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 Message from the Dean
Back to school is always busy, and these 2 weeks have been no exception. Thanks to all who attended our "Welcome Back" gathering last week; there is a lot going on at the McCormack Graduate School and it was fun to hear from all the new people.
We are continuing to build an outstanding leadership team for the Edward J. Collins, Jr. Center for Public Management. I am proud to announce that that Stephen McGoldrick is joining us as the Deputy Director. Steve was most recently Deputy Director of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC). Prior to that, he served as Chief of Staff to the Receiver of Chelsea when it was in receivership. He has also served in Somerville and Everett. Michael Ward joins the Center as the Assistant Director for Performance Programs. Mike has worked for municipal government in Massachusetts, studied innovative urban policy in Brazil and Singapore, and managed a congressional campaign in rural New Mexico.
Steve and Michael join Dr. Shelley Metzenbaum, the Center's Director. The Collins Center works with governments to help them become more effective, focusing on the people, performance, and productivity of government.
Last Thursday, McCormack and the Collins Center hosted a day long team building/leadership training conference for Administration & Finance Secretary Leslie Kirwan and her top 130 employees. Leslie wrote me that it was a "great session" and that she got "great feedback from many people." We've now done training sessions for the Governor and his staff, and the three largest secretariats (A&F, Transportation, and Health & Human Services). This is terrific exposure for McCormack and UMass Boston and a hallmark of the work the Collins Center will be doing across the Commonwealth.
In collaboration with the Provost, and the Colleges of Liberal Arts, Management and Nursing and Health Sciences, we have established a working group to recommend a strategy for expanding McCormack and UMB academics into a more strategic global policy focus. This group will be reporting to the Provost by the end of the first semester, and we expect an action plan before the end of this academic year. (We have hired Alexandra Barker from our MSPA IR track to staff this working group.) Partially as a result of this substantial new direction, we have redirected the MGS strategic planning process, and will be in touch with you soon about how we hope you will participate in it.
We've begun faculty searches for 4 new tenure track faculty, 2 in the Department of Public Policy and Public Affairs, and 1 each in Dispute Resolution and Gerontology. By the beginning of the next academic year, our tenure track faculty will have doubled.
The Office of Research and Sponsored Projects reports that McCormack has also more than doubled its research grants in the last two years, to over $6M annually, and the school's overall budget has increased by more than 50% since I got here. For me, this is an exhilarating time, with tremendous opportunity for growth and development personally and professionally for all of us. I know there are also stresses and strains, and I very much appreciate everyone's active participation in and support of this growth.
On Tuesday September 23rd, at 6:00 at the JFK Library, Padraig O'Malley will be reporting on his extraordinary experience in Baghdad, attempting to reconcile the warring parties in Iraq. I do hope you can attend.
Go Red Sox!
Steve Crosby
Dean
P.S. In what is surely an academic first, the Certificate Program for Women in Politics and Public Policy has enrolled both a mother and her daughter in the Class of 2009: Edna Laurent-Tellus and her daughter Rosena Cornet. Welcome!
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Job Opportunities of Interest
New postings of the week:
The Massachusetts Ocean Partnership
Job Announcement - Program Associate
The Massachusetts Ocean Partnership (MOP) is seeking a Program Associate (PA); the position will be based in Boston, Massachusetts.
Click here for job postings and descriptions |
MGS in the News
Boston Herald (August 30, 2008)
Experts:Silver lining for 'viable' Mitt Romney
Dean of McCormack Graduate School Steve Crosby and Paul Watanabe are quoted in a article about Mitt Romney.
Excerpt: "Not getting the VP slot is not going to be a major setback," said Watanabe. Another scenario has Romney running for office in Utah, should Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch decide to retire, said Steve Crosby, dean of the McCormack Graduate School at UMass. Romney, he said, is enormously popular in Utah, the center of his Mormon faith and site of his rescue of the 2000 Salt Lake City Olympics. But don't expect Romney to run for anything in Massachusetts. "I can't imagine he has a political future here," Crosby said, "after making Massachusetts a punch line in his campaign."
The Patriot Ledger - (August 30, 2008)
More families living paycheck to paycheck
Excerpt: At UMass Boston's McCormack Graduate School, economics professor Alan Clayton-Matthews said the latest income drop is a product of a long-term local and national trend that began in the 1990s and has sharpened this year, as the economy slowed and prices spiked.
And money worries for one-paycheck families like Kay's will only get worse in the coming year, as energy prices remain high, according to Clayton-Matthews. For now, he said, many will be forced to "cut back where they can, and work extra when they can."
NECN (September 2, 2008)
Will Palin pregnancy affect voters
Director of the Center for Women in Politics Carol Hardy-Fanta spoke about vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin. Hardy-Fanta addressed the question about Palin's family challenges and should she need to step in as commander-in-chief. She said "Palin's position shines the spotlight on the age-old question -- can women have it all?"
San Francisco Chronicle (September 2, 2008)
Scrunity of Palin poses risks for GOP and Dems Excerpt: Carol Hardy-Fanta, director of the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy at UMass Boston, said (Sarah) Palin shows how a woman's personal and professional choices "come under this intense scrutiny, anytime there are any decisions made that are not what some stereotype of what perfect should be. I don't know what a perfect woman candidate would be. Hillary Clinton was strong but was criticized as too shrill or pushy or strident. Now you've got this woman juggling a lot of things, and she's being criticized."
Wall Street Journal Digital Network (September 4, 2008)
AIM's Business Confindence Index Remains Weak in August Professor of public policy Alan Clayton-Matthews is quoted in a article about Massachusetts employer confidence. "Manufacturers continue to feel the effects of the economic slowdown at home, and even export gains are weakening, though international sales are well ahead of last year's record pace," said Clayton-Matthews. "But this may well be a statistical problem arising from the reduced sample sizes," he added.
Boston Globe (September 5, 2008)
New higher education leader named
McCormack Graduate School doctoral student Aundrea Kelley has been named acting commissioner of the Board of Higher Education. Kelly also has a master's degrees in business administration and public policy from UMass Boston.
Boston Globe (September 11, 2008)
Numbers of homeless in downtown
Plymouth rise sharplyA November 2007 report done by the McCormack Grad School's Center for Social Policy, is cited in a story about homeless becoming more visible in Plymouth. The report mentions that about 64 percent of the homeless have some form of substance abuse problem, and 46 percent have physical disabilities.
Click here for full stories
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Tuesday, September 23, 2008
John F. Kennedy Library
6:00PM
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The 2008 Derek W.F. Coward Lecture featuring Nigel Hamilton
The Suffolk University Center for International Education will present the 2008 Derek W. F. Coward Lecture featuring author and presidential historian Nigel Hamilton. Entitled, "Twelve American Caesars: From Franklin D. Roosevelt to George W. Bush and what the Next President Can Learn from Them"
Thursday, September 25, 2008
5:00PM
Omni Parker House, 60 School Street, Boston
A reception will follow. For more information, please contact R. Scott Reedy at 617-994-4221 or rreedy@suffolk.edu |
The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum and the Massachusetts Office of Dispute Resolution & Public Collaboration (MODR) present:
The 2008 National Issues Forum Series at the Presidential Libraries
Join us for a public deliberation on:
Coping with the Cost of Health Care: How Do We Pay for What We Need?
Thursday, September 25
5:00-7:30 PM
John F. Kennedy Library
Mural Room
The cost of health insurance continues
to rise, and forty-seven million
Americans are without insurance.
What should we do to provide
Americans with the care they need?
*This forum will be videotaped*
Light refreshments will be served.
For more information or to register for an event
contact Courtney at MODR: 617-287-4046 or courtney.breese@umb.edu
Sponsored by:
State Representative Paul J. Donato
Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee
Advocacy Coalition (MIRA)
John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies at UMass Boston
Dinesh Patel M.D., Chief of Arthroscopic Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital |
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Global Approaches to Licensing and Older Driver Safety and Mobility
Friday, September 26, 2008
11:30-2:00 p.m. (luncheon)
Ryan Lounge, 3rd Floor, McCormack Bldg.
University of Massachusetts Boston
Welcome: Maximiliane Szinovacz, Director,
Gerontology Institute
Panelists: Jim Langford, Monash University Accident Research Centre, Australia, Lisa Molnar, Univ. of Michigan Transportation Research Institute,Jessica Costantino, AARP Massachusetts Safe Roads Now, Elizabeth Dugan, GI fellow, author of The Driving Dilemma
Discussant: Representative Kay Khan (Newton)
Moderator: Nina Silverstein, Gerontology Institute
Limited Space, RSVP by 9-18-2008 to
(617)287-7320
Event is free but parking is $6
Sponsored by the Gerontology Institute,
McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies
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| Seventh Biennial Graduate
Student Conference
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SAVE THE DATE!
November 16-19, 2008
An international conference on
Rebuilding Sustainable Communities
for Children and their Families after Disasters
McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies
University of Massachusetts at Boston
Inaugural event of the
Center for Rebuilding Sustainable Communities after Disasters
at (617) 287-7116
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