UCLA Luskin Salutes the Class of 2015 The annual Commencement Ceremony featured remarks from students, faculty and Uber executive Rachel Whetstone

/0 Comments/in , , , , /by

feat_commence_0

UCLA Luskin celebrated the graduating class of 2015 Friday, welcoming 68 students in urban planning, 56 students in public policy and 101 students in social welfare to the ranks of its alumni.

“This is how change is made,” Dean Franklin D. Gilliam, Jr., said in his opening remarks. “It starts with a small group of people who believe.”

His words resonated with the audience of faculty, family and friends, who have watched UCLA Luskin’s graduate students develop as change agents over the course of their education.

Three students addressed the crowd during the ceremony. Ana Tapia, who graduated with a master of urban and regional planning and who came to UCLA as an undocumented student after her family emigrated to the U.S. in 1994, spoke of how her degree encouraged her to follow her dreams. Urban planners, she said, “are people who turn dreams into reality. We not only dream and plan, but make things happen.” She urged her fellow students to “go dream, go plan and go on to do great things.”

Public Policy graduate CC Song cast her cohort as the “architects of the future,” devising and deploying policies to help build equity and create a better world. She spoke of being ready to take on life after graduate school, asking her fellow students to “find the courage to seek what makes you curious, fulfilled and challenged.”

Jennifer Chou, a graduate of UCLA Luskin’s Master of Social Welfare program, spoke about the “acceptance of not knowing” when confronted with an uncertain future. Her heartfelt speech included a rendition of a verse from the Louis Armstrong classic “What a Wonderful World.”

The invited speaker, newly installed Uber public relations executive Rachel Whetstone, brought in the perspective of a group not often mentioned on Commencement day — those who “don’t dream well.” Whetstone put herself in that category, and told the story of a career that proceeded not by some overarching grand scheme but instead progressed as a series of steps from college to internships to opportunities at various organizations.

She said her experience had taught her that hard work helps make up for the absence of a dream. “Pour yourself into your job,” she said, “even if it seems like a chore.” As she acknowledged and embraced the persona of the stereotypical overworked Silicon Valley executive, she relayed a story of a visit with a psychiatrist friend, who said something that stuck with her: “Has it ever occurred to you, Rachel, that hard work is what makes you happy?” Hard work can open up new horizons, she said, and she urged the graduating students to apply themselves to their work, “because if you don’t try, you will never, ever know.”

The ceremony was a mix of pomp and celebration, with a sense of impending change on the horizon. Dean Gilliam summed up the mood best through his quotation of, as he described it, a “classic of American Cinema,” the movie Friday.

“For most people, Friday’s just the day before the weekend,” he said. “But after this Friday, the neighborhood will never be the same.”

Liberty Hill Foundation Honors Dean Frank Gilliam Dean Gilliam is recipient of the Upton Sinclair Award for commitment to social justice.

/0 Comments/in , , /by

15431012835_ec545232b9_z 

Dean Franklin D. Gilliam, Jr. received Liberty Hill Foundation’s Upton Sinclair Award given to those dedicated to advancing social justice at the 33rd annual Upton Sinclair Awards dinner on April 21.

The Liberty Hill Foundation is an organization dedicated to social advancement by funding leaders and programs that create positive environmental or social change for Los Angeles. Named after the muckraking journalist who was an activist and protested for freedom of speech, the Upton Sinclair award recognizes people who demonstrate an active commitment to social justice. Past winners include the novelist Walter Mosely, media personality Arianna Huffington, actors and activists Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins.

Gilliam is recognized for his innovative work at the Luskin School, promoting strong programs, leadership and research as well as preparing students who have gone on to serve in different communities internationally.

“Liberty Hill is proud to present this year’s award to Franklin D. Gilliam, Jr., Dean of the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, for his work preparing a new generation of leaders to effectively serve and positively impact communities both locally and internationally,” the news release said. “His commitment to social justice is evident in his leadership of the school and its programs, positioning UCLA Luskin’s teaching and research to make significant impacts on issues of shared concern with Liberty Hill.”

Dean Gilliam has started leadership initiatives and campaigns to expand the school’s impact. Since becoming dean, the Luskin School’s research on immigration, drug policy, prison reform, inequality, environment and transportation, among other topics have been expanded to make a more profound impact in education in the Los Angeles community, leading to social, economic and environmental improvements.

As a board member and senior fellow for the FrameWorks Institute, Gilliam directed the “Framing Race in America” project and contributed research and training on other issues including health care, child development and criminal justice. Gilliam chairs the board of trustees for the Blue Shield of California Foundation, and serves on the boards of United Way of Greater Los Angeles and Southern California Grantmakers.

Gilliam’s contributions, his multitude of published books and academic journals, including “Farther to go: Readings and Cases in African-American Politics,” and several media recognitions by sources like CNN, the New York Times and the Washington Post demonstrate Gilliam’s prominence and aptitude for being a leading innovator in social impact.

 

Alumni Gather to Remember the Early Days of Social Welfare at UCLA Graduates from the 1950s and 1960s were honored at a luncheon celebration bridging then and now

/0 Comments/in , , , , /by

mswlunch_feat

For some UCLA alumni that gathered at the Faculty Center on Tuesday, being on campus brought up memories of crossing the arroyo bridge to classes in Quonset huts, just part of life as graduate students at the “Southern Branch” of the University of California.

But for the 28 alumni that came for a reunion luncheon, all former students that graduated from UCLA’s School of Social Welfare between 1950 and 1969, the return to Westwood was a chance to see bigger changes that have happened since the early days of the program. Student enrollment of a few dozen has grown to more than 200 students this year. Faculty positions have doubled and then doubled again, from only two tenured professors in the early 1950s to 13 today, with an additional seven field faculty providing experiential training. A focus on clinical practice, or “micro” orientation, has widened to encompass consideration of “macro” issues such as community development and advocacy.

In the face of these changes, however, the department celebration made clear that some things have remained the same. As they sat with current students, staff and members of the faculty, the common threads in the field became evident.

“The school kept saying ‘Don’t focus, be open'” when she was a student, Ruth Sugerman MSW ’67 (above right) said. “Social workers can do so many interesting things. I was really inspired by the school of social work telling me that once I had my degree it was just a start.”

For Sugerman, her UCLA education “was just a wonderful opportunity for me to grow and develop as a social worker and a person.”

Sophia Poster MSW ’52 (below right) agreed. “Everything I learned at UCLA was wonderful to me,” she said. “I was so exhilarated.”

Poster believes that students following her are on a similarly exciting journey. “If you’re inspired to be a social worker it’s one of the greatest experiences you’ll have, dealing with people and their ‘inner self'” she said. “How many of us know the other person in ourselves? A social worker can do that.”

Social work has been taught at UCLA for 67 years, and includes more than 3,300 alumni in master’s and doctoral programs of Social Welfare. Luncheon attendees learned other key facts from Department Chair Todd Franke and UCLA Luskin Dean Franklin D. Gilliam Jr., Second-year student Dawnette Anderson also delivered remarks at the event, sharing her experience as a foster youth and describing her path to graduate study.

To Anderson and her fellow students, Arthur Nelson MSW ’57 offered some straightforward words of encouragement: “There’s a lot that needs to be done in our society. The UCLA Department of Social Welfare prepares you very well for what is ahead of you.”

More photos from the event

Escaping the prison trap: UCLA professors, criminal justice experts tackle prison crisis at DC forum UCLA participates in first Rosenfield Forum in Washington D.C., bringing together top researchers from across the country.

/0 Comments/in , , , /by
UCLA brought together top researchers in the criminal justice field, congressional staff, a high-ranking official in the Obama administration and a California congressman for its first Rosenfield Forum in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 8.
More than 70 people participated in the half-day event, titled “Escaping the Prison Trap: How to Have Less Crime and Less Incarceration,” which included three panels and presentations by premiere scholars from UCLA and other institutions.
“We’re fortunate that within the walls of our school we had a diversity of approaches to the issues” that helped UCLA in hosting this forum, Franklin D. Gilliam Jr., dean of the UCLA School of Public Affairs, said in his opening remarks. “At the risk of sounding immodest, this diversity of approaches and viewpoints is a hallmark of our school and one of its great strengths.”
U.S. Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli, the third-highest ranking official in the Justice Department, led off the forum with a discussion of the Obama administration’s approach to crime prevention and reduction. His comments underscored Gilliam’s point about the wealth of expertise at UCLA.
“Everyone always talks about being ‘tough’ on crime, but our focus is being ‘smart’ on crime,” said Perrelli, who also worked under former Attorney General Janet Reno during the Clinton administration. “Research in this area is not research for its own sake; it is the kind of thing we really do hope to examine, implement and, frankly, learn more from. There really are people, particularly in this Justice Department, who are listening to the outcomes of your conversations and the research that you develop. We’re excited to hear more.”
“Escaping the Prison Trap” sought to address some of the major issues confronting the U.S. justice system today, including the country’s unprecedented incarceration rate; the role of communities in reducing crime, especially among juveniles; and the development of innovative programs for deterring crime and reducing prison crowding.
Two additional Rosenfield Forums will bring together UCLA scholars with national and local leaders this academic year; the next addresses transportation issues, and the final forum will explore issues related to youth in the foster care system.
“We’re excited, we’re thrilled to be here in Washington,” Gilliam said at the outset of the forum, which helped broaden UCLA’s influence as an institution committed to helping solve some of the nation’s most pressing problems. “We want to promote UCLA faculty and inform — and hopefully influence — the national debate.”
Throughout the four-hour discussion, scholars laid out the problems with our current prison system and ways to fix it.
“You have to figure out what works,” Perrelli said. “Nothing, really, should be off the table, and if you’re going to figure out what works, you need evidence and research to do that.”
He asked for the academics’ help on that front.
“Help us think outside the box about the next generation of promising approaches,” he said. “I think we’re asking the right questions about how to really make communities safer, how to reduce crime.”
Using evidence-based approaches and research and determining how to use governments’ limited resources more effectively is the path U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department will follow, he added.
U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff (D–Calif.) repeated Perrelli’s request for assistance as he wrapped up the forum.
“We desperately need the expertise and insight of the people in this room,” he told the eight panelists and the experts assembled in the audience. “It’s always a fight in Congress” to try to change policy when crime is the issue.
Anyone who attempts to implement programs similar to the ones discussed during the three panels gets tagged as being “soft on crime,” Schiff said, making such programs a tough sell to legislators.
“But look at the crisis in California, where one-fourth of the prison population may have to be released by court order,” he said. “I don’t want to wait until we’re in a situation like that. We need to be more proactive, more thoughtful.”
Perrelli also addressed the issue’s political sensitivity and the implications of reform efforts.
“The easier course politically might simply be to take the ‘tough on crime’ approach, to announce the tough on crime mantra and put more people in jail,” Perrelli said.
But that won’t solve the problem, reduce crime or save money, he added.
“It shouldn’t surprise us that the system that we have now isn’t working particularly well,” Perrelli said. “You think about the amount of money that you’re spending on prisons, particularly in this era of budget cuts, and you ask yourself, ‘If I could make the community as safe or safer than it is today but reduce the level of incarceration and have those funds to do a host of other things, what could we do with that?'”
Panelists discussed a wide range of topics, from the effect of maximum-minimum sentencing guidelines to the perils of treating juvenile offenders as adults and the correlation between prison sentences and unemployment.
“The phrase ‘crime doesn’t pay’ is oft-repeated by those who are ‘tough on crime,’ yet statistics bear out that crime already doesn’t pay, literally,” said panelist Mark Kleiman, a UCLA professor of public policy. “A burglar makes about $8 for every day he’s in prison.”
All the panelists criticized fixes that represent mere “tinkering” and recommended wholesale changes to the system.
“I don’t believe we can fix this with business as usual, but we can fix this — it is real,” said David Kennedy, director of the Center on Crime Prevention and Control at the City University of New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
David F. Weiman, an economics professor at Columbia University and Barnard College, offered just one reason why fundamentally changing the system would be so challenging.
“The status quo is deeply entrenched,” he said. “It’s an uphill battle because there’s a system already in place.” Weiman likened the potential need to close prisons to the extremely politically sensitive process of military base closures.
“Imagine closing prisons,” Weiman said. “Each prison has constituency,” just like the bases.
As the forum wrapped up, Gilliam said that Associate Attorney General Perrelli had laid out the theme in his opening remarks.
“Maybe the theme of the whole forum is being ‘smart’ on crime,” Gilliam said. “It’s not a matter of whether we are ‘tough’ on crime, but are we ‘smart’ on crime?”
Gilliam also encouraged academics, when returning to their research, to focus even more on solutions.
“One of the things that plagues this field is a ‘crisis’ focus,” he said. “There aren’t enough solutions.”

Crime Forum Opens in Washington DC: Judge Alm Delivers on HOPE Rosenfield Forum brings together researchers to discuss methods of crime reduction

/0 Comments/in , , , , , , , /by

WASHINGTON, DC—Addressing the record incarceration rates across the U.S. and the boom in the prison population, the UCLA School of Public Affairs launched the first in a series of public discussions on critical national issues with the opening dinner of the Rosenfield Forums at the National Press Club in Washington DC.

“The Rosenfield Forums are an opportunity to bring together some of the country’s best thinkers, practitioners, advocates, policy makers, and other stakeholders,” says Dean Franklin D. Gilliam, Jr., “This week’s particular event focuses on encouraging all of us to think a little differently about how we reduce crime in the United States. This is an important and deeply corrosive phenomenon: it corrodes the public space, it corrodes our young people, and it crowds our prisons. Much of the worlds of crime and punishment are artificially constructed around these two poles—too much crime and too much incarceration. What you’ll see in this event is scholars grappling with the complexities of these issues, and presenting some elegant solutions—elegant in both simplicity and power.”

The inaugural forum, “Escaping the Prison Trap: How to Have Less Crime and Less Incarceration,” featured a keynote address on October 7 by the Honorable Steve S. Alm of the Hawaii State Judiciary. Alm is the creator of Project HOPE (Hawaii’s Opportunity and Probation and Enforcement), an innovative crime reduction program for drug offenses that has had dramatic success rates. Judge Alm described a frustrating sentencing and incarceration system that amounted to little more than a revolving door for minor drug offenders to move in and out of the judicial system.

“I can send them to the beach, or send them to prison—it’s crazy that these were the only options.” After gaining cooperation from several agencies, including the probation department, the sheriffs and U.S. marshals, Judge Alm created a systematic approach in which offenders were given instructions for calling a telephone hotline to see if they were selected that day for random drug testing. If they tested positive for drugs, they are arrested on the spot and brought up for a hearing within two days. “Swift and certain consequence is the key.” Says Alm, “If probationers know there will be caught and punished, they will not violate. Probation officers are pleased with the results, because clients were showing up to their appointments, and showing up sober.”

The program has had remarkable success in Hawaii (up to a 50% drop in repeat offenses among drug probationers); has been replicated by other judges; and has become the focus of research by UCLA Public Policy Professor Mark Kleiman and Pepperdine University Public Policy Professor Angela Hawken. The Department of Justice has funded a program to introduce the program to other jurisdictions across the country.

The Rosenfield Forums continue on October 8 at the Rayburn Building on Capital Hill with panel discussions on: reducing juvenile crime and incarceration, led by Associate Professor Laura Abrams of the Department of Social Welfare; the consequences of mass incarceration, led by Professor Michael Stoll of the Department of Public Policy; and getting more crime control with less punishment, led by Professor Mark Kleiman of the Department of Public Policy.