Bluestone Kicks Off FEC Lecture Series

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By Stan Paul

From President Obama and the Pope to venture capitalists and billionaires, “everyone is talking about inequality,” said Northeastern University professor Barry Bluestone in his Feb. 25 talk at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.

“This is new,” he added.

Bluestone’s presentation, “The Great U-Turn: Inequality in America 25 Years Later,” launched the Luskin School’s 2014 FEC Public Lecture Series. The events, which follow the theme of “Economic Inequality Through Multiple Lenses,” are sponsored by UCLA Luskin’s Faculty Executive Council, the Center for the Study of Inequality at UCLA Luskin, the Ralph and Goldy Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies, and the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, among others.

While inequality in the United States is certainly not a new subject, focus on disparities among Americans and their relative freedom to pursue the American Dream has sharpened recently. In addition to a historical view of inequality in the U.S., Bluestone, director of the Kitty and Michael Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy at Northeastern, provided new data that showed the situation has changed since he first reported his findings in the 1980s.

Among the headings of his presentation were insights such as: “Where inequality is greatest, so is the cost of living,” (Los Angeles was recently ranked ninth most unequal on a list American cities), and “Income Gains at the Top Dwarf Those of Low- and Middle-Income Households.” He presented data showing the percent change in real after-tax income since 1979 that resembled a craggy, but ever-growing mountain range of prosperity, culminating in a 201 percent increase for the top 1 percent. But, the categories of the next 19 percent, the middle 60 percent and the bottom 20 percent appear as relatively flat foothills in comparison.

As an explanation for the causes behind the divergent fortunes of the haves and the have-nots, Bluestone referenced an Agatha Christie novel to show that no one cause is to blame. Under the heading “Murder on the Inequality Express,” he ran through a top-ten list of suspects from technology to globalization to decreased union representation to trade deficits.

One chart, named “Income Growth and the Changing Distribution of Family Income,” came with a dour subtitle, “From Growth with Greater Equity…to Stagnation and Inequality.” Following World War II and decades of growth in income generally among most Americans, the “Great U-Turn” began in the 1970s, according to Bluestone, who used that term with his co-author Bennett Harrison as the title of their 1988 book. In the preface of the paperback version of that book, the authors wrote, “When we first wrote The Great U-Turn, we began with a simple and fundamental premise: what is essential to the American Dream is the promise of an ever-improving standard of living. Americans expect to find and hold higher-paying jobs as they get older, and they expect their children to fare even better…”

Prof. Bluestone put the “current concern about growing economic inequality into some historical perspective. He and Bennett were pioneers in this field,” commented Urban Planning professor Paul Ong, who directs the Center for the Study of Inequality at UCLA Luskin.

Counter to society’s expectations of ever-increasing prosperity, Bluestone showed evidence that family income mobility has stagnated in the decades since the 1970s. While expressing pessimism about any significant changes for “current generation income equality,” Professor Bluestone said that intergenerational improvement — or the prospects for children born into low-income families to advance to a higher level of wealth – might have more luck if major changes are made.

Bluestone suggested that universal quality prenatal care for all children and more spending on early childhood education would be the best investment to address the inequality gap. By better matching educational spending to the time when a child’s brain undergoes its period of most dramatic growth, the U-turn could be reversed, Bluestone said.

How much would this cost? “A fortune, but it would be worth it,” he said.

Bluestone’s presentation is available here.

The next FEC Public Lecture, scheduled for April 29, will feature William “Sandy” Darity of Duke University who will discuss “Race, Ethnicity and Economic Inequality.” 

Holloway Earns Two Grants for HIV Prevention Studies

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Social Welfare professor Ian Holloway has been awarded two grants to study sexual risk behavior among populations of gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (MSM) in Los Angeles County and the Dominican Republic.

In a $25,000 award from the National Institute of Mental Health and administered through UCLA’s Center for HIV Identification, Prevention and Treatment Services, Holloway will lead a team of researchers looking at how mobile apps and social media can be used to deliver HIV prevention and treatment messaging tailored for Black MSM.

Although apps such as Grindr, Jack’d and Scruff have become common ways for young men to meet each other and connect to gay communities, little is known about how these apps may facilitate HIV risk behavior among young Black MSM, or how the networks formed through these apps could help connect Black MSM with HIV prevention services and resources. Holloway’s grant seeks to inform the development of technology-based interventions to reduce the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases in this population.

“Current HIV-prevention strategies focus on increasing outreach, testing, treatment and retention in HIV care in order to reduce community viral load. It is imperative that we understand the ways in which young men are using technology in order to tailor interventions for delivery online and through mobile technologies,” Holloway says. “Our research will help inform network-based interventions that can keep HIV-positive men healthy and hopefully reduce new infections among HIV-negative men.”

The second grant from the UCLA Center for AIDS Research/AIDS Institute, totaling $50,000 over two years, focuses on the social and sexual networks of male sex workers in the Dominican Republic. Holloway and his co-researchers hope to learn more about how tourism economies in the Dominican Republic contribute to substance use and HIV risk through changes in the structure and composition of the social and sexual networks of Dominican male sex workers. For this project, Holloway will collaborate with Vincent Guilamo-Ramos, who co-directs the Center for Latino Adolescent and Family Health at NYU’s Silver School of Social Work and has studied the role of alcohol and drug abuse in HIV risk behavior among Dominican youth. In-country collaborators include Rafael García-Alvarez and Antonio de Moya of the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo.

Holloway has previously studied the impact of social networks on HIV risk behavior, especially among young sexual minority men.

Madeleine Albright Speaks on Policy and Service at Luskin Lecture

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By Max Wynn
UCLA Luskin Student Writer

On January 29th the UCLA community packed into a sold-out Royce Hall to take part in the third Luskin Lecture Series event of the 2013-14, “A Conversation with Madeleine Albright.”

In a list of achievements in public service spanning nearly four decades, Albright most notably served as President Clinton’s Secretary of State from 1997-2001. When she was unanimously confirmed by the Senate, she became the first woman to hold that position, and at the time was the highest ranking woman in the history of U.S. government.

Former Massachusetts Governor and visiting professor of public policy Michael Dukakis introduced Secretary Albright, describing how much he had enjoyed working with her during his 1988 presidential campaign. Albert Carnesale, a professor of public policy and engineering and former Chancellor of UCLA, then presented her with the UCLA Medal, an award given to those who have not only earned academic and professional acclaim, but whose works also illustrates the highest ideals of UCLA.

Upon receiving the honor, Albright joined Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, and basketball coach John Wooden in the exclusive club of UCLA Medal recipients.

Albright’s keynote address focused on the difficulty of creating effective foreign policy in the face of rapid technological change and growing global interdependence. These two megatrends, as she described them, are difficult to address from a policy standpoint because they create their own contradictions. They both share the potential to foster international cooperation and understanding, she said, and yet in many instances they have hardened sectarian, ethnic and regional divisions.

Conscious of her audience of students, Albright described her remarks as centering on “the challenges facing the next generation of global leaders,” saying “given all that’s happening across the globe, we have an awful lot to talk about.

“The world’s a mess,” she summarized.

Despite these weighty pronouncements, her light-hearted nature, sense of humor and inspiring closing statements made it clear that she retains an optimistic outlook for the future. “Higher stakes mean greater rewards,” she said.

“The leaders of today and tomorrow have a chance to examine the options before us, discard what is broken, adapt what can be made to perform better and create new mechanisms where they are needed so that the global system benefits us all,” she said.

In his opening remarks, UCLA Luskin Dean Franklin D. Gilliam. Jr., stated that “The mission of our school is to change the world. We do that by training the next generation of transformative leaders.” Albright echoed Dean Gilliam’s sentiment, recognizing the potential of Luskin’s students to do just that.

Describing the leaders that the 21st century landscape requires, Albright stated that we need “leaders who bring a broadened understanding of their role…men and women who understand the connections between policy, planning, and social welfare…who recognize the need for an interdisciplinary approach to an interdependent world.

“The Luskin School is the kind of place in which those leaders will be forged,” she said.

Early in her address Albright noted that she was particularly looking forward to the question and answer portion of the evening’s event. She explained that since she is no longer in government she was excited to be able to actually answer the questions students and members of the public asked her, and her answers were nothing if not candid.

After a conversation with Dean Gilliam in which the two discussed a series of topics ranging from the Syrian conflict to the revelation of National Security Agency spying practices to her father’s mentorship of Condoleezza Rice, Albright fielded questions from the audience, the majority of which came from UCLA Luskin students.

The questions touched on specific policy issues as well as covering more general inquiries about the experience of being one of the few women in the corridors of power. Lance Cpl. J. Vincent Barcelona, a Marine Reservist and a third-year undergraduate student, asked Albright what force she would recommend President Obama deploy in Afghanistan as he prepares to withdraw combat troops by the end of 2014.

After thanking him for his service, Albright said she didn’t know of the exact number, but she knew it was important to protect the United States’ investment in the country. She also spoke of her own experience advising on military action, and how seriously she and others in her role take the responsibility of sending young people to war.

Vernessa Shih, a second-year Public Policy student, asked what advice Albright would give to young women interested in public service. Albright responded that she would encourage women to not be afraid to interrupt, because if an idea is important enough to be shared, it’s important enough to break up a conversation. She also passed along what she called her “most-quoted line:”

“There’s a special place in Hell for women who don’t help other women,” she said.

Members of the audience took part in the discussion on Twitter. See what they were saying:

Abrams’ Article Named Best of 2013

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An article by Social Welfare professor Laura Abrams has been named the best article of 2013 to be published in the academic journal Social Service Review.

Abrams’ article, “Juvenile Justice at a Crossroads: Science, Evidence, and Twenty-First Century Reform,” was selected as the winner of the Frank R. Breul Memorial Prize, named for a University of Chicago professor of social service administration. The award carries with it a $1,000 honorarium.

Weaving together a survey of the history of the juvenile justice system with a detailed narrative of recent efforts to use scientific advances to spur policy reforms, Abrams’ article argues that “social workers ought to play a more visible role” in shaping the future of the system. Only the input of those who work most closely with troubled youth — and their families, schools and neighborhoods — can help build a better system, she writes.

The journal’s editorial board heralded Abrams’ inclusion of historical context, admiring the article’s ability to drive “the profession to take stock and to rethink its current direction.”

Abrams, who chairs UCLA Luskin’s doctoral degree program in Social Welfare, most recently wrote Compassionate Confinement: A Year in the Life of Unit C, which draws on a decade of research and more than a year of fieldwork she and her co-author conducted at a juvenile justice facility in Minnesota. Reviews have recognized its “engaging narratives, rich observations, and descriptive depictions of human experiences.” In October 2013 Abrams was selected to deliver the Seabury Memorial Lecture at UC Berkeley.

Abrams’ article appeared in the December 2013 issue of Social Service Review, Vol. 87, No. 4, pp. 725-752.

Madeleine Albright to Deliver Luskin Lecture, Accept UCLA Medal

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Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright will present remarks and participate in a public discussion hosted by the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, Wednesday, Jan. 29, at 7 p.m. at UCLA’s Royce Hall.

Prior to her address, presented as part of the Meyer and Renee Luskin Lecture Series, Albright will receive the UCLA Medal, the university’s highest honor, from former UCLA Chancellor Albert Carnesale.

When President Bill Clinton appointed her as Secretary of State in 1997, Albright became the highest ranking woman in the history of the U.S. government. She led the country’s diplomatic corps during a dynamic period of expanding global engagement, advocating for democracy and human rights around the world. Her other government experience includes service as the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations and as a member of President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Council.

Today, Albright is chair of Albright Stonebridge Group, a global strategy firm, and chair of Albright Capital Management, an investment advisory firm focused on emerging markets. She is also the Mortara Endowed Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. She chairs both the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs and the Pew Global Attitudes Project and serves as president of the Truman Scholarship Foundation. In 2012 President Barack Obama honored her achievements with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

“It is a privilege for the campus to bestow the UCLA Medal upon Secretary Albright, whose tireless commitment to expanding democracy and ensuring human rights around the world are an inspiration to countless people,” said UCLA Chancellor Gene Block. “”With principled vision, she has been a trailblazer for women and a champion for diplomacy throughout her life.”

The UCLA Medal is bestowed on those with exceptionally distinguished academic and professional achievement whose bodies of work or contributions to society illustrate the highest ideals of UCLA. Recipients have included national and international leaders in government, education, science, industry and the arts. Previous recipients include Nobel laureates, President Bill Clinton, UCLA alumnus and Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, basketball coach John Wooden, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun and UCLA alumnus and astronaut Anna L. Fisher.

In her lecture, “The Next Generation of Global Leadership,” Albright will apply her unique perspective to the pressing questions of equality, democracy and leadership that face the next generation of diplomats, elected officials and public intellectuals. Her address will be followed by a question-and-answer period moderated by UCLA Luskin Dean Franklin D. Gilliam, Jr.

“The students and scholars at UCLA Luskin work to bring positive change to the world, and they stand ready to be a part of the changing face of leadership that is addressing challenges in an environment of rapidly shifting political and cultural landscapes,” Gilliam said. “I am delighted to welcome Secretary Albright to the UCLA community, and I look forward to a stimulating discussion.”

The event is the latest in the school’s signature Luskin Lecture Series, which has featured speakers including former Vermont Gov. and Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean, New York Police Commissioner William Bratton, and Children’s Defense Fund founder and president Marian Wright Edelman.

Please note: This event is sold out. Click here for more information.

Marian Wright Edelman Delivers Stirring Speech

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By Max Wynn
UCLA Luskin Student Writer 

Marian Wright Edelman, the second speaker in the 2013-14 UCLA Luskin Lecture Series, delivered a stirring call to action to the community members, city leaders, educators and students who had gathered to hear her speak on Wednesday.

Edelman is the founder of the Children’s Defense Fund, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, as well a veteran of the civil rights movement, and her speech at the California African American Museum emphasized that child advocacy and the struggle for social equity were inseparably linked.

Click here to see Edelman’s “The Art of Leadership video”

Edelman described child advocacy as a marathon, but there was a sense of urgency as she outlined the issues facing America’s children and the nation as a whole.

“If we don’t break up that cradle to prison pipeline we are going to lose the last 50, 60 years of social progress,” she said. “We’ve got to replace massive incarceration and private prisons with early child education and health care and good schools.

“If we don’t save our children we cannot save this nation’s future,” she said.

Having established the critical role of child advocacy in securing a stronger and more equitable United States, Edelman declared that it was time for a movement. She emphasized throughout the night that for the nation’s children to overcome the formidable obstacles they face, Americans must share a renewed dedication to serving the greater good.

In his introductory remarks, Duane Dennis, the executive director of the child advocacy group Pathways, and a commissioner of First 5 LA, explained that to really know Marian Wright Edelman is to understand the value she places in service.

“Service is the rent we pay for being, it is the very purpose of life and not something you do in your spare time” he read, quoting her words. He went on to say that “her service, her life, her very being has enriched us all.”

As the lecture drew to a close Edelman told the story of a dinner party Dr. Martin Luther King attended less than a year before his death. Dr. King shocked the guests at the party by stating that he feared that they were integrating into a burning house. He feared that the country was going to be undone by extreme materialism, extreme militarism, and extreme racism. All there was to be done, he said, was to go out there and be firemen, to sound the alarm.

“I want to tell you that it’s time to get out there and sound the alarm” Edelman said, her voice growing louder. “This is a dangerous time, but we can turn danger into hope.”

Following the lecture, as the audience filed out of the auditorium many stayed behind to chat or have their picture taken with Edelman. One audience member turned to her friend and, with a palpable sense of joy, compared talking to Edelman with meeting Dr. King.

The Luskin Lecture Series is designed to enhance public discourse on topics relevant to today’s societal needs. Bringing renowned public intellectuals and scholars together with national and local leaders, the Luskin Lecture Series presents issues that are changing the way our country addresses its most pressing problems. For more information on upcoming Luskin Lecture Series events, please click here.

The Art of Leadership: William Bratton

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Former Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department William J. Bratton is our latest in the series, “The Art of Leadership.”

Prior to speaking during the Luskin Lecture Series, Bratton discussed his ideas and thoughts on the subject of leadership, a subject that is important to UCLA Luskin. Leadership is one of the many things the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs emphasizes for its students with the Leadership Initiative, pairing tomorrow’s leaders with the leaders of today.

To see the Luskin School’s other Art of Leadership interviews, please visit our YouTube page.

 

Bratton Opens Luskin Lecture Series With Lively Talk

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By Max Wynn
UCLA Luskin Student Writer 

Former Los Angeles police chief William J. Bratton kicked off the new academic year’s UCLA Luskin Lecture Series last week with a speech that highlighted the ability of the police to be a force for positive social change. 

Community members and city leaders joined UCLA students, alumni and faculty at the Japanese American National Museum in Downtown Los Angeles to hear the former Chief speak. Bratton’s lecture linked the experiences of his 40 years of police work, during which he has also served as Police Commissioner in Boston and New York, with the evolution of the profession as a whole.

In no small part thanks to Chief Bratton’s contributions, policing has moved from responding to crimes that were committed, to preventing those crimes and improving the communities in which they occur. Crime prevention, and the importance of the relationship between the police and the community, were key elements of both his speech and the policies he implemented during his time as Los Angeles’ Chief of Police, which lasted from 2002-09.

LAPD Bureau Chief and UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs board member Gerald Chaleff said, during his introductory remarks, that these policies have “made the Los Angeles police department into a place where everyone else in law enforcement now comes to learn and be trained.”

Chief Bratton’s policies reduced crime in Los Angeles and repaired the reputation of the police department, but he believes that quality policing can have an even greater impact. 

“If we the police get it right in delivering public safety in a way that we build trust, in a way that improves race relationships, in a way that improves our efficiency,” he said, “then we are effectively a force multiplier for expanding on all the promises of democracy that go back to the creation of our country, and our constitution, and our Declaration of Independence.”

Throughout his speech Chief Bratton repeated his mantra “cops count, police matter”, and as his speech drew to a close he built upon this phrase, adding that “we can matter so much more if we do it the right way.”

Following the lecture Frank D. Gilliam Jr., Dean of the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, joined Chief Bratton on stage. The two had a conversation about a wide range of topics, among them terrorism, gun control, trends in crime statistics, and how to best enforce stop-and-frisk policies.

The Luskin Lecture Series continues with “A Conversation with Marian Wright Edelman.” The civil rights activist and founder of the Children’s Defense Fund will be speaking on December 4th at the California African American Museum. For more information and to RSVP, please click here.

The Luskin Lecture Series is designed to enhance public discourse on topics relevant to today’s societal needs. Bringing renowned public intellectuals and scholars together with national and local leaders, the Luskin Lecture Series presents issues that are changing the way our country addresses its most pressing problems. For more information on upcoming Luskin Lecture Series events, please click here.

 

Social Welfare Presentation — Fast Cars and Battle Scars: Understanding the Modern Combat Veteran and PTSD Army veteran Andrew Nicholls speaks on military social work

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By Ramin Rajaii
UCLA Luskin Student Writer

How is a military man supposed to assimilate back into society following a traumatic experience abroad?

UCLA senior Andrew Nicholls served eight years in the U.S. Army, including a year in Iraq, providing him with a unique perspective on the subject.

Now, he’s sharing his firsthand perspectives about the military and combat through a UCLA psychology course entitled, “Fast Cars and Battle Scars: Understanding the Modern Combat Veteran and PTSD,” the purpose for which is raising awareness of what it is like to serve and return to civilian society.

On Tuesday afternoon, Nicholls spoke on the subject at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, in a lunchtime chat presented by the Social Welfare department to promote military social work.

Nicholls led a discussion regarding the seminar, and various ways in which we can re-forge hope for war veterans.

Combat veterans make up 9% of the U.S. population. In their training, they must endure both extremely high mental and physical standards. As a result, returning to an entirely different world from which you have been disconnected is a near insurmountable task.

“You’ve been on an adrenaline rush the entire time,” Nicholls said, “Then you get home to a mundane life, and a lot of guys start racing motorcycles, skydiving and finding other thrill-seeking activities.”

Without such outlets, many veterans suffer from severe cases of PTSD – post-traumatic stress disorder, experiencing everything from their ears ringing spontaneously and tunnel vision to a sudden inability to breathe.

In the talk, Nicholls emphasized that civilians must recognize war veterans for having provided service to their countries, and in so doing, military members have “written a check up to and including their lives.”

Nicholls is teaching the course through the UCLA Undergraduate Student Initiated Education Program, which enables outstanding juniors and seniors in the College of Letters and Science to develop and teach a one-unit seminar, under faculty supervision.

The class also will cover the experience of basic training, unique issues facing female veterans and how military training prepares prospective soldiers to kill.

 

Debra Duardo: From Drop-Out to Drop-Out Preventer 2013 Social Welfare Alumna of the Year, Duardo, changed her life with an education and then helped others do the same

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It was more than being a teenage mother, a life-altering event in itself.

It was more than having a child barely after being allowed to have a driver’s license.

It was more than blinking hard, realizing you’re 15, a high school dropout, married, working at Kentucky Fried Chicken and soon thereafter, holding a baby in your arms.

It was the moments after, the days and weeks when the teenage Debra Duardo was standing there and a revolving door of specialists were telling her things she couldn’t comprehend.

That the child in her arms was born with a bubble on his back, identified as spina bifida, and would need nearly a dozen surgeries in his first year of life.

Somewhere between that joy of a baby and the agony of learning the infant had a neural tube defect, Debra Duardo needed to make another life-changing decision.

Hadn’t she made enough already?

***

The Los Angeles Unified School District took away the interim portion of Duardo’s title last week, completing a meteoric rise where she is now the Executive Director of Health and Human Services.

Hired directly out of her internship through the UCLA Luskin School’s Social Welfare department, Duardo began her careDebra Duardo, center, is joined by Dr. Joseph A. Nunn and Jorja Leap.er at Wilson High in Los Angeles as a Pupil Services and Attendance Counselor. The scope of the job focused on working with students who had attendance problems.

It would seem that would be a great fit for Duardo, who, as a teenager, attended high school for a week before deciding that earning money at Kentucky Fried Chicken was more important than an education.

But she was far from coming full circle.

Between her first position and her current one, Duardo has mostly worked with students who have attendance problems. In between, though, she served as the Assistant Principal of Le Conte Middle School — the same middle school she attended shortly before dropping out of high school for good.

“When you’re in a school as an assistant principal, you’re running the intervention program and Saturday school,” Duardo said. “You’re helping students and families who are under-represented and who are really struggling. You’re a counselor and you’re doing home visits and you truly understand that some families are living in garages without electricity or two entire families are living together.”

Several years later, Duardo was named the Director of Dropout Prevention and Recovery, something she could truly relate to.

“I think that’s my passion because I experienced it,” said Duardo, who wrote grants to bring back more than $12 million to maintain the Diploma Project, a program that places social workers at schools with high dropout rates to help bring back students to the classroom. “There are some, who are like me, and didn’t think school was interesting. Others drop out because they’re really smart and bored, some have issues with substance abuse or violence, or they have kids of their own.

“I wanted to touch students and tell them the only way to get ahead is to get an education.”

***

Bruce, the oldest of Duardo’s four children, is 33 years old now and lives independently. This is a major achievement, since the spina bifida left him a quadriplegic despite 10 operations before his first birthday.

It was his birth defect that forced Duardo to make that paramount life-changing decision. She needed an education.

“I was a teen mom and I was in the hospital and all these specialized doctors kept coming to see me,” Duardo said. “I didn’t understand everything they were saying and I thought ‘This child will have a lot of needs, I need an education.’”

And, it was the blessing of a newborn — not the meager paycheck from a fast food restaurant — that pushed Duardo to a classroom.

***

It took Duardo a decade to finish her high school education through Los Angeles City College.

Why so long?

Well, she was working, having given up frying the colonel’s chicken and taking a job with the Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women. She also had three more children with her husband, after they had eloped to Las Vegas when she was 15 and he was 19. By the time she finished, she applied to two schools — Cal State Los Angeles and UCLA.

“It was equidistant from where we lived,” she explained.

When she was accepted to attend class in Westwood, she was pleased. But it didn’t garner the I’m-a-high-school-dropout-and-now-I’m-going-to-a-premier-university excitement one would expect.

“I thought anybody who applied got in,” she says now, laughing at her naivety.

During her undergraduate years as a Chicano/a Studies and Women’s Studies double-major, Duardo continued to think of the women she came across at the Commission, women who were also social workers. She decided that the education she had put off for so long needed to continue.

She enrolled in UCLA Luskin’s Social Welfare program in 1994 and an internship led to her first job as an attendance counselor with LAUSD.

***

This is a spring full of milestones for Durado: She is on track to earn her doctorate from UCLA’s GraduateSchool of Education and Information Studies, and this past weekend she was named UCLA Luskin’s Department of Social Welfare Joseph A. Nunn Alumna of the Year, a highlight that earned her accolades across LAUSD.

In her current role she oversees a vast amount of projects — from student medical services, to nursing, mental health, pupil services and dropout education, among others — while also serving on the City of Los Angeles Commission of Children and Families, a designation given her by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

While she has reason to be amazed at her personal and professional journey, Duardo is happiest about something that won’t earn her a plaque.

“I raised four amazing human beings who are following their love,” she said. “They are good people who are very social and justice conscious.”

And, obviously, educated. They’re her “Killer B’s,” as she refers to them.

Following Bruce is Brandon, who graduated from Georgetown with a Master’s degree in sports management so he could create sports programs for physically disabled youth. The kind of programs his older brother could have participated in, had they previously existed.

Beverly earned her undergraduate degree at UC Berkeley and is now in a nursing program at Marymount University in Virginia. The youngest, Bianca, is in Israel on a five-month internship supporting girls who were sexually assaulted.

***

Duardo has a simple message:

“If I can do it with four kids, then anyone can do it.”

The best part of her creed is that she’s putting her past into someone else’s future. Working with Los Angeles-area teens to promote the benefits of an education, Duardo can always dip into her tale to get a message across.

“That continues to be my passion, to get kids to understand that they’re entitled to that education,” Duardo said. “When a student drops out of school, it affects all of us as a community because they’re more likely to be in poverty or depend on welfare. They’re more likely to be involved in criminal activities.

“I wish someone had been there to help explain what school is all about, and how much a diploma would mean to my future. That experience informs my work every day — I want to make sure every at-risk student in our district has the opportunity I never had.”