Mentorship Program Gives Students Access to Practitioners

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By Angel Ibanez
UCLA Luskin student writer

For over 15 years, the Senior Fellows Leadership Program has been helping to prepare students for careers as change agents in the world by pairing them with leaders in the field as mentors.

Senior Fellows, who volunteer their time to meet with students across the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs’ three departments, work in diverse fields. Their backgrounds range from policy makers and business professionals to nonprofit executives and community leaders.

This year, the program welcomes six new senior fellows to the class. This includes: A. Barry Rand, CEO of the AARP; William Fujioka, Los Angeles County Chief Executive Officer; Mary McNeil, Senior Operations Officer and Team Lead of Global Governance Practice at the World Bank; Thomas Epstein, Vice President of Public Affairs, Blue Shield of California; Michael C. Camuñez, President and CEO of ManattJones Global Strategies; and Michelle G. Los Banos, Diplomat in Residence and foreign officer with the U.S. State Department.

For VC Powe, executive director of External Programs, the impressive resumes of the new senior fellows is a testament to the reputation of the program.

“We’re honored to have these new senior fellows in our program who will teach and guide our students,” she said. “But we’re also grateful to have a long list of returning fellows as well. Since 1998, we’ve had over 20 senior fellows return each year to participate again. It’s a tribute to how strongly they believe in it.”

Through year-long, one-on-one mentorships, students learn leadership and professional development skills, while learning about opportunities for internships and networking. Not to mention gaining solid career advice from people with highly successful careers.

City of Long Beach Police Chief Jim McDonnell has been a senior fellow for two years. His choice to participate another year is in part because he says meeting students benefits the mentors as well. Students bring a “fresh set of eyes” that can help a “mentor tap into fresh approaches they haven’t thought of before,” he said. In addition, mentorship can help to train the next generation of professionals in various fields that are making an impact.

McDonnell highly encourages his peers to participate in the program, which he says is “a model for what can be done when you take some of the best and the brightest and ensure they are going in the right direction in the field you are in.” He was the keynote speaker at this year’s annual Senior Fellows Breakfast where students meet their mentors for the first time.

Public Policy student Rhianon Anderson is in her second year as a participant of the Senior Fellows porgram. This year she has been paired with Steve Soboroff, president of the Los Angeles Police Commission.

Anderson said she has hoped to be matched with Soboroff because he is successful in both public sector and private sector work – which is what she wants to do when she graduates.

“This program gives you absolutely unparalleled access to practitioners in the field. It’s the kind of access that you don’t get just in the classroom,” she said. “It’s ideal to have these complementary components: academic learning in the classroom and access to practitioners from whom you learn real life lessons.”

First year student Keren Mahgerefteh said she knew about the program prior to enrolling, and made it a point to attend the informational session once she got in. After seeing the name of her Senior Fellow, Thomas Epstein, on the list of possible mentors, Mahgerefteh decided to apply. Epstein’s experience matched up with what she hopes to do in the future.

“I’m looking to see how it is to have a day on the job in health policy, see what Mr. Epstein does day-to-day and how I can get to where he is in the future,” she said.

This is Epstein’s (JD ’76) first year serving as a Senior Fellow and he said he’s looking forward having meaningful conversations with students. He has experience both as a government affairs and communications leader for the Public Broadcasting Service and the Disney Channel, as well as experience working in politics as former special assistant to President Bill Clinton.

“I hope to be able to learn from the students and hear what they’re thinking about and also be able to give them some career guidance,” he said. “I have very broad interests from health and politics to philanthropy, so hopefully it’s a wide range of things that we all discuss and learn from each other.”

Revitalizing Cities with ‘Urban Acupuncture’ Renowned planner Jaime Lerner shared his views on building cities in Brazil at the inaugural Global Public Affairs at UCLA Luskin lecture.

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You could feel the collective breath in the room hold for a brief moment as Jaime Lerner leaned in to the podium and began to speak.

In his calm even tone, Lerner the acclaimed architect, urban planner, and former mayor and governor of Curitaba, Brazil and Parana State credited for fathering a type of planning that is utilized by cities worldwide, gave a short presentation that was equal parts inspirational and educational.

At one moment Jaime waxed poetically on the beauty of cities in the lives of people. The next moment he was encouraging the audience of UCLA students from across campus that their ideas are good enough to be executed now. And another moment, in a review of some of the ways he revitalized areas of Curitaba, Brazil when he was mayor, he revealed the innovative mind of one who is far above the norm. It is no wonder he is the recipient of numerous international awards, and the list of his accomplishments – creating a subway system, building a theater in two months, coming up with a solution for city waste to where it achieved the highest rate of garbage separation in the world in 1989, and much more —  make for very chunky sentences.

Such is the heft that Lerner brought to the evening. It explains the enthusiasm with which his appearance on UCLA campus was received. The event on Oct. 28 titled “Urban Acupuncture & Sustainable L.A.” was co-sponsored by Global Public Affairs at UCLA Luskin, the Department of Urban Planning, the Healthy Campus Initiative, the Center for Brazilian Studies, the Lewis Center, and Island Press.

Lerner began his presentation by noting that in order to make a change in a city, there will need to be political will, solidarity, strategy, and good equation of co-responsibility – knowing how to transform a problem into a solution.

When it comes to building smart cities, Lerner said plans need to respect the identity and socio-diversity of the city.

“For me a city is a structure of living, working, moving, and leisure together,” he said. “When we separate urban functions, when we separate people by income, by ages, by religions, every time we want a more human city we’ll need to mix. Mix functions, uses, ages. Then it becomes more human.”

He explained that the city is the family portrait for the inhabitants, and just because one aspect is unseemly, it can’t just be cut off. Urban acupuncture – making focal pinpricks that revitalize cities quickly – help to provide new energy to cities during the long process of city planning.

Lerner encouraged the audience to reinvigorate their cities by putting their ideas into action.

“Innovation is starting,” he said. “If you try to have all the answers, you will never start.”

He added: “If you want creativity, cut one zero from your budget. If you want sustainability, cut two zeros. If you want solidarity, keep your own identity and respect other’s diversity.”

As for how those ideas can be used in Los Angeles, Lerner said his first innovation would be to start with simple demonstrative effects – building new transportation lines here and there, giving examples of improvements that citizens can grasp on to.

He noted that local planners and students probably already have great ideas for how to improve Los Angeles, but the question is how to organize the ideas

“First of all, I think it’s important to create a scenario – a broad view of the city that everyone or the large majority understands is desirable,” he said. “If they understand, then they will help you to make it happen.”

Lerner emphasized that communication is key to getting inhabitants of a city on board with a collective vision. He recommended starting by teaching children about their city

“Try to have them design their own city. Then they’ll understand their city and respect it better,” he said, adding that teaching children how to live in a city, such as educating them on how to cross streets safely, are only teaching them the rules of automobiles – not about the city itself.

He repeated again that city planning just need to be about starting.

“Planning is not magic…We have to understand we don’t have all the answers. Planning a city is like a trajectory where you start and then you have to leave some room for people to correct you if you’re not on the right track,” he said.

Panelist Seleta Reynolds, the general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, noted that Lerner’s concept of urban acupuncture is used in Los Angeles today. In an interview in the Washington Post, Mayor Eric Garcetti referenced the concept when promoting the “Great Streets” program to improve defined areas of Los Angeles.

Though the projects developed for the Great Streets initiative were conceived of my LADOT members, Reynolds noted that Lerner’s planning concepts are “inherent, embedded in a lot of the ideas that flow through the strategic plan.”

“Those ideas were so powerful that they really have spread so quickly and they’re not bleeding edge anymore,” Reynolds added. “They are the playbook for urban streets and big cities. There’s not really a question of if we should do those things, but how we should do those things.”

When asked about the level of traffic in Los Angeles hampering reliable bus schedules, Reynolds said that buses are impacted when in mixed flow with cars. While it is not a big cost issue to develop bus lanes, it is a design issue that is mired in problems of process, political will, and environmental review, she said.

In the meantime, Reynolds said she expects to see more shared-ride models to be created to provide flexible on-demand transit. However, she said government has a role in making sure there is not too much privatization of public transit.

Paula Daniels, former Senior Advisor to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and current senior fellow on Food Systems, Water, and Climate for the Office of Governor Jerry Brown, said delegations of Los Angeles officials visited Curitiba to see how the city had been revitalized.

“The concept of thinking of things more physiologically, which I think originated in Curitiba, is an important design construct. I do see how that pinprick in Curitiba is already radiating in other ways,” she said. She cited the improvements to the city’s storm water system as an example of a system developed from Lerner’s concepts.

L.A. Charitable Giving Still Lagging Behind Pre-Recession Levels The Center for Civil Society's new study, co-authored by Paul Ong, shows slow recovery in L.A. County's nonprofit sector

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Charitable giving in Los Angeles County has yet to return to pre-recession levels, according to a report released today by the Center for Civil Society at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.

Los Angeles County residents reported deducting $6.56 billion for charitable contributions from their federal taxes in 2012, 12.2 percent less than they reported before the start of the recession in 2006. This weak rebound in giving is consistent with the experiences of individual nonprofit and philanthropic leaders, according to the report.

The State of Donations: Individual Charitable Giving in Los Angeles (PDF) shows that overall support for Los Angeles nonprofit organizations, including individual giving, has seen incremental growth after a significant dip following the 2007 recession. This recovery, however, has been inconsistent. There is considerable volatility in major gifts and general giving patterns and the effects of the recovery are not being evenly distributed.

“Charitable giving is greatly influenced by economic expansions and contractions,” said Urban Planning professor Paul Ong, one of the authors of the survey. “Some trends are discouraging, as large swaths of the county are underperforming in terms of charitable giving. But some encouraging trends — such as improved giving among foreign-born residents — show that there could be a silver lining.”

The study shows that naturalized citizens are more likely to make contributions than the U.S.-born population, and by the 20-year mark of residence, immigrants are just as likely to give as U.S. natives.

Published with support from the Annenberg Foundation, The State of Donations is the latest annual State of the Los Angeles Nonprofit Sector Report produced by the Center. Previous reports have focused on rising demands and falling revenues of human services nonprofits over the past decade. The first State of the Sector report was published in 2002.

“There is great pressure on nonprofit organizations to raise more money through individual donations,” said Bill Parent, acting director of the Center for Civil Society. “This report helps show how many factors — the generational transfer of wealth, changing views of philanthropy, the squeeze of the middle class, growing Latino and Asian populations, and uneven economic growth across the county — are changing existing patterns of generosity.”

Among the report’s other findings:

  • Forty percent of Los Angeles residents report that they donate to charity, including donations to and through religious organizations.
  • Diversity matters, but it is complicated. Of the major racial and ethnic groups, whites and Asians in Los Angeles are more likely to give than African Americans and Latinos. There is, however, considerable variation within those groups — the more immigrants are incorporated into an area, for example, the more likely they are to give.
  • In Los Angeles County, older, more educated and wealthier populations are more likely to give.
  • Paradoxically, the highest levels of generosity — measured as the percentage of the population that donates to charity and the share of income donated — can be found in the county’s most and least wealthy neighborhoods.
  • In terms of major gifts, Los Angeles nonprofits are vying for the outsize generosity of a very small percentage of high net worth households, which are estimated to provide half of all individual giving to nonprofits.
  • Individual giving patterns reflect growing inequality. High net worth households are contributing more in actual dollars but less in terms of the percentage of their income donated to charity. In terms of major gifts over $1 million, higher education has the most recipients as well as donors.
  • Los Angeles is a key player in major giving, with more dollars flowing out of the area than are coming in.
  • Between 2006 and 2012, county residents who itemized their deductions contributed on average almost $1,500 to charitable causes, but that giving diminished significantly after 2007. Between 2006 and 2008, total tax-deductible contributions declined by $1.28 billion for the county as a whole, which translates to a decline of roughly $350 per tax filer.

“It is our hope that greater awareness of these trends might encourage more giving as well as more thoughtful giving across Los Angeles,” Parent said.

Highlights from The State of Donation: Individual Charitable Giving in Los Angeles will be presented during an October 28 event at the Center for Civil Society’s annual conference on the state of the Los Angeles nonprofit sector at the Skirball Center.

The entire report is available here.

 

Youth Internet Safety: Risks, Responses, and Research Recommendations Professor John Villasenor identifies gaps in existing knowledge concerning internet safety.

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176193280_0By Luskin Center for Innovation staff

As Internet use by children and teenagers increases, so do concerns about their online safety. Providing a safe environment requires an in-depth understanding of the types and prevalence of online risks young Internet users face, as well as the potential solutions for mitigating risks.

A team at the Luskin Center led by Public Policy professor John Villasenor conducted a review of existing research on online safety and then identified knowledge gaps and recommendations for specific areas of research to further the policy dialogue regarding online safety. These findings and recommendations are summarized in a paper released today by the Brookings Institution.

This paper is timely because, despite the significant amount of research on these risks, improving youth Internet safety remains a challenge. In part, this is because definitions of terms and categories relevant to online safety, such as “cyberbullying,” often vary, making the comparison of statistics and findings among sources imprecise. In addition, there are complex overlaps among different online safety subtopics.

The paper was authored by John Villasenor, graduate student Adina Farrukh and researcher Rebecca Sadwick. Read the full paper here.

 

Luskin Lecture Spurs Conversation on Poverty in America Event featured screening of documentary "American Winter" followed by panel discussion.

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By Alejandra Reyes-Velarde
UCLA Luskin student writer

On Tuesday, the Luskin School of Public Affairs held its first Luskin Lecture featuring a film screening and panel discussion about middle class Americans falling into poverty after the recession of 2008.

The documentary, “American Winter” attempted to dispel perceptions and stereotypes about people who face poverty. The film follows the lives of eight families in their struggle to search for jobs and resources as their financial debts continued to grow, making homelessness a possibility for their futures.

After the screening, Film Director Joe Gantz, Housing Advocate with Volunteers of America Orlando Ward, and Social Welfare professor Laura Abrams sat down with moderator Val Zavala of KCET to discussed the themes of the film with the audience.

Ward, who was homeless and spent 15 years on Skid Row before going on to become the Vice President of Operations at Midnight Mission said he found the film emotionally satisfying and well informed in pointing to solutions.

“(Being homeless) is the most dehumanizing situation to be in. The film captured the fact that these are people that can be your friends, your neighbors or your family,” Ward said.

Having lived with these families while making the film, Gantz said he saw the stress they went through to maintain basic needs like paying electric bills and feeding their kids.

“I think what you see in this film is that these myths about it being the people’s fault are anything but true. These families are incredibly resourceful and hard working,” Gantz said.

Gantz is known for being able to bring to light very personal and intimate moments between the people in the films. In American Winter, some of the most emotional moments for the audience and the panel included those depicting the children’s emotional turmoil over their parents’ wellbeing or how they might support their own families in the future.

Professor Abrams felt deeply moved by the children and said it highlighted the important topic of childhood development.

“They were hopeful, compassionate and empathetic…Although they were the most endearing to me, I felt their having to worry about their parents well-being was very sad,” she said. “On the more intellectual side, we know that cumulative stresses add up, affecting their neurological development and coping strategies. We have to think about where these children are going to be 20 to 30 years from now.”

The film addressed topics on a political level as well, using shocking statistics throughout the documentary revealing how money in America is distributed.

“The money is going to the top 10% and the middle class is disappearing. On top of that, new laws make it possible to pour unlimited amounts of money into elections. You begin to wonder if this system is able to be called democracy,” Gantz said.

Although he thinks the federal response to this crisis did some good, Gantz said he was not struck by the U.S. reaching out empathically to those in need. Instead, services and programs that benefited those in need were cut and those families were left in the dark, he said.

Ward said he does not think the American government can solve these types of problems on their own. Instead, we have to look at the third side and understand the personal responsibility in the situation, he said.

“The film was about the fragility of hope. I think the film captured where we are as a country right now. I think a lot of us were seeing the pillars this country was built on was hope.”

Professor Abrams concluded the event by noting that this type of discussion and the issues presented are exactly the type that UCLA Luskin programs aim to address. This event was part of the School’s “Season of Service” that is highlighting underserved populations and the many ways students, faculty, staff and alumni are working to build a better world.

Additional upcoming Season of Service events:

Tuesday, Oct. 28:

Tuesday, Nov. 4:

  • A discussion on Coordinated Entry Systems will be held at 5:30pm in the Public Affairs Building.

A highlight of the Season of Service is on Saturday, Nov. 15 when the Luskin School participates in the 2014 United Way Homewalk at Exposition Park – walking and running to end homelessness.

Staying Power: Social Welfare Alumni Making a Difference on Skid Row After 20 years, the Field Education module on Skid Row continues to inspire students to help end homelessness.

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Before Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez catapulted Nathaniel Ayers into the public eye and before film crews descended on the streets of downtown LA to film “The Soloist,” there were UCLA Social Welfare students on Skid Row.

For the past 20 years, first year Social Welfare master’s students have visited Los Angeles’ infamous Skid Row – the 50-block area in downtown Los Angeles that contains the highest concentration of homelessness in America – as part of their field education.

The goal for the Skid Row module, which was created in 1994 by field faculty member Mary Brent Wehrli, is to expose students to the needs of the homeless population and teach them the role of social workers in the community. Back then former field education director Joseph Nunn called it “one of the most meaningful learning experiences offered” to first-year students. Now in its twentieth year, its legacy continues to be significant.

“Mary Brent had the foresight to do this before Skid Row received any attention from the general public and policy makers,” said Toby Hur, UCLA field faculty member who picked up the torch after Wehrli’s retirement in 2004. “Twenty years ago, pre-media coverage, it wasn’t a place people went.” After Wehrli started taking students to Skid Row, many of them never left.

In 1999, when Wehrli was named California’s Social Welfare Practitioner of the Year, a UCLA news story credited the module – which consists of an orientation at the Society of St. Vincent de Paul’s Cardinal Manning Center (which has hosted the module since its inception), a walk through Skid Row, and visits to several agencies – for putting UCLA students in the Skid Row community. “As a direct result of Wehrli’s efforts, two department alumni now work at Skid Row agencies and four to six master’s students intern there each year,” the story read.

Today, Hur said the unique immersion experience continues to launch the careers of many UCLA alumni and embed them in a community with a lot of needs.


Shannon Murray talks with Case Manager Jeremiah Curry at the Watts Labor Community Action Committee.

Shannon Murray (MSW ’96), program director of Homeless and Housing Services at the Watts Labor Community Action Committee, was in the first class to participate in the Skid Row module. Although she’d never worked with the homeless population before the tour, Murray remembers telling a friend that she’d be open to doing her placement there.

“It was the sense of community,” Murray said when asked what she experienced on the tour that drew her to Skid Row. “There’s a lot of heart and spirit there and I had a sense that this is where social work should be.”

Murray ended up doing her first year placement at the Cardinal Manning Center. That summer, she, along with Wehrli and Joan Sotiros, the director of Cardinal Manning at the time, started a lunchtime seminar series for interns and new staff in the area to help them understand the unique needs and the organizations that affect the Skid Row community. The program is now in its 18th year, with the Cardinal Manning Center in consultation with the Social Welfare department coordinating the series presentations and gathering all area interns.

After graduation, Murray returned to Cardinal Manning and spent six years there before moving to other Skid Row agencies, including LAMP Community. She also helped conduct the Skid Row tours for UCLA students for 15 years.

“We were actually able to start changing the face of social work on Skid Row,” Murray said. “There’s a lot of social work that happens there, but in the form of volunteerism and charity. We started bringing in the professionalism of social work, and began developing programs and policy on a macro level.”

Although she no longer works with the Skid Row population, Murray is still invested in solving the issue of homelessness from her office in Watts. She credits Wehrli for introducing her to the idea of social justice work that looks at the bigger picture.

Jenn Ma-Pham
Jenn Ma-Pham in her office at the Downtown Women’s Center.

Like Murray, Jenn Ma-Pham (MSW ’07) had never worked with the homeless population before she took the Skid Row module in 2005 and completed her first year placement at the Cardinal Manning Center. She was drawn to the area because of its clear sense of community and the strength and resilience amongst the community members.

After a few years working in legislation pertaining to homelessness and as a program developer for women who experience severe mental illness and have been incarcerated, Ma-Pham returned to Skid Row as Director of Housing and Clinical Health Services at the Downtown Women’s Center. Together with three other UCLA Social Welfare alumna (Stephanie Chen MSW/MPH ’13; Sarah Mitchell MSW ’08; and Penelope Oberhardt MSW ’08), Ma-Pham oversees the program that serves over 4,000 women a year.

Ma-Pham agrees that there is much more collaboration between agencies than there has ever been, and agencies are working more closely with the city, county and federal goverment. There are also efforts to connect people to housing faster and to work together to find community solutions.

The Skid Row module now includes a stop at the Downtown Women’s Center where Ma-Pham gets to speak to new students. She said she hopes students will learn to find what they’re passionate about and to make the most of their field work.

“When I think about what has made the alums that work here successful, it’s that they work very hard and very passionately,” she said. “It’s important for a social worker to find his or her passion and then be relentless about it. In addition to academics, a lot of social work is about experience. Don’t lose sight of what you’re supposed to learn in the field. This is where you’re going to learn the skills that are going to take you far.”

Njambi Kingori gives a brief tour of the Cardinal Manning Center transitional shelter for men on Skid Row.

For Njambi Kingori (MSW ’09), deputy director of Social Services at the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, the Skid Row module was an eye opening experience. A native of Kenya, she had only been living in the United States for a short time before enrolling at UCLA, so she was not familiar with Los Angeles.

“I had seen poverty before in Kenya and other countries, but seeing this kind of community setting in the U.S., a country that provides financial aid to other countries, was shocking,” Kingori said. “Walking through the streets and hearing people’s stories and what the agencies do was a big learning curve for me in recognizing the disparity between the different parts of the city and the need for finding solutions to end homelessness.”

Prior to her graduate studies, Kingori had worked for a non-profit in Kenya doing international refugee resettlement for people displaced by civil wars and were homeless as a result.

When she started her first year placement at Cardinal Manning Center, she was eager to learn the causes of homelessness in Los Angeles and develop new tools for social work in a new environment. She had chosen to come to UCLA for her degree because of its reputation. Through her research of schools, she met with alumni who told her that the field education faculty provided students with a lot of support and opportunities during placement. For Kingori, that was the key.

Advice for Students
Alumni working on Skid Row have the following advice for students:Shannon Murray
“Try to put aside your preconceived notions and be open to the experience. Be aware and be open. Be careful what you’re getting into, because it can be addicting! The clients we work with every day make it worth it. Celebrate and embrace the small victories. Patience is a virtue.”Njambi Kingori
“Avoid judging your clients’ circumstance and thought process – it helps with relationship building and understanding the client from where they are at. Be patient and very respectful. Be open to learning opportunities provided by your school and placement agencies. Share your ideas – this is a field where innovative and creative ideas will bring viable and lasting solutions to social problems.”Jenn Ma-Pham
“Be flexible. Learn to navigate the process and be patient with it. I think students should really figure out what their passions are. This is your time to experiment, to find what drives you and find out what you’re good at. The only way you do that is to mess up, so I really encourage you to make mistakes so you can learn from them.”

View videos from the Department of Social Welfare on working with homelessness.

“I enjoyed my first year placement so much that after it was over I told Joan Sotiros that I wanted to come back and work for her,” Kingori said. “Joan told me that if they had an opening, and I was still interested in working with them after my studies, then I would have a place.”

This is now Kingori’s fifth year at Cardinal Manning Center since graduation (she held roles as a social worker, program coordinator and now deputy director), and each year she participates in orientations and debriefings for new students doing the Skid Row module.

Kingori sees a lot of progress on Skid Row as the conversation has turned toward permanent supportive housing and services for the homeless. There is more collaboration between agencies and the amount of information about Skid Row has increased immensely, she said.

“When I started my internship as a first year student, if you Googled the word ‘Skid Row,’ I think you would get less than 20 hits and most of them were about a rock band,” Kingori said.“Now there is tons of information.”

Still, there is a lot of work to be done to find affordable and supportive housing for the homeless. Kingori said she often tells students on the tour that she is not certain whether homelessness will end in her lifetime due to its sociopolitical and economic complexities. But the incremental progress that is being made each year keeps her optimistic that there is a solution.

“If I can help in shaping policy on homelessness or getting clients to appropriate housing, I’ve played my small part,” she said.

This fall, the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs is highlighting the myriad ways students, faculty, staff and alumni are working to build a better world — one person, one project, one place at a time. This week the School kicks off its “Season of Service” with the first Luskin Lecture of the year hosted in partnership with Volunteers of America.

The Luskin Lecture features a screening of the documentary film American Winter about middle class families falling into poverty and their search for help. The film has proven to be a tool in helping to shift dialogue and perceptions about poverty, as it challenges stereotypes about who turns to the social safety net for help and why. Following the screening will be a discussion with film director Joe Gantz, housing advocate Orlando Ward, and Social Welfare professor Laura Abrams on how to close the holes in the safety net and bring millions of Americans in from the cold. RSVP here.

Additional upcoming Season of Service events:

Tuesday, Oct. 28:

Tuesday, Nov. 4:

  • A discussion on Coordinated Entry Systems will be held at 5:30pm in the Public Affairs Building.

A highlight of the Season of Service is on Saturday, Nov. 15 when the Luskin School participates in the 2014 United Way Homewalk at Exposition Park – walking and running to end homelessness.

Alumni Gather to Remember the Early Days of Social Welfare at UCLA Graduates from the 1950s and 1960s were honored at a luncheon celebration bridging then and now

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For some UCLA alumni that gathered at the Faculty Center on Tuesday, being on campus brought up memories of crossing the arroyo bridge to classes in Quonset huts, just part of life as graduate students at the “Southern Branch” of the University of California.

But for the 28 alumni that came for a reunion luncheon, all former students that graduated from UCLA’s School of Social Welfare between 1950 and 1969, the return to Westwood was a chance to see bigger changes that have happened since the early days of the program. Student enrollment of a few dozen has grown to more than 200 students this year. Faculty positions have doubled and then doubled again, from only two tenured professors in the early 1950s to 13 today, with an additional seven field faculty providing experiential training. A focus on clinical practice, or “micro” orientation, has widened to encompass consideration of “macro” issues such as community development and advocacy.

In the face of these changes, however, the department celebration made clear that some things have remained the same. As they sat with current students, staff and members of the faculty, the common threads in the field became evident.

“The school kept saying ‘Don’t focus, be open'” when she was a student, Ruth Sugerman MSW ’67 (above right) said. “Social workers can do so many interesting things. I was really inspired by the school of social work telling me that once I had my degree it was just a start.”

For Sugerman, her UCLA education “was just a wonderful opportunity for me to grow and develop as a social worker and a person.”

Sophia Poster MSW ’52 (below right) agreed. “Everything I learned at UCLA was wonderful to me,” she said. “I was so exhilarated.”

Poster believes that students following her are on a similarly exciting journey. “If you’re inspired to be a social worker it’s one of the greatest experiences you’ll have, dealing with people and their ‘inner self'” she said. “How many of us know the other person in ourselves? A social worker can do that.”

Social work has been taught at UCLA for 67 years, and includes more than 3,300 alumni in master’s and doctoral programs of Social Welfare. Luncheon attendees learned other key facts from Department Chair Todd Franke and UCLA Luskin Dean Franklin D. Gilliam Jr., Second-year student Dawnette Anderson also delivered remarks at the event, sharing her experience as a foster youth and describing her path to graduate study.

To Anderson and her fellow students, Arthur Nelson MSW ’57 offered some straightforward words of encouragement: “There’s a lot that needs to be done in our society. The UCLA Department of Social Welfare prepares you very well for what is ahead of you.”

More photos from the event

The Do’s and Don’ts of Professional Etiquette Urban Planning alumnus Jonathan P. Bell will lead a workshop for all UCLA Luskin students on October 20.

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By Alejandra Reyes-Velarde, UCLA Luskin student writer

Urban Planning alumnus Jonathan Pacheco Bell will be leading a professional etiquette workshop on Oct. 20 for UCLA Luskin students seeking to make themselves more competitive in the job market.

Bell, who earned his masters degree in urban planning in 2005, has worked in the field for seven years. He is currently working for the Advance Planning Division of the County of Los Angeles’ Department of Regional Planning. He will share his employment experiences and cover topics like communication, networking and nonverbal cues.

“Proper professional etiquette will make or break your chances with potential employers,” Bell said. “This should seem obvious, yet some students discount the importance of etiquette and end up being memorable for the wrong reasons.”

The workshop, which Bell said will cover the “do’s and don’ts of professional etiquette,” aims to give students an advantage in obtaining jobs, internships, scholarships and other work experiences that will help them be successful in the workforce.

Career Services director Michelle Anderson said it is extremely helpful for students to know the rules of etiquette when entering the professional world and even when encountering opportunities while they are in school.

“Students are interacting with high-level individuals and having professional exchanges everyday. Whether it is speaking with a professor and employers or attending events or speeches, it is important for students to know what to do and how to present themselves,” Anderson said.

The workshop will be held from 4-6 p.m. in room 2343 in the Luskin School of Public Affairs. Food will be provided for attendees. The workshop is mandatory for students in the Alumni Leader’s Academy, but students seeking summer jobs or internships are strongly encouraged to attend. RSVP to careers@luskin.ucla.edu.

Is Revival of Downtown L.A. Real? Urban Planning professor Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris and other panelists agree that balance of power is shifting.

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By Sarah Rothbard/Zocalo Public Square

This year, GQ called downtown Los Angeles “America’s next great city” and “the cool capital of America.”  The New York Times included downtown on its list of “52 Places to Go in 2014.” At a “Thinking L.A.” event copresented by UCLA and Zocalo Public Square at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Grand Avenue, a panel of people who have developed, designed, lived, worked and played downtown discussed whether downtown actually lives up to this (admittedly East Coast) hype.

Award-winning architect and UCLA professor Thom Mayne cautioned against the hype. The notion of “downtown,” he said “is already a misnomer” for Los Angeles, a county of many different cities and more than 10 million people. “‘Downtown,’ as a word, connotes a singular,” said Mayne, pointing to what the word means in cities like Kansas City, Cleveland and Chicago. But in L.A., downtown is just one of a number of downtowns.

Zocalo Public Square
Two UCLA professors, architect Thom Mayne and urban planner Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, took part in an Oct. 14 panel discussion hosted by UCLA and Zocalo Public Square.

Los Angeles Times arts and entertainment editor Laurie Ochoa disagreed. Yes, L.A. has a lot of neighborhoods and tribes; she recalled that when the L.A. Weekly’s offices moved from Hollywood to Culver City, her colleagues “were tearing their hair out” over the identity crisis of becoming Westsiders. “To me, it’s one city,” she said. L.A. is united by its theaters, restaurants, its people. And downtown has long been a cultural hub, she said. Before there was Disney Hall, there was the Music Center.

Mayne recalled that for a long time, he lived in Venice and never went downtown. Crossing the 405 was like getting through the DMZ in Korea.

Ochoa again disagreed: Downtown’s not “suddenly interesting,” she said. “It’s always been interesting.” For a long time, only a certain kind of person lived downtown. Now it’s a destination for all sorts of people.

New York Times national correspondent Jennifer Medina, the evening’s moderator, asked the panelists to define success for downtown.

UCLA urban planning professor Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris said that success is having people live, work and play downtown — transforming it into a place with life on the weekends and after-work hours. Great cities have great downtowns, she said. Downtown is the symbolic heart of Los Angeles, which is why its success is so meaningful.

Downtown is just one of the hearts of L.A., Mayne added. “I think it can be absolutely successful without being dominant.”

Who exactly are the people living and playing downtown? Medina asked restaurateur Bill Chait, who owns businesses across the city, if he notices a difference between customers at his downtown restaurants versus his Westside restaurants.

His downtown clientele is “incredibly eclectic,” said Chait. They’re younger, more urban and mobile. Chait, who grew up on the Westside, recalled that he resisted opening restaurants downtown for years. It was strictly a daytime environment, he said. There wasn’t enough of a residential population to sustain a restaurant, he thought at the time. In 2009, however, he opened up Rivera near the new L.A. Live complex, and other restaurants followed.

Over the past five years, downtown has become a center for people across the eastern part of Los Angeles, said Chait. Yet for all its architectural glory, noted Mayne, there was not a soul on foot on Grand Avenue at 7 p.m.

Loukaitou-Sideris said that architecture remains a hurdle for downtown. There’s been an emphasis on creating architectural masterpieces, but not on what’s happening on the street. The buildings and streets “don’t talk to one another” or link to one another, said the urban planning professor.

One of Medina’s favorite places downtown is Grand Central Market, which also epitomizes downtown’s current transition. At Grand Central, she said, you can pay $6 for a latte or $6 for a dinner, including a beer. How can downtown deal with the tension between preservation and creation?

Chait said that a lot of downtown development is going in the right direction because more people and builders are reclaiming rather than knocking down and rebuilding.

The challenge also lies in preserving downtown’s social diversity, said Loukaitou-Sideris, making sure it doesn’t turn into another Westside.

However, Mayne said that changing the perception of downtown has to start on the upper end. If wealthy people come into the area, everyone else will follow. Building low-income housing is the last thing you do — not the starting point, he said.

Ochoa said a flow between high and low was needed, illustrated by the availability of expensive coffee and $2 gorditas at Grand Central Market, and the skateboarders at the Caltrans building Mayne designed on Main Street.

Chait said that downtown’s evolution is being driven by renters rather than by super-wealthy buyers. You’re never going to gentrify all of downtown, he said. The challenge is to create housing for the people who already live there instead of relocating them.

At what point, asked Medina, will downtown start attracting people over age 45?

It already is, said Chait — at least to eat. On a Saturday night at his restaurant Bestia in the arts district, there’s a moment when you’ll see people from the Westside: right before dark.

The balance of political power is shifting, said the panelists, pointing to Los Angeles City Councilman Jose Huizar, who represents downtown and has a great deal of clout, particularly when it comes to urban planning.

In the question-and-answer session, an audience member asked the panel what can be done to make downtown feel safer.

Loukaitou-Sideris said that vibrant, more populated streets mean fewer opportunities for crime. She did a study of bus stops around L.A. and found that the 10 most dangerous stops were downtown — and they were often just a few feet away from stops on the same line with no crime. An open storefront adjacent to the stop versus an empty lot made all the difference, she said.

Another audience member asked the panelists to weigh in on downtown’s Grand Park. It feels “kind of one-dimensional,” the individual said. Is it going to be a truly great, central public space?

It’s not finished yet, said Ochoa, who was echoed by Loukaitou-Sideris.

“Give it a few years,” said Loukaitou-Sideris. It’s still quite sterile, but people — rather than design and planning — may change it.

Thinking L.A. is a partnership of UCLA and Zócalo Public Square. This piece has been adapted from one running on the Zocalo Public Square website.

 

Why Blaming Health Care Workers Who Get Ebola Is Wrong Public policy professor John Villasenor argues that data and statistical methods can protect health workers.

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Since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed on Oct. 12 that a Texas health care worker tested positive for Ebola, media outlets have reported that health officials are now “scrambling” to find out how she contracted the disease despite wearing protective gear. According to the head of the CDC, the infection was caused by a “breach in protocol” that officials are working to identify.

Public Policy professor John Villasenor argues in an article published on Forbes.com that while working to identify weak links in protocol is important, blaming the health worker for breaching protocol ignores the fact that, statistically, having multiple contacts with Ebola patients will lead to an inevitable “limited number of transmissions to health workers.”

He writes:

“This is because if you do something once that has a very low probability of a very negative consequence, your risks of harm are low. But if you repeat that activity many times, the laws of probability—or more specifically, a formula called the “binomial distribution”—will eventually catch up with you.

For example, consider an activity that, each time you do it, has a 1% chance of exposing you to a highly dangerous chemical. If you do it once, you have a 1% chance of exposure. If you do it twice, your chances of at least one exposure are slightly under 2%. After 20 times, you have an 18% chance of at least one exposure, and after 69 times the exposure probability crosses above 50%. After 250 times, the odds of exposure are about 92%. And the exposure odds top 99% after about 460 times.

In other words, even if the probabilities are strongly stacked in your favor if you do the activity only once, with repetition the probabilities flip against you.”

Villasenor ends his article by offering three recommendations for how to analyze this situation, including avoiding assumptions. You can read the full article here.

In another piece published in Slate on Oct. 15, Villasenor asserts that big data should be used as a “core component of the strategy” to protect health workers from Ebola exposure. Big data and statistical methods are vital in analyzing how Ebola can spread and shouldn’t be treated as an afterthought, he says.

Villasenor urges health officials to collect data about interactions between health workers and Ebola patients, and develop protocol for simulations so that health workers can practice using and removing protective gear.

He concludes:

“Big data and statistics alone aren’t going to keep health workers safe from Ebola. But they can certainly help. If we are going to ask health workers to repeatedly step into rooms with patients contagious with a virus that now appears to have a fatality rate of about 70 percent, we have the obligation to do everything possible to minimize the chances that they might be exposed. And today, we’re not doing nearly enough.”