springfield”