The University of Massachusetts Amherst
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Faculty Honors & Awards

Fountain to chair Global Agenda Council on Future of Government

Professor of Political Science and Public Policy and Adjunct Professor of Computer Science Jane Fountain has accepted chairmanship of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on the Future of Government. This marks her third year on the Council.

An independent international organization, the World Economic Forum seeks to improve the state of the world by partnering with leaders in order to shape global, regional, and industry agendas. It created the Network of Global Agenda Councils in 2008, combining the intelligence and cooperation of academia, government, business, and other fields to address key challenges in various world affairs. Each Council serves as an advisory board to the Forum, governments, international organizations, and other interested parties and is comprised of between fifteen and twenty members. The Network as a whole consists of upwards of 1000 members from more than fifty countries.

Professor Fountain is the founder and Director of the National Center for Digital Government, which was established with support from the National Science Foundation to develop research and infrastructure for the emerging field information technology and governance. She also directs the Science, Technology and Society (STS) Initiative, a campus-wide effort based at the Center for Public Policy and Administration at the University of Massachusetts. The STS Initiative is designed to build social science, policy, and cross-disciplinary research on a range of social, political, and economic challenges posed by science and technology. Fountain is the Principal Investigator of the Ethics in Science and Engineering Online Resource Beta Site project and of the International Dimensions of Ethics in Science and Engineering project (IDEESE).

Fountain is the author of Building the Virtual State: Information Technology and Institutional Change (Brookings Institution Press, 2001), which was awarded an Outstanding Academic Title by Choice and has been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish. Her articles have been published in scholarly journals including Governance, Technology in Society, Science and Public Policy, the National Civic Review, and The Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery.

On top of chairing the Global Agenda Council on the Future of Government, she served on the American Bar Association Blue Ribbon Commission on the Future of e-Rulemaking and has served on several advisory bodies for organizations including the Social Science Research Council, the Internet Policy Institute, and the National Science Foundation. She has delivered invited lectures and keynote addresses and has worked with governments and research institutions including the World Bank, the European Commission, Knowledge Management Asia Pacific, Japan, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, Chile, Estonia, Hungary, Slovenia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

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Faculty Research Public Engagement Project

Budig Testifies Before U.S. Congress On Gender Wage Gap

Michelle Budig, associate professor of sociology and CPPA faculty associate, testified on September 30, 2010, before the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee about the role of parenthood in the persistent gap between male and female earnings in this country.

Budig’s testimony about the kinds of policies that might reduce this gap was based in part on comparative research she conducted with Professor of Sociology and Public Policy Joya Misra and Irene Boeckmann, a doctoral student in sociology.

According to that research, which was funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation, publicly supported early childhood education programs, univeral family leave policies with provisions for paid maternal and paternal leaves, and stronger laws and enforcement governing workplace discrimination could all contribute to alleviating the “motherhood penalty” faced by U.S. workers.

The  Joint Economic Committee is a bicameral Congressional Committee composed of members from both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.  It is currently chaired by Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY).

Budig’s full testimony is now posted on The Hill’s Congress Blog.

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Faculty Honors & Awards

Misra Named Next Editor of Gender and Society

Joya Misra, professor of sociology and public policy, has been selected as the next editor of Gender and Society, the premier journal in the sociology of gender.  Misra’s selection recognizes her outstanding scholarship and many contributions to the field.  Misra has been a faculty member at CPPA since 1999.  Additional information can be found at the CSBS website.

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Alumni news CPPA & university administration Events Faculty Honors & Awards Faculty Research Student news

2010 CPPA Newsletter Available Online

The 2009- 2010 academic year was a busy time for the Center for Public Policy and Administration.  We welcomed new students, new faculty, new research and projects, and, of course, got settled in our new office space in Gordon Hall.  More information about all these new activities as well as other highlights from our faculty, students, and alumni from the past year are available in our annual newsletter, now available online.

Below, we reproduce the newsletter’s letter from the director as an introduction to the jam-packed annual report.  To go directly to the newsletter, click here [PDF]

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Dear friends,

With my garden and local agricultural farm share overflowing with healthy food, I can’t resist gardening metaphors this time of year. Each year CPPA plants a new crop of students and research projects, sowing seeds of knowledge.

We see our students blossom over their first year. They grow during their summer internships—this year they completed internships all over the world, from the Philippines to Guatemala to New Orleans, and just up I-91 in Greenfield, MA—and produce exciting projects in their second year. We look forward to seeing these experiences ripen into capstone projects this spring.

In May, we sent another crop of new professionals out into the policy world to join our alumni. We’ll miss their engaging questions in class, their tireless energy, and their entrepreneurial spirit—this was the class that created and nurtured the Policy and Administration Graduate Council to provide a voice for CPPA students. Our incoming class carries on the tradition of geographical diversity, with students from China, Ukraine, Bolivia, and Japan, and from the US, from Mississippi to Massachusetts.
As always, our faculty are busy tending their own policy research gardens. Joya Misra and Susan Newton created an exciting grants workshop for UMass faculty. We also have a new crop of books, grants, and honors. Our faculty and their research have influenced environmental, science, economic, and social policy, with their research showing up in national and international advisory panels, prestigious research centers, and courtrooms. This fall we’re delighted to welcome Dr. Steven Boutcher to the CPPA faculty. He’ll teach a course on social movements and public policy next spring.

Some big news from this past academic year is already producing exciting new programs. A distinguished review panel complimented us on the quality of our program and the interdisciplinary connections we’ve created across campus. They inspired us to create an accelerated program that would allow talented undergraduates in the Five Colleges to get a BA and MPP in five years. We’re also working on online certificate programs.
As an amateur gardener, I am most excited when an improbable plant emerges. At CPPA, we are delighted to move into a wonderful building, Gordon Hall. Please stop by the next time you’re on campus to see what our center has grown into: a beautiful and lively place for students, faculty, and staff to grow and produce new ideas and research that will lead to action!

With your help, we are also planting seeds for long-run growth. The generosity of alumni, staff, and faculty has kept our scholarship fund growing over the past year. I encourage you to support the next generation of policy professionals by giving to this fund!

Yours,
Lee Badgett

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Faculty Research

Fountain gives keynote address at Portugal Technologico 2010

Jane Fountain, Professor of Political Science and Public Policy and Director of the National Center for Digital Government at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, gave a keynote address at Portugal Tecnológico 2010 on September 22, 2010 at the Parque das Nacoes in Lisbon, Portugal.

Fountain’s address, “The transformational effect of web technologies on government”  examined the increasing usage of Web 2.0 tools in government, commonly referred to as “Gov 2.0.” According to Fountain, “Gov 2.0 signals government’s emphasis on the latest digital technologies for providing services and information, for policymaking, and for advancing the technology agenda of innovative national governments.”

These government agendas vary widely across countries. In the US, the Obama administration has viewed transparency through the Web as paramount to Gov 2.0 and launched an “open government” initiative. The release of data.gov, for instance, was an attempt to make government data freely available to anyone with an Internet connection.  In the European Union, the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM) has been a leader in ensuring interoperability, redesigning business processes for technological efficiency, and creating knowledge networks that work across governments and agencies to promote economic vitality and social well being.

Fountain, with Raquel Galindo-Dorado and Jeffrey Rothschild, has produced a case study based on OHIM’s transformation. The Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market: Creating a 21st Century Public Agency is freely available in both English and Spanish through the National Center for Digital Government. The OHIM case study presents some of the most innovative and advanced sources of new and promising practices for using digital technologies to improve government processes.  The agency is an example of a government office that understood the importance of technological advancements in conjunction with institutional transformation.

More information about the Portugal Tecnológico conference is available at their website:  English version | Portuguese version. Videos of all the conference’s the keynote addresses are available online. Professor Fountain’s address begins around 1:28.

a look at “open government,” and a view of knowledge networks that work across governments to promote economic vitality and social well being in knowledge economies.
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Events Faculty Research

McDermott Featured Speaker at October 4 CPPA Faculty Colloquium

Kathryn McDermott, associate professor of education and public policy, will discuss “Diversity, Race-Neutrality, and Austerity: The Changing Politics of Urban Education” on Monday, October 4, at 12 p.m. in Thompson 620.  The talk is part of the Center for Public Policy and Administration’s Fall 2010 Faculty Colloquium.

Professor McDermott’s research concerns political debates around school diversity and how these debates have been shaped in recent years by the emphasis on school performance and the financial crisis of 2008. 

McDermott’s analysis draws on case material from school districts in Boston, MA, Raleigh, NC, and Louisville, KY.  Her findings suggest that racial and socioeconomic diversity have become less and less part of public debates about urban schools, and that concerns about enhancing racial and socioeconomic diversity have become increasingly disconnected from strategies for improving school performance. 

She also will describe how recent race-neutral policies governing school assignment generate different political dynamics from previous generations of race-conscious policies.  

McDermott is the author of Controlling Public Education: Localism Versus Equity, and the forthcoming book, High Stakes Reform: The Politics of Educational Accountability.  She is a specialist on state-level educational policies and has led a comprehensive study of Massachusetts’ capacity to implement educational reform. As an expert on policies to achieve educational equity, she also has examined the role of public policy in providing better access to higher education in New England.  McDermott has been at UMass Amherst since 1999 and holds a doctorate in political science from Yale University.

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).

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Faculty Research

Bushouse “thinks big for policy change”

Professor Brenda Bushouse presented “Thinking Big for Policy Change” to the Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts Leadership Institute for Political Impact on Saturday, September 11, 2010. The two-hour seminar provided the 40 Institute fellows with an opportunity to dream big in order to create economic justice, access to education, and freedom from violence. Participants worked through strategic decision-making to help realize those dreams through public policy concepts such as framing, venue, valence, timing and understanding the social construction of target groups.

One of the goals of the Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts is for local women to involve themselves in civic affairs, such as running for political offices. As a result, they created the Leadership Institute for Political Impact in order to train and encourage these future leaders to pursue their utmost potential.

A non-partisan initiative, the twelve-month Leadership Institute for Political Impact stresses personal leadership, community organizing, legislative process and policy, and running for political office. It provides women with education and support by means of intensive workshops, the development of county cohorts, and experienced mentors to help them gain confidence in their abilities as successful political leaders.

Bushouse, a professor of Political Science and Public Policy, has a background of studies that involve early childhood policy, nonprofit governance, and policy-making processes. Her book, Universal Preschool: Policy Change, Stability, and the Pew Charitable Trusts (2009), analyzes the creation of state-funded preschool programs and the impact of foundation funding in state policy-making processes. Currently, she is researching network methodologies and their usage as means to elevate the policy ideas of nonprofit organizations.

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Faculty Honors & Awards

Misra Receives Prestigious SWS Mentoring Award

Joya Misra, professor of sociology and public policy, received the 2010 Mentoring Award from the Sociologists for Women in Society at this year’s annual meeting of the American Sociological Association in Atlanta, Georgia.

The mentoring award was begun in 1990 to annually honor an SWS member who is an outstanding feminist mentor.  The SWS award recognizes Misra’s many contributions toward encouraging feminist scholarship, membership in the academy, and feminist change.  Recipients of the prestigious award are known for their mentoring of junior women, both inside and outside of sociology, and for their work as role models, teachers, and advocates. 

Misra is Chair of the Race, Gender & Class section of the ASA and previously served on the SWS Sister-to-Sister Task Force. At UMass, she has received several Mellon Mutual Mentoring grants, including to develop a CPPA grantswriting workshop.  She also has chaired the UMass Joint MSP/Administration Work Life Committee, which conducts research about, and advocates for, family-friendly policies on campus. She regularly publishes with graduate students in Sociology and CPPA.

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Faculty Research Public Engagement Project

Schalet’s Research on Teen Sexuality Featured in Salon, Time Magazine Online

Research by Amy Schalet on the different approaches of American and Dutch parents to teenagers’ sexual relationships has been picked up by journalists across the globe.  An article by Schalet in Contexts, a publication of the American Sociological Association, was recently featured in Salon and Time Online. Schalet has also been contacted by Dutch radio concerning her research.

Schalet is Assistant Professor of Sociology and a CPPA affiliate.  She also is a member of the UMass Public Engagement Project steering committee, which supports and trains UMass faculty members to help make a difference in the world.

Schalet’s research contrasts the attitudes of Dutch parents, who commonly allow their teenagers to spend the night with steady boyfriends or girlfriends, to those of American parents, who rarely condone such behavior.  Teen birth rates in the U.S. are 8 times as high as those in the Netherlands.  These findings have important implications for thinking about teen sexuality and possible approaches to sexual education.

Schalet’s work on teen sexuality has been featured in other widely-read publications in the past.  See, for example, an op-ed by Schalet in the Washington Post and an article that appeared on the website of Advocates for Youth, a national nonprofit that helps young people make informed and responsible decisions about reproductive and sexual health.

Schalet will be a featured speaker at the CPPA Faculty Colloquium on Monday, December 6 (12-1 p.m., Thompson 620).     

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PAGC Student news

PAGC to Hold Meeting Monday, Sept. 20

The Policy and Administration Graduate Council (PAGC) is going to have their first meeting for the year on Monday, September 20th at 10:30am-11:30am in Thompson 620 (with pizza!). This is right before the faculty colloquium scheduled for the day in the same location, so we are hoping that you can come to both events. The agenda items that we have so far are listed below.

  • GSS senator and GEO steward elections
  • Plans for bringing in a speaker
  • Discussion of other possible speakers
  • Selecting and planning a community service project
  • Budget update
  • Planning for a fundraiser

If you have any questions, please contact Elissa Holmes (elissa.r.holmes AT gmail.com) or Sarah Keister (sarah.keister AT gmail.com). We hope to see you there!