A Lesson on Homelessness for UCLA Luskin Students Students and city leaders weigh policy options regarding homelessness during annual UCLA Luskin Day at L.A. City Hall

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

By Stan Paul

Just how complex the problem of homelessness is in Los Angeles — and how to combat it — was the focus of a daylong program that brought students from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs together with community leaders and providers of homeless services from throughout the region on March 2, 2018, at Los Angeles City Hall.

Homelessness in Los Angeles is a problem with a long history. It’s also a growing and complex issue, with no easy fix for the estimated 50,000-plus people living on streets of the city and throughout greater L.A. County.

Read the summary report by student participants

Specific goals for the annual event include connecting students with City Hall and county leaders, analyzing an important public and social policy issue, and participating in informed discussion and debate with impacted city staff and civic leaders, according to VC Powe, director of career services and leadership, who has directed the program since its founding.

Hosting the students this year was Los Angeles City Councilmember Paul Koretz, who welcomed the students to City Hall and challenged them to research and come up with creative solutions to the question: What services can be provided today?

More than a dozen Luskin public policy, social welfare and urban planning graduate students worked together in teams to explore and brainstorm possible solutions for the thousands of people currently experiencing homelessness or at risk of becoming homeless. Each team met with and interviewed a wide range of leaders of city and county organizations and agencies focused on the problem. Interviewees ranged from homeless advocates and leaders of charitable organizations to a law enforcement officer and service providers for the homeless.

The students worked together throughout the day to provide Koretz, who represents the 5th Council District, with insights, ideas and policy solutions gathered from their interviews and discussions with program participants.

“I think students are finding out as they are talking to all these different stakeholders that there are some obstacles,” commented Toby Hur, UCLA Luskin Social Welfare field faculty member, who served as the students’ faculty adviser during the event at City Hall. “Building anything in L.A. is a complex process: It’s slow and with Measure H — the county sales tax increase — the money is just beginning to trickle down — finally,” Hur said.

Just a few of the issues discussed across the School’s three professional programs were zoning and land use, social services, law enforcement, jobs and job readiness, child care, NIMBYism and political will.

“For me, it’s a very personal issue,” said Michelle Viorato, a first-year public policy student from El Monte. “I’m really interested in finding solutions to keep people in their homes and prevent homelessness. It’s very frustrating to see.”

Viorato and her teammates, Ashley Mashian, a first-year urban planning student, and Jacob Woocher, a second-year urban planning student, met with Stephanie Klasky-Gamer, president and CEO of L.A. Family Housing; Jessica Duboff, vice president, Center for Business Advocacy, L.A. Chamber; and James Bickhart, a consultant with the office of Councilman Koretz.

“I’m seeing a lot of people who are being evicted — or are one paycheck away — and I want to see what measures we can take as a community at Luskin to work with City Hall trying to prevent homelessness,” said Mashian, who was born and raised in Los Angeles.

Gabriela Solis, a second-year public policy and social welfare student, said her team heard some great ideas during an interview with Gita O’Neill, who serves in a new city post: director of homeless policies and strategies in the office of the Los Angeles City Attorney. One of those ideas was to bring back a homeless court that was cut during the recession, said Solis, a native of East Los Angeles.

“[O’Neill’s] main focus is on legal services, and I think she has a really interesting standpoint.  She is the first that the city has hired as a director of policy, something they don’t do historically,” Solis said. Her team also met with Dominic Choi, homeless coordinator for the Los Angeles Police Department.

“I think that LAPD gets this villain role,” Solis said. “It was interesting talking about his perspective on things because I think it’s important to have them at the table and involved in how we deal with this.”

Dominic Choi, homeless coordinator with the Los Angeles Police Department, speaks to Luskin students. Photo by Stan Paul

After a morning of interviews, the students reconvened with Councilmember Koretz to discuss their findings and policy recommendations.

First-year MPP student Iman Nanji reported on her team’s meeting with Ruth Schwartz, co-founder and executive director of Shelter Partnership.

“We talked about how the pendulum may have swung too far on focusing on permanent supportive housing, and how we also need to focus on transitional short-term solutions to the homelessness problem in addition to the image of homelessness,” said Nanji, who serves on a team in the mayor’s office working on data-driven approaches to combating homelessness. “In [Schwartz’s] opinion, there’s still a lot of work to be done to just get a better idea of who actually is homeless. They’re not a monolith. How do we get a better sense of the diversity in the homeless population?”

Christopher Ayala, a second-year social welfare student, grew up in South Los Angeles and has had experience working with young people experiencing homelessness.

“Sometimes they are overlooked in the policy we are creating,” Ayala said. “So we are really trying to focus on them and see how we can adjust to their unique needs and in comparison to the chronically homeless.”

“Ending homelessness is a little ambitious, but combating homelessness is the right middle ground,” said Sam Blake, an MPP/MBA joint-program student. “On one hand, it can seem trivial, but at the end of the day, words are how we communicate and how we get people on board. So it’s important to pay attention to that.”

As part of Luskin Day at Los Angeles City Hall, the students will submit to Koretz a written policy memorandum summarizing their findings and policy recommendations.

“UCLA is a huge asset to the community and all of you, its students,” Koretz said as he presented certificates to the students at the conclusion of the day.  “So we hope this will help you move toward becoming civic leaders of the future,” he said.

Hur noted that the students’ task is far from over.

“Coming up with solutions is a difficult task, but I think this is a good forum for them to understand the context — the political context, the community aspect and to be able to actually, really, begin to formulate and connect with all these people here,” he said. “The real work begins after today.”

UCLA Luskin Day at Los Angeles City Hall is now in its 14th year and serves to promote and encourage careers in politics and public service, as well as engage UCLA with local government, Powe said. The program is co-sponsored by UCLA’s Office of Community and Government Relations.

Read the transcript of an interview with Koretz conducted by UCLA Advocacy during UCLA Luskin Day at City Hall.

View additional photos from the City Hall visit in a Flickr album:

Luskin Day at City Hall 2018

Chelsea Manning Discusses Values, Secrets and Whistleblowers at Luskin Lecture The former military analyst who was jailed for sharing classified documents with Wikileaks speaks in front of a crowd of 1,000 at Royce Hall

/2 Comments/in , , , , , , , , , , , /by

By Zev Hurwitz

Chelsea Manning, a transgender activist and former U.S. Department of Defense intelligence analyst who was convicted of espionage, spoke at Royce Hall on March 5, 2018. Her Luskin Lecture, “A Conversation with Chelsea Manning,” focused on topics including ethics in public service, transgender rights activism and resistance in light of advancing technologies.

Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison for handing over to WikiLeaks sensitive documents that demonstrated human rights abuses related to American military action in Afghanistan and Iraq. While serving her sentence, Manning began her medical transition from male to female after having publicly announced her gender identity.

Her sentence was commuted by President Barack Obama in 2017, after she had served seven years of her sentence. Since her release, Manning has been an outspoken advocate for LGBTQ rights, as well as government transparency. In 2018, she announced her run for the U.S. Senate in Maryland.

Chelsea Manning spoke about topics that included ethics in public service, transgender rights activism and resistance in light of advancing technologies. Photo by Todd Cheney

Manning spoke with reporters at a press conference prior to the Luskin Lecture. Asked if she had any advice for UCLA students, Manning said: “Think on your own. Don’t read a book and think you know everything. Question yourself and debate other people.”

Manning noted the significance of speaking to a crowd largely made up of students. “I like to speak to students who are going to be in positions of making decisions, or being in media or working with technology,” she said.

Manning said that when she works with students she focuses on topics beyond technology — like civic engagement.

“Not just showing up to a ballot box and casting a vote, but being actually engaged,” she said. “Sometimes that means protesting; sometimes that means resisting, fighting institutional power and authority.”

Manning continued her student outreach the day after the lecture at a workshop sponsored by the Luskin Pride student group. She led about 60 Luskin School students in a wide-ranging dialogue about military tactics in law enforcement, communities abandoned by the left and whether universities are complicit in government surveillance.

“A system is legitimate because you give it legitimacy,” she cautioned the students.

Chelsea Manning at the student workshop. She says she enjoys engaging with the next generation of decision-makers. Photo by Les Dunseith

UCLA Luskin Dean Gary Segura introduced Manning at the Royce Hall lecture and acknowledged the controversial nature of her appearance.

“There are some in this room who think Ms. Manning is a traitor,” Segura said. “A number of UCLA students asked me to rescind her invitation and reminded me that her actions may well have cost the lives of American servicemen and women. For the record, the Luskin School is opposed to treason.

“Others,” he added, “will argue that her actions, laying bare war crimes, acts of torture and the extent of civilian casualties, might well have saved the lives of some of those non-combatants. For the record, the Luskin School is opposed to war crimes.”

Moderator Jim Newton, UCLA Luskin Public Policy lecturer and Blueprint magazine editor, began with a conversation about Manning’s conviction. Manning said she feels her actions reflect her true self.

“I have the same values I’ve always had,” she said. “I acted on those values with the information I had.”

As an intelligence analyst deployed in Iraq, Manning took a data-based approach to the American presence in the country. Over time, she came to understand the humanity behind the data. “It was a slow realization that what I was working with is real,” she told the audience.

At one point, Newton asked Manning if she thought the government had a right to keep secrets.

“Ten years ago I would have said, ‘of course,’ ” Manning said. “But who even makes these classifications?”

Manning went on to discuss what she sees as the political nature of classified information. She spoke at length about the process for data classification and her skepticism about its role in protecting national security.

Newton asked Manning if she sees herself as a role model. Manning said no, and then described the role model she would like to have had, adding she has aspired to be that person, though it has been challenging.

“I went from being homeless to being in college to being in the military to being at war to being in prison,” she said. “I haven’t had the time to do the things people are expected to do.”

Following the lecture, Manning held a question and answer session with Ian Holloway, professor and assistant chair of UCLA Luskin Social Welfare. The fireside chat, which focused largely on Manning’s identity as a gay man and later a transgender woman in the military, was held in front of a small group of UCLA Luskin board members and friends of the School.

Holloway asked Manning about her being a whistleblower. Manning said she didn’t agree with the term.

“I’ve never used the word whistleblower to describe myself,” she said. “I’ve never really related to it because it’s hard to reconcile.”

She added that she felt her actions, regardless of their classification, were just.

“Institutions do fail, and when they do, you can’t rely on them, you have to go around them,” she said.

View a video recorded during Manning’s lecture:

View a video recorded during the fireside chat that followed Manning’s lecture:

New Study Documents Lack of Economic Progress in South L.A. Over the Past 50 Years Researchers at UCLA Luskin’s Center for Neighborhood Knowledge list inequities in wages, housing, education and transportation

/1 Comment/in , , , , , , , , , /by

In the half-century since the Kerner Commission’s report on urban unrest, South Los Angeles has experienced little economic progress, according to a new study by the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge, part of UCLA Luskin.

In 1960, South L.A. workers made 80 cents on the dollar compared to the average Los Angeles County worker. In the last 50 years, that gap has widened. Today, the average full-time, full-year worker in South L.A. earns about 60 cents on every dollar earned by the average county resident.

“This report is a sobering snapshot of the inequalities that have persisted in South Los Angeles 50 years since the 1968 report,” said Paul Ong, director of the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge.  Disparities in earnings are the main driver of income inequality. Earnings are critical in overall quality of life — low earnings can translate into less access to necessities, amenities, and opportunities.

Earnings in South L.A. have failed to catch up to county levels, according to the researchers. That widening pay gap is driven in part by a steady decline of male wages.

South Los Angeles is home to 722,000 persons, and epitomizes the plight of inner-city neighborhoods. It is the site where frustrations of a marginalized and neglected community boiled over in 1965 Watts riots and 1992 civil unrest. These reactions to the lack of progress should not have been unexpected given the realities documented by this CNK report.

In addition to earnings, the study also documents inequities in:

Housing

Homeownership, the principal mechanism for wealth accumulation for middle-class residents, is lower in South L.A. than the county and has declined over time. Today, fewer than one in three South L.A. residents own their home.

The high demand for housing has translated not only to higher cost but also higher home values. After adjusting for inflation, the average home is priced at nearly three times as much today as it was in 1960. This places financial strain on new buyers and puts ownership further out of reach for renters.

Transportation

Car ownership is critical in Los Angeles where, despite large investments in public transit, lacking a car can severely limit one’s access to job and educational opportunities. Availability of cars within households has improved over time; nonetheless, households in South LA are twice as likely to lack a car, according to the study. South LA residents remain three times as likely to rely on public transit for commuting.

Education

Educational attainment is critical in preparing children to be successful and productive adults. However, public schools have continued to be “separate and unequal.” Elementary school performance on standardized testing reveals persistent gaps between South LA and the most affluent neighborhoods in West L.A.

Early childhood preparation can be critical toward the goal of fostering successful students. Fifty years ago, recommendations concerning education specifically prioritized the expansion of preschool programs. In 1960, preschool enrollment was virtually non-existent in both South L.A. and the county.

In 1990, children in South L.A. were only half as likely as county children to be enrolled in a private preschool. This can be taken as an indicator of the wide gaps in the availability of resources for education to residents in South L.A. compared to the county. This gap has grown since then. In 2016, county children are four times as likely as South L.A. children to be enrolled in a private preschool.

View the full report.

Technical note

There are no definitive boundaries for South Los Angeles. Over time, the boundaries have shifted as the neighborhood has changed. This study is based on public use microdata areas (PUMAs), which are defined by the U.S. Census Bureau. These are reasonable approximations of the curfew area for the 1965 Watts Riot, the post-1992 Civil Unrest Rebuild L.A. zone, and the Los Angeles Times Neighborhood Mapping Project’s South Los Angeles area.

All data, with the exception of school performance, come from PUMS samples. The 1960 data are extracted from IPUMS. Additional data come from tract-level statistics reported by the U.S. Census Bureau. Data on elementary school performance combine assessment scores from California’s Standardized Testing and Reporting with historical information of schools, reported in the 1965 McCone Report.

This project was supported by the following partners: the Haynes Foundation, the Institute on Inequality and Democracy at UCLA Luskin, the UCLA Lewis Center, the UCLA Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, the UCLA Luskin Center for History and Policy, the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Professor Manisha Shah, and the UCLA Asian American Studies Center.

A Life of Social Work Dedicated to Children and Families Friends and former colleagues gather in tribute to former educator Joycelyn ‘Joy’ Crumpton, ‘an inspiration to everyone around her’

/0 Comments/in , , /by

By Stan Paul

Joycelyn Anita McKay Crumpton — “Joy” to all who knew her — spent more than three decades dedicated to a career in social work and helping others.

The former Social Welfare field faculty member at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, who passed away in September 2017, was known for working to create positive change through education, leadership and service where she worked and taught, as well as in the communities where she lived.

Family, friends, faculty, colleagues and former students got together on March 8 at UCLA’s Faculty Center to honor Crumpton’s contributions to the field of child welfare, diversity, and spirituality in social work practice, to celebrate her life and share memories. In addition, a memorial fellowship fund in her name has been established so MSW student recipients may carry Joy’s legacy as leaders and change agents.

View photos from the memorial gathering on Flickr:

Joy Crumpton Memorial

“Joy was loved and respected by students, faculty and community members,” said Gerry Laviña MSW ’88, director of field education in Social Welfare at UCLA Luskin. “She could always be counted on for support, wisdom, and a smile or hug,” he added. As news of Crumpton’s passing spread into the community and among alumni, Laviña, also a UCLA Luskin MSW alumnus, noted that Crumpton’s “positive spirit and words are carried forward through the many MSWs she taught.”

Contribute to the Joy Crumpton Memorial Fellowship Fund.

At UCLA Luskin, Crumpton MSW ’80 also served as project coordinator of the Title IV-E California Social Work Education Center (CalSWEC) stipend program for MSW students, a post she held from 2004 until her retirement in 2012. Previously, she served as associate director of the UCLA Center on Child Welfare, Inter-university Consortium from 1992 to 1996. In addition, she spent many years in curriculum development and training implementation focused on child abuse and neglect. At the core of her work was the determination to impact those in need — children, adults and families, according to friends, family and colleagues.

“Joy was an inspiration to everyone around her,” said Wanda Ballenger MSW ’73, longtime friend and colleague, who met Crumpton in the 1980s. In 1992, Ballenger hired Crumpton as associate director of the Center on Child Welfare. “Joy was a very social person, who was better at being ‘on,’ ” when it came to meetings and presentations, added Ballenger. In fact, Crumpton was a talented and inspirational speaker. Her audiences included children and youth, parents, graduate students, social workers, probation officers, public health nurses, judges, court officers, community advocates, clergy members, and university faculty and staff, as recounted in a memorial posted online.

In additions to positions at UCLA, Crumpton held a number of training and instructional positions, including lead trainer for the Bay Area Academy and child welfare ombudsman for the Health and Human Services Agency of the city and county of San Francisco. She also founded and directed Family Tree, which provided training and consultation services related to child welfare.

Ballenger said the two stayed in touch despite being far apart. Ballenger recalled that when her husband received a diagnosis of a serious medical condition, even though Joy was fighting her own battle with cancer, she would call every week. “She was just that kind of person,” Ballenger said. “I really miss her. Joy was my sister.”

Throughout Crumpton’s career, she taught and provided fieldwork instruction at a number of institutions, including UC Berkeley’s School of Social Welfare, San Francisco State University, and USC’s Center on Child Welfare. At UCLA Luskin, Crumpton taught graduate courses in cross-cultural awareness, international social work, advanced child welfare practice and the program’s child welfare seminar. She also collaborated with the University of Ghana to develop a cultural immersion and fieldwork internship for MSW students working in key social service agencies in Accra, Ghana, West Africa.

Jorja Leap MSW ’80, adjunct professor of social welfare, remembered her longtime friend and colleague from their early days as MSW students in the same class at UCLA.

“Joy was one of those who knew early on how to collaborate — how to work with difficult people in all groups — she was a mediator so much of the time,” said Leap, recalling an earlier and far different time in social work. “So much of it involving marginalized populations,” Leap said. “Joy knew early on to work within institutions and organizations to make change.”

Joseph A. Nunn MSW ’70 PhD ’90, former director of field education for Social Welfare at UCLA Luskin, also had the privilege of working with Crumpton.

“Whenever Joy Crumpton walked into a room, she would light it up,” Nunn said. “Her first name said it all. With an infectious sense of humor and a winning smile she did indeed live up to her name by bringing joy.”

In addition to discussing their children and families, Nunn and Crumpton talked about time each spent coincidentally as children in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. (Crumpton was born in New Orleans.) “Through one of those it’s-a-small-world experiences, we discovered that she grew up four doors away from my cousins who I visited many summers from my home in Los Angeles.”

Citing her background in direct practice, classroom teaching and training, Nunn said in an email: “Joy had a strong commitment to the children served by the public child welfare system. Whether discussing policy issues or practice interventions her strong analytical skills and compassion for this population were evident. ”

He added: “Joy’s engaging personality made it possible for her to quickly connect with others and thus building collaborative relationships was one of her talents. In summary, Joy had class and style like few before her.”

Recruiting ‘High-Caliber’ Luskin Students More than 200 students attend a career fair held by the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, meeting with employers from a variety of fields with the hope of landing jobs and internships

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

By Zev Hurwitz

Scores of first- and second-year graduate students worked the room at the annual UCLA Luskin Job and Internship Career Fair, networking and trading business cards with prospective employers.

Held Jan. 30, 2018, at the UCLA Faculty Center, the event gave students in all three disciplines — Public Policy, Urban Planning and Social Welfare — a chance to meet future employers, who were looking to fill jobs and internships.

Mirna Jewell, a researcher with the Los Angeles Department of Public Health, attended for the first time to recruit UCLA Luskin students on the advice of her colleague, a public policy graduate. Jewell was looking for interns for the Public Health Department’s food insecurity program.

“I work with a Luskin MPP graduate who has said so many nice things about the program,” Jewell said. “My colleague specifically wanted to target these students because of the high caliber and strong reputation.”

Stanley Hoffman MA UP ’72, who is also a Senior Fellow at UCLA Luskin, speaks with first-year Urban Planning student Marina Wassef about possible openings at his firm, Hoffman Associates. Photo by Aaron Julian

A strong contingent of Luskin School alumni were on hand.

“Half of the employers we have here today are represented by our alumni,” said VC Powe, director of career services and leadership development at UCLA Luskin. “To see these former students come back and hear about what they’re doing is wonderful. Seeing them here to give back to our students is the best.”

Greg Srolestar, director of technical assistance with Fair and Just Prosecution, a group that works with elected local prosecutors to provide policy and networking support, said he was looking for a few good students to join his team.

“Thus far, our organization has been really heavy on lawyers, which makes sense,” said Srolestar, a Luskin public policy alumnus. “It’s always great to get people with different perspectives and backgrounds. I’ve been the core team member without a law background, and it’s time to look for more people who may come from that kind of background.”

Srolestar was one of several dozen Luskin alumni who attended the fair on behalf of their employers.

Megan Kirkeby MPP ’12, a housing policy research specialist at the California Department of Housing and Community Development, attended to fill recently opened positions.

“We’re primarily recruiting for jobs,” Kirkeby said. “ We passed a big housing package in 2017 with 15 new laws that went into effect Jan. 1. We know we’re going to have to staff up starting in July, so we want to make sure people know about us and know that Sacramento is a wonderful place to work and live.”

Adam Russell, a first-year urban planning student with a focus on design, development and transportation, said the career fair had a good mix of employers.

“This is a really good starting point for looking at internships,” Russell said. “I’ve been making the rounds, getting to know who’s here and what’s out there.”

Abigail “Rosy” Doud, first-year student in urban planning, introduces herself at the career fair. Photo by Aaron Julian

Sarah Burtner, a second-year MPP candidate, said she also hoped to size up potential employers.

“I’m looking to see how I’ll spend my 40-hour work week in the near future,” she said. “The type of work I will be doing, the type of communities I’ll be working with, and will they make good bosses or coworkers.”

Corina Post, a graduate student in her third and final year of a dual degree in public policy and social welfare, said she was hoping the job fair would kick off her career search.

“I’m hoping to learn more about organizations, what they’re looking for and put things on my radar for me to look for as I’m graduating,” Post said. “I appreciate the diversity of organization that are here. Coming from both public policy and social welfare backgrounds, I’m really impressed with how VC and the career center staff have been able to bring together organizations that are interesting to all three departments.”

Tuesday’s event marked a return to the traditional job fair format. Last year, a “speed dating”-style event paired alumni employers with students with related interests.

“I’m excited about tonight because a lot of employers thought that career fairs are becoming passé, so we didn’t do one last year,” Powe said. “It was students who asked me to bring back a nonprofit career fair.”

While the event was originally billed as a nonprofit fair, high interest from alumni and employers in government and the private sector helped broaden the scope. Powe had hoped to attract at least 30 employers, but more than 200 students and 55 employers registered for the event, making it one of the most popular job fairs ever, Powe said.

“It’s a little bit tricky to have a job fair in January, because it’s difficult for students to commit,” Powe said. “But there are employers here with internships, fellowships and jobs in hand for this session.”

Latino Issues Take Center Stage at Gubernatorial Forum Dean Gary Segura and several UCLA Luskin faculty and students play active roles in framing discussions on vital policy issues as candidates face off at Royce Hall

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

By Les Dunseith

UCLA Luskin was an active participant in the 2018 California Gubernatorial Forum held Jan. 25, 2018, at UCLA during which six candidates debated issues such as immigration policy, health care, education and ethics.

Dean Gary Segura spoke at a VIP reception that preceded the debate and later welcomed attendees inside Royce Hall to the forum, which was sponsored by the Latino Community Foundation, a San Francisco-based group that invests in Latino-led organizations, and moderated by anchors Jorge Ramos and Ilia Calderón of Univision, a television and media company.

The Latino Community Foundation and Univision News hosted the 2018 California Gubernatorial Forum on Jan. 25, 2018, in Royce Hall at UCLA.

The Latino electorate, whose political clout continues to grow in California, could decide the governor’s race, and a focus on issues of importance to minorities was evident throughout the forum.

“Beyond Latinos, people of color, of all varieties and histories in this nation, are systematically driven from the electoral system, neglected in every aspect of public services, targeted in an unequal justice system, and vulnerable to economic and social exploitation at every turn,” Segura said during the pre-debate reception. “In California, we know we can do better. Tonight, I hope we hear some cogent arguments as to how best to proceed.”

In addition to Segura, many other staff and faculty members affiliated with the new Latino Policy and Politics Initiative at UCLA were on hand. Several students, including representatives from all three departments at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, were seated on stage behind the candidates.

The night’s first question was about deportation policy, and it was posed by UCLA medical student Marcela Zhou and recent UCLA graduate Erick Leyva, whose educations have been directly impacted by the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) program that the Trump administration rescinded late last year.

Gubernatorial front-runners Gavin Newsom and Antonio Villaraigosa both took advantage of the opportunity to publicly voice their support of DACA recipients and to stress agreement with California’s pro-immigrant stance in general, including its sanctuary state status.

Under California’s new law, state and local law enforcement officials are prohibited from sharing undocumented individuals’ information with federal immigration authorities. The policy directly contradicts the Trump administration’s frequent portrayal of ethnic, cultural and racial differences in a negative light.

“We don’t tolerate that diversity, we celebrate that diversity,” said Newsom, California’s lieutenant governor.

 

 

Former L.A. mayor Antonio Villaraigosa speaks with UCLA students protesting in support of the DACA program prior to the debate.

Forum guests were greeted at the forum’s entrance by about 50 UCLA students demonstrating outside Royce Hall, calling on the gubernatorial candidates to support protections for all undocumented individuals — not just DACA participants.

At one point, Villaraigosa waded into the crowd and declared his support for their viewpoint. As the former Los Angeles mayor walked up the steps to enter the building, the students chanted, “Say It Inside!” — an effort to prod Villaraigosa to go on the record in support of undocumented immigrants.

Soon into the debate, he did just that. “They’re saying, ‘no to deportations.’ And I agree. They said that we should say it in here, and we should say it. We are tired of deportations,” said Villaraigosa before invoking in Spanish the rallying cry among many pro-immigrant activists. “Aqui extamos y no nos vamos!”

The two Republican candidates at the forum, businessman John Cox and Assemblyman Travis Allen (R-Huntington Beach), both oppose California’s sanctuary status and said the state’s support of undocumented workers undermines the needs of U.S. citizens. Their statements often led to boos from the crowd, and Allen, in particular, generated loud objections from the audience when he expressed full support for the policies of President Donald Trump.

In strong contrast, the four Democrats often drew cheers with rebukes of Trump and his administration’s policies.

“California was built on the back of immigrants,” California Treasurer John Chiang, a Democrat, said. “Fundamentally we’re about dignity, decency and respect for all people. That is the heart of America, and we want to be that shining [city] to send a signal to President Trump that you’re dead wrong.”

Democrat Delaine Eastin, a former state schools chief, drew loud applause when she referred to Trump as an “orange-haired misogynist racist.”

To boost the numbers of Latinos pursuing higher education, Eastin suggested expansion of childcare and child development programs. She and other Democratic candidates also advocated for free college tuition.

“The best crime prevention program is education,” Eastin said.

Responding to a question about California farmers, Eastin called for a long-range water plan and better treatment of agricultural workers. Cox said he sympathized with Central Valley farmers and supports a seasonal worker program “to have people come in and get the work done.” Once crops are picked, however, he said the workers should go back to their countries.

The issue of single-payer healthcare prompted a testy exchange between Villaraigosa and Newsom, who favors improvements to the state’s proposed single-payer health-care legislation. Villaraigosa disagreed, saying he is concerned the idea lacks concrete funding.

“That’s defeatism,” Newsom shot back.

Near the end of the forum, one of the most dramatic moments took place when moderator Ramos returned to the question of undocumented immigrants. He reminded the crowd of the two DACA recipients who had opened the night’s questioning.

“Would you deport them?” Ramos pointedly asked the candidates.

In response, Chiang, Newsom, Villaraigosa and Eastin all said no, and that they would work to protect them. Even Cox said no, though he qualified his response by calling for stronger border security.

Catcalls from the audience greeted Allen when his turn to answer came. “As the next governor of the state California,” he began, “I will follow immigration law …”

Ramos gestured to Zhou and Leyva seated behind him, and they moved to center stage. As Allen walked over and shook their hands, audience objections grew louder.

“Yes or no? Yes or no?” the crowd chanted after Allen dodged a direct answer by saying Republicans plan to include DACA protection as part of immigration reform.

Shouts from the crowd erupted. As the two young people shifted uncomfortably just inches away, Ramos asked again, “Would you deport them, Mr. Allen?”

“That’s not the job of the governor of the state of California,” Allen declared. “Our president is working on a deal right now to protect your status in exchange for border security and a comprehensive immigration plan …”

The crowd grew even louder, drowning out Allen. “Make him leave! Make him leave!” some shouted.

View a Flickr album with additional photos.

 

Suicides by Drugs in U.S. Are Undercounted, Study Suggests Report co-authored by UCLA Luskin professor Mark S. Kaplan finds that a substantial gap between the rates of drug suicides and 'accidental' drug deaths is likely due to misclassification

/1 Comment/in , , , /by

By Stan Paul

Mark S. Kaplan

The rate of suicides by drug intoxication in the United States may be vastly underreported and misclassified, according to a new study co-written by Mark S. Kaplan, professor of social welfare at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.

The study was published online Jan. 10 in the journal PLOS ONE. The researchers report that the drug suicide rate in the United States rose nearly one-quarter (24 percent) between 2000 and 2016, and the accidental opioid and other drug intoxication death rate increased by 312 percent. This rate gap suggests an increase in suicide undercounting, according to the multidisciplinary international team of researchers led by Ian Rockett of West Virginia University School of Public Health.

“Unfortunately, part of the problem is due to serious under-resourcing of state and local death investigation systems throughout most of the U.S.,” said Kaplan, whose research has focused on using population-wide data to understand suicide risk factors among veterans, seniors and other vulnerable populations. Kaplan added that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently reported more than 63,000 drug deaths in 2016, up from 52,000 in 2015.

“Many of these deaths were probably suicides, yet reported as accidental self-poisoning rather than intentional self-harm, particularly among the middle-aged,” Kaplan said.

The researchers report that suicide notes and psychiatric history, including a prior suicide attempt or diagnosed depression, are much more important in helping medical examiners and coroners identify drug suicides than suicides by more violent and obvious methods. The new research further shows this evidence is absent in a large majority of suicide and possible suicide cases.

“A suicide note, prior suicide attempt or affective disorder was documented in less than one-third of suicides and one-quarter of undetermined deaths,” the research team reported in the study. The researchers cited larger prevalence gaps among drug intoxication cases than gunshot or hanging cases.

“Our incorporation of undetermined deaths, as well as registered suicides, not only provided a window on the nature of suicide misclassification within the undetermined death category, but within the accident category — as a much larger reservoir for obscuring drug intoxication suicides,” the researchers wrote in the report.

The opioid epidemic in the United States is also exacerbating problems with suicide accounting, the researchers report. And that severely impedes the understanding and prevention of suicide and drug deaths nationally.

The team analyzed data from the Restricted Access Database in the National Violent Death Reporting System, which is administered by the CDC.

Luskin Forum Online: Who We Are Essays highlight people who make UCLA Luskin a vibrant, thought-provoking and entertaining place to be

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

[ From the Luskin Forum Online ]

Dean Gary Segura is fond of saying that the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs is about human well-being.

“We study ways to make individuals, families, communities and polities function better, for the improvement and quality of lives of all those affected,” Segura told the Class of 2017 at Commencement last June.

Those students, now Luskin alumni, spent 2016-17 working on a variety of projects related to urgent human needs, such as:

  • greenhouse gas reduction
  • interventions with at-risk youth
  • prison population reduction
  • homelessness
  • HIV prevention
  • meningitis epidemic control
  • regulation of new and intrusive technologies
  • safe school environments
  • quality mental health services
  • river restoration
  • access to home ownership
  • responsive governance in the developing world

“I’m reminded every day of how lucky I am and how special it is to be a part of the Luskin School of Public Affairs,” Segura told proud parents and family members at the graduation ceremony.

This issue of Luskin Forum is dedicated to just that: taking pride in how this school makes a difference, and why it’s important to remember the myriad accomplishments of our students, faculty, staff
and alumni.

Our UCLA Luskin mission statement says it perfectly: “At the convergence of the fields of social work, urban planning, and policymaking, the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs identifies and develops emerging areas of research and teaching, cultivating leaders and change agents who advance solutions to society’s most pressing problems.”

In the words of Dean Segura: “Do good in the world. Make change.”

— GEORGE FOULSHAM

We Are Connecting

Like their planning and policy peers at UCLA Luskin, the School’s Master of Social Welfare students are connecting with the community throughout their two-year professional program. First-year MSW students have the opportunity to engage in high-impact internships and placements that begin even before fall classes start.

New Luskin MSW students bring with them a wide range of experience in the community and at social work-related agencies, where they have served as students, employees and volunteers. From the get-go, they immerse themselves in the work of organizations that assist and provide programs for the homeless, the elderly, disabled adults, children with emotional and learning disabilities, and foster youth.

The wide array of student placements includes a downtown women’s shelter, a psychiatric care facility, school and community groups, and other sites that provide services such as law advocacy or assistance with transitional housing, according to Michelle Talley MSW ’98, field education faculty member.

First-year MSW students are placed at various field sites throughout Los Angeles County and in surrounding counties, Talley said. Placements are based on previous experience, prior knowledge of the role of a social worker and other factors.

Their extensive field work also involves community outreach and advocacy. They participate in staff meetings and offer consultation. They engage in research activities and participate in development programs that include training on professional responsibility and reporting mandates.

Both years of the MSW program integrate the School, alumni and the community as integral parts of the educational process for this professional practice-oriented degree, assuring that graduates become high-impact practitioners.

“The goal is to place students at sites that will create opportunities to enhance their growth as a professional social worker,” Talley said.

— STAN PAUL

We Are Protectors

From the streets of Los Angeles to innovative research on social media, UCLA Luskin faculty members like Ian Holloway are gathering data to inform programs and policies that improve the health and well-being of vulnerable communities.

In addition to his position as assistant professor of social welfare at UCLA Luskin, Holloway is director of the Southern California HIV/AIDS Policy Research Center. There are approximately 5,000 new HIV cases in California each year. Holloway’s ongoing work focuses on HIV prevention and treatment among sexual and gender minority people. “Young gay and bisexual men, especially those from racial and ethnic minority communities, are disproportionately impacted by HIV, and HIV-related comorbidities,” Holloway said.

In 2016-17, Holloway and a group of Luskin students and recent graduates canvassed more than 500 gay and bisexual men to gauge their awareness of a yearlong outbreak of meningitis in Southern California. Holloway and his research group found that less than a third of those interviewed were vaccinated against meningitis despite extensive outreach efforts by the California Department of Public Health.

Holloway’s findings suggested that better vaccination uptake surveillance, tailored education and more sites for immunization throughout Southern California are needed in order to bolster efforts to track meningitis and encourage vaccination among gay and bisexual men.

Other research conducted by Holloway and student assistants includes the LINX LA project, which uses a mobile phone app to encourage treatment engagement among HIV-positive African American young gay and bisexual men through access to legal and social service resources in Los Angeles.

Next up? Using a new and innovative approach, Holloway and a group of tech-savvy UCLA researchers will use data-mining of social networking sites to learn more about drug use and sexual risk behavior. The project, funded by the National Institutes of Health, aims to use social networking data to inform intervention development. “This would include ‘just-in-time’ technology-delivered interventions aimed at preventing negative health outcomes and promoting healthy behaviors,” Holloway explained.

— STAN PAUL

We Are Innovating

Whether it be guiding equitable revitalization of the L.A. River, helping Californians cut down on their electricity use, or advancing a new way to repurpose carbon dioxide into a greener form of concrete, the Luskin Center for Innovation is a trailblazer among UCLA’s many sustainability leaders.

And that’s just for starters.

Since its inception in 2009, the Luskin Center’s research has influenced local, state and national policy. This includes a new rooftop solar program for Los Angeles, the redesign of California’s clean vehicle rebate program, and current efforts to develop a drinking water low-income assistance program in California. Other research informs the state’s world-renowned actions to combat climate change while maximizing local employment, air quality and health benefits.

A think tank housed within the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, the center is organized around initiatives that translate world-class research into real-world policy solutions. Current initiatives include advanced transportation, clean energy, climate action, digital technologies, sustainable water and urban greening — all linked by the theme of informing effective and equitable policies.

The center brings together faculty and staff from a variety of academic disciplines across campus to conduct research in partnership with civic leaders who use the knowledge to inform policy and organizational innovations. Civic leaders include policymakers, nonprofit organizations, and business associations. Students at UCLA Luskin have the opportunity to work with the Luskin Center to gain hands-on research experience and work closely with these decision-makers.

Meyer Luskin, the visionary and benefactor behind the Luskin Center, says, “Sustaining the environment is the greatest inheritance one can leave to children, and the most enduring gift to the community and nation.”

— KELSEY JESSUP

We Are Inspiring

Each year, UCLA Luskin students are embedded in internships and research projects offered through all three departments. That’s a given. Not as well known is how the school also creates partnerships that benefit students and the communities in which they work.

Take, for example, the Watts Leadership Institute (WLI). The brainchild of Social Welfare adjunct professor Jorja Leap MSW ’80 and her research partner, Karrah Lompa MSW ’13, the WLI is engaged in a 10-year mission to bring about positive change in a community hungry for leadership coaching.

Leap and Lompa are working with the first cohort of community members, providing guidance on everything from learning how to establish successful nonprofits to applying those skills in their community garden. After several years of training and coaching, the cohort will provide guidance for future leaders in Watts.

At the same time, Leap is using the project as a way to provide community-based educational experiences for Luskin’s Social Welfare students.

“This kind of a public-private partnership, along with the research attached to it — and the building of the Watts community — really represent the best of how all of these different factors can come together,” said Leap, who has been working in Watts since conducting research there when she was a Social Welfare graduate student in the 1970s. “It represents part of UCLA’s continuing and growing commitment to communities like Watts that need our involvement, our engagement, our organizing, our research.”

The WLI has received funding from the California Wellness Foundation and from GRoW @ Annenberg, a philanthropic initiative led by Gregory Annenberg Weingarten, as well as office space and in-kind support from Los Angeles City Councilman Joe Buscaino.

“What Watts Leadership did was to help us come together, to put our resources together, and be an example for the rest of the nonprofit and leadership community in Watts,” cohort member Pahola Ybarra said. “It’s been an amazing effort to help us grow, and to help us get out of our own way. It encourages us to reach for as much as we can and do as much as we can in the community.”

— GEORGE FOULSHAM

We Are Woke

On Nov. 9, 2016, after many felt their world spin out of control, the Institute on Inequality and Democracy at UCLA Luskin decided to create a space for students, faculty and staff to critically analyze the forms of exclusion, including white nationalism, so pervasive throughout the election that had just ended.

Post-election, the Institute, whose tagline is “Organizing knowledge to challenge inequality,” expanded its mission to challenge state-sponsored violence against targeted bodies and communities by immediately issuing a call for Jan. 18, 2017: Teach.Organize.Resist.

The campaign, known as #J18, included universities and colleges across the nation and internationally that organized nearly 100 courses, performances, sit-ins, and lectures to demonstrate that places of teaching and learning would not bear silent witness to oppression and hate. After a day of programming at UCLA, #J18 ended with “From the Frontlines of Justice,” a multi-performance event held in Ackerman Grand Ballroom. Highlights are online at teachorganizeresist.luskin.ucla.edu

Ananya Roy, professor of urban planning, social welfare and geography and the director of the Institute, remarked: “I encourage students to think of their role as scholars and to consider the power of research and knowledge.”

To strengthen the link between scholarship and collective action even further, the Institute launched its first Activist-in-Residence program in 2017. In the words of the inaugural fellow, Funmilola Fagbamila, arts and culture director of Black Lives Matter LA and adjunct professor of Pan-African Studies at Cal State LA, the definition of “woke” doesn’t end at knowledge. “To achieve the ‘woke’ label, you must be willing to analyze the conditions in your community. Lastly, you must act.”

Through academic research, and in alliance with social justice movements, the Institute creates scholarship, art and collective action to tackle divides and dispossessions in global Los Angeles and in cities around the world.

“We do so to insist on the academic freedom to examine regimes of power and structures of intolerance,” Roy explained. “We do so to forge imaginations of abolitionism, civil disobedience and human freedom. We do so, as James Baldwin reminded us, to shake the dungeon and leave behind our chains.”

— CRISTINA BARRERA

We Are Global

The impact of the Luskin School resonates far beyond the borders of Los Angeles and California. It’s a brand with international flavor. It’s not unusual to find Luskin students and faculty in Mexico, Uganda, India or Japan.

Luskin’s popular Global Public Affairs program offers students the chance to obtain intellectual and professional preparation to become future experts within the realm of international public affairs.

Each year GPA students travel around the globe, immersing themselves in the culture — and problems — of their host countries, and blogging about it for the GPA website. In the past year, students have lived in Mexico City; Paris; Kampala, Uganda; Bonn, Germany; Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; and Tokyo, among other locales.

The GPA program is led by two members of the Urban Planning faculty. Michael Storper, distinguished professor of regional and international urban planning, is the director of GPA. He’s also a professor of economic sociology at the Institute of Political Studies in Paris and professor of economic geography at the London School of Economics. Stephen Commins UP PhD ’88, a lecturer in Urban Planning, is a former senior development specialist at the World Bank and director of policy and planning at World Vision International. UCLA Luskin’s international influence also includes:

  • Urban Planning faculty like Paavo Monkkonen MPP ’05, whose students made multiple visits to Tijuana, Mexico, where they provided guidance to city and government officials about the best ways to deal with a housing crisis.
  • Policy professors like Manisha Shah, associate professor of public policy, who has traveled around the world — to India, Mexico, Tanzania and Indonesia — to conduct research into microeconomics, health and development.
  • Faculty leaders like Donald Shoup and Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris who are among the many UCLA Luskin faculty in great demand as speakers at conferences around the world.
  • Our international students — who add a global perspective to the student body and to Luskin educational efforts.

“A focus on problems that cross borders and involve international interdependence, also identifies where international forces affect domestic policies,” Commins said. “Students can learn from comparing experiences of different countries in how they face planning, policy and social welfare challenges and apply the experiences to their own studies and professional practice.”

— GEORGE FOULSHAM

We Are Problem Solvers

Graduate students at UCLA Luskin don’t wait to step beyond the classroom to address California’s pressing challenges. Master of Public Policy (MPP) and Master of Urban and Regional Planning (MURP) students spend their time on campus deeply immersed in local, state, national and global issues. At the Luskin School, it’s part of the program.

Luskin students log countless hours learning lessons from leading-edge faculty and researchers. Here they seek solutions related to ongoing problems like housing, transportation or sustainability. They look into topics of vital importance to Southern California like electric recharging stations, barriers to bicycling in and around the city, or accessibility to water and food.

“At Luskin, we give students a diverse set of tools (both quantitative and qualitative) that will help guide them through the APP process and ultimately to go out into the real world and conduct policy analysis on issues close to their hearts,” said Manisha Shah, associate professor of public policy and faculty coordinator for the Applied Policy Project program completed by MPP graduates.

Recent work has connected students with county and city offices such as the Mayor of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Department of Transportation. Regional agencies such as the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) frequently serve as clients. Recent APP projects included healthy food choices for elementary school students and employment opportunities for youths. Students also tackle educational issues right here at UCLA or work with the University of California’s Office of the President.

Many student projects benefit local and regional clients and the communities they serve, but they also reach out to communities far way. A recent planning capstone evaluated the short-term rental market in a Northern California city, for example. And a recent policy project analyzed governance at
the local level in the Ukraine.

— STAN PAUL

We Are Trailblazing

There’s no better place to study how people get around than Southern California — and for the past 25 years, UCLA has been home to one of the country’s preeminent transportation research centers.

The UCLA Institute for Transportation Studies (ITS) at UCLA Luskin combines cutting-edge research with meaningful, influential civic engagement to lead to policy results in California and beyond. From the impacts of traffic congestion to fairness around rideshare hailing to the civic consequences of paying for parking, ITS scholars produce work that ties directly to current transportation planning practices and policymaking at the local, state and national levels. ITS is noted for connecting transportation and equity, and for emphasizing the effect of transportation decisions on people’s lives.

“We take our policy mandate seriously,” said Brian Taylor UP PhD ’90, director of ITS and professor of urban planning.

Through close partnership with dozens of outside organizations that include government agencies, private transportation companies, nonprofit foundations and advocacy groups, ITS faculty, staff and students translate the latest knowledge on transportation into proposed real-world policies around movement and growth. ITS’ biannual digital magazine is widely read throughout the transportation community, highlighting important new research in a clear, constructive manner for practitioners.

Luskin students working at ITS collaborate closely with faculty members, receive generous scholarship funding for their own trailblazing projects, and have garnered an inordinate number of prestigious grants and awards over the years. Regular interactive events and publications showcase student findings to the academic community and the public at UCLA and around the country.

The next quarter-century will bring significant changes to how we travel, with daunting societal impacts. As it has since 1992, ITS research and policy action will help guide the way toward solutions.

— WILL LIVESLEY-O’NEILL

We Are Family

Attend any gathering at UCLA Luskin and you may feel like you stumbled into someone’s family reunion.

There will be a toddler or two, chasing a balloon or dancing as a faculty, staff or student parent hovers nearby. You’ll notice plenty of happy young faces — graduate students tend to be in their 20s — but look closer, and you’ll see older folks too. Mid-career professionals returning to add a degree. Staff and faculty, some grayed and others not. Perhaps alumni who earned degrees during the days of typewriters or even pencil and paper, not smartphones.

But family is more than differences in age. It’s continuity. Legacy. Progress over time, as one generation blazes a trail and then passes the torch of knowledge along to another to mark its own, slightly different path. It’s every professor who imparts a tidbit of knowledge only to be surprised, and humbled, when a protégé nurtures that information into something new and wonderful and impactful.

A lifetime of learning walks the Public Affairs Building each day — legends who become mentors, colleagues, even friends. Marty Wachs. Joan Ling. Mark Peterson. Michael Dukakis. Ananya Roy. Gerry Laviña. And so many more. People who have done everything in their careers that students could ever dream of doing themselves and yet still seem to care most about what their students learn now that will improve the world tomorrow.

Family provides inspiration. At Luskin, it’s instructors who know how to say, “You can do better,” in a way that makes students understand that, yes, they really can.

Families help those who need it. It’s every person on the Donor Honor Roll whose name is there not because their wealth exceeds their needs but because money is a way to honor someone who once expanded their worldview. Or lifted their spirits. Or answered a question late one night as a deadline loomed.

After 40 years at UCLA Luskin, Donald Shoup knows all about the Luskin family. In 2017, he won another big award, honoring his contributions as an educator. He put it in perspective: “If we have any influence — if there is going to be anything to remember after we are gone — I think it will be the successful careers of our students who will be changing the world for the better.”

— LES DUNSEITH

Message From the Dean

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

Act.

Well, act if you want to — but since that is almost certainly true, ACT!

I have to admit, it is difficult to be a professor of public affairs and not watch the news. But, too often of late, I find I can’t. I know enough about most matters of public policy that a quick skim of the headlines, a scan of the first paragraph of this or that story, and I can fill in the rest. To read it all, to watch cable news, to do the deeper dive that I used to do is not good for me. I feel physically un-well.

It is always easier not to come to grips with humanity’s problems. They are plentiful and seemingly beyond our capacity to solve. Perhaps that’s so. And the 30,000-foot view, of all of them at once, can be overwhelming.

These days, the Luskin School is my solace, my happy place. And, ironically, this is not because it insulates me from all that bad news. Quite the contrary. The School and its faculty are engaged in many — perhaps most — of the struggles that populate the evening news.

What is comforting to me is the recognition that thoughtful people, engaged in systematic analysis of social challenges, can find answers. That reasoned examination can produce social interventions and design policies that are able to make things better.

Increasingly, at least here in California, legislators at the state and local level reach out regularly to ask us for help, to seek suggestions, to run ideas by us. Individual Luskin faculty members, students and research teams in all of the Institutes and Centers in the School are constantly engaged in the world, mobilizing their research and inquiry into direct social action. Carbon pollution, mass incarceration and its effects, HIV, catastrophic increases in housing costs, urban sprawl, challenges of the aging, technology driven erosion of privacy, weak social, civic and political institutions in the nations of the developing world (and, increasingly, in our own nation) are all challenges engaged by the Luskin faculty. The results are inspiring, and several of our efforts are chronicled in the pages of this issue.

In this first year, I have gotten to meet many of you, heard of your work, observed its impacts. It is beyond joyful to know that good people, armed with the tools we develop here, can create such positive change in so many different and important ways. The alumni of the Luskin School include a vast array of high-impact social actors, people whose day-to-day lives are about improving the human condition.

Your action and your spirit sustain me. Please, please … keep it up!

Gary M. Segura
Professor and Dean
UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs

Alumni News and Notes Recent gatherings and other updates from the alumni of UCLA Luskin

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

Each issue of the Luskin Forum magazine includes information regarding alumni gatherings and notes about what our graduates have been up to lately. Here are highlights from the most recent issue:

UCLA Urban Planning Legends Remembered

UCLA Luskin Professor of Urban Planning Emeritus Allan Heskin and Margaret Crawford UP PhD ’91 organized a beautiful alumni gathering in Berkeley, California, to honor the lives of three UCLA Urban Planning faculty we recently lost — John Friedmann (1926-2017), Jacqueline Leavitt (1939-2015) and Edward Soja (1940-2015).

UCLA Luskin alumni, friends and family spent an afternoon together sharing stories and celebrating the vibrant lives, careers and ideas of these influential individuals.

“We are fortunate to learn and grow from those we remember and those who gathered,” said Anson Snyder MA UP ’90.

Pioneering Collaboration for Safe and Affordable Water in California

Gregory Pierce

Max Gomberg MPP ’07

The growing problem of household affordability of water has been a concern for many, and for good reason. According to a survey by Circle of Blue, water rates rose in Los Angeles by as much as 71 percent from 2010 to 2017.

In San Francisco, the increase was as much as 127 percent. And the trend in water scarcity, climate change and competing uses over the last several decades indicates the problem is projected to get worse.

Climate and Conservation Manager Max Gomberg MPP ’07 of the California State Water Resources Control Board is working to change this with the help of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, which is headed by Professor J.R. DeShazo. Together, the Water Board and the Luskin Center’s Senior Researcher Gregory Pierce MA UP ’11 PhD ’15, are conducting research to inform policy designs for a statewide Low-Income Rate Assistance program. This program would support California’s leadership in implementing a human right to water.

“If California does enact this program, it would be out in front. No other state has done this,” Gomberg said.

 

A Legacy of Helping People Grow

Maria Aguirre, current director of the Kaiser Permanente Watts Counseling and Learning Center, poses with Bill Coggins MSW ’55.

Bill Coggins MSW ’55 celebrated the 50-year anniversary of the Kaiser Permanente Watts Counseling and Learning Center, which he founded in 1967. Coggins began his career with Kaiser in the aftermath of the Watts Riots, having just returned from London, where he studied as a Fulbright Fellow. As a clinical social worker, he was tasked with creating a loosely defined community service program that could provide services for children and parents in South Los Angeles.

The enterprise is rooted in the community thanks to Coggins’ relentless efforts to build partnerships and encourage local residents like “Sweet” Alice Harris. It all began in a small room on 103rd Street and Anzac with three employees. Coggins recalls, “We all thought great things were going to happen … we were going to change the world.”

And they do, every day. The center has since grown into a 9,000-square-foot facility in the same location, with a team of 30 therapists, teachers and staff. Their motto, “Helping People Grow,” is poised to guide the organization through another 50 flourishing years.

 

 

Guests at the annual Social Welfare Alumni Gathering included, from left, Council member Marqueece Harris-Dawson, Karrie Harris-Dawson, Deborah Bryant, Aurea Montes-Rodriguez MSW ’99 and Joanne Kim.

Community Organizer Honored as Joseph A. Nunn Alumna of the Year

More than 100 alumni, faculty, friends and colleagues came together on May 20 at the annual Social Welfare Alumni Gathering to recognize the 2017 recipient of the Joseph A. Nunn Alumna of the Year Award, Aurea Montes-Rodriguez MSW ’99.

Montes-Rodriguez came to California from Mexico at the age of 3, was raised in South Los Angeles and witnessed firsthand the 1992 riots.

Now serving as the Executive Vice President of Community Coalition, a social justice nonprofit based in South Los Angeles, Montes-Rodriguez credits her success and inspiration to lessons learned while at UCLA Luskin. Among those lessons were leadership seminars led by Joseph A. Nunn MSW ’70 PhD ’90, former vice chair and longtime director of field education, who focused on social welfare beyond the individual treatment model to build organizations and change the systems that prevent people from reaching their potential.

She also cited the late Social Welfare faculty member Mary Brent Wehrli MSW ’84 who, according to Montes-Rodriguez, “went out of her way to help us understand the theory with the practice in communities by bringing us out into the communities and organizations who were doing great work. She really pushed us to see leadership opportunities and the contributions we could make by providing us with concrete training.… And, since I graduated, that is exactly the work I have been doing … organizing everyday people about having a voice in addressing the most pressing issues so they can be the drivers of change.”

It is no surprise then that Montes-Rodriguez has indeed made enormous contributions to the community and the field-at-large. Her strategic direction of Community Coalition’s education reform campaigns includes a landmark $151 million settlement that was announced in September 2017 to ensure Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) allocates funds to a group of 50 LAUSD schools in South and East Los Angeles.

She is also a co-founder of Partners for Children South LA, a multiagency initiative that seeks to improve children’s development and reduce the risk of involvement with the child welfare system, and she serves as a board member of the Building Movement Project, working to build capacity within the nonprofit sector to promote social justice at the national level.

Most recently, she was selected by The Education Trust-West as a Senior Equity Fellow, which is a fellowship designed to provide a platform for California’s educational equity leaders.

Alumni Accolades

  • Jennifer Bryning Alton MPP ’01 was appointed senior consultant to the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
  • Mohammed Cato MA UP/JD ’06 was appointed as UCLA’s Title IX Coordinator overseeing UCLA’s compliance with Title IX including policies and procedures to prevent and respond to gender discrimination, sexual harassment and sexual violence.
  • Masen Davis MSW ’02 has been selected to serve as the new CEO for Freedom for All Americans (FFAA). With the goal of securing federal statutory protections for LGBT Americans, FFAA works to advance measures and laws protecting people from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and gender identity and expression.
  • Joey Nuñez Estrada, Jr. MSW ’01 was promoted to associate professor at San Diego State University, Department of Counseling & School Psychology where his scholarship focuses on building socially just school environments by challenging systemic inequities and eradicating school and community barriers to student learning.
  • Sarah Godoy MSW ’15 was named No. 20 in the list of Top 100 Influence Leaders by Assent Compliance, which contributes to the awareness, education, regulation, and fight against human trafficking and slavery.
  • Alexandra Tassiello Norton MA UP ’06 was chosen to serve as the new Deputy Director for Administration and Innovation at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport.
  • Sarah Simons MPP ’07 was selected as a Climate Change Adaption Fellow by the MIT Climate CoLab where she serves as a technical reviewer of proposals to address climate change challenges posed by land use, agriculture and forestry. She represents the Natural Capital Practice of her employer, SSG Advisors.
  • Morgan Sokol MPP ’15 was promoted to vice president of government affairs for MedMen, the leading full-service management company and capital firm serving the cannabis industry.
  • Carole Turley Voulgaris UP PhD ’17 was honored with the Barclay Gibbs Jones Award from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP) for Best Dissertation in Planning, which recognizes superior contributions to scholarship.