Astor Comments on CNN About Young Child With Bullet-Proof Backpack

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UCLA Luskin Social Welfare Professor Ron Avi Astor commented in a CNN video (starting at 2 min. 38 sec.) about an Oklahoma mom who bought her young son a bullet-proof backpack and taught him how to use it. The viral video showing her son how to use it garnered numerous reactions from parents and experts. “I don’t blame the parents; parents are right to be afraid. But, what we do about [violence], or where we go from here needs to be looked at very carefully,” Astor said. He advises that research shows prevention is favored over increased security measures at schools and suggests that parents consult websites for organizations such as the National Association of School Psychologists. “Having especially very young children walking around thinking that they may be shot at any given moment could create a lot of anxiety, a lot of depression, a lot of fear that’s unneeded and maybe not justified because there’s other ways to become safe,” Astor said.

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Weekend Event Harnesses the Power of Service Public Policy hosts aspiring public servants from across America for workshops focusing on policy issues and solutions

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Twenty-nine undergraduates from across the nation came to UCLA in mid-August for three days of study and discussion as UCLA Luskin Public Policy returned to in-person programming for its third Public Service Weekend.

“Harness the Power of Action-Oriented Public Service” provided aspiring public servants an in-depth look at a diverse array of career opportunities, policy developments, and social issues such as environmental justice, inequality, homelessness and immigration reform.

The program, which was produced in cooperation with the not-for-profit Public Policy and International Affairs (PPIA) organization, included a tour of a Los Angeles clean technology site and workshops conducted by UCLA faculty, alumni and staff.

“Additionally, we aimed to inspire students by sharing the life stories and successes of UCLA graduate students, alumni, policymakers and faculty doing the work on the front lines of advocating for policy reform and social change,” said Kenya Covington, a senior lecturer at UCLA Luskin who coordinated the program.

Speakers included Dean Gary Segura, as well as alumni William “Rusty” Bailey, the former mayor of Riverside, and Dan Coffee, a project manager for the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation. Second-year MPP student Elliot Woods, chair of the School’s Black Student Caucus, shared educational and personal insights. He said experiences with the foster care system early in life have sharpened his determination to improve society through a career in public service.

man in industrial workplacePilot projects at the La Kretz Innovation Campus focus on green tech efforts to mitigate climate change.
man in industrial workplace
man in industrial workplace
man gestures in front of screen showing photos
man gestures in front of screen showing photos
man speaks at front of classroom with presentation slide behind him
man speaks at front of classroom with presentation slide behind him
man at podium speaks to group
man at podium speaks to group
four people sit at a table in the front of a classroom at UCLA
four people sit at a table in the front of a classroom at UCLA

A site tour of the La Kretz Innovation Campus exposed participants to creative clean technology ideas seeking to decrease the emissions that cause climate change. Participants learned about pilot projects involving lithium battery recycling, for example, and they witnessed how welding workspaces, 3D printing technology and chemistry labs can all play a role in developing green technology solutions.

The student participants were challenged by Covington to identify pressing societal problems, and faculty and staff facilitated learning exercises that helped them to define values that have been violated and the scale of problems to be addressed. The students wrapped up the Public Service Weekend with mock professional presentations that focused on potential solutions.

“The presentations were impressive,” Covington said. “Future social change depends largely on the development of leaders capable of taking on the most pressing social problems that we face in the world. With partners like PPIA, the Luskin School is doing just that.”

View photos on Flickr:

Public Service Weekend 2022

Manville on L.A.’s Reluctance to Crack Down on Reckless Driving

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A Los Angeles Times column on rising anger over speeding, stunt driving and street racing in L.A. cited Michael Manville, associate professor of urban planning. In the wake of a high-speed crash in South Los Angeles that killed five people, residents from across the city are weighing in with stories of unchecked reckless driving in their neighborhoods. In mid-city Los Angeles, residents’ pleas for street safety improvements that would protect pedestrians, cyclists and motorists have gone unanswered, Manville said. On Melrose Avenue, “almost every weekend, we have burnouts and stunt bikers and all sorts of people driving dangerously,” he said. “We should enforce speed limits, but the best speed limit is a road that doesn’t let you speed. But our city engineers and City Council members for some reason think we need to have highways running through our neighborhoods.”

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Turner Talks About Extreme Heat in University of California Video

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UCLA Luskin’s V. Kelly Turner is prominently featured in a content package and video story about the impacts of extreme heat recently posted to the homepage of the systemwide University of California website. She describes research being done by herself and others that has helped pinpoint sources of dangerous heat in urban areas. She also talks about research efforts to devise ways to lessen the danger as climate change increases the frequency of extreme heat days in places like California. Turner is an associate professor of urban planning and geography at UCLA, and she is the interim faculty co-director of the Luskin Center for Innovation.

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‘Transit Has to Bear the Burden of Other Social Policy Failures’

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A Washington Post story about businesses departing Union Station in Washington, D.C., over safety concerns cited Jacob Wasserman, a research project manager at the Institute of Transportation Studies at UCLA Luskin. The presence of homeless people and those suffering mental health crises has become more pronounced at the station, even as officials report that serious crime is down. Meanwhile, rail traffic has struggled to reach pre-pandemic levels. Union Station’s situation is not unique. Public transportation was one of the few climate-controlled options that stayed opened as the pandemic emerged, a time when public libraries closed and shelters implemented capacity restrictions, Wasserman said. “Transit has to bear the burden of other social policy failures, from housing to public safety,” he said. “And that’s hard for transit hubs because they were not designed for housing people … but it has become their issue, their responsibility by necessity.”

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A Graduation Milestone for Luskin Public Affairs Majors

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UCLA Luskin’s undergraduate Class of 2022 had the distinction of beginning a school tradition: the in-person exhibition of yearlong research projects that are the hallmark of the bachelor of public affairs program. During the Public Affairs Capstone Showcase in June at UCLA’s Royce Hall, graduating seniors shared their work on capstone projects benefiting more than 50 internship hosts, including UCLA research centers, Los Angeles government officials and agencies, state legislators, and nonprofits with local, national and international reach. Through poster boards and digital presentations, students at the showcase summarized their research and recommendations for an audience of peers, faculty, staff and internship partners. Rebecca Crane, who earned her doctorate in urban planning at UCLA Luskin in 2021, served as the capstone instructor, guiding the students through a three-quarter journey that honed their skills in applying public affairs course concepts to real-world problem-solving. Students who produced exceptional work were honored with the Public Affairs Experiential Learning Outstanding Capstone Award after review by a faculty advisory committee. The Class of 2022 is only the second graduating class in the Luskin undergraduate program. Members of last year’s cohort presented their capstone projects in a virtual setting due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

View winners of the Outstanding Capstone Award along with other honorees in the 2022 Luskin Undergraduate Awards Program.

View photos of the Public Affairs Capstone Showcase on Flickr.

Undergraduate Capstones 2022

Monkkonen on Factors Behind Southland’s Rent Spikes

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Paavo Monkkonen, associate professor of urban planning and public policy, spoke to the Los Angeles Times about rising rents around the state and country. Of the most expensive places for renters in the U.S., two Southern California cities are in the top five, according to a recent report. In Glendale, the average rent is $4,472 per month, a 36.32% increase from 2021. In Santa Monica, the average rent is $4,357, up more than 15%. Monkkonen said a city’s composition of renters and homeowners is a key factor. “Why is Santa Monica more expensive than Beverly Hills for renters? It may be the case that Beverly Hills has extremely expensive properties, but it’s owner-occupied and their rental properties are small and older,” he said. “If you have two cities where the demand for living in the city is similar, but city A has newer, larger rental units, then the rent’s going to be higher there because of that.”

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Astor on Parents’ Shaken Trust in Police Response at School Shootings

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The New York Times spoke to Social Welfare Professor Ron Avi Astor about an altercation between parents and law enforcement at an Arizona school. A man believed to be armed had approached the campus, prompting a lockdown; he was taken into custody and no students or teachers were hurt. However, concerned relatives who arrived at the school clashed with police officers, demanding access to the campus. Three people were arrested, two of whom were shocked with stun guns. Astor said widespread media coverage of the tragic school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where the police response was heavily criticized, has led to deteriorating confidence in law enforcement’s effectiveness in this type of crisis. “You can see these parents don’t trust the police because of everything they’ve seen or heard,” but that narrative is not necessarily accurate, Astor said. Police can help change that narrative by being transparent and trustworthy, he said.

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Cohen on the Marketing of Psychiatric Disorders and Drugs

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Social Welfare Professor David Cohen spoke to the science podcast Mind & Matter about the growing use of psychiatric drugs, marketing tactics used by major pharmaceutical companies, and what we are learning about long-term health effects on adults and children. Cohen linked the widespread use of anti-depressants such as Prozac to a multi-pronged effort by the “psycho-pharmaceutical medical industrial complex” to convince people that their struggles in life are due to a brain disorder. “We have created and trained generations of people to think that their distress, their misbehavior, their difficult choices, their oppression, all the problems of living as a human being are probably medical problems that have a medical solution,” he said. “That’s the dominant view today, that we are surrounded by mental illnesses.” Drugs can be a legitimate way for some individuals to function well in life, Cohen said, but he cautioned that patients should understand the medical risks and profit motives surrounding powerful prescription drugs.

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Manville on Musk’s Pitch to Ease Traffic

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Michael Manville, associate professor of urban planning, spoke to New York Magazine about Elon Musk’s Boring Company, which proposes alleviating traffic congestion through the construction of tunnels beneath U.S. cities. Musk has argued that this type of underground network could whisk drivers across town in a fraction of the time. Manville countered that if the tunnels succeeded in easing traffic above ground, city streets and freeways would then become more attractive to the same drivers, and congestion would return. An example of this induced demand is the expansion of Interstate 405 through Los Angeles’ Sepulveda Pass, which was meant to reduce traffic but instead lured more motorists to the freeway’s added lanes. Manville, who leads traffic research at the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies, said a wiser course of action would be to implement congestion pricing for drivers traveling on existing roads and provide more alternatives to low-capacity vehicles.

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