Summer 2020 Student Task Force Teams

During summer 2020, 17 Occidental students worked on six task forces with joint faculty-city leadership on a multitude of issues areas across city departments. These projects included: Disaggregating LGBTQIA+ Data, Intergenerational Poverty through the Lens of Student Homelessness, Community Development Block Grants, Life on Land, Healthy Indoor Environments to Live, Work, and Play, and SDG Community Index and Storytelling. Two of these Task Forces were led by Occidental faculty: Professor Madeline Baer (DWA) led work on Intergenerational Poverty through the Lens of Student Homelessness and Professor John McCormack (Biology) on Life on Land.

The summer task force experience gave students the opportunity to explore city policy, develop and design comprehensive research projects, and present their findings to key city stakeholders. The final reports from each student team can be found in the Projects section of the Los Angeles Sustainable Development Goals website.