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Spotlight
On April 6th, 2009 Ron Ancrum, MSPA 1989 was appointed President of The Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts.
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Friends and Colleagues:
Many of you have had the same experience I have had, running from meeting to meeting talking about how to take advantage of the federal stimulus monies. It seems like everybody everywhere is meeting and talking about stimulus money. Presumably this is going on all across the country, and it seems inevitable that there will be some palpable lift in the economy. Paraphrasing Senator Everett Dirksen from years ago, "A trillion here and a trillion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money."
The Moakley Chair for Peace and Reconciliation hosted a remarkable conference this week, with delegations from 4 divided cities-Nicosia, Mitrovica, Kirkuk and Derry/Londonderry. The conference was designed to create a forum where representatives of different groups begin to find common ground. The conference was so successful that the delegations have agreed to reconvene in Mitrovica next year.
We are heartbroken to be saying goodbye to Alkia Powell next week. She has a wonderful new job with Assistant Vice Chancellor Gail Hobin in the Office of Community Relations, but we will definitely miss her smiling face, great patience and attention to detail, and her masterful ability to make the University systems work on our behalf. Good luck Kia!
Last week, I congratulated four winners of the FY10 UMass Boston internal grant program. It turns out that Donna Haig Friedman and the Center for Social Policy won one as well. Congratulations!
Don't forget the Symposium on "Older Workers and Social Policy in the 21st Century," that will be held in the Ryan Lounge on April 24th and 25th.
Spring won't be quite as much fun with Kevin Garnett of the Celtics out of the playoffs, but the first Red Sox-Yankees series will be next week, so all is not lost.
Enjoy Patriot's Day and the Marathon.
Steve Crosby, Dean |
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| Job Opportunities of Interest |
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New postings of the week:
North Shore Housing Action Group
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| MGS in the News |
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Foreign visitors seek lessons from Boston's divided past
The Boston Globe, April 17, 2009
Padraig OMalley, the of the McCormack Graduate School of Public Policy, is mentioned in this article about "The Forum for Cities in Transition," a conference he convened held this week at UMass Boston.
UMass Boston "Affairs of State"NECN April 16, 2009
Click on the link to view the third "Affairs of State," UMass Boston's new weekly live interview on New England Cable News. Yesterday's segment featured Stephen Crosby, dean of the McCormack Graduate School, discussing the recent budget proposal.
O'Malley's peace efforts help Kirkuk, Belfast, Mitrovica, Nicosia and Beirut see what they can learn from each other.
Setting the non-agenda at UMassThe Boston Globe, April 13, 2009
The McCormack Graduate School's upcoming "Divided Cites" conference was the subject of Boston.com's "Wordly Boston" blog today.
The Liberian Journal, April 1, 2009
Michael Keating, Associate Director and Senior Fellow at the McCormack Graduate School's Center for Democracy and Development at UMass Boston wrote this guest editorial.
The Washington Post, March 31, 2009
Associate Professor of Public Policy and Public Affairs Christian Weller is quoted in this article
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| Dispute Resolution |
 Associate Professor Eben Weitzman [Dispute Resolution] conducted a 2-part workshop on Organizational Conflict (March 20 & 27) for the Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (LEND) program at Children's Hospital, a program affiliated with UMB's Institute for Community Inclusion.
Eben conducted another workshop on "Managing Organizational Conflict During Disasters" for the 2009 Integrated Medical, Public Health, Preparedness and Response Training Summit. This is the first such annual event co-sponsored by the Medical Reserve Corps, the National Disaster Medical System, the Emergency System for Advance Registration of Volunteer Health Professionals, and the Office of Force Readiness and Deployment. Held in Dallas TX in early April, the Summit was attended by over 300 people. |
| Center for Democracy and Development |
 Michael Keating, Associate Director and Senior Fellow Center for Democracy and Development, attended the installation of Dr. Emmet Dennis as the 13th President of the University of Liberia. The ceremony took place on the university's main campus in Monrovia on March 23, 2009 and was president over by President Ellen Sirleaf and several prominent members of the diplomatic corps, including the Ambassadors of the United States and China. Keating addressed the gathering and described the growing level of cooperation between the two universities and he read out a special letter of congratulations from University of Massachusetts President Jack Wilson. |
| Commonwealth Compact |
 Dean Steve Crosby and Colleen Richards Powell, deputy director of the diversity initiative Commonwealth Compact, joined academic leaders from Harvard and Northeastern universities in presenting ideas on how to use the economic downturn, and some of the Federal stimulus money, to the advantage of the city and region, at a meeting of the John LaWare Leadership Forum on March 24.
Crosby pushed a number of projects, from wiring the city for wireless Internet service to promoting urban gardening to restarting some of the construction projects that have been suspended. Powell emphasized the need for local organizations to prepare to take the lead when the economy starts to improve, and this means keeping a focus on their diversity.
The event, attended by nearly 100 business and civic leaders, was hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Sovereign Bank of New England, the Boston Foundation, and Boston City Council President Michael Ross. |
| Public Policy |
FACULTY/STUDENT COLLABORATIONS
On April 14th, Professor Donna Haig Friedman and Jennifer Cohen talked on the Boston-Haifa NGO Learning Exchangeas part of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) brown-bag seminar series. Donna and Jen have been engaged since May 2007 in a participatory action research project with Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) leaders of social change organizations in Haifa, Israel, and Boston, MA. This presentation will focus on what they have learned about the role of NGOs in Israeli society, as compared to their role in the U.S.
Assistant Professor of Public Policy Heather MacIndoe organized a panel on "New Roles for Urban Nonprofits" at the Urban Affairs Association conference in Chicago on March 7th. She presented a paper, "Sector Mobilization: Public Policy Initiatives of Nonprofit Member Associations," co-authored with Public Policy Ph.D. student Sarah Hogue.
Professor Michael Johnson, with Felicia Sullivan and Dave Turcotte of UMass Lowell, earned a Healey Grant program for his proposal, "Decision Modeling for Foreclosed Housing Acquisition in a Large Urban Area"); so did Professor Christian Weller and Amy Heller for their research project, "Going to the Casino of Sticking it Under the Mattress: Wealth Building in a Volatile World". |
| The Robert C. Wood Professorship in Public and Urban Affairs 2009 Recipient |
Barbara J. Nelson is Professor of Public Policy at the UCLA School of Public Affairs where she was Dean from 1996-2008. She also holds adjunct appointments in Social Welfare, Urban Planning, and Political Science. She is the Founder and Principal Investigator of The Concord Project (1993), and has worked and done research in over 25 countries. Barbara Nelson is a specialist in international and domestic conflict mediation, leadership, organizational behavior, and social movements; including women's, labor, ethnic, and religious social movements.
Barbara Nelson is the author of six books and over seventy articles. Her most recent books are Leadership and Diversity: A Case Book and The Concord Handbook: Building Social Capital Across Communities. She is a Member of the Board of the United Way of Greater Los Angeles and the was the Co-Chair of the [U.S.] National Commission to Reduce Infant Mortality. She is also a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy.
Tuesday April 28, 2009
5:30-7:00pm
Campus Center Ballroom
UMass Boston
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