Environmental Policy and Planning
Department of Urban Studies and Planning
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
News and Views There are a variety of topics at the center of many faculty conversations this fall – both in EPP and around the Department in general. I thought students and alumni might like to listen in: 1. We are beginning to focus on the generational transition that needs to happen in the DUSP faculty and figure out how to facilitate the passing of the mantle of leadership. If you look closely at the DUSP faculty, there are a disproportionate number of tenured faculty members (perhaps more than two-thirds) who are close to sixty years old. While there is no mandatory retirement age at MIT, it is crucial that a new generation of departmental leaders (with a commitment to enhancing MIT’s role in the planning field and maintaining our standing in the profession) step up. It is not clear how that should happen. Perhaps we should be appointing a leadership team when Larry Vale steps down next year – a department head and a next generation associate department head who will be groomed to take over at the end of the usual four year term. 2. DUSP needs to play an even larger part in helping to define MIT’s role in the world-at-large. It is not enoughpicture for MIT 2 faculty to take on helping roles in their personal capacities. The university as a corporate entity (and this includes students and alumni) needs to do more. DUSP can and should help to define and implement campus-wide responses to events in the world-at-large like the Asian tsunami, Katrina, the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, the difficulties of reviving Middle East talks, problems of democracy building in Iraq, and many more. Of course, it is not clear what it means to act in the name continued on page 6
Newsletter
web.mit.edu/dusp/epp/
The New Environmental Planning Certificate in DUSP As of January 1, 2007 students in DUSP will be able to enroll in a new Environmental Planning Certificate Program. Any student who can meet the requirements will be eligible to receive the EP Certificate when he or she graduates. The requirements are completion of (1) 11.601 (the graduate Introduction to Environmental Policy and Planning; (2) an environmental management practicum such as 11.360 or 11.362; and (3) six subjects, at least one from each of five listed sub-areas: Science, Health and Political Decision-making; Land Use, Growth Management and Restoration; Ecology and Landscape; Facility Siting, Infrastructure and Sustainable Development; and Methods of Environmental Planning and Analysis. The goal is to give graduates of DUSP seeking jobs in the environmental planning field a competitive edge by acknowledging the specialized competence and skills they have acquired. The Certificate Program will be administered by the EPP faculty. The list of subjects in each sub-area along with the overall Certificate requirements are subject to change. Students can sign up for the Certificate Program by contacting Ms. Xenia Kumph (EPP administrator) at kumph@mit.edu. When we announced that this initiative was underway, one alumnus contacted the Department to ask whether he was eligible to receive the Certificate retroactively (since he completed most of the required coursework when he enrolled at MIT several years ago). We informed him that only currently enrolled students are eligible! continued on page 2
Fall 2006
Inside
Sustainable Solutions for Ethiopia....................2 New Sustainable Development Course............2 An EPP Fall Bike Ride......................................3 MUSIC Updates.............................................. 4-5 Participtory Modeling in S. Colorado................5
Jonathan Raab @MIT......................................6 EPP Updates....................................................7 IAP Offerings....................................................8 Breaking Robert’s Rules...................................8
Fall 2006
More Sustainable Solutions for Ethiopian Refugee Camps
By Peter Voskamp
MIT Phd candidate Rachel Healy got a first hand look at the impact of the ongoing refugee situation in the horn of Africa last summer when she took part in a United Nations High Commission for Refugees project/effort to evaluate the condition and future of three long-established refugee camps in southwestern Ethiopia. Healy, who is in her second year at MIT in the environmental policy program, flew to Addis Ababa in July to begin work with the UN team. She then traveled to Gambella, where she joined other relief workers to tour three camps — Bonga, Dima and Fonito — to evaluate conditions and infrastructure in anticipation of camp closure and eventual turnover to local control. This included working with government officials to build program design and evaluation capacity. “In many ways Bonga camp functions more like a village than most refugee camps,” said Healy. “Despite the access to infrastructure and schools, most residents were looking forward to returning to Sudan.” Healy, who spent seven weeks in the country, also helped facilitate a week-long participatory planning workshop with agencies, refugees and local villagers. Upon returning to MIT in September, Healy produced a report and proposal for the UNHCR to assist in securing the funding for the strategic handover of the camps.
“It was a rewarding experience,” said Healy. “The transfer of resources to the host community and the mitigation of the environmental impact that the camps had on the region is an important part of ensuring the right of asylum in the future.” Healy’s work was sponsored by the Program on Human Rights and Justice and the Dusp/Public Service Center at MIT.
The New Environmental Planning Certificate in DUSP conitnued from page 1 In areas like Ecology and Landscape, where DUSP subject listings are thin, we have relied heavily on courses listed in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Also, students can cross-register in the Department of Landscape Architecture at Harvard. Perhaps, though, enrollment pressures created by the Certificate Program will sharpen our understanding of the gaps in the DUSP curriculum and push the faculty to address these needs. For the first year or so, there will be a cap of 25 on the number of students who can enroll in the Certificate Program. We need to see how enrollment in various subjects (especially 11.601) is affected. Will the approval of the Environmental Planning Certificate lead to a spate of similar Certificate proposals from other DUSP areas of specialization? We’ll see.
New Course on Planning, Participation and Consensus Building for Sustainable Development This fall, students are exploring the challenges of planning for sustainable development from the local to the global level, with a focus on developing countries. Students are examining whether, when and how expanded stakeholder participation can contribute to better economic, social and environmental outcomes. They are also identifying ways to improve public participation processes, while recognizing the substantial political, institutional and resource constraints that face planners and stakeholders in many developing countries. The course instructor is David Fairman, Managing Director at the Consensus Building Institute, Associate Director of the MIT-Harvard Public Disputes Program and a graduate of MIT’s Political Science doctoral program (Ph.D. 1998). He has been working as an analyst and facilitator of public participation in international development for the past 20 years.
Caption 1 Abiy Babu, UNHCR Refugee Camp Coordinator, Rachel Healy and three residents at the Bonga refugee camp in Gambella in southwestern Ethiopia.
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Students from DUSP, the Political Science Department and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government are taking the highly interactive seminar. Their final papers are looking at a diverse set of issues, from the challenges to consensus building among indigenous people and mining companies in Peru to the planning process for CAFTA in Costa Rica and the use of market-based instruments to generate both information and incentives for soil conservation stakeholders in Indonesia.
An EPP Fall Bike Ride Tina Rosan, PhD
From there we headed to the Boston Nature Center, Boston’s first green building. Over a cup of hot cider, the bikers learned about the Center’s geothermal heating pumps, photovoltaic shingles, and a solar hot water system.
This fall students, friends, faculty and family from EPP and CMS (Comparative Media Studies) put on their bike helmets and hit the road. Xenia Kumph, EPP Administrator and avid biker, along with Scot Osterweil, CMS Research Manager, organized a bike trip to visit Boston’s greenways. It was a perfect, not to mention environmentally friendly, way to explore Boston’s neighborhoods and natural resources. The line of 30 bikers stretched for a full city block as we made our way through Boston’s Emerald Necklace and the Neponset River Watershed.
The next part of the trip was through the streets of Mattapan to the Neponset River Watershed bike path. We followed the bike path along the river to the JFK Library where we picnicked on the front lawn. From the JFK Library we could look across the river to South Boston. We remarked on how small Boston looked from this view. But as we learned from our 15 mile bike ride, Boston is full of interesting neighborhoods and sites. All you need to do is get on your bike and explore.
The group met at 77 Massachusetts Avenue at 9am on Saturday, October 14th. After a few minutes of inflating tires and learning the rules of the road, we were off. We crossed the Harvard Bridge into Boston and headed to Fredrick Law Olmsted’s Emerald Necklace. Our path took us by Jamaica Pond up to the Forest Hills Cemetery, a 19th Century rural cemetery, where we were given a brief overview of the cemetery and encouraged to explore. On a crisp fall day, with the leaves turning colors and sculptures covering the rolling hills, the cemetery is a peaceful place. Forest Hills Cemetery is definitely worth a return visit.
Fall 2006
EPP MUSIC Updates
Herman Karl, MUSIC co-director
The fall semester has been a busy time for MUSIC on several fronts. MUSIC researchers are engaged in key projects with the Department of the Interior (DOI), and they have attended and made presentations at meetings and conferences. MUSIC has grown by adding an Affiliated Faculty member and establishing a Scholar-in-Residence program. Projects Chris Lyddy and Beth Parlikar are working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Geological Survey on the Cooperative Sagebrush Initiative (CSI). The CSI is the major sagebrush ecosystem restoration and management initiative in the DOI. It is a unique partnership between government and non-governmental entities, led by the energy industry. Its goal is to recover sage grouse and other species of concern within the 11-state range of the greater sage grouse through habitat restoration in the sagebrush ecosystem by landowners,
Sage Grouse Habitat across 11-state region
community and citizen groups, and conservation-minded individuals and organizations. This effort is being financed by the energy industry in partnership with government through a collaboratively governed conservation fund (that could involve hundreds of millions of dollars). Chris, Beth, and MUSIC co-director Herman Karl attended the CSI meeting in Denver December 6 and 7. Alexis Shulman, Siobhan Watson, Tijs van Maasakkers, and Katherine Wallace are working on pilot projects of the USGS Integrated Landscape Monitoring (ILM) Thrust initiative. USGS, in cooperation with other federal agencies, will develop integrated landscape monitoring approaches for natural resource decision-making and ecosystem based management that integrate scientific information with management decisions. Alexis and Siobhan are working on aspects of stakeholder involvement as part of the Great Basin pilot project and Tijs and Katherine are working on stakeholder involvement strategies as part of the Lower Mississippi pilot project. Alexis, Siobhan and Herman attended the Great Basin
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pilot meeting in Reno, Nevada, November 28 and Alexis and Siobhan attended the Workshop on Collaborative Watershed Management and Research in the Great Basin in Reno, November 28 through November 30. Sharlene Leurig and Mimi Zhang are concluding work on the Public Involvement Toolkit for the Office of Collaborative Action and Dispute Resolution and the Office of Environmental Policy and Compliance. They are beginning work on the MUSIC-initiated “Spanning the Gulf: Toward Integrated Marine and Terrestrial Conservation in Coastal Maine” project being developed with Charles Curtin, MUSIC Scholar-in-Residence and Jennifer Atkinson of the QuebecLabrador Foundation. We suggest applying a landscape-level approach to the management of coastal/inshore systems. In the terrestrial realm, a great many conservation and science programs attest to the advantages of robust community engagement. We posit that by incorporating the principles and adapting the methods used in these community-based programs, we can achieve similar success in the conservation and management of systems that encompass near shore waters and lands. Alexis will also participate in this project as it relates directly to her thesis topic of exploring the use of local knowledge in ecosystem restorations. MUSIC’s partnership with the Bureau of Reclamation (see the description of Beaudry Kock’s research) is expanding with a project in eastern Washington. The purpose of the Reclamation study is to replace the current and increasingly unreliable groundwater supply for irrigation with a surface water supply from the Columbia Basin Project. Reclamation desires to develop a strategic plan to implement a collaborative approach to communicate with the public and satisfy public involvement policies and legal requirements with respect to this study. Reclamation intends to work with MUSIC to develop and implement relevant components of this plan. Tijs and Katherine have begun to work with Reclamation on developing a work plan for this project. Reclamation is sponsoring an incoming student in fall 2007 to continue research on this project. MUSIC is helping to support the undergraduate thesis research of Cassandra Roth. Her research looks at the feasibility of reopening old uranium mining districts of the southwest U.S. and seeks to answer questions that include the role of local knowledge in public perception of risk of the proposed reopening.
Presentations MUSIC assistant director, Beaudry Kock, presented a talk, “Collaborative Multi-Agent Based Simulations: StakeholderFocused Innovation in Water Resources Management and Decision-Support Modeling” at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco in December. MUSIC co-
Participatory Modeling Project in Southern Colorado Beaudry Kock, recently arrived PhD student in EPP and MUSIC, is currently working with the US Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) and Colorado State University (CSU) on a participatory modeling project in southern Colorado. Beaudry is seeking to implement a series of collaborative modeling workshops with farming communities along the Lower Arkansas River to address issues of water quality and soil degradation. CSU researchers have been working for several years in this region to develop technological and behavioral tools to help the local communities manage their water and land better, balancing better yields with a better environment. Beaudry’s proposal is to help facilitate the attainment of this delicate balance by engaging the farming communities more deeply with the nexus of social and environmental systems that lies at the root of their current water quality issues. He will seek to simulate
the local social system through the use of agent-based modeling integrated with existing CSU hydrological models. The modeling process will be designed to both empower and educate the local stakeholders, ensuring the most effective use of science while supporting informed and wide-ranging discussion of management options. The project team hopes to create a functional tool that can be used in the longer term to support sustainable water resources management. (Gates et al 2006) Irrigation Ditch on the Lower Arkansas (Gates et al 2006)
director, Herman Karl, has traveled extensively this fall. He gave two invited presentations in the Netherlands. One was part of the workshop “Living with Sediments.” Herman is a member of an international The BLM Western Region Science Coordinator team of experts explaining the importance of using Joint FactFinding in her wrap-up. exploring innovative (including collaborative) approaches to issues of transboundary sediment transport and deposition in the Netherlands. He also gave an invited talk at the University of Amsterdam hosted by David Laws. It is anticipated that collaborative comparative projects will develop with the University of Amsterdam and the Living with Sediments project. Herman gave the keynote talk, “Decisions Based on Sound Science—Myth or Fact,” at the Idaho Water Resources Research Symposia convened by the Idaho Water Resources Research Institute, University of Idaho in Boise. Faculty and Scholars MUSIC has added an Affiliated Faculty member who complements the expertise of EPP MUSIC Faculty members Larry Susskind, Judy Layzer and Herman Karl. Patrick Field is managing director of the Consensus Building Institute. He has extensive experience in facilitating multistakeholder dialogues on environmental issues. Michael Flaxman (DUSP) is particularly interested in the development of tools for stakeholder based planning, which evaluate models in the context of visual simulation. Mike and Herman with USGS scientist David Donato submitted a proposal to USGS, “Improving Regional Planning with Multi-Scale Spatial Tools—New Tools for Collaborative Decisionmaking in the Mystic River and Chesapeake Bay Watersheds.” Ric Richardson, Professor at the University of New Mexico, conducts research in resolving environmental and land use disputes. Ric is advising on two MUSIC projects. Anne Spirn (DUSP) is one of America’s most famous landscape architects. She and Herman are exploring a potential project in eastern Oregon, where Anne has been working, with the Bureau of Reclamation. Each year MUSIC hosts distinguished researchers and scholars to advise students, teach courses, and participate in MUSIC research and projects. Charles Curtin, current Scholar-in Residence, conducts research on the integration of human social systems and ecosystems and specializes in the adaptive management of complex systems. For more information on the evolving MUSIC activities please visit http://scienceimpact.mit.edu.
Fall 2006
News and Views
Continued from page 1.
for the faculty and students. And, the faculty and students don’t really have a way of mobilizing to speak with one voice.. 3. The responsibilities and responsiveness of the DUSP faculty have been under increased scrutiny. Students find that on occasion hey must wait longer than is reasonable for a chance to meet with individual faculty, to get detailed comments on written work, or to get letters of recommendation for jobs or fellowships. At the same time, some faculty find that they are carrying disproportionate responsibilities for student advising, research fund-raising, teaching, departmental administration, campus-wide administration, and providing assistance to professional associations and local organizations. At present, there are no specific norms or requirements used to hold faculty accountable for doing their “fair share.” (In addition, think about what it would mean to require each faculty member to have a minimum of four MCP thesis students. The only way for this to happen would be for the department to assign thesis advisors. Students wouldn’t like that very much.) There is a push to set clearer norms of faculty responsiveness and to find ways of ensuring that responsibilities are shared equitably. 4. Better management of links between and among courses (i.e. subjects) is a perennial topic of conversation. Gateway needs to be more carefully connected to the introductory graduate classes in each of the program areas. First level courses at the graduate level need to be more clearly linked to sequences of increasingly advanced subjects. Undergraduates need to be able to take graduate classes in their specializations while they are still undergraduates. For these kinds of connections to be worked out, faculty must spend more time developing shared understandings and appropriate linkages. This would restrict improvisation during the semester. It would also mean that some faculty prerogatives might have to be limited to ensure better sequencing. 5. Thesis preparation has been much talked about this fall. The EPP faculty feel strongly that students should develop potential thesis topics quickly and get connected to individual advisors as soon as possible (i.e. by the end of October of their second year). The real work on thesis starts when students and their advisors agree on what question the student is going to answer and how they will try to answer it. Thesis prep puts the focus on what the Thesis Prep teacher thinks is an interesting question and a good approach to answering it. An actual faculty advisor, however, once he/she gets in the story, is the one who will really decide what the student can and can’t do. DUSP permits a great many different approaches to writing a thesis (e.g. a design thesis that seeks to produce a physical design or a policy design aimed at solving a problem; a thesis built around systematic reflection on a practice episode; or, a more traditional social science type thesis – whether focused on one or more case studies or on a statistical analysis of a large
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data set, etc.). There is no way to cover all these possibilities in a thesis prep seminar; moreover, it is not useful for every student to participate in presentations on all these different approaches. In our view, we need to get students to decide on a topic and an approach and to get linked up to an advisor as quickly as possible. For students who feel they need a semester long support group, there are other DUSP Thesis Prep seminars available. Larry Susskind
Jonathan Raab @ MIT I will be teaching a new MIT-wide course this spring, “Developing Energy/ Environmental Policies for a Sustainable Future” (11.941J, 17.951J, and ESD.934J) that meets MW from 9-10:30. I will expose students to a wide range of current energy and energy-related environmental policies that foster the development and mass deployment of sustainable energy technologies (e.g. energy efficiency, renewable energy, and other lower-carbon technologies), fuels, and practices. Our primary focus is on US based policies at the state, regional and federal level that impact the electricity, transportation and buildings and facilities sectors. We will also touch briefly on international policies and practices for purposes of comparison. I have grounded the course in a series of detailed case studies that explore substantive policy and program design issues as well as the political processes (often involving innovative consensus seeking techniques) used to develop them. In addition to readings from a wide variety of sources, the course will include numerous guest appearances from nationally recognized policy makers, and practitioners. The course grows out of my experience as a national leader in applying consensus-building processes to energy and environmental issues such as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) and Cape Wind stakeholder processes. I have also been running the Electric Industry Restructuring Roundtable in New England for 11 years, and was formerly the Assistant Director of the Electric Power Division at the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities. I am returning to MIT where I received my Ph.D. in 1992 as a Lecturer. My dissertation was transformed into a book, Using Consensus Building to Improve Utility Regulation (ACEEE: Washington, D.C., foreword by Susan Tierney). I have also taught courses at Stanford, the University of Oregon, and UMass (Boston). See www.RaabAssociates.org (Note: We are still looking for a TA for this course.)
EPP Updates This fall I am teaching two courses: Making Public Policy (11.002/17.30), an undergraduate course on, well, making public policy; and Science, Politics & Environmental Policy (11.373), a graduate seminar on how science is used in the Judy Layzer U.S. environmental policymaking process. In addition to teaching, I have been wrapping up work on a manuscript called Natural Experiments: Ecosystem Management and the Environment. This book compares the theory of ecosystem management to the evidence in seven prominent cases of ecosystem management in the U.S. Finally, I have been supervising a team of highly motivated research assistants— Kate Van Tassel, Molly Mowery, and Jess Burgess—who are analyzing how major U.S. newspapers have covered the issue of endangered species protection since the 1970s. This media content analysis is part of a larger project that aims to understand how conservatives have influenced the political debate over protecting biological diversity in the U.S. This fall, I took over as the chair of the undergraduate program for DUSP. We have a small but extremely dedicated group of undergraduates in the department, and we are hoping to expand our enrollment substantially in the next couple of years. To this end, we are making lots of improvements that we hope will make the department a more hospitable place, such as inviting undergraduates to affiliate with program groups and enroll in graduate-level courses where appropriate. We are also trying to raise our visibility on campus. This fall we had well-attended tables at two events: the fall Academic Expo and the Major’s Fair. In addition, the undergraduate committee hosted a dinner for new majors to give them an opportunity to ask about the ins and outs of the program. Cherie Abbanat and I are working on creating a website that will make it easy for new and prospective majors, as well as their advisors, to find answers to any questions they have about course requirements, undergraduate thesis, and opportunities for study abroad. We hope to have the website up and running this spring. This fall we embarked on a new version of 11.362 – EPP’s Environmental Management Practicum. On this year’s project, the student team worked with a consortium of CDCs and community stakeholders on redevelopment planning for a series Jim Hamilton of Transit Oriented Developments in Boston’s inner city. The students were consultants to the CDCs and they worked across lines of race, class, culture and place to create a legitimate visioning process. Wearing my non-profit environmental consulting hat at CLF Ventures, I am working with a large extraction company helping them to get their environmental house in order as well as working on good neighbor agreements. We are also
helping a large energy company plan a responsible next-step strategy for a soon-to-be-decommissioned power plant in South Boston. Over the next few months I hope to infuse my research and teaching with some of the issues at the root of these real-world environmental problems. This semester, I taught a new version of the environmental justice course where the focus was on equity and selfdetermination in the context of natural resource extraction, both in domestic and international settings. Students read a JoAnn Carmin number of books that critically examined these issues and looked at possible tools that could promote community empowerment including certification programs and negotiated agreements. I also developed and implemented an internet survey in eight countries in Central and Eastern Europe. This study, which is funded by the US National Science Foundation, investigates how environmental organizations in the region have responded to domestic change and transnational pressures since the fall of state-socialism. I will be on leave next semester. During this time I will analyze the survey data and complete a book that draws on qualitative interviews I conducted with representatives of environmental NGOs in the Czech Republic about how they navigated large scale domestic change and increased international pressures while attempting to stabilize their resources since 1989. Next summer I expect to conduct comparative case study research on community efforts to influence decision-making in locales where gold mining operations have been proposed. Masa Matsuura, postdoctoral fellow for the fall of 2006, will leave for Japan to become a visiting assistant professor at the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Public Policy. Masa will be affiliated with the “Sustainable Energy/Environment Masa Matsuura and Public Policy” Project that seeks to assess a variety of technology options for sustainable energy uses through stakeholder involvement. Its members include Professors Hideaki Shiroyama and Tatsu-jiro Suzuki (both of them were affiliated with MIT in the past). Masa is looking forward to helping/meeting DUSPers who happen to come to Tokyo. Masa can be reached at masa@mmatsuura.com. Shizuka Hashimoto, DUSP postdoctoral fellow, wrote a chapter for the book on the Japanese Machizukuri movement, “Local Empowerment?: Citizens’ Movements, Machizukuri and Living Environments in Japan (edited by Andre Sorensen and Shizuka Hashimoto Carolin Funck)”. The book will be published by Routledge in early 2007. He also gave a presentation at the International Conference such as ISSRM (in Jun.), WCSP (in July) and ACSP (in Nov.).
Fall 2006
IAP Offerings MIT Environmental Film Festival 2007 Free screening of films focusing on the environment, technology, and humanity over MIT’s Independent Activities Period (IAP). Every Tuesday and Thursday evening from January 16, and on February 2 & 3, we’ll show a film and give space for discussion. Sponsor: by the Environmental Policy and Planning group within DUSP, and the Students for Global Sustainability. January 16 Water Warriors
January 23 Being Caribou
A Drop of Life
January 25 Ecological Design
Thirst January 18 The Digital Dump: Exporting Re-Use and Abuse to Africa Exporting Harm: High Tech Trashing of Asia
January 30 Is God Green? February 1 Total Denial
Dinner at 6 pm. Screenings begin at 6:30 pm. All films will be screened at the Stata Center, in room 32-124.
11.959 IAP Special Studies in Urban Studies and Planning Reforming Natural Resources Governance: Failings of Scientific Rationalism and Alternatives for Building Common Ground Dr. Herman Karl, MIT, Dr. David Mattson, Yale University Mon Jan 22 thru Fri Jan 26, 01-05:00pm, 1-273 Level: H 2 units Graded P/D/F Can be repeated for credit For the last century, precepts of scientific management and administrative rationality have concentrated power in the hands of technical specialists, which in recent decades has contributed to widespread disenfranchisement and discontent among stakeholders in natural resources cases. In this seminar we examine the limitations of scientific management as a model both for governance and for gathering and using information, and describe alternative methods for informing and organizing decision-making processes. We feature cases involving large carnivores in the West (mountain lions and grizzly bears), Northeast coastal fisheries, and adaptive management of the Colorado River. There will be nightly readings and a short written assignment.
Health Hazards in the Home Bob Edwards, Claudia Mickelson, Mitch Galanek, Barry Mendes Tue Jan 9, 01:30-02:30pm, 1-135. Single session event In this 60-minute class, members of the Environment, Health and Safety Office (EHS) will discuss common health hazards found in the home including mold, radon, asbestos, and chemicals and ways to reduce potential exposure.
Breaking Robert’s Rules: The New Way to Run Your Meeting, Build Consensus and Get Results Breaking Robert’s Rules: The New Way to Run Your Meeting, Build Consensus and Get Results was published by Oxford University Press in October 2006. It offers detailed guidelines for groups of all kinds that prefer to operate by consensus rather than to rely on majority voting to make decisions. For the most part, when groups such as boards of directors of notfor-profit organizations formulate operating guidelines they almost always indicate (on advice of counsel) that they will run by Robert’s Rules of Order. In part, this is because there hasn’t been an explicit alternative. Breaking Robert’s Rules, written by Larry Susskind and Jeffrey Cruikshank, offers a long-needed alternative. Written as a story, it follows the efforts of a small public advisory committee to reach agreement on a contentious local issue. That story is then followed by a manual that lawyers can use as an operating manual for groups of all kinds. There are several appendices that anticipate criticisms and concerns and respond to them. For example, those who haven’t thought very deeply about organizational decision-making will assume that a consensus building approach disadvantages less powerful or skillful participants, when the opposite is the case. They might also assume that elected and appointed group leaders won’t
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agree to switch to a consensus building approach (CBA) when leaders committed to building organizational capacity usually applaud the idea. Eight foreign language versions will be co-authored with experienced mediators in different countries around the world over the next two years. The goal is not to translate but rather to re-write the book eight times to take account of differences in cultural norms, legal mandates and organizational styles. The Consensus Building Institute, a not-for-profit in Cambridge, Massachusetts will offer public seminars around the country for NGO staff, citizen activists, association leaders, public advisory group members and religious organizations that want to learn more about CBA. Copies of the paperback version of Breaking Robert’s Rules are available at the COOP.
Designed and assembled by: Xenia Kumph, EPP Administrator For more information contact: epprequest@mit.edu