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UCLA Luskin Social Welfare Alumnae Elevated to Public Office

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Caroline Menjivar and Nikki Perez, two members of UCLA Luskin’s Master of Social Welfare Class of 2018, have turned their background in social work into successful bids for public office. Menjivar has been elected to the California State Senate, and Perez will join the Burbank City Council, results from the Nov. 8 election confirmed. The two alumnae will bring a broad range of perspectives into the halls of government. Menjivar, a Marine Corps veteran and the daughter of Salvadoran immigrants, will be the first out LGBTQ legislator to represent the San Fernando Valley. She told CalMatters that she plans to use her personal experiences and background as a social worker to advocate for mental health services and housing solutions. While at UCLA Luskin, Menjivar worked in the office of Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti as a David Bohnett Fellow. Perez was the top vote-getter in the Burbank council race. She told the Burbank Leader, “As the first Indigenous and openly LGBTQ woman elected to council, it’s a tremendous honor to bring a unique perspective and representation to our city government.” A lifelong Burbank resident and graduate of its public schools, Perez said she will be a voice for the city’s underrepresented populations, including renters, working-class families, union members and the Latino community. Since graduating from UCLA Luskin, Perez has worked as a nonprofit program manager and staff member with the California Legislature.

 

UCLA Social Welfare Marks 75 Years of Distinguished Research

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UCLA Social Welfare scholars from around the country returned to campus this week to recognize milestones in teaching and research over the past 75 years, as well as the work still ahead to advance justice in both academia and the broader society. The gathering of Social Welfare PhD students, doctoral alumni, faculty and staff, held at the UCLA Luskin Conference Center on the evening of Nov. 14, kicked off a yearlong commemoration of the Social Welfare program’s diamond anniversary. Professor Emeritus Rosina Becerra shared insights from her three decades in leadership positions at the university, including as dean of the School of Social Welfare in the 1980s and ’90s and later as vice provost of faculty diversity and development. Guests also heard from Karina L. Walters PhD ’95 MSW ’90 BA ’87, a professor of social work at the University of Washington and member of the Choctaw Nation, and Darcey H. Merritt PhD ’06 MSW ’03, associate professor at New York University and co-editor-in-chief of the research journal Children and Youth Services Review. Merritt will soon join the University of Chicago faculty as a full professor. Becerra, Walters and Merritt are distinguished scholars and also women of color, and they spoke of progress yet to be made to achieve full equity in the academy. The celebration of UCLA Social Welfare’s 75th anniversary will continue throughout the academic year, culminating on Saturday, May 6, with an alumni reunion and the annual presentation of the Joseph A. Nunn Alumnus of the Year award.

View photos from the event on Flickr.

Social Welfare Research At UCLA: Past, Present, Future

Book Launch Focuses on Founder of Nonprofit BRAC

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UCLA Luskin hosted a book launch for the biography “Hope Over Fate: Fazle Hasan Abed and the Science of Ending Global Poverty” by Scott MacMillan. The book details the life of Fazle Hasan Abed, founder of the nonprofit grassroots organization BRAC (originally called the Bangladesh Rehabilitation Assistance Committee), which has now grown into one of the world’s largest NGOs, reaching 100 million people in Asia and Africa. MacMillan, his speechwriter, spent a great amount of time working alongside Abed and shared stories at the Oct. 27 book launch, organized by Global Lab for Research in Action and Global Public Affairs at UCLA Luskin. His talk included details about the origins of BRAC and the stories of locals who benefited from the organization. Abed created BRAC in an effort to alleviate poverty in Bangladesh and provide more people with jobs to help sustain themselves. The organization focuses on microfinance, women’s healthcare and social enterprises, as well as providing life skills and livelihood training for girls in countries such as Bangladesh, Tanzania, Uganda, Sudan and Sierra Leone. BRAC stands out from other NGOs because it takes an entrepreneurial approach to tackling poverty, and also because its roots are in Bangladesh, unlike other NGOs that originated outside the Global South. “The road ahead was actually really long, and actually giving people the tools to lift themselves out of poverty involved many other resources. But none of that would mean a thing if people did not first believe in the possibility or change,” MacMillan said. — Aminah Khan

View photos from the book talk

 

Graduate Students and Mentors Connect at Senior Fellows Breakfast

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UCLA Luskin graduate students connected with prominent community, government and business leaders at the 2022 Senior Fellows Breakfast at the UCLA Faculty Club. As the Luskin School’s premier mentoring and networking initiative, the Senior Fellows Program matches master’s students in public policy, social welfare and urban planning with mentors who offer career guidance and leadership development. During the Oct. 26 breakfast, two speakers offered advice on how to make the most of the opportunity: mentor Daniel Lee MSW ’15, mayor of Culver City, and MPP student Alicia Nyein, who is entering her second year in the program. Guests also viewed a video remembering VC Powe, a UCLA Luskin staff member and champion of the Senior Fellows Program for many years until her death in 2020. Mentors and their students then had an opportunity to become better acquainted as they embarked on a yearlong partnership focused on engagement in the public service arena.

View photos from the event

 

Senior Fellows Breakfast 2022

Schwarz Selected as NSF Program Director

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Kirsten Schwarz, associate professor of urban planning, has been named a program director of the National Science Foundation’s Division of Environmental Biology. In the new role, she will help select which research projects are supported by the foundation’s $8.8 billion budget. Schwarz, one of only three scientists selected by the NSF’s environmental biology division from a nationwide pool of applicants, “has already made significant contributions to the program through her scientific expertise in urban ecology,” said Kendra McLauchlan, the program’s director. Schwarz’s scholarship at UCLA focuses on environmental hazards and amenities in cities, ranging from lead contamination in soil to how shade can improve health by reducing the extreme effects of heat. Her new responsibilities include interacting with potential principal investigators, forming and facilitating merit review panels, and recommending funding decisions. “I’m grateful for the support that NSF has provided to my career, and I’m especially looking forward to connecting new researchers with the programs that can support and expand their work,” Schwarz said. “Most of all, I’m looking forward to learning from new colleagues and playing a small part in supporting great science with the broadest possible impacts.” Schwarz has a joint appointment in the environmental health sciences department of the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, and is a faculty affiliate at the UCLA Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Equity. She has taught at UCLA since 2020.

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UC-Wide Initiative to Increase Voter Participation

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Freedom Summer, an initiative founded by UCLA urban planning and Chicano studies professor Veronica Terriquez in 2018, has spread to a UC-wide movement to help students from communities with low voting rates participate in voter outreach. The program consists of over 100 students from all nine UC undergraduate campuses as well as a few community colleges. “Seven out of 10 young people in California are young people of color,” Terriquez said. “Engaging them is an important part of building an electorate that effectively represents the people of the state.” Students in the program have been able to effect change within their communities by increasing voter participation and reducing apathy. Terriquez said youth of color tend to mobilize less than other groups, in part because high school students from low-income communities do not receive much education about civic engagement and the importance of voting. They are also less likely to be reached out to by voting organizations and political campaigns. This fuels a continual cycle of people from these communities not voting because they were never contacted. Freedom Summer is continuing to make efforts to increase voter turnout, especially by engaging students from underserved groups because they feel a stronger connection with their communities and are able to make a direct impact on local legislation. It is estimated that Freedom Summer has registered or pre-registered over 5,000 new voters this year alone.

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Luskin Scholars Join UCLA’s New Initiative to Study Hate

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UCLA is launching the Initiative to Study Hate, an ambitious social impact project that brings together a broad consortium of scholars to understand and ultimately mitigate hate in its multiple forms. Supported by a $3 million gift from an anonymous donor, researchers including UCLA Luskin scholars will undertake 23 projects this year, the first of a three-year pilot program. Through his work with the UCLA Institute for Society and Genetics, Aaron Panofsky, professor of public policy and sociology, will map the ways white nationalist groups selectively use and reject science to perpetuate themes of otherization and dehumanization online. Researchers from UCLA Luskin Social Welfare will participate in three projects: Doctoral student Emily Maurin-Waters and associate professor Laura Wray-Lake will examine prejudicial violence against LGBTQ youth and the impact of whether it is framed as bullying or a hate crime. Doctoral student Taylor Reed will lead a team including Sara Wilf and Victoria Millet MSW ’22 to study racism and discrimination within organizing spaces, as experienced by Black and Latinx individuals taking part in youth gun violence prevention movements. And assistant professor Brian Keum and doctoral student Michele Wong will join a team from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health that will explore the spillover effect on the mental health of Asian Americans in the wake of the mass killing of spa workers in Atlanta, Georgia. From Urban Planning, master’s student Eliza Franklin Leggett will disrupt the built environment in an Alabama town with a history of white supremacy by inserting historical markers documenting hidden Black histories.

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An Active Example of Advocacy in West Los Angeles

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More than 200 people celebrated the architectural and cultural significance of the West Los Angeles Civic Center and Courthouse on Sunday, Oct. 2, during a public space activation. The event brought together UCLA architecture and urban planning students, public space advocacy organizations, and longtime users of the space in the third and final event organized by UCLA’s (Un)Common Public Space Group. Participants gathered to make use of the space and envision future uses of the bandshell, ledges and pathways, constructing skate obstacles and devising other amenities, learning about the history of the space, and enjoying music and food. The event encouraged dialogue among policymakers, developers and the public to safeguard community amenities. It also connected UCLA-based public space research with the city’s redevelopment plans for the space and engaged with the local knowledge and perspectives of advocacy organizations near the courthouse. Keegan Guizard from College Skateboarding and Alec Beck from the Skatepark Project hosted skateboard contests, highlighting the area’s history of skateboarding activism. The L.A. Conservancy informed participants about the historical importance of mid-century modern architecture, and students constructed future amenities like modular street furniture and colorful shade structures. Over 140 signatures were gathered for public petitions and comments to preserve community amenities and obstacles in the space’s future redevelopment. The (Un)Common Public Space Group activates public space with and for underrepresented and underserved communities in pursuit of spatial justice. The series was supported by the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies and the UCLA Urban Humanities Initiative. — Chris Giamarino 

image shows event organizers facing cameraA skateboarder launches off a DIY ramp over a shopping cart. Photo by Adam Lubitz
image shows event organizers facing camera

View additional photos and videos in a Google photo album

UCLA Research Guides California Reparations Task Force

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Professor Michael Stoll and a team of UCLA Luskin graduate students appeared before the California Reparations Task Force to present research that will guide deliberations on how to compensate Black residents for generations of discrimination arising from the country’s legacy of slavery. At the Sept. 23 public meeting at the California Science Center in Los Angeles, the researchers shared their analysis of personal testimonies, interviews and survey responses collected from January through August of this year — all aimed at gathering perspectives about the Black experience from individuals across the state. The team found widespread support for financial reparations to Black Californians who can establish lineage to enslaved ancestors, as well as for programs that provide non-cash support, such as small business assistance, tax exemptions and land grants. Working under the task force’s expedited timeline, the team transcribed, codified and analyzed an enormous amount of data in less than four weeks, a fraction of the time a project of this magnitude would typically require. The task force, made of up state legislators and other distinguished leaders, will utilize the findings as they develop recommendations regarding how to atone for past harms suffered by Black Californians. Stoll, a professor of public policy and urban planning, is director of the Black Policy Project housed at the UCLA Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies. The graduate student researchers working on the project include Jendalyn Coulter, who is pursuing a joint MSW/MPP degree; Chinyere Nwonye, a second-year MPP student; and Elliot Woods, MPP student and chair of the Luskin Black Caucus.