Irvine Fellow Creates New Course on Arts and Cultures in Los Angeles Urban Planning alumna Maria Rosario-Jackson's new course is open to students in the humanities and Luskin.

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By Alejandra Reyes-Velarde
UCLA Luskin student writer 

Urban planning alumna Maria Rosario Jackson (PhD ’96) hopes to break boundaries in what it means to be an urban planner for students with a new course titled, “Arts & Culture in Communities: Implications for Planning, Design, Policy and Comprehensive Community Revitalization.” The new course integrates two worlds in the Los Angeles community and in her classroom by including students from both UCLA Luskin and the humanities.

Students enrolled in the course are from all three departments of the Luskin School, as well as degree programs in the humanities such as Chicana & Chicano studies, English literature, and World Arts and Cultures, among others. Jackson hopes that through the diverse and interdisciplinary nature of the course, students can learn from each other’s perspectives and knowledge in their field.

Jackson, who is a presidential appointee to the National Council on the Arts and senior advisor to the arts and cultural program at the Kresge Foundation, is teaching the course as a part of her new Irvine Fellowship sponsored by the James Irvine Foundation for the 2014-2015 academic year. As part of the fellowship, she will also be either hosting a series of community workshops or will be part of a public lecture in the winter or spring.

Her course teaches students to understand how arts and cultures in low-income and historically marginalized communities distinguish them from one another and gives them each a unique ‘pulse.’ Jackson said she developed an interest in the identity of racial, ethnic and other misrepresented groups as a young person growing up in Los Angeles and as an undergraduate student, which led her to pursue the subject in her career.

“You don’t really understand group identity until you start getting into what their aesthetic expressions are. The arts has always been a text for understanding communities,” she said.

Jackson said she thinks that strategies to address the collective uplift of marginalized groups are inherently inadequate if they don’t include the element of arts and cultures, which is often the case.

“If you look around the world and throughout the ages, in strategies to disempower and oppress a people a first step is to strip a community of its ability to make meaning and express themselves aesthetically and authentically,” she said. “So how can it not be part of efforts to strengthen them?”

Jackson said the class discusses how cultural and artistic objects, events and places can be interpreted as assets in a community and can be better understood as part of a solution for issues in distressed urban areas .

“It is an opportunity to explore and interrogate some emerging trends in urban planning and public policy that relate to the arts and figuring out how they work within the context of wanting to achieve more equitable outcomes,” she said.

Jackson said there are examples all over the country of artists who are working at the intersection of art and community revitalization and are helping to change the environment and social fabric of marginalized and low-income communities.

“Artists often help residents, who may not see themselves as artists, carry out artistic activity. Whether it is songwriting or theater, in the process of being creatively involved, residents are often treating the themes they are concerned with—health issues, fear of displacement, aspirations for better schools and jobs,” Jackson said. “Artists also can work with or as non-profit developers creating spaces and buildings far more interesting and meaningful than places without consideration for culture.”

In order to give students the opportunity to experience cultural assets in communities, they were instructed to explore a neighborhood in Los Angeles. For the project, Luskin and humanities students were paired together to encourage them to see the city in a different way that they normally would. After immersing themselves in the community, students were instructed to create a presentation that reported its cultural assets and critiques the extent to which they are evident in community improvement strategies.

Several speakers in the fields of art, urban planning, public policy and others have visited the class to have a discussion with students about projects they are working on.

Jackson said she accepted this fellowship because she thinks it is fulfilling and inspiring to be able to contribute to UCLA, her alma mater, with a new generation of people who want to improve Los Angeles. She also said she thinks this is an opportunity to explore and reconnect with her home after being away from Los Angeles for almost 20 years.

Awards: Luskin alumna and student recognized for their work Megan Holmes (MSW '08) receives grant money for research in child welfare and success.

By Angel Ibanez
UCLA Luskin student writer 

A Luskin alumna and current doctoral student have each recently been awarded prestigious awards for research and demonstration of good work.

Megan Holmes MSW ’08, PhD ’12 was awarded a $200,000 federal grant by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Fellowships for Research in Child Maltreatment. Currently an assistant professor of Social Work at Case Western Reserve, Holmes is lead investigator of a study on why some children thrive despite being abused and witnessing violence in the home.

As part of a the grant, Holmes will focus on how witnessing domestic violence in the home impacts the academic performance from preschool to middle school. She believes the research could potentially help victims of abuse and neglect by learning why some children are more resilient to it and says such mistreatment is a prevalent public health concern.

Urban Planning doctoral student Anne Brown is the recipient of a WTS-OC graduate scholarship.

The prestigious scholarship is awarded by the Orange County chapter of the Women’s Transportation Seminar (WTS) whose mission is to build the future of transportation through the global advancement of women.

The scholarship recognizes the potential contributions of students and encourages bright new professionals to undertake careers in the area of transportation.

The scholarship will be presented at the WTS-OC Annual Awards Gala on Thursday, December 4, 2014.

 

LA Metro Planner Creates Works of Art in the City and On the Canvas Urban Planning alumnus Diego Cardoso draws inspiration from his love for urban spaces in his paintings and planning work.

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By Alejandra Reyes-Velarde
UCLA Luskin student writer 

Diego Cardoso (MAUP ’87) recalls being perplexed by his father’s photographs, which captured every day objects in his home in Ecuador. He would wonder why his father didn’t choose to photograph more beautiful images of things like the sunsets in Ecuador instead.

Since then, Cardoso’s work in the arts and in urban planning has led him to understand the beauty in every day sights, which he now illustrates in his own photography and paintings.

The UCLA alumnus has traveled the world, studying and drawing inspiration from his surroundings for his work as a painter, photographer and LA Metro planner.

As a Metro planner, Cardoso plans and allocates funding for projects in active transportation such as bicycle pedestrian programs for the Los Angeles County. Currently, he is planning for the gold line that will run through East Los Angeles and the San Gabriel Valley.

Though he is originally from Cuenca Ecuador, Cardoso has lived in Los Angeles most of his life and attended UCLA to study political science and Latin American studies as an undergraduate student. Upon graduating, Cardoso took a few years to travel to Europe and South America. While he was abroad he studied at the University of Stockholm and the Institute of Political Studies of Paris and taught subjects like architecture and research methods.

“I have always been interested in getting to know new cultures and new experiences,” Cardoso said. “Looking and experiencing the urban environments in Stockholm and Paris is how I really got interested in the way the urban environment influences people’s interests, culture and habits.”

After he returned to the U.S. from traveling abroad, Cardoso attended UCLA’s graduate school of architecture and planning (the planning department later moved to be housed in the Luskin School of Public Affairs). Through his graduate education and independent studies, Cardoso was able to rekindle his interest in photography. He began to photograph Los Angeles and try to explain the city through an artistic lens.

Cardoso’s experience as a student in Los Angeles and in Europe led him to focus on how transportation in Los Angeles conditions its citizens to their environment. He became curious about the specific relationships that exist in terms of how urban environments change the way people experience and create culture and the way they see themselves.

“Los Angeles itself is accommodated to the automobile. The infrastructure is highly reflective of having prioritized the automobile. What you do with buildings, the way we build, the building itself, design of roads, the time you spent driving, that’s how you experience the city. It has a huge influence in the culture and economics in Los Angeles,” he said.

Cardoso incorporates his experiences working with the LA Metro and studying issues of mobility with his work in photography and the arts. His artistic style is also inspired by a combination of artists’ styles, including Edward Hopper, David Hockney and George O’Keeffe with the color pallets in Van Gogh’s paintings.

His artwork generally depicts images of familiar streets, sidewalks and buildings in Los Angeles. Through his paintings, Cardoso hopes to capture the light of Los Angeles and make people feel as though they are present in the scene.

“In art, the ordinary can become extraordinary. You can see how images presented in certain ways can speak to you,” Cardoso said. “People assume you can open your eyes and you can see it, but in order for you to see, you need to expand that. You need to digest it in your mind and in your consciousness.”

Cardoso said his experience at UCLA’s graduate school of architecture and planning allowed him to refine his interests in the social science, which eventually expanded his use of photography and led him to become an artist.

He has enjoyed being able to contribute to building a more livable city and integrating the different aspects of his life. “Through my artwork and my career, I can narrow the gap between my existence as an intellectual as someone that works for a living and someone who wants to enjoy life,” he said.

Cardoso advises current urban planning students to take advantage of the time they have to learn everything they can. “Graduate school is a time to find yourself in the world, refine your thinking, and explore the world. Enjoy the moment in your life when you can think about thinking and how you can apply that to life,” he said.  

 

 

 

 

 

Season of Service Opens Discussion on Homelessness Luskin hosts series of panels to discuss homelessness in Los Angeles

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By Alejandra Reyes-Velarde
UCLA Luskin student writer

As part of the Season of Service series, which highlights projects that aid underserved populations, the Luskin School of Public Affairs hosted two recent events where panelists discussed how organizations can contribute to a solution to homelessness in the Los Angeles region.

Panelists included representatives of local organizations and of the UCLA community committed to changing the lives of those in chronic homelessness.

On Oct. 28 an event titled “Nowhere to Call Home” focused on the issue of homeless youth.

Though Los Angeles has the highest homeless population in the nation and there have been efforts to find solutions to veteran and chronic homelessness, homeless youth are often overlooked. Homeless youth are defined as individuals between the ages of 13 and 24 who live on the streets, in shelters or who “couchsurf” in homes of friends and family.

The panelists discussed the causes and challenges that homeless youth encounter in particular. For many young people, family conflicts lead them to run away from their homes. The discussion also included interesting facts such as 40% of homeless youth identify as LGBTQ.

Homeless youth are also less likely to welcome traditional services, often focused on the adult homeless population, which raises a need for services that target youth.

The discussion focused on efforts by service providers and housing agencies to move from transitional housing to permanent housing in a “Housing First” model, explained by Andrea Marchetti, the executive director of Jovenes, Inc.

Finding permanent housing solutions was also discussed on Tuesday night with a panel titled “New Ideas in Coordinated Entry.” The discussion centered on how the fairly new Coordinated Entry System process is a way to connect homeless populations to housing organizations in a quick and efficient way.

The Season of Service series will continue to explore solutions to these problems and other projects in upcoming events. On Thursday, Nov. 13, the Luskin School will be hosting an event on homelessness as a housing problem. This panel will look at housing from an urban planning prospective and explore the challenge of affordable housing.

On Saturday, Nov. 15, UCLA Luskin is participating in United Way’s HomeWalk 2014 – a 5K run/walk to end homelessness. It is not too late to join the UCLA Luskin team, donate and/or keep fundraising! For information on joining the UCLA Luskin team for HomeWalk 2014, contact Tammy Borrero at tborrero@luskin.ucla.edu. For more information on HomeWalk, visit www.homewalkla.org.

Public Policy students Elizabeth Swain and Edith Medina Huarita contributed to this story. 

 

Susanna Hecht Wins Award for Best Book on Latin American Environmental History Award granted for research in the social and political history of the Amazon basin.

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By Angel Ibanez
UCLA Luskin student writer

Dr. Susanna Hecht, professor of Urban Planning, has been honored as the winner of this year’s Elinor Melville Prize for the best book on Latin American Environmental History.

The Elinor Melville Prize, established in 2007, is a competitive award for the best book in English, French, Spanish or Portuguese published during the previous year on the “study of the mutual influences of social and natural processes in Latin America” and its scholarly contribution by the Conference on Latin American History.

Hecht’s book, The Scramble for the Amazon and the Lost Paradise of Euclides da Cunha, tells the story of the vast exploitation of the Amazon basin by the nineteenth century’s imperial and industrial powers for its rubber, the journey of one of Brazil’s most accomplished writers to unveil the inner workings of the exploitation along the way and the complex social, political and environmental history of the Amazon.

Dr. Hecht’s research has focused on political ecology and her results have had major implications for climate change adaptation, mitigation and longer term rethinking of longer-term resilience strategies.  She has also been funded by the NSF, NASA, MacArthur Foundation, ACLS Guggenheim and the Institute for Advanced studies among many other sources.

 

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.

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.

 

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.