content from Luskin Forum magazine

Social Welfare at 75 Field Training Is the Heart of the Program

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By Stan Paul

Since 1947, Social Welfare at UCLA has been a leader in enhancing human well-being and promoting social and economic justice for disadvantaged populations.

Social Welfare has much to celebrate after 75 years. Under the direction of Professor Laura Abrams, the current department chair, the department will be hosting celebratory events throughout the academic year, culminating with an on-campus gala May 6. Fittingly, the theme of the 75th anniversary celebration focuses on community engagement.

“That’s why I became a social worker, that’s why I came to UCLA, that’s why I stayed at UCLA, that’s what’s shaped me is the community engagement,” said Gerry Laviña, longtime director of the field faculty at UCLA Luskin.

Laviña, who plans to retire in 2023, reflected on his experience as a student, instructor, leader, mentor and social worker over 30 years.

“One of the things that I learned as an MSW student from the first year throughout my career and is what I told my first- and second-year students, you cannot do this work alone,” Laviña said. “That’s what field education is.”

Laviña said the department has survived and thrived because it has long emphasized field education through deep ties to community service agencies and an emphasis on community engagement.

“I was here for the 50th anniversary, which was really significant, and now I’m going to end at the 75th anniversary,” he said. “There’s been a lot of positive changes in our program, which is due to the hard work of a lot of us who’ve been committed to making it a better place.”

Professor Fernando Torres-Gil concurs.

“In just over 75 years, this program really moved up in terms of respect, recognition and visibility,” said Torres-Gil, who has filled a number of leadership roles over his three decades at UCLA.

Social Welfare is the oldest and largest of UCLA Luskin’s graduate degree programs in terms of student enrollment and number of faculty. Thousands of students have received their educations and training over the years.

“Our Social Welfare program is embedded in the multidisciplinary Luskin School that’s part of a university that truly believes in cross-disciplinary collaboration,” said Torres-Gil, referring to the decision in the 1990s to join Social Welfare, Urban Planning and Public Policy in a School of Public Affairs. “It’s stronger, more influential, more impactful precisely because it collaborates with its sister/brother departments.”

He said it’s been gratifying to see the department and School’s academic and professional reputation grow in recent years. “It has finally come of age, recognized nationally, even internationally, however you measure it.”

World Cities Serving as Learning Laboratories

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By Mary Braswell

Powerful experiences on some of the world’s great rivers deepened Jinglan Lin’s desire to shape the policies that affect the planet.

Two weeks rafting on the Colorado during high school led to summers volunteering on China’s Mekong. Now, she’s in the city on the Seine — Paris, where Lin is spending the year as part of the first group of students accepted to a unique dual-degree program pairing UCLA Luskin Urban Planning with the top European research university Sciences Po.

At the end of the two-year program, Lin will emerge with a master of regional and urban planning from UCLA and a master of governing the large metropolis from Sciences Po’s Urban School. Her concentration is environmental analysis and policy.

“The rafting trip was 14 days on the river without the internet, and it really changed me,” Lin recalled.

With her eyes opened to the beauty of the wild rivers and the environmental perils they face, she planned a course of study that led to the field of urban planning because, she said, “It’s the human activities in cities that are creating all these environmental problems.”

Lin is one of six students completing the dual-degree coursework in Paris after spending a year on the UCLA campus.

The selective program is just one of the study-abroad opportunities available at UCLA Luskin:

  • This year, public policy students can be found at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin and the Graduate School of Public Policy at the University of Tokyo.
  • Seven student fellows traveled to low- or middle-income countries or worked with international agencies in the summer of 2022 in association with Global Public Affairs, which is open to students from all of the School’s graduate programs. Founded in 2014, the Global Public Affairs program typically awards about 20 certificates to graduating master’s degree recipients each year. (Plans are in the works to expand the number of international-focused course offerings, with an associated increase in faculty who focus on global issues.)
  • And the Public Affairs undergraduate program encourages majors, pre-majors and minors to broaden their perspectives through the UCLA International Education Office. Over the summer, 15 UCLA Luskin undergrads completed internships in Argentina, Colombia, Great Britain, South Africa and Vietnam.

The new partnership between the Luskin School and Sciences Po — the UC system’s first graduate dual-degree program with a foreign university — grew out of a longstanding quarter-long exchange program that is still available to urban planning students.

“Students are able to experience two world-class programs, which are complementary and different, as well as two world cities, which are similar in their economic and world importance but totally different in terms of their ways of life,” said Michael Storper, a distinguished professor of urban planning who has appointments at both campuses.

“Over time, we will build deeper ties of teaching and research, and this will strengthen both of our universities.”

While Lin initially had qualms about joining the dual-degree program in its very first year, she could not pass up such a rare opportunity to immerse herself in two great metropolises.

Lin, whose hometown is Guangzhou, China, is no stranger to study abroad. She attended high school in Northern California and earned her bachelor’s in environmental analysis at Pitzer, one of the Claremont Colleges. As an undergrad, she completed an exchange program at Sciences Po and knew she wanted to return.

The Los Angeles and Paris experiences have been markedly different, Lin said. UCLA’s campus is largely self-contained, whereas attending Sciences Po’s Urban School takes her all around the city. The first-year course load is foundational and rigorous — students must satisfy MURP requirements in a single year. Her classes in Paris are emphatically global in scope, taught by professors with experience on several continents.

All instruction is conducted in English, but Lin is also studying French to fulfill a language requirement and better navigate the streets of Paris.

“I didn’t know what to expect coming into this program. But I did know that Sciences Po and UCLA already had robust planning programs,” Lin said. “I knew that, regardless, I would learn a lot.”

Seeing the Forest and Filling in the Blanks

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By Stan Paul

For Susanna Hecht, the story of Amazonia is just that — mostly a story.

The popular notion of Amazonia as a void, or blank spot, on the map contrasts starkly with what has been the real story of the region unfolding over several centuries: extraction, depletion and destruction of its natural resources with very real global consequences from external and internal forces, according to the urban planning professor.

Hecht, who is director of UCLA’s Center for Brazilian Studies, has been working to fill that blank for more than five decades. Her efforts are being recognized this year as “one of the most influential figures in the disciplines of geography” by the American Association of Geographers.

“The Amazon is not for beginners. It’s complicated, it’s difficult, and it has a really rich history,” Hecht said about the region’s complex web of history and politics.

Currently completing her trilogy on Amazonia, Hecht’s next book has a foreboding working title, “This side of Paradise: From Arcadia to Apocalypse.”

The 1988 ratification of Brazil’s new constitution and the emergence and consolidation of a variety of new environmental laws and territorial rights in the region are a current focus. The constitution was developed with the active participation of Indigenous, afro-descendent and other traditional peoples. “It rewrote Amazonia’s conservation map through a complex of social movements (including rubber tappers and Indigenous populations) and the emergence of many new forms of tropical governance and allies at multiple levels,” she said.

“In many ways, it elaborated the idea of protected areas that could be inhabited by people,” said Hecht, noting that the so-called socio-environmental period produced a drop in deforestation by 80% in just over a decade.

But tragically, powerful counterforces were also on the move reflecting new market geopolitics, including foreign demand for soy, beef, timber and minerals. Amid economic decline and the rise of clandestine economies throughout the Amazon biome, “failed and flailing states lost interest in Amazon governance by political default, incompetence or corruption.”

Today, planetary scientists consider Amazonia as perhaps the only place where human action to protect forests could have a significant benefit.

“We know from past geoclimatic studies that Amazonia is one of the great planetary levers —that’s why it’s one of the five key tipping points in global climate,” she explained.

“An Amazonia that flips from a forest to a savanna would not only be devastating for the Amazon and its adjacent bioclimatic systems, but it would also be a carbon bomb, and dramatically affect teetering global climates.”

Hecht hopes that worst-case scenario never comes to pass, but “I am writing this book with a great sense of urgency. Euclides da Cunha called Amazonia ‘the last unfinished page of Genesis.’ I’m leaving the last page of the book intentionally blank.”

A Worldly Perspective

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Thinking beyond borders is an integral part of a UCLA education.

The commitment to international scholarship is even spelled out in the Luskin School’s strategic plan. It recognizes UCLA’s unique position as a public university situated “in the ‘world city’ of Los Angeles, a living laboratory for the far-reaching issues facing communities across the United States and around the world.”

Roughly one in five current faculty members at UCLA Luskin conduct research primarily with an international focus. Their scholarly contributions frequently appear in journals with a global orientation or get recognized in other ways.

Two men in academic robes present a canister containing a document to a woman in the middle

Professor Ananya Roy receives the Doctorat Honoris Causa (honorary doctorate) at the University of Geneva from Rector Yves Flückiger and Social Sciences Dean Pascal Sciarni.

For example, Ananya Roy, professor of urban planning and social welfare, traveled to Switzerland in October to receive a Doctorat Honoris Causa at the University of Geneva. An honorary doctorate is one of the highest academic honors one can receive.

“I didn’t have any ties to the University of Geneva,” Roy said after the ceremony, which was televised. “But as the faculty there reminded me, it will now always be my university.”

Some faculty efforts involve a pooling of resources. The Latin American Cities Initiative draws on Los Angeles’ ties to countries across the Americas to share knowledge about managing urban spaces. Directed by Paavo Monkkonen, professor of urban planning and public policy, the initiative known as Ciudades hosts seminars and conferences and conducts an international planning studio in Latin America that immerses students in real-world case studies.

And the Global Lab for Research in Action focuses on hard-to-reach populations around the world through a social justice lens. Manisha Shah of public policy leads the research, which seeks remedies for the health, education and economic needs of women and children.

A global focus is also found in many L.A.-based efforts, both new and ongoing.

In summer 2022, social welfare students and scholars hosted the International Summer University in Social Work, during which colleagues from around the world explored theories and practices that promote justice. More than 20 participants from four continents came to campus for a two-week exploration of topics such as racism, the wealth gap, gender bias and homelessness.

Last spring, the Luskin School hosted a virtual Global Mini-Summit as part of its signature Luskin Summit policy dialogue series. Discussions are underway to expand this concept into an ongoing series focused on international concerns.

Plus, numerous alumni now hold positions in foreign governments or work in agencies or businesses with an international mindset.

Several stories in this edition of Luskin Forum take a closer look at the ways UCLA Luskin is bringing a global perspective to issues of public concern.

Alumni Notes

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NEW ACCOMPLISHMENTS FOR 2 ALUMNI IN TRANSPORTATION

Maddy Ruvolo MURP ’20 was appointed to serve on the board of a federal agency that promotes accessibility, especially in transportation, for disabled people. 

Ruvolo currently works at the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. She has spent her career ensuring that disabled people can seamlessly navigate their neighborhood and surrounding areas. 

Ruvolo, 29, is younger than the Americans With Disabilities Act and told the San Francisco Examiner that fact illustrates “how long so many people in the disability community have been waiting for accessibility. We’ve made huge strides, but there’s so much work yet to do.”

In the same article, Ruvolo said she believes San Francisco has been exemplary at offering micromobility — transportation that uses lightweight vehicles, especially electric ones borrowed through self-service rental programs, as an inclusive option for disabled people. With this opportunity to work with the Biden administration, she wants to take that concept and apply it on a grander scale across the country.

woman poses with buses in background

Lupita Ibarra

Lupita Ibarra ’10 MURP ’12 was recently hired to lead the City of Montebello’s Department of Transportation. 

In her role, Ibarra oversees the day-to-day operations of seven local routes, one express route, a semi-fixed-route feeder service, and a dial-a-taxi service. 

Ibarra was previously the senior operations manager in the Transportation Management Center of San Francisco MTA, where she developed operator forecasts, carried superintendent responsibilities within the light rail operating division, and led the development of new initiatives that included route and systemwide studies of service levels, operations, demand and strategic planning. 

In a story posted by TransitTalent, an online site focusing on the transit industry, Ibarra says, “I am very excited to return to Southern California, where I grew up riding public transit … bringing with me a decade of experience managing major transportation systems in San Francisco. My goal is to improve the riding experience for our passengers, which we will achieve through improving the reliability and safety of the system, investing in a modern and sustainable fleet all while making [Montebello Bus Lines] a great place to work.”

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Culver City Mayor Daniel Lee

SOCIAL WELFARE ALUMNUS IS NOW CULVER CITY’S MAYOR

Daniel Lee MSW ’15 is serving his first term as the mayor of Culver City following a previous term as vice mayor.

He became the first African American member of the Culver City Council upon election in 2018.

Lee has said that his inspiration to be of service comes from his grandmother, who participated with Martin Luther King Jr. in the Montgomery bus boycott.

Lee, who earned his doctorate at USC in 2021, is a veteran of the U.S. Air Force and California Air National Guard. He was formerly a filmmaker and actor, and, for 17 years, volunteered with El Rincon Elementary School students in an artist and communication program.

He has also been a social worker and a union-affiliated campaign worker. Lee’s current and past affiliations include the Board of Directors for Move to Amend, the Backbone Campaign, Mockingbird Incubator and the Clean Power Alliance.

In addition, Lee served on the Culver City Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Committee for seven years. He developed a civil rights curriculum that was implemented at the city’s Teen Center to increase young people’s understanding of their country’s history.

 

portrait photo of Kergan

Sasha Wisotsky Kergan

URBAN PLANNING GRADUATES RECEIVE STATE APPOINTMENTS

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has appointed two alumnae of UCLA Luskin Urban Planning to new positions with statewide impact. 

Sacramento resident Sasha Wisotsky Kergan MA UP ’10 has been appointed as the deputy secretary of housing and consumer relations at the Business Consumer Services and Housing Agency. This is not Kergan’s first time working at the California Department of Housing and Community Development’s Division of Housing Policy Development. Since 2017, she has held the positions of housing policy specialist, housing policy manager, and data and research unit chief. In addition, she was asset manager at the Oakland Housing Authority from 2015 to 2017. While at UCLA, she emphasized real estate development and finance in her studies.

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Lande Ajose

Oakland resident Lande Ajose MA UP ’95 has been appointed to the California Cradle-to-Career Data System Governing Board. Ajose has been vice president and senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California since 2021. She was senior policy advisor for higher education in Newsom’s office from 2019 to 2021, where she chaired the Governor’s Council for Postsecondary Education. Throughout Ajose’s career, she has focused on improving the lives of Californians. She works in state government, private philanthropy and research institutions to do so. Her research interests include addressing issues of inequality through education and employment.

 

portrait photo of Jackson

Maria Rosario Jackson

URBAN PLANNING ALUMNA LEADS NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS

Urban Planning alumna Maria Rosario Jackson Ph.D. ’96 has been confirmed as chair of the National Endowment for the Arts, becoming the first African American and Mexican American woman to lead the federal agency. 

“The arts are critical to our well-being, to robust economies and to healthy communities where all people can thrive,” said Jackson, a professor at Arizona State University who has served on the National Council on the Arts since 2013. 

For more than 25 years, Jackson’s work has focused on understanding and elevating arts, culture and design as critical elements of strong communities. 

She has served as an advisor on philanthropic programs and investments at national, regional and local foundations, including the Los Angeles County Cultural Equity and Inclusion Initiative and the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. She serves on the board of directors of the Performing Arts Center of Los Angeles County, among other organizations, and her work appears in a wide range of professional and academic publications. 

She also taught a UCLA course on arts, culture and community revitalization. 

Jackson grew up in South Los Angeles and credits her parents with instilling a love of the arts in her family.

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Aurea Montes Rodriguez

MSW ALUMNA SPEAKS DURING UCLA CHANGEMAKERS SUMMIT 

UCLA Luskin alumna Aurea Montes-Rodriguez BA ’97 MSW ’99, participated in March 2022 in the UCLA Alumni Association’s three-day summit, known as Changemakers.

The summit is designed to empower attendees to gain the knowledge needed to champion diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace. Montes-Rodriguez is executive vice president at Community Coalition. 

She spoke virtually along with other UCLA alumni: John Ho Song ’85, executive director, Koreatown Youth and Community Center, and Henry Perez ’00 MA ’03, associate director, InnerCity Struggle. 

Montes-Rodriguez has worked at Community Coalition for more than 20 years. In 2017, she was named Social Welfare Alumna of the Year, an award that honors Joseph A. Nunn, a UCLA alumnus and former vice chair and longtime former director of field education for UCLA Social Welfare.

Born in Mexico and raised in South Los Angeles, Montes-Rodriguez developed a passion for creating change at the local level. She has been a key leader responsible for building Community Coalition’s youth programs to fight for educational equity, leading efforts to keep children in family care and out of the foster care system, helping to build organizing capacity in South L.A., and leading a capital campaign to transform the organization’s headquarters into a state-of-the-art hub for community organizing.

Alumni Accolades Job changes and other updates from UCLA Luskin graduates

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Jane Davis MSW ’16 accepted a new position at UCLA Counseling and Psychological Services as a staff social worker.

Joshua Baum BA ’15 MURP ’18 is the new research analyst for the Southwest Regional Council of Carpenters, performing a multitude of economic and planning research tasks to inform contract negotiations, legislative initiatives and other activities across the organization.

Kimberly (Clark) Macakiage MPP ’02 is the director of 1115 Medicaid Waiver and Accountable Care at Austin Travis County Integral Care. She also will be one of the panelists at the 2022 Texas State of Reform conference, serving on a session about financing models for addressing the social determinants in health and wellness.

Elisabeth (Furbush) Mitha MPP ’08 is now the recruitment consultant at Springpoint, a national nonprofit organization that partners with select school districts and networks to design and launch new secondary schools that bring all students to college and career readiness.

Cara Vallier MPP ’02 is in a new position as mayoral assistant for the city of Seattle. Vallier is one of many UCLA Luskin alums who work in municipal government. 

Triple Bruin Silvia R. González BA ’09 MURP ’13 UP Ph.D. ’21 is now the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Initiative’s director of research. Previously, González was the founding assistant director at UCLA Center for Neighborhood Knowledge and has previously collaborated with UCLA LPPI before taking on the new position. She is a proud Latina first-generation Ph.D.

Jaime Nack ’98 MPP ’02, founder and president of three squares inc., created a program for the UCLA Alumni Association called Bruin Business 100. The program highlights the determination and entrepreneurial spirit of Bruins. In its inaugural year, Bruin Business 100 will recognize the outstanding achievements of Bruin entrepreneurs, expand and connect the Bruin network, and inspire further innovation.

Kimberly (Lewis) Mundhenk ’02 MPP ’07 now holds a new position as education research and evaluation administrator of the Accountability Development and Policy Analysis Unit at the California Department of Education. Mundhenk is one of the dozens of MPP alumni working in education policy at all academic levels and organizations, including local, state and federal government, plus school districts, nonprofits and even locations overseas.

Vidya Sundaram MPP/MBA ’06 is the co-founder and CEO of Family Engagement. In March, Sundaram joined fellow Asian American female education leaders at the SXSW EDU conference session “Asian American Women Leading in EdTech” to discuss how their voices are critical in creating the tools and services used in education today.

In Support Meyer Luskin sharing life lessons is among recent events, gifts and fellowship efforts

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Meyer Luskin, benefactor and namesake of the Luskin School of Public Affairs, spoke to UCLA students about leadership skills and responsible entrepreneurship at a March 3 gathering held in person and via Zoom.

Luskin shared stories from a long and varied career in investment advising, oil and gas, rental cars, beauty schools and, ultimately, the recycling of food waste. Scope Industries, the company he has led for more than six decades, turns tons of bakery goods that would otherwise have gone to landfills into food for livestock.

“Meyer is a businessman who invented a business, and that’s not common,” UCLA Luskin Dean Gary Segura said at the event. “Meyer had an idea, and his idea was to take something most people threw away and make it into something useful.”

Luskin’s talk included stories from his own UCLA education, which was interrupted by a tour of duty during World War II, and his experiences facing anti-Semitism as a young businessman. Luskin advised students embarking on their careers to examine their motivations, acknowledge conflicts of interests and uphold the highest ethics.

“You have to be retrospective about yourself,” he said. “You have to take time to think about what you’ve done and where you’re going and who you are and what you want.”

He encouraged those blessed with success in business to act responsibly and generously.

“The first principle is get good people, pay them well, think about them,” he said. “When you do something that’s right, it comes back and helps you. … It just works that way in a long life.”

Meyer and Renee Luskin also visited with many of the student fellows currently receiving their financial support while pursuing UCLA degrees, an opportunity that is a meaningful highlight for the Luskins and students that had not been able to take place face-to-face for two years because of the pandemic.

Panelists were Jarrett Barrios, Nina Revoyr and Ruby Bolaria-Shifrin, all of whom work in the philanthropic sphere.

SPEAKERS DISCUSS EQUITY, DIVERSITY DURING FIRESIDE CHAT

“Foundations and Racial Justice — Creating the Pathway for More Equitable and Inclusive Communities” brought together philanthropic leaders on March 31 for a virtual discussion of the critical role that foundations play in funding and working together for a more equitable and inclusive society.

Dean Gary Segura served as moderator. Panelists were Jarrett Barrios, senior vice president of strategic community and programmatic initiatives for the California Community Foundation; Nina Revoyr, executive director of Ballmer Group’s philanthropic efforts in Los Angeles County and California; and Ruby Bolaria-Shifrin, director of housing affordability at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

“If we always wait until we are sure,” said Revoyr about making decisions in unfamiliar circumstances, “we’re never going to do it.”

The event was organized by the Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) committee of the Luskin School advisory board and schoolwide departmental leadership in support of UCLA Luskin’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion funds. 

The financial support provided to students from underrepresented backgrounds advances the goal of diversifying the fields of public policy, social work and urban planning, providing several types
of support: 

  • Funded internships with nonprofit community organizations that otherwise couldn’t afford to provide a paid internship. This is a double win: The student gets paid while gaining professional experience, and the community organization gets a funded temporary position.
  • Student fellowships, allowing students to devote more time to learning instead of having to hold down a job or being saddled with an unsustainable debt load.
  • Creation of these fireside chats to support opportunities for students to meet in small groups with professionals in the field. The goal is to discuss pressing social issues and the i mplication on their work within public affairs.

In addition, board members Laura Shell, Vivian Rescalvo, Lourdes Castro Ramirez and Jacqueline Waggoner hosted a salon focused on EDI fundraising on May 3 at Shell’s home. The salon is an extension of the EDI efforts by Ramirez and Waggoner highlighted in the previous issue of Luskin Forum.

Los Angeles city planner Ken Bernstein, right, gave remarks at a Senior Fellows event in the fall. Photos by Mary Braswell and Amy Tierney

MENTORS, MENTEES CELEBRATE 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF SENIOR FELLOWS 

The Luskin School celebrated 25 years of mentorship and meaningful engagement through the Senior Fellows program on May 24. 

The mission of the premier leadership career training program is to engage prominent leaders as role models for graduate students from UCLA Luskin Public Policy, Social Welfare and Urban Planning. The program features policy, public service and community leaders who serve as mentors to guide Luskin students toward careers in the public interest.

The special occasion also provided an opportunity to honor and reflect upon the work of VC Powe, who was the heart of the program for years prior to her death in 2020. Her leadership, dedication and finesse in matching Senior Fellows to students was integral to its success. 

In recognition of the 25th anniversary and in memory of VC, the school also launched a successful fundraising campaign that raised over $25,000 to help sustain and grow this valuable program. The funds are being used to support programming and supplemental internship stipends
for students.

New scholarships for undergraduate public affairs students were established thanks to gifts from UCLA alumna and former congresswoman Lynn Schenk, left, and H. Pike Oliver, a UCLA Luskin Urban Planning alumnus.

NEW SCHOLARSHIPS BENEFIT PUBLIC AFFAIRS MAJORS

Several well-deserving students were selected as the first recipients of two new undergraduate scholarships beginning in the spring quarter. 

Established by UCLA alumna and former congresswoman Lynn Schenk, the Congresswoman Lynn Schenk Capstone Scholarship in Public Affairs will support students completing the required experiential learning capstone opportunity during their senior year. UCLA Luskin undergraduate majors participate in a three-quarter experiential learning capstone program that integrates the classroom and community. This experience gives students the opportunity to build practical expertise while also deepening understanding of their coursework.

The second award was established by H. Pike Oliver MA UP ’73 as the H. Pike Oliver Scholarship in Public Affairs to support students from underrepresented communities with an interest in addressing complex interdisciplinary issues related to urban and regional development. Students pursuing the public affairs degree are deeply engaged in learning skills and gaining knowledge that will improve how people live and help communities thrive. 

Like Schenk and Oliver, donors can create scholarships through current-expenditure or endowed gifts, providing essential support
to students whose academic promise and career goals embody the mission of the Luskin School.

people seated in foreground listen to speaker at podium while a screen shows an image of Martin Wachs

Students, colleagues and friends gathered to honor the legacy of transportation scholar Martin Wachs. Photo by Mary Braswell

URBAN PLANNING CELEBRATES 50 (PLUS!) YEARS AT UCLA

Half a century after the study of urban planning got its start at UCLA, alumni, faculty and friends returned to campus to celebrate the program’s enduring focus on activism and equity. 

Throughout the spring quarter, several of the nation’s thought leaders on urban planning and environmental justice shared their scholarship in a series of lectures. The commemoration included reflections on the legacy of the late Professor Martin Wachs, a renowned educator, researcher and influencer of transportation policy and planning. 

The celebration culminated on May 14 with a keynote speech by Dolores Hayden, a scholar of the history of the American urban landscape, followed by a festive gathering in the UCLA Franklin D. Murphy Sculpture Garden outside the Public Affairs Building that houses the Luskin School.

Alumni and friends are encouraged to support the Urban Planning department’s current top priority: student fellowships. By contributing to this fund, you help allow students to devote more time to learning instead of having to hold down a job or being saddled with an unsustainable debt load.

Dean’s Message

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As some of you know, the Luskin School is a bit unusual compared with other institutions. 

The juxtaposition of Social Welfare, Urban Planning and Public Policy sets us apart from most other universities where schools of Social Work and schools of Public Policy are often standalone units, while Urban Planning rests in Design, Architecture or Environmental colleges. Policy and planning can occasionally be found together, but to have the three disciplines together makes the Luskin School something of a unicorn.

This is to our benefit, I believe. When I share our vision with donors, scholars and prospective students, I talk about our unique capacity to examine human well-being from different levels and units of analysis. At UCLA Luskin, we are interested in individuals, families and organizations; municipalities, metros and regions; states, nations and the globe. This is a strength. But to make use of this variety of perspectives, we require places — real and virtual — for faculty with these perspectives to share, cooperate and collaborate. This is the key virtue of our centers and institutes — to serve as a locus of dialogue and collaboration across the entire School.

The Luskin School is blessed to have sizable clusters of faculty interested in housing and homelessness, transportation, the environment, health and mental health, youth and child development, criminal justice and policing, international policymaking and its impacts, race, class and inequality, and so much more. What these various foci have in common is that each has faculty and student researchers in more than one department and, in some instances, all three. In order for the School to have its greatest impact, as a locus for pathbreaking research and to provide the best possible training for our students at every level, breaking down the organizational silos is critical.

In addition, nearly all UCLA Luskin centers/institutes have active participation from faculty outside of the School, within which the research unit provides a mechanism of collaboration and interdisciplinary dialogue. Today, faculty from dozens of departments and programs across nearly every division/school on the campus participate in one or more UCLA Luskin research center.

In this issue of Luskin Forum, we highlight some of the excellent work being done by these centers and institutes, and the ways in which that work advances the mission of the Luskin School. 

And there is much, much more to come.

Forward!

Gary

Faculty, Students United by Their International Interests  

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A desire to bring about change in a world that sorely needs it drew three UCLA Luskin undergrads to the Global Lab for Research in Action.

Joey Lu, Karlinna Sanchez and Anjani Trivedi spent their senior year immersed in research aimed at improving the health of women and children around the world — the primary focus of the Global Lab, which was launched at UCLA Luskin in 2019. They translated scholarly texts into persuasive op-eds and policy briefs, and used their skills in digital media and design to increase the audience for the lab’s important work.

“I really like that the Global Lab focuses on under-researched, hard-to-reach populations and doesn’t treat them like people cast aside but like people we could learn from,” Sanchez said.

The Global Lab is one of several UCLA Luskin entities with a distinctly international focus. The Latin American Cities Initiative, established by Associate Professor Paavo Monkkonen in 2019, fosters cross-border collaboration among students, scholars and professionals in the planning and policy fields. Often referred to as Ciudades, the initiative puts an emphasis on discerning shared lessons from different urban cultures. 

Since 2014, Global Public Affairs has offered Luskin School graduate students a chance to study abroad, learn from top scholars from across the UCLA campus and earn certificates in any of several international concentrations. GPA is led by Professor Michael Storper, who was also instrumental in developing an Urban Planning dual-degree program that includes a year studying in Paris.

UCLA Luskin also broadened its geographic scope with two ventures helmed by Adjunct Professor of Social Welfare Helmut Anheier: the transdisciplinary social sciences journal Global Perspectives, published by University of California Press, and the Berggruen Governance Index, a data-rich evaluation of the effectiveness of governments worldwide.

At the Global Lab, research on the well-being of vulnerable people around the world is led by Public Policy Professor Manisha Shah, the center’s director and an expert in microeconomics, health policy and international development. 

That research portfolio resonated with the trio of interns. 

Lu said a trip to Ghana after her freshman year opened her eyes to the powerful forces that keep some countries mired in poverty, and led her to triple major in public affairs, sociology and international development. 

Childhood trips back to her birthplace, India, exposed Trivedi to different lifestyles, heightening her interest in comparative economics and helping her think about her own place in the world.

Sanchez grew up in American Samoa, a U.S. territory that “everyone forgets about,” where their public school lacked tables and chairs and their classmates fell into apathy.

“I just see so much potential in my peers, in my population, but no one invests in them,” said Sanchez, who uses they/them pronouns.

The three were attracted to the Global Lab’s research but also its call to action. They worked closely with founding Deputy Director Janine N’jie David MPP ’14, and credited her with shaping a shared public affairs capstone project that would steep them in the research that intrigued them while tapping into their own talents to advance the lab’s mission.

The interns’ aim was to communicate the Global Lab’s work in compelling ways while refining its brand and digital presence. Over the year, the team revamped the lab’s website, stepped up its social media presence, created monthly newsletters and supported its events, taking care to measure the impact of each step of the communications strategy. 

In the end, Trivedi said, “it’s the people that have made this experience the most rewarding. This is a company culture where everyone is so passionate about what they do and they have this intrinsic motivation to create change.”

A New Hub at the Intersection of ‘Multiple Vulnerabilities’  

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UCLA Luskin’s newest research initiative is deeply rooted in the community, with the aim of improving the well-being of its most vulnerable members. 

Launched in late 2019, the Hub for Health Intervention, Policy and Practice (HHIPP) connects scholars, policymakers and advocates for those battling poverty, racism, homophobia and discrimination of all kinds.

“We really see HHIPP as in service to Los Angeles’ diverse communities, especially those at the intersection of multiple vulnerabilities,” said Social Welfare Professor Ian Holloway, director of the initiative.

In his long career in research, Holloway has focused on health policy through a social justice lens, working closely with Social Welfare faculty colleague Ayako Miyashita Ochoa.

“When we looked across all of our projects, one of the unifying themes was that we always started with our community partnerships,” Holloway said. “We centered the needs and priorities of the communities that we’re engaged with: lots of diverse LGBTQ+ communities, BIPOC communities, communities of people who use different substances or who are street-connected.”

This has led to innovative and collaborative projects including one using machine learning algorithms to provide personalized information about HIV prevention to gay and bisexual young men. A team led by Miyashita Ochoa is working with people involved in L.A. County’s sex trade to measure the impact of a new state law that prohibits law enforcement from using condoms as evidence of sex work.

HHIPP is also tracking the trajectory of cannabis use among LGBTQ young people in the state. This includes efforts to understand high rates of tobacco use among gender-non-conforming youth, including the role of targeted marketing campaigns.

“And so the idea for HHIPP was really to unify all of these streams of research under one hub,” Holloway said.

HHIPP is committed to making its research widely accessible to the public. To share early findings from the hub’s tobacco-related research, Holloway hosted a webinar tied to LGBTQ Health Week and Transgender Day of Visibility.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, when the School’s signature Luskin Summit went virtual, HHIPP used the platform to share information on the coronavirus’ impact on the opioid crisis and the role of telemedicine in protecting sexual health.

Even though the pandemic lockdown struck HHIPP just as it was getting off the ground, Holloway noted that the COVID era also brought new opportunities, including development of a proposal to create community-based tools for vaccine promotion and delivery.

“We certainly have seized the moment in terms of trying to understand the impact of COVID on the communities that we’re serving,” he said.

HHIPP’s work has been funded by a variety of organizations, including the National Institutes of Health, the California HIV/AIDS Research Program and the California Bureau of Cannabis Control. The initiative established a cross-cutting advisory board and continues to launch partnerships with community groups across Southern California.

Looking down the road, Holloway envisions a brick-and-mortar field site where HHIPP can truly serve the community. Local residents could come to the site for social services or health and mental health support. Scholars could co-create research alongside community members, and Social Welfare, Urban Planning and Public Policy students could develop their skills in real time and alongside policymakers.

“Bridging worlds together and locating power in community would be very aligned with our ethos at HHIPP,” Holloway said. “I think that that is one strategy that moves us closer to achieving our vision.”