Archive for category: Public Policy

‘A Mission I Can Embrace’ New Dean Gary Segura discusses his first 100 days, and why UCLA Luskin is the ‘right fit’ for him

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By George Foulsham

On Jan. 1, Gary M. Segura began his tenure as Dean of the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.

In a Q&A conducted soon after his appointment in October, Segura, professor of public policy and Chicano studies at UCLA and the former Morris M. Doyle Centennial Professor of Public Policy and professor of political science at Stanford University, discussed his new role and how excited he is to lead the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.

First of all, congratulations on being named the new Dean of the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. Can you tell us your initial reaction when you got the news?

Segura: I was stunned, in fact, and really quite surprised to hear the news. I was in Europe at the time and I’m a little embarrassed to say that I was on a beach when Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Scott Waugh called me. But he was in Europe too, so we were in the same time zone, and it worked out OK. But I was really quite surprised and very, very pleased.

Can you share with us your initial thoughts on what you hope to accomplish when you get started, maybe in your first 100 days at the Luskin School?

Segura: I’m not a physician — I’m not that kind of doctor — but my first rule is to do no harm. There are a lot of very good, wonderful and exciting things going on here. And my first step would be to find out what I need to do and where I can be helpful to enhance, enlarge and grow the existing areas of strength in the school. My second step will be a pure information-gathering one.

I need to know the faculty. I want to know what their interests are, what they think we can do better, what they think is working well. And, also, test out a few ideas in terms of how we might broaden the footprint.

In the coming years, we will see any number of important opportunities and changes come to the Luskin School. I want to be certain to figure out how to make opportunity for growth or renewal a win-win for everyone. I think the first 100 days will be a lot of information gathering and a few trial balloons floated, and we’ll see if they get shot down or if they actually make it to the ceiling.

The Luskin School’s previous full-time dean, Franklin D. Gilliam, Jr., believed that Luskin prepared students for the future by providing them with a “change-agent toolkit.” Do you see Luskin continuing that role of helping our students become change agents?

Segura: I would say I see Luskin continuing and extending that role, with the possibility of some additional programs at Luskin. I want to create an environment where we have a huge cadre of students who are going to engage the community as it exists. This is purposeful social science. This is the idea that understanding what’s happening in the world is only useful to the extent that we can then take it and make the world — at the individual level, at the family level, at the community level, at the nation level and maybe even globally — somewhat better than we found it before. So I definitely believe in engaged learning, the idea that the tools they get at UCLA Luskin can be brought to bear on their life goals and their own communities and families.

You are steeped in Latina/o, gender, political and all minority issues. How has your academic background informed and prepared you for your new role as Dean here?

Segura: This society is changing in ways that are unprecedented. In 1950, this society was 90 percent white. When Ronald Reagan was president of the United States in 1980, this society was 80 percent white. In the last national census, it was 63.7 percent white, non-Hispanic. And, in the next census, that number is likely to be around 60 percent. At the same time, we’ve had a revolution in gender relations in the United States over the last 50 or 60 years. So heterosexual white males, who have so dominated American society in all of its facets — whether it be governance, business, industry — those individuals comprise only about 30 percent of the national population. We have relatively little understanding of the other 70 percent. The traditional social sciences and even some of the public affairs and public policy folks in the world have devoted less attention because they were not the holders of power.

What we’re seeing now is a gigantic change in the composition of the United States at every level. And I think preparing our students — many of whom come from that 70 percent — to engage in an America that fundamentally looks different than the one you and I grew up in is an important change. My particular research interests speak to that, but I’m certainly not alone in that interest and expertise. There are others in the school and others on campus and that’s a primary concern.

Finally, any special message you’d like to share with our students, faculty, staff, alumni and donors?

Segura: I’m very excited to be here. When you look for opportunities to take a leadership role, many of them look like just administrative roles, basically file cabinet management.

I didn’t want that. I wanted an administrative role where I believed in the mission of what I was doing. Here, we have three wonderful departments, an array of research institutes, all of which are dedicated to the improvement of the quality of life, of people living in the United States and beyond, especially in the Los Angeles basin. That’s a mission I can embrace and get behind and something I can actually bring something to personally. This was the right fit for me. I hope I can do my best to help everyone achieve the goals that they have for their time here at Luskin.

A Crash Course in Politics For MPP alumni, 2016 was a time to run, to rally and, sometimes, to rant

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By Stan Paul

At least one ran for office. Another handled a presidential candidate’s digital correspondence. A third harnessed emerging media to further her political activism. It was an election year, after all — a time when Department of Public Policy graduates are even more likely than usual to get engaged in the democratic process.

Recent UCLA Luskin alumnus Nelson Esparza MPP ’15 sought public office by running for and winning a seat on his county school board back home in Fresno.

Esparza, who teaches economics at a community college, sees the role as a perfect fit. “The Board of Education is especially personal because I am the students of my district,” said Esparza, who grew up in California’s Central Valley. “I faced the same barriers and obstacles that students in my district are battling every day.”

His political journey began at age 16, he recalls, when a teacher sparked his interest in economics and put him on a path that eventually led to Luskin and on to politics.

“I had a broad desire to understand how the world worked, where the money flowed, why things happened the way they did,” Esparza said. “And economics sounded like it might teach me just that.”

After obtaining what he calls “a sweet fellowship in Sacramento” as an undergrad, Esparza experienced a “crash course” in California politics and public policy.

“And that was it – I was sold,” he said. “My passion was impacting public policy in my home state and home community.”

That led him to the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. “My collective experience at Luskin was invaluable,” he said. “It was a place where I could capitalize on my experience and interest in impacting public policy at the state and local level.”

Now he’s ready to show the value of that Luskin degree. “I want to have the ability to point and say, ‘We produce change agents in a wide range of capacities, including elected.’”

Vernessa Shih MPP ’14 spent the 2016 campaign working at Hillary for America in Brooklyn, N.Y., where she served as digital correspondence manager for presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Another recent MPP graduate, Vernessa Shih MPP ’14, got a chance to relive one of her favorite student memories — a presidential debate — from an insider’s perspective. Shih spent the 2016 campaign working at Hillary for America in Brooklyn, N.Y., where she served as digital correspondence manager. On any given day, she would respond to people with policy questions, pull content to circulate to the campaign’s digital team or pitch a great story to the speechwriting team for possible inclusion in Hillary Clinton’s remarks.

“It’s still a bit surreal when I think about being on this campaign now,” Shih said as Election Day drew near. “It’s the most exciting thing I’ve ever done, and it’s also the most tired I’ve ever been.”

Shih credits her time at the Luskin School with opportunities to seek and grow in leadership.

“Through working with the Public Policy Department and the Dean’s Office, I felt a great deal of agency to convene opportunities for my class,”

Shih said. “Those were some of my first experiences in project management. I learned a lot from the successes and failures of trying to convene people and resources.”

Shih also said she has been challenged to grow in her understanding of other people’s experiences and the big and small details that affect others’ lives.

“This has been a really challenging year for this country. The one thing that seems to cut through all the static is remembering that everything I am doing is in the hopes of continuing forward progress,” Shih said. She hopes the next generation will “have a more diverse, more open and, hopefully, more equitable future than even I had.”

Tanzila “Taz” Ahmed MPP ’07, who co-hosts a podcast titled “GoodMuslimBadMuslim,” describes herself as activist, storyteller and politico.

Looking forward is also important to Tanzila “Taz” Ahmed MPP ’07, who describes herself in three words: activist, storyteller, politico.

But, these labels only scratch the surface of her many creative and empowering efforts. She co-hosts a podcast called “GoodMuslimBadMuslim,” an ongoing discussion on “walking this fine line between what it means to be good and bad” as a Muslim American woman. And she works with the organization 18MillionRising to empower Asian Americans — nearly 6 percent of the U.S. population – to vote.

“We are currently going full force on turning out the vote,” said the Los Angeles-based Ahmed.

Ahmed said she’s helped mobilize thousands of Asian American and Pacific Islanders — representing at least 17 different languages — to go to the polls in the past 15 years.

“I always knew I wanted to leave the world a better place than when I came into it,” said Ahmed, who was honored in September with a Rising Star award by the Organization of Chinese Americans of Greater Los Angeles (OCA-GLA). The mixed-media artist, essayist and poet explained that vision is what motivated her to work in Washington, D.C. as an environmental organizer starting in 2001. In 2016 Ahmed was honored as a White House Champion of Change for Asian American and Pacific Islander Art and Storytelling.

Ahmed said she decided to pursue public policy specifically to work on racial justice, which at the time was an underexplored field. Inside and outside of formal classes, she spent time trying to merge what she was learning elsewhere to what she was learning in public policy classes.

“To this day, I take those learnings on racial justice and incorporate it into what I do now.”

A Civics Lesson on L.A., From the Inside Three UCLA Luskin School students gain real-world experience working as David Bohnett Fellows at City Hall in Mayor Eric Garcetti’s office while pursuing their graduate degrees

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By Zev Hurwitz

It would be easy to mistake Tammy Barreras, Jayanthi Daniel and JC De Vera for any of the hundreds of staffers who hustle through the hallways of L.A.’s historic City Hall each day. The three carry official city badges, they each work in the mayor’s office and their days are packed with memos, deadlines, proposals, city events and projects — all geared at improving the lives of Angelenos.

But when this trio clocks out, they each take on a role that’s unmatched by other city employees: full-time graduate student.

Together, the three make up the 2016-2017 cohort of the David Bohnett Fellowship Program at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. It’s a unique opportunity for graduate students to work closely with Mayor Eric Garcetti’s staff while completing their master’s degrees at UCLA.

The fellowship program, which accepts applications from UCLA Luskin students in all three of the school’s disciplines, consists of one summer of full-time work in the mayor’s office, followed by a yearlong, part-time position at City Hall during the fellows’ second year of coursework at Luskin.

UCLA has offered the fellowship for students in the School of Public Affairs since its inception in 2007. Luskin students may apply in the spring of their first year for placement during the summer between the two years of the program.

From left, UCLA Luskin students Jayanthi Daniel, JC De Vera and Tammy Barreras are working at L.A. City Hall this year as part of the David Bohnett Fellowship Program. Photo by George Foulsham

The Three Fellows

Each fellow works in a different department within the mayor’s office. Tammy Barreras, a student in the Master of Social Welfare (MSW) program at Luskin, works in Garcetti’s Budget and Innovation Department and focuses her work in the Innovation and Performance Management Unit.

“We work with city departments and we empower city employees to deliver better services, whether it’s through strategy or using problem-solving tools,” she said. “We do general manager reviews to keep city heads accountable and measure the successes of the departments.”

Barreras grew up in the San Gabriel Valley community of La Puente. She previously worked as an inpatient pharmacy technician in Orange County before pursuing her undergraduate work at Cal State Los Angeles. She had plans to become a pharmacist before shifting her focus to social work after realizing her true passion was helping those in need.

“I feel like my life prepared me for this experience in City Hall,” she said. “I came here with the purpose to impact the millions of people in this community and for me this is an opportunity to understand how to do it.”

JC De Vera, pursuing his Master of Public Policy (MPP), works in the mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs. Much of his work involves legislative advocacy and community outreach programs. One of De Vera’s first projects during the fellowship was helping organize a press conference in which the mayor announced the launch of a voter registration campaign geared for Spanish-speaking Angelenos.

“Working in government, every day is very dynamic,” De Vera said. “In the public policy curriculum, we’re learning about political institutions and policies — how do you actually get things done, how do you get policies passed? Being in the mayor’s office has illuminated all of that and really brought it to life.”

Jayanthi Daniel, also an MSW candidate, conducts her fellowship work in the office of Ana Guerrero, the mayor’s Chief of Staff. It’s a rare appointment — only one other fellow in the program’s history has had a chance to work in such an important office. Her work largely involves research, hands-on team assistance and event execution. Due to the broad nature of the work for the mayor’s chief aide, Daniel finds herself working on a variety of projects and programs.

“I provide support wherever needed,” she said. “It’s hard to put down exactly what I do because in the nature of politics, my job changes every day that I’m in here. What it all boils down to is that we’re trying to achieve the mayor’s agenda for Los Angeles.”

Daniel, a former journalist, works closely with Guerrero, the city’s first Latina chief of staff and one of the highest-ranking Latina city officials.

“Not only is it an honor to work with a chief of staff, I’m working with a groundbreaking, trailblazing chief of staff — somebody I learn from every single day,” Daniel said.

The fellowship satisfies the internship requirement for the Public Policy curriculum and the fieldwork requirement for Social Welfare master’s students. Because the fellows are also full-time students, there is often overlap between what is discussed in the classroom and at City Hall.

“We can bring a lot of the work we’re doing here into the classroom setting, because we have a unique opportunity to have this experience,” Barreras said. “Whenever topics about civic engagement come up in class, we can talk about the city application from our perspective working in the fellowship.”

The David Bohnett Foundation has been funding the program for UCLA students for the past 10 years, and now supports similar programs for graduate students at the University of Michigan and New York University.

UCLA Luskin graduate student Tammy Barreras meets with her supervisor, Dan Caroselli, a UCLA Luskin Urban Planning alumnus and a former Bohnett Fellow, who is director of the innovation and performance management unit at L.A. City Hall. Photo by George Foulsham

Developing ‘The Next Group of Leaders’

This fellowship was born out of a conversation at a dinner party hosted by David Bohnett, the foundation’s chair. Bohnett found himself in conversation with former Los Angeles Deputy Mayor Torie Osborn, former Luskin School Dean Barbara Nelson and Luskin lecturer Michael Dukakis. The four had been discussing opportunities for students to work in local government when the idea to place Luskin students in City Hall first arose.

“The school really came together and said, ‘How can we select some of those leaders among our students who would want to work in local government?’ ” said VC Powe, who administers the program in her role as the Luskin School’s director of career services and leadership development. “We really created this program as an opportunity to give students a place where they could work in local government.”

Powe explained that the Bohnett Fellowship is also a means to advance one of the Luskin School’s major goals for its students.

“Having these kinds of opportunities is important for UCLA Luskin because our mission is to develop the next group of leaders and change agents,” Powe said. “When we have these kinds of fellowships — when students can learn from the deputy mayor or the head of a non-profit — they get the skills to become the next leaders. That’s really important for the school to provide.”

‘A Lineage’ of Bohnett Fellows at City Hall

They work in different offices within City Hall, but the three current fellows say they do run into each other frequently and have attended each other’s programs and events. Additionally, nearly a dozen Bohnett fellowship and UCLA Luskin alumni now work full time in city government.

“There’s a sizable lineage of Bohnett Fellows that still work here,” De Vera said. “They help mentor us and help us figure out how to navigate this place, how to make the most of our experiences and they’ve been a really great resource to draw on.”

Alumna Kiana Taheri MPP ’16 was a Bohnett fellow in the immediate past cohort and now works full time in the Innovation and Performance Management Unit (iMPU) — the same department where she worked as a fellow — doing similar work to Barrera’s current post. She found that her coursework for the MPP degree and her fellowship work had tremendous overlap.

At UCLA, Taheri said, she had been interested in improving government efficiency and utilization of innovative solutions. The Bohnett fellowship provided a chance to do that.

UCLA Luskin grad student JC De Vera works in the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs. Photo by George Foulsham

“I was excited for the opportunity to be a part of an administration that was working toward a greater more equitable society,” she said. “The fellowship allowed for the mayor’s office to see my true caliber as a UCLA graduate student, develop assurance in my capabilities and ultimately choosing to invest in me.”

Dan Caroselli, director of the iMPU, supervises both Barreras and Taheri. Caroselli, who is an alumnus of UCLA Luskin’s Urban Planning program and another former Bohnett Fellow, said the program has been very successful in bringing “motivated and capable” students into city government.

“It’s been incredibly practical as a pipeline of talent,” said Caroselli, who graduated with a master’s in urban planning in 2011. “I’ve had the opportunity to supervise five different Bohnett Fellows and work closely with many more during their time in the mayor’s office. I owe my career to the Bohnett Fellowship and so it means a great deal to me to be able to continue to be involved in the program and to advise these current fellows as they navigate a potential career with the City.”

The Fellows Go to Washington

For the past five years, Bohnett Fellows from the three campuses have attended the United States Conference of Mayors in Washington, D.C. The conference brings together civic leaders from over 1,400 U.S. cities to build partnerships, work on policies and discuss successes and best practices.

This year’s Winter Meeting of the Conference will be held Jan. 17-19.

Barreras said she hadn’t yet seen the agendas for this year’s Winter Meeting of the Conference, but is looking forward to learning from leaders in diverse cities and seeing the City of Los Angeles as a leader among its peers.

“We’re going to see what a lot of other cities are doing at the city government level,” she said. “While there will be many small cities and big cities, L.A. is one of the biggest cities that will be looked to for innovative and progressive ideas.”

An Academic Space for Activists Funmilola Fagbamila and Lisa Hasegawa have been awarded inaugural 2017 UCLA Activist-in-Residence Fellowships

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With a shared commitment to advance democracy through research and alliances with civil rights organizations and progressive social movements, the Institute on Inequality and Democracy at UCLA Luskin and the UCLA Asian American Studies Center have partnered to pilot a UCLA Activist-in-Residence Program. Funmilola Fagbamila and Lisa Hasegawa are the inaugural 2017 Activist Fellows. They will be in residence on the UCLA campus during winter quarter, from Jan. 4 to March 31.

“Our organizations recognize that the work of social change is demanding,” both organizations said in a statement. “It is our objective to help sustain the activists involved in this work. The collaboration will help strengthen the infrastructure of social transformation by providing activists with the time and space to recharge and to reflect upon a complex challenge facing their communities, while also allowing UCLA undergraduate students to develop or strengthen their own commitment to social justice.”

Fagbamila, an activist and community organizer with more than eight years of experience in Los Angeles County, is the 2017 Irvine Fellow on Urban Life. Hasegawa, who is a UCLA Luskin Senior Fellow, has worked at the intersections of civil and human rights, housing, health and community organizing for her entire career.

Funmilola Fagbamila

Fagbamila has been an organizer with Black Lives Matter since its inception, centering its work on policing, mass incarceration and the overall physical health and wellness in poor black and brown communities. As the arts and culture director for Black Lives Matter Los Angeles, Fagbamila’s work sits at the intersection of blackness and freedom.

While she was a graduate student in UCLA’s African American Studies Department, Fagbamila also worked with a number of campus and community groups, primarily organizing around student rights, promoting faculty and student solidarity, and hosting educational events on the increased privatization of public education in California.

The Irvine Fellow on Urban Life is a residence program funded by the James Irvine Foundation established to bring scholar-activists to the Institute on Inequality and Democracy at UCLA Luskin who will undertake social movement research and pedagogy directly concerned with equity at the urban scale.

Ananya Roy, director of the Institute on Inequality and Democracy at UCLA Luskin, considers the Activist-in-Residence Program “an important anchor for the work of the institute.”

“It brings to the campus leading public intellectuals and foregrounds the significance of learning directly from social movements and community organizations,” Roy said. “We are especially thrilled that our inaugural activist-in-residence is Funmilola Fagbamila whose work with Black Lives Matter L.A. connects performance art, scholarship, and activism to create new public spheres and new modes of dissent. We know that in particular our students will benefit tremendously from her presence and will be inspired to recast their own engagements in dialogue with her.”

Fagbamila explained that her “scholarship explores the complexity of black identity and ideological posturing in the context of Western world.” During her residency Fagbamila plans not only to produce a curriculum and host campus workshops regarding inter-ideological communication and intracommunal difference but also complete her stage play, “The Intersection,” based on engagement across ideological communities. Moe information about Funmilola Fagbamila’s work can be found on YouTube.

Lisa Hasegawa

Hasegawa, the Asian American Studies Center (AASC) Activist Fellow, served as the executive director of the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Development (CAPACD) for the past 15 years, stepping down in December. Prior to National CAPACD, she was the community liaison of the White House Initiative on Asian Americans Pacific Islanders in the Clinton administration.

Hasegawa said she is committed to leveraging her cross-disciplinary networks across the country for UCLA students, faculty and larger community. Returning to the AASC as the Activist in Residence is a homecoming for her. While she was an undergraduate at UCLA, she started her career in community activism through an AASC internship at the Asian Pacific Health Care Venture.

The AASC Activist Fellow is made possible through the Yuji Ichioka and Emma Gee Endowment in Social Justice and Immigration Studies. The endowment was established in honor of the late UCLA scholar Yuji Ichioka and his wife, activist-scholar Emma Gee, and supports engaging leading activist scholars who are pursing research that provides new analysis of the significant historic and contemporary role of race, ethnicity, class and gender in American life.

“Lisa has an extraordinary knack for bridging the worlds of policymaking, community practice and academic research,” said AASC Interim Director Marjorie Kagawa Singer. “The Center is truly excited to work with Lisa in addressing social inequality in Asian American and Pacific Islander communities through a variety of events, such as presentations, class visits, workshops, panels, activist projects, and much more.”

“We are on the brink of a very challenging period for Asian Americans Pacific Islanders, undocumented immigrants, communities of color, low-income and queer communities,” Hasegawa said. “This fellowship will give me the opportunity to reflect on my 20 years in D.C., as well as a chance to think critically, with fresh perspective, about what we need to do in the next 20 years to create systemic equity. I look forward to facilitating lively dialogue and concerted action amongst networks of activists, advocates and practitioners, together with students and faculty.”

As part of her fellowship, Hasegawa will document achievements and challenges faced during the Obama administration. Additionally, she plans to engage students, faculty and community activists in dialogue about how strategies may have fallen short, and take stock of policies that can be strengthened, preserved or defended.

A welcome reception for the two activist fellows will be held on Jan. 12 at the Luskin Commons. Please RSVP here.

For nearly 50 years, the UCLA Asian American Studies Center has enriched and informed not only the UCLA community, but also an array of broader audiences and sectors in the state, the nation, and internationally about the long neglected history, rich cultural heritage, and present position of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in our society.

The Institute on Inequality and Democracy at UCLA Luskin advances radical democracy in an unequal world through research, critical thought, and alliances with social movements and racial justice activism. The work of the institute analyzes and transforms the divides and dispossessions of our times, in the university and in our cities, across global South and global North. Launched in February 2016, the institute support research developed in partnership with social movements and community-based organizing.

For more information on the Activist-in-Residence program, please contact UCLA Asian American Studies Center at melanyd@ucla.edu or the Institute on Inequality and Democracy at guihama@luskin.ucla.edu.

UCLA Luskin Diversity Recruitment Fair Has a Message: You Belong Here First schoolwide fair provides encouragement and information to prospective students — and explains why diversity matters

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By Stan Paul

Elizabeth Salcedo, a recent graduate of the Master of Social Welfare (MSW) program at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, has a simple, emphatic message for those contemplating a career in social work, urban planning or public policy — “Just Apply!”

“I did, and I got in,” beamed the 2013 alumna at the Luskin School’s first all-school Diversity Recruitment Fair held Dec. 3 UCLA’s Ackerman Grand Ballroom. Like many students contemplating life after their undergraduate studies, Salcedo said she was reluctant and had self-doubt. Now working as an analyst in community development for the City of Long Beach, Salcedo can confidently articulate a good reason to apply and why diversity is important: “We need your voice.”

Salcedo participated in a panel of UCLA Luskin alumni — representing the School’s three departments, Public Policy, Social Welfare and Urban Planning — who shared their firsthand experiences of life during and after Luskin. The daylong event also included a panel of the School’s three department chairs and informational breakout sessions for their respective departments. Resources and advice concerning admissions and financial aid were also offered to prospective students, as well as a “suite of tools” they might need for their careers.

Urban Planning breakout sessions included topics such as “Our ’Hoods, Our Stories” to “Planning Post Trump.” A panel of current Master of Public Policy (MPP) students talked about building a “career toolkit” and what future students would need to do to prepare themselves – or, as first-year MPP student Isaac Bryan described it, “to be in that room” – where policy-making, discussion and analysis are taking place — from the local to the federal level.

“You are creating a baseline to create change,” said Joanna Williams MSW ’14, a social worker in Orange County who also participated in the alumni panel. She added that while challenging, graduate study at UCLA Luskin also offered an opportunity to explore options to collaborate and to form important and lasting bonds with classmates.

Panelist Jen Tolentino, a 2010 graduate of the MPP program said that for her, “the Public Policy degree has framed how I think about my work and framed how I think about problems,” which includes looking at issues through the lens of social justice.

Urban planning alumnus Richard France MA UP ’10, advised potential applicants that while finding a specific purpose for graduate study, “know that is it wide open,” referring to the field and careers that will follow graduation. He also reinforced the connection with peers at UCLA Luskin. “You will see your classmates out there. Your cohort is going to be one of your greatest resources and they are going to bring a diversity of experiences,” said France, who now works for a prominent strategic consulting firm headed by UCLA Luskin Urban Planning alumnae.

Former Los Angeles City Councilman (2001-2013) and Urban Planning alumnus Ed Reyes served as the keynote speaker for the fair, organized in cooperation by each of the School’s departments and staff, as well as diversity groups from each of the School’s three disciplines.

“In you, I see hope. In you, I see optimism,” Luskin Senior Fellow Reyes said to the potential applicants while balancing encouragement with a bit of practical advice. “I’m not going to candy-coat it, it’s going to be tough. It’s not going to be a straight line. But, it’s going to be worth it.”

Attendees energized and motivated by the event included applicant Kathleen Ann Sagun, who works in administration for the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services. She said that she was appreciative of all of the valuable information provided during the day, but, more than that, “It was empowering” to hear the stories of the alumni and to learn about “the advantages they had from doing there graduate studies here, at UCLA.”

“By the end of the day, we hope you will be motivated to join Luskin,” said Gerry Laviña, director of field education and associate director of the D3 (Diversity, Differences and Disparities) Initiative at UCLA Luskin, who was part of the network of Luskin organizers who made the day possible.

“You belong here because we believe in diversity as a necessary component of what makes each department, each profession, Luskin and UCLA excellent,” said Laviña, a 1988 graduate of the School’s MSW program. “You see that excellence in our students and in the student organizations that we have. You see that in the excellence in the research of our faculty and our research centers. You see that excellence in the communities and causes we believe in.”

In wrapping up the event, he said one thing became clear: “We must continue to value and validate diversity in order to maintain our excellence. The communities we serve deserve this.”

Others who helped organize the event included Jennifer Choy, associate director of admissions and recruitment for the Luskin Department of Urban Planning; the Public Policy student group Policy Professionals for Diversity and Equity (PPDE); Social Welfare’s Diversity Caucus; and Urban Planning’s Planners of Color for Social Equity. Choy and her colleagues, Public Policy’s Sean Campbell and Social Welfare’s Tiffany Bonner, also held Q&A sessions for interested applicants.

“We hope events like this encourage prospective students from underrepresented groups to feel a sense of belonging at UCLA Luskin and inspire them to join our commitment to social justice in serving disadvantaged communities,” Choy said.

How to Build an Affordable Home: Start With the Framework UCLA urban planner provides recommendations for easing existing barriers to affordable housing, one of California’s most pressing issues

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By Stan Paul

For UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs scholar Paavo Monkkonen, making housing affordable in California starts with a vital building block: the state’s Housing Element framework requiring cities to meet existing and projected local and regional housing needs.

“This system performs an almost symbolic function at present,” said the associate professor of Urban Planning who also earned his Master of Public Policy (MPP) degree from Luskin in 2005. “Cities that do not meet their housing targets face no consequences, and cities that do meet them reap no reward.” Monkkonen delivered a lecture and white paper on the topic Dec. 1 at the UC Center in Sacramento.

Two other areas of focus on this pressing problem for the state are expanding public participation in the planning process and shifting some decision-making from local to state and regional levels, according to Monkkonen. His lecture, “Understanding and Challenging Opposition to Housing Construction in California’s Urban Areas,” was moderated by Ben Metcalf, director of the California Department of Housing & Community Development.

“The current planning environment is stacked in favor of better-off individuals and single-family neighborhoods at the expense of renters and multi-family housing,” Monkkonen wrote in an opinion piece published in the Sacramento Bee the same day as the lecture. On the neighborhood level, opposition has continually hindered housing needs. “When interests with time and money block or downsize projects in wealthy neighborhoods, it pushes new development into dense parts of cities and increases rents throughout the area.”

In urging that the state takes steps to “democratize” the planning process, Monkkonen explained that planners need to have input from a more representative group of citizens such as families, low-income renters and young people — groups that may not have ready access to public hearings and planning meetings.

In his white paper, Monkkonen included a section on understanding opposition to housing construction and density. The list shows how opposition focuses on three formal systems — planning, legal and political — as well as informal influences and tactics to “shape what can and cannot get built in California’s cities.”

Monkkonen outlined a number of ways opponents to new housing impede construction through the planning process. These include commenting in public meetings, letter writing, social media, petitions, appeals or filing historic designations for properties or districts.

Legally, projects may face lawsuits to invalidate a permit or policy or be challenged through the California Environmental Quality Act.

Politically, ballot initiatives can be used to place a moratorium on development, and efforts to recall council members may be initiated. Opponents can also lobby for state laws affecting specific city rules, Monkkonen observed.

In his presentation Monkkonen:

  • Outlined policy recommendations for land-use reforms concerning housing directed by the state.
  • Described how limiting the supply of new housing creates less-affordable housing.
  • And pointed out how the issue of housing supply is generally misunderstood.

Monkkonen emphasizes this in the abstract to his white paper: “The debate continues despite robust empirical evidence demonstrating that supply constraints — low density chief among them — are a core cause of increasing housing costs.”

Among his recommendations to the state on how to push back against local constraints on new housing is one favoring “by-right” approval of projects. Projects that comply with current zoning laws may bypass regular approval processes where these processes are a “persistent hindrance to regional housing needs.” Monkkonen cited California’s density bonus law — an example of by-right approval — wherein developers may be incentivized to include affordable units in exchange for an increase in density.

Monkkonen believes that his work may prompt state government action and provide a guide to addressing the affordable housing issue in California.

“I was excited to be able to present this work in conversation with Ben Metcalf,” said Monkkonen, adding that the state’s director of housing and community development was very receptive to his policy recommendations. “He said his department is releasing a state housing plan next week that actually mirrors a lot of my analysis.”

Monkkonen’s white paper is available online.

For more information on California’s Housing Element Law, please visit the California Department of Housing and Community Development web page.

Putting Post-Election Protests in Context A UCLA Luskin expert on collective action says mass protests in the U.S. will likely lose steam

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By Les Dunseith

The wave of protests that erupted after Donald J. Trump’s unexpected presidential victory was no surprise to Zachary Steinert-Threlkeld, an assistant professor in the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs Department of Public Policy whose research focuses on spontaneous collective action and the mobilization of mass protests.

“There were protests before the election as well,” said Steinert-Threlkeld, noting that most of Trump’s campaign rallies were accompanied by small altercations between his supporters and opponents. “But I would be surprised if it persists. These things tend to die out” as time passes.

The ebb and flow of protest movements are one of the key elements of Steinert-Threlkeld’s research, which has looked primarily at the role of mass protest in countries where citizens rose up unexpectedly against authoritarian regimes.

During the Arab Spring of early 2011 that helped topple governments in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa, for example, demonstrations had begun to subside before an emotional interview with a Google employee about his secret incarceration and interrogation by Egyptian police sparked new protests.

“Even in something as severe as overthrowing a dictator, there is a natural decay” in protest movements, Steinert-Threlkeld explained. Such mass actions tend to lose momentum unless new events arise to spark anger and trigger renewed focus, and this is likely to prove true in America as well.

“People get tired; people have jobs; you get fatigued from protesting,” Steinert-Threlkeld said. “Or maybe you just can’t afford to participate anymore.”

A new addition to the UCLA Luskin faculty this year, Steinert-Threlkeld said he has long been interested in collective actions, and that interest turned into serious research when the Arab Spring happened to occur during the first quarter of his first year in graduate school. His interest relates primarily to a desire to understand and analyze how people work together as groups, he said, not because he has any strong activist tendencies himself.

His academic pursuits look, in part, at the nature of protest movements. Contrary to what some may think, Steinert-Threlkeld has found that group actions are most often driven by those on the periphery of a protest — average people whose motivation is spontaneous and rooted in emotion. Protest organizers and political activists actually have little control over whether people get together or stay together, he found.

For instance, during the Arab Spring movement in Egypt, a protest organizer tried to put together a major rally early on, “and no one came out,” Steinert-Threlkeld said. One week later, the protest movement started around Cairo before converging on Tahrir Square. “Pockets of small protests sprang up around Cairo, with people just banging pots and pans, and walking through these narrow alleyways telling other people to come and join them,” Steinert-Threlkeld explained.

That’s when the movement in Egypt really took off, he said, because most demonstrators are much more likely to be motivated to action when they see “local people from your neighborhood protesting, which tells you that maybe you should join the protest too.”

In the case of the anti-Trump rallies, it’s therefore logical that most protests have occurred in places like California with a significant population of like-minded, politically liberal residents. Someone thinking about joining a protest is much more likely to actually participate, Steinert-Threlkeld said, if they know someone “who is protesting and could tell them where and when to go.”

The recent protests in the United States have primarily been peaceful, which is usually the more productive approach, according to Steinert-Threlkeld.

“The academic literature suggests that non-violent mass action is more effective because the protesters then have legitimacy. If you are destroying property, then the news media just focuses on the 10 people who are destroying property,” he said. “Violence would be bad for the protesters because it would decrease their legitimacy and make it harder for them to gain allies.”

One aspect of the post-election protests in the Unites States that is very different than the Arab Spring uprisings he studied, Steinert-Threlkeld said, is the lack of a clear path that would achieve the protestors’ rallying cry to “dump Trump.”

At this point, it’s unlikely that a Republican-controlled U.S. Congress would be motivated toward impeachment of Trump. “It has to be those people who voted for him who would have to tell their congresspeople to impeach him,” Steinert-Threlkeld said.

Barring a stunning change of opinion prompted by Trump’s actions as president, or disclosure of a criminal act on his part, Steinert-Threlkeld said it’s unlikely that U.S. protests will lead to “a regime change” as did the Arab Spring.

“In that sense, I think there’s much less at stake,” he said. “The extent of these protests is, perhaps, to set a check on a Trump Administration, to enlighten him and his allies that there are people who are very dissatisfied — that this election is not a blank check to do whatever they want.”

‘A Leader in Validating Diversity’ UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs to host its first schoolwide Diversity Recruitment Fair

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By Stan Paul

“Diversity and excellence are not mutually exclusive.”

For Gerry Laviña, director of field education and associate director of the D3 (Diversity, Differences and Disparities) Initiative at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, those words by former Dean Franklin D. Gilliam, Jr. made “a clear statement and immediately said to our community that Luskin values diversity.”

In Los Angeles and around the world, “diversity is a social justice issue,” Laviña said. “And now we have seen this being challenged.” The unequal playing fields of opportunity and wages — as well as institutional barriers and discrimination — are the issues Luskin students and faculty members grapple with as practitioners and scholars every day, he said.

Laviña, who also serves as the faculty co-chair of the Diversity/Equity/Inclusion (DEI) Committee in Social Welfare, and advises the Luskin dean on related issues, said that, ideally, the products of the students’ and School’s continuing efforts are inclusive and equitable situations in which diversity and diverse viewpoints are valued.

“Luskin is a leader in validating diversity — look at our students, the communities we serve, the student orgs, the research centers, D3, the Gilliam Social Justice Awards, our Diversity Fair, etc. Yet, we always have more work to do,” Laviña said.

In this spirit, the Luskin School will be hosting its first schoolwide Diversity Recruitment Fair starting at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, Dec. 3. The all-day fair at the Ackerman Grand Ballroom and the Luskin School will bring together the departments of Public Policy, Social Welfare and Urban Planning for an informative program of interest to prospective graduate students, especially those underrepresented in higher education and professional fields.

Throughout the Luskin School’s history there have been diversity events and programs organized by student groups, said Laviña, who is on the organizing committee of academic advisers and staff as well as student diversity group representatives.

Diversity is a common thread at Luskin that runs from students and faculty to staff and alumni, all of whom are part of organizing the event. Luskin’s Leadership Development Program is also helping to organize and sponsor it.

“We have talked about it for a few years and this year decided to join together — pooling resources, knowledge, people power — to benefit each department and Luskin overall,” Laviña said. “We need to do more work collectively and across departments, so this will be a wonderful, concrete way to do so.”

Delara Aharpour, a second-year master of public policy (MPP) student representing the public policy student group Policy Professionals for Diversity and Equity (PPDE), said she was happy to see UCLA Luskin making a concerted effort on diversity. “It makes us really proud to be part of this program,” Aharpour said. “We all believe in making the School accessible to everyone.”

Other groups participating are Social Welfare’s Diversity Caucus and Planners of Color for Social Equity, an Urban Planning organization.

“We hope this is our largest, most successful diversity fair as well as an example of the great work that can be done when all departments have the opportunity to collaborate with each other,” said Ambar Guzman, a second-year master of social welfare (MSW) student representing the Social Welfare Diversity Caucus. “My hope is that prospective students will get a sense of the collaborative and supportive community we have continued to build within the Luskin School of Public Affairs,” she said.

Jackie Oh, a second-year master of urban and regional planning (MURP) student representing Planners of Color for Social Equity, said that the purpose of the diversity admissions fair is to demonstrate to prospective applicants the department’s commitment to social justice and urban planning, and to reach out to those historically underrepresented graduate programs. The fair’s workshops are meant to be both informative and geared toward strengthening the applications of aspiring planners, especially those of color, Oh said. Information on financial aid and statements of purpose will be available at the fair.

“The opportunity to network with our current students, staff and alumni welcomes our visitors to the department and helps them envision joining our community and advancing their planning interests at UCLA,” Oh said. Among participants in the event will be Ed Reyes, Urban Planning alumnus, Luskin Senior Fellow and former longtime Los Angeles City Councilmember.

Interim Dean Lois Takahashi explained why diversity is so important to the mission of the Luskin School: “At the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, we see diversity and excellence as mutually reinforcing dimensions of education, research, and public/community engagement. As such, we are committed to supporting diversity in ideas, in people and in projects across the school.”

For information, schedule and registration, please visit the Luskin Diversity Recruitment Fair web page.

Global Change Should Stem from Local Leadership Author and academic Benjamin Barber says cities present the best hope of solving the world’s problems

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By Zev Hurwitz

While voters weigh the prospects of which presidential contender is best suited to address the big issues in 2016, one academic thinks the real change-makers are at city halls — not the White House.

During an Oct. 26 lecture at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, Benjamin Barber, a noted political theorist and author who holds a Ph.D. in government from Harvard University, lectured on his philosophy that the key to addressing major global problems is tackling those challenges from the local level.

“Common sense problem-solving pragmatism makes cities the most useful governing institutions in the world as compared to the 19th Century ideologically based national politics of … countries all over the world,” Barber said.

Mark A. Peterson, chair of the Luskin School’s Department of Public Policy, introduced the speaker, saying that the lecture by Benjamin Barber “couldn’t be more timely.” Photo by Les Dunseith

Speaking in front of a crowd of more than 50 students, faculty and community members, Barber asserted that cities are uniquely positioned to address every major challenge facing the international community because these issues are no longer specific to individual nation states.

“Every problem we face is a problem without borders,” said Barber, a professor emeritus at Rutgers University and founder of the Global Parliament of Mayors. “Cities are positioned to address every major problem we have globally.”

The lecture’s title, “How Cities Trump Trump: Urban Pragmatism vs. Toxic Campaign Demagoguery,” was meant “to draw you in, the same way MSNBC does: with Trump,” Barber said, noting that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s rhetoric claiming an international conspiracy to undermine American sovereignty is flawed and “toxic.”

“Trump is right in pointing to the loss of sovereignty, but where he’s wrong is thinking that it is due to stupidity,” Barber said. “We need to learn how to accommodate, not how to scapegoat.”

Nationalized global power, the way Trump describes it, started disappearing after World War II and hasn’t existed since, Barber said.

“Sovereignty, the jurisdiction of a national government over all of the issues its people face, doesn’t exist anywhere in the world, in any country claiming to be sovereign,” Barber said. “We are still responding to these global, borderless problems with sovereign nationally based governments.”

Because the power spheres are organized differently in the 21st Century, the real power — and driving force for change — lies in cities, which Barber said is euphemistic for all regional and local governance, not necessarily individual municipalities.

Cities have a unique interest in driving solutions to global issues because “the problems of cities and the problems of the globe are very much the same.” To illustrate this point, Barber pointed to two major issues: climate change and terrorism.

Most of the world’s population, in the 21st Century, lives in cities, and most cities are within proximity to bodies of water, meaning that much of the world’s population has a vested interest in combating climate change and rising sea levels. In addition, Barber said, 80 percent of greenhouse gases are generated from cities. Because the cause and the effect are both specific to cities, cities are best suited to address that challenge.

About terrorism, Barber said that problem-solving must come from local leadership because terrorists almost exclusively target cities.

“Nobody has attacked a pecan farm in Sacramento,” he said. “They come after cities because that’s where the people are. Terrorism is aimed at cities because cities represent everything that terrorism rejects.”

In order to address major global challenges, Barber said, cities, and their leaders, need to practice collaboration with interlocutors locally and with other cities.

“Cities work by consensus, by collaboration, by building bridges and working with everybody,” he said.

Barber spoke about his involvement with the Global Parliament of Mayors, an international body of local leaders that convened for the first time in September. There was a need for “enacting common urban legislation, not just best practices.” According to Barber, the United Nations’ model of organizing nation-states based on their sovereignty has stymied opportunities for problem-solving. The Global Parliament of Mayors has potential to be a unifying force beyond international borders.

“This is a founding seedling for what, in time, can become a genuine governance organization — a kind of U.N. body,” he said, calling the ideal for the organization to be a body that is “defined by the natural collaborativeness of cities” and their capacity to work with one another.”

The Department of Urban Planning organized the lecture and the Department of Public Policy co-sponsored it, with assistance by the Luskin Center for Innovation and the UCLA departments of History, Philosophy and Political Science.

Mark A. Peterson, chair of the Luskin School’s Department of Public Policy, introduced the speaker, saying that the lecture “couldn’t be more timely.”

“Much of the American public, and our own faculty and students in the Luskin School, have felt intense frustration over the years of policy stalemate at the national level,” Peterson said after the event. “Dr. Barber presented the possibility of a different pathway for addressing major issues — problems for which there seems little prospect of making progress through congressional and presidential action, regardless of the results of the 2016 elections.”

Peterson also noted the application of Baker’s philosophy in Luskin’s curriculum.

“The motto of the Public Policy Department is ‘advancing knowledge in the public interest’ — an essential requirement for understanding the causes of societal problems and identifying interventions that mitigate those causes,” Peterson said.

“However, the actions to be taken, whether by national governments or subnational institutions, are necessarily determined by governing institutions embedded in political processes, ideally with full opportunities for democratic choice and accountability. All of these elements are features of the Public Policy MPP curriculum and prominent in Dr. Barber’s scholarship and public engagement.”

Barber has authored 18 books, including 1995’s best-selling “Jihad vs. McWorld: How Globalism and Tribalism Are Reshaping the World” and 2013’s “If Mayors Ruled the World: Dysfunctional Nations, Rising Cities.”

Soham Dhesi, a first-year Master in Urban and Regional Planning (MURP) student attended the event. Like Peterson, Dhesi said she found parallels between Barber’s lecture and her Luskin coursework in urban planning.

“A lot of people ask me, ‘What is urban planning — haven’t cities already been built?’” Dhesi said. “This is an answer to how cities can be important tools to address these global problems.”

Dhesi referenced the histories and theories of urban planning and course discussions on grassroots movements and individual participation in change-making, saying she found application of Barber’s views on the potential for cities to lead the way.

“Citizens, through their participation in the city, can bring about change,” she said. “Cities are a way for people to participate, which is harder to do at a national level. This goes in line with what we were learning in class about community development.”

A UCLA Luskin Welcome Departments of Public Policy, Social Welfare, Urban Planning welcome six new faculty members

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By Stan Paul

Six new members of the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs faculty were warmly welcomed at a reception held Oct. 18 and hosted by their new Luskin departments of Public Policy, Social Welfare and Urban Planning. Interim Dean Lois Takahashi and the three department chairs were also on hand to welcome the new teachers and researchers.

This year, the School’s three departments strengthened their faculty teaching and research rosters with the additions of Darin Christensen and Zachary C. Steinert-Threlkeld (Public Policy), Leyla Karimli and Laura Wray-Lake (Social Welfare), and Michael Manville and Kian Goh (Urban Planning).

In Public Policy, Darin Christensen will be teaching three classes at Luskin this year. “The students are great, really engaged,” said Christensen, who recently received his Stanford Ph.D. in political science. Christensen said he will be showing his Master of Public Policy (MPP) students how to bring evidence to bear on policy decisions, teaching them tools for wrangling and exploring data, as well as statistical methods that generate credible claims about “what policies work.” In another course offered this quarter, he is discussing how political institutions and public policies affect why some countries are rich and peaceful while others with persistent poverty and instability.

Also joining the Public Policy department this year is Zachary C. Steinert-Threlkeld, who will begin teaching this winter quarter on topics including social networks and protest. “I study protest,” said Steinert-Threlkeld, who completed his Ph.D. in political science this year at UC San Diego. “Wherever there is a protest in the world, I go to Twitter and see what people say. Are they expressing political grievances because they’re mad about the economy?”

Steinert-Threlkeld, who studies social media as it relates to subnational conflict, teaches analysis of “big data.” “If anyone wants to learn with Twitter data,” he said, “they can reach out to me. I would love to be working with motivated students or faculty.”

In Social Welfare, Laura Wray-Lake, who comes to UCLA from the University of Rochester, will be teaching two classes in winter: research methods with children and youth, and development and resilience for the Master of Social Work (MSW) students. “I was really excited about the interdisciplinary environment” at Luskin, she said, explaining that her area of research is civic engagement. “I’m really interested in how to get young people interested in politics and the communities, and solving social issues.”

Leyla Karimli brings an international focus to Social Welfare on topics including child welfare, education and child labor. With more than a decade of international research and practice, her work has taken her to a number of countries in Africa as well as Colombia, the Philippines, Tajikistan and Krgyzstan. She will be teaching on program evaluation and topics including a multidisciplinary analysis of poverty and social exclusion, one of her main research interests.

Returning to UCLA, assistant professor Michael Manville said he is currently teaching courses on transportation and the environment and another on shared mobility. Manville, who earned his master’s and Ph.D. degrees in Urban Planning at Luskin, most recently was an assistant professor at Cornell University in the Department of City and Regional Planning. Manville said the rest of the year he will be teaching transportation, land use and public finance, primarily for the Urban Planning Department’s master’s students.

Urban Planner Kian Goh plans to teach a winter quarter seminar titled “Urban Futures,” with a focus on space, ecology and society. In the spring, she will teach a studio course on site planning and a qualitative methods course.

“This year I am continuing my research broadly on the politics of urban climate change adaptation and research on the L.A. region,” said Goh, who comes to Luskin from Northeastern University. “It’s inevitable, not just because I am here but because it so interesting. I think the L.A. region is an example of urban form.”

Goh has focused her research on cities from New York to Jakarta.

“It is really helpful to look at other cities,” she said. “I think of the challenges we face here and all of the opportunities. We’ve learned a lot from other regions.”