Luskin Forum Winter 2015

A PUBLICATION OF THE UCLA MEYER AND RENEE LUSKIN SCHOOL OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS

WI NTE R 2015

PUBLIC POLICY | SOCIAL WELFARE | URBAN PLANNING

ENGAGING MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES

2 3

10

10 working all the angles Since its founding more than 20 years ago, the School of Public Affairs at UCLA has been a place where multiple perspectives overlap to lead to new knowledge and new ideas. Under the Luskin name, this approach is gaining steam — and changing the way business is done.

16 profile: mark s. kaplan 18 donor honor roll 20 giving across generations departments

2 milestones 6 seen & heard 8 by the numbers

22 alumni notes 24 lasting image

A publication of DEAN FRANKLIN D. GILLIAM, JR. EDITORS Alex Boekelheide, Sharon Hong CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Angel Ibanez, Allison Morris, Alejandra Reyes-Velarde PHOTOGRAPHY Alex Boekelheide, Todd Cheney, Sharon Hong, Gonzalo Fuentes, Christina Metz, Michael Moriatis,

Stan Paul, Christa Renee, Gus Ruelas, Aaron Salcido OTHER PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY Bloomberg Associates, Snejana Daily, Justin Kumar, Dick Lewis, Liberty Hill Foundation,

Sirinya Matute, Jaime Nack, Syracuse University, Nick Thomas, U.S. Department of State, U.S. Department of Transportation DESIGN ETCH Creative

22 FROM THE DEAN These past few months, UCLA Luskin has been in the midst of a Season of Service. With a focus on homelessness, we hosted student-organized panels, participated in United Way’s “HomeWalk” fundraising event, and organized two Luskin Lectures engaging with themes of inequality, justice and the importance of a strong social safety net. All in all, it was a busy fall quarter.

But in fact, it’s always the season for service for our students, alumni, faculty and staff. It’s intrinsic to who we are as a School, and it is what connects our unique departments—we are concerned with the greater good and working collaboratively to solve public problems.

Our inaugural James Irvine Foundation Fellow-inResidence is another good example of this. Maria Rosario Jackson, UP Ph.D. ’96 and a presidential appointee to the National Council of the Arts, is teaching a class on the role of arts and culture in developing policy in historically marginalized communities. Her class has attracted students from all over campus who are working cross-sectorally on on-theground initiatives to improve communities. As you will see in this issue’s feature article, these activities are part and parcel of UCLA Luskin’s academic identity.

As we approach UCLA’s centennial in 2019, we are thinking deeply about what it means to be a school of public affairs within a great public university located in one of the most dynamic and diverse cities in the world. UCLA’s Centennial Campaign is an ambitious five-year plan to raise the resources necessary to position the university to maintain and advance our commitment to excellence and to the greater good.

To that end we have begun several new initiatives that respond to the complex problems that will define our future, from a new endowed institute examining the relationship between inequality and democracy to a new project training

What connects our unique departments is that we are concerned with the greater good and working collaboratively to solve public problems. students and practitioners on issues related to big data and digital governance.

With everything we do, we are working across disciplines to create a better world—“one person, one project, one place at a time.”

MILESTONES

AN (IN)FORMAL WELCOME UCLA Luskin’s Fourth Annual Open House featured a book panel on “The Informal American City: Beyond Taco Trucks and Day Labor” led by authors Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris and Vinit Mukhija followed by a reception for students, staff, faculty and alumni.

UCLA RANKED IN TOP FIVE URBAN PLANNING PROGRAMS UCLA Luskin’s Department of Urban Planning has been ranked No. 4 in North America, according to the latest survey of the nation’s top graduate programs in urban planning by Los Angeles-based planning and development network Planetizen.

Planetizen’s guidebook also ranks UCLA No. 4 on its list of best graduate planning programs according to educators and the No. 2 program on the West Coast. In addition, UCLA is in the top five

schools for most diverse student body in an urban planning program.

In terms of specialty areas, Luskin’s urban planning department was named in nine of those areas, including: Community Development, Economic Development, Environmental/Sustainability Planning, Housing, International Development, Land Use/Physical Planning, Regional Planning, Transportation Planning, and Urban Design.

FACULTY HONORED AARON PANOFSKY The Public Policy professor was named the Kenneth L. Sokoloff Fellow by the UCLA Center for American Politics and Public Policy. The award will help him complete a project on “value added modeling,” a technique for evaluating the quality of teachers in improving student test scores.

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RANDALL AKEE AND PAAVO MONKKONEN

MICHAEL STORPER

The professors of Public Policy and Urban Planning were awarded research seed funding by UCLA’s Academic Personnel Office through the Hellman Fellow program. Monkkonen will study the ways in which economic development affects household structure and Akee will examine the relationship between increased incomes and reduction in behavioral disorders for American Indian adolescents.

The Urban Planning professor made Thomson Reuters’ list of the World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds of 2014, a ranking of the world’s most cited researchers.

IMPACT TWO SOCIAL WELFARE STUDENTS CREATE NEW WEB SITE Second year Social Welfare students Nick Thomas and Justin Kumar created a new web site—SocialWorkStories.com—hoping to give social workers a place to show their passion for the field.

Social Work Stories includes stories about outstanding Social Welfare students and professionals, offers online news sources specifically for social workers, has a helpful page detailing jobs students can have with a social welfare degree, and offers career and school resources.

“We decided to create this website because we were truly inspired by the stories of the MSW students in our cohort,” Thomas and Justin Kumar Nick Thomas Kumar said. “Each one had a unique and intriguing story for deciding to pursue an MSW, and irrespective of their background, each individual we talked to shared a common goal—to help others.”

143,000

Since 2000, the number of rental units in Los Angeles that were once considered affordable to those making less than $44,000 a year but that have since become unaffordable, according to research by Urban Planning professor Paul Ong.

17,000

Number of new apartment and condominium units that were permitted in 2013. Nearly all of the building is aimed at high-end renters.

31

UNWATCHED POT BOILS OVER Social Welfare professor Bridget Freisthler led a study, along with Paul Gruenewald of the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, that compared self-reported marijuana use by almost 9,000 people in 50 California cities where medical marijuana is available through storefront dispensaries and delivery services.

The study, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, found that the number of storefront dispensaries was more closely related to frequency of marijuana use than the availability of delivery services was.

Dr. Freisthler says the results can help lawmakers understand how regulatory practices affect marijuana use across cities.

“The relationship between the physical availability of marijuana and the number of medical and recreational users could suggest a supply-and-demand relationship in which dispensaries and delivery services are opening in locations with higher demand,” she said. “The implication is that regulating delivery services needs to occur along with the regulation of storefront dispensaries.”

Percentage decline in rapes reported in the state of Rhode Island over a six-year period (2003-2009) when prostitution was inadvertently made legal in the state.

Public Policy professor Manisha Shah examined the time period to document the impact of anti-prostitution laws.

Professor Bridget Freisthler

$14 BILLION

Number of tons of greenhouse gases the Luskin Center for Innovation research team estimates will be displaced from the environment each year as a result of LADWP’s FiT program for renewable energy.

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MILESTONES

25%

NEW FROM THE FACULTY BOOKSHELF THE UPSIDE OF AGING: HOW LONG LIFE IS CHANGING THE WORLD OF HEALTH, WORK, INNOVATION, POLICY, AND PURPOSE Contributing author and Social Welfare professor Fernando M. Torres-Gil’s book is a collaboration between renowned thoughtleaders in the subject and Milken Institute President Paul H. Irving, and examines the changing definition of aging revolutions in genomics, technology, and medicine continue to expand the average human lifespan.

THE INFORMAL AMERICAN CITY: BEYOND TACO TRUCKS AND DAY LABOR Urban Planning professors Vinit Mukhija and Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris’ latest book studies unregulated activities in eight large US cities.

Through case studies and analyses written by experts in urban planning, the authors make the case for a need to examine informal urbanism not just economically but also spatially.

Just one-quarter of bicycle commuters nationwide are women, according to research

by Herbie Huff and Kelcie Ralph of the Lewis Center. Reasons include a social expectation that women do an inordinately large share of transporting children and running other errands that don’t lend themselves easily to two-wheeled transportation.

“ If we are going to

ask health workers to repeatedly step into rooms with patients contagious with Ebola we have the obligation to do everything possible to minimize the chances that they might be exposed.”

OHN VILLASENOR, PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC POLICY, J IN A COLUMN FOR FORBES MAGAZINE

LEADERS IN ACTION

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MISBEHAVING SCIENCE

JIM NEWTON

Public Policy professor Aaron Panofsky traces the field of behavior genetics back to its origins in the 1950s and in the process argues that persistent, ungovernable controversy in behavior genetics is due to the broken hierarchies within the field.

The veteran journalist and author joined the faculty and staff of UCLA to help deepen UCLA’s ties to the civic life of Los Angeles and the region.

He will launch a university journal highlighting UCLA research in fields that are relevant to Southern California.

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WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS In the United States, about 26,000 youth emancipate from the foster care system annually. About one-third of these youth also have experience in the juvenile justice system and are often referred to as “crossover youth.” Many of these young people face significant challenges in their young adult years, particularly in achieving economic independence and housing stability. In order to better understand

the experiences of emancipated foster youth in housing programs, Social Welfare professor Laura Abrams and Ph.D. students Susanna Curry and Laura Montero asked former foster youth to use photography to tell their story. The results, as seen at storify.com/ UCLALuskin, shine a light on experiences that may be difficult to describe in words alone. The project was made possible by UCLA alumnus Kasey Li DDS ‘86.

HAIL TO THE CHAIR Urban Planning professor and chair Evelyn Blumenberg (pictured with U.S. Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx) was recently honored by the White House as a “Champion of Change” for transportation. Professor Blumenberg’s research examines the effects of urban structure—the spatial location of residents, employment, and services—on economic outcomes for low-wage workers, and on the role of planning and policy in shaping the spatial structure of cities.

IN MEMORIAM MICHELLE LOS BANOS UCLA Luskin has a new Diplomat in Residence for the 2014–2016 academic years. Los Banos serves Southern California and Hawaii, and is a resource to those interested in working in the Foreign Service and at the Department of State.

MARK KLEIMAN The Publc Policy professor was named one of Politico Magazine’s “Politico 50,” a list of the most interesting “thinkers, doers and dreamers who really matter in this age of gridlock and dysfunction.” Politico calls Kleiman “an academic with real-world punch.”

MICHAEL INTRILIGATOR The longtime UCLA professor of economics, political science and public policy died June 23 after a three-year battle with melanoma. Intriligator was central to the establishment of the UCLA School of Public Affairs, the development of the Public Policy curriculum and initial recruitment of the Public Policy faculty.

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SEEN & HEARD

We are simply not going to create healthier, safer, more sustainable cities with the strategies that we followed up until now, that ignore all the other ways that a street is used.�

Former NYC Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, speaking as a Regents’ Lecturer Oct. 1, 2014

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The children 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.

We know that cumulative stresses add up, affecting their neurological development and coping strategies.

Social Welfare professor Laura Abrams at an Oct. 21, 2014, Luskin Lecture Series event about children seen in the documentary American Winter

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.”

Urban planner and civic leader Jaime Lerner, speaking about projects in Brazil at a Global Public Affairs at UCLA Luskin event Oct. 28, 2014

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 —and symbolically, downtown is the heart of Los Angeles, which is why its success is so meaningful.”

I never saw a building where the developer provided more than the required amount of parking. They always provided what the city required and nothing more” Urban Planning professor Donald Shoup at The Atlantic’s “CityLab: Los Angeles” conference Sept. 29, 2014

Urban Planning professor Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris at a Zócalo Publc Square event Oct. 14, 2014

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BY THE NUMBERS

GEOGRAPHY OF GIVING The Center for Civil Society conducted a study aiming to help nonprofits, government policy makers, foundations and donors understand what factors affect charitable giving in LA. By looking at tax returns and census data, study authors Bill Parent and Paul Ong found that while revenues and expenditures in the nonprofit sector have begun to recover to pre-recession levels, philanthropy in the Los Angeles area has not.

CONTRIBUTIONS 7B

6.94

6.83

TOTAL ($BILLION)

6B

5.66

5.72

2008

2011

1,351

1,321

6.09

5B 4B 3B 2B 1B

2006

2007

2012

1,000

AVERAGE/PERSON ($)

1,200 1,300 1,400 1,500

1,530

1,600 1,700

1,417

Across the sector, charitable giving in L.A. County was down 12.2 percent in 2012 compared to

CALABASAS

2006 levels.

1,708

TO THE RIGHT: The study also found that L.A. County residents gave an average of 2.1% of their income to charity.

The highest levels of generosity were found at both ends of the income spectrum—Brentwood, Malibu and Rancho Palos Verdes all gave above the average, but so did communities in Compton, Carson and Crenshaw.

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AGUA DULCE

ACTON

STEVENSON RANCH NEWHALL ANGELES NATIONAL FOREST NORTHRIDGE CHATSWORTH

SYLMAR

SYLMAR

GRANADA HILLS

CHATSWORTH NORTHRIDGE NORTH HILLS

CANOGA PARK RESEDA

WEST HILLS WOODLAND HILLS

SUNLAND

PACOIMA

SUN VALLEY

VAN NUYS

ALTADENA

ENCINO

GLENDALE PASADENA

SHERMAN OAKS

TARZANA

STUDIO CITY

TOPANGA CANYON

LOS FELIZ

BRENTWOOD

PACIFIC PALISADES MALIBU

TUJUNGA

HOLLYWOOD BEL AIR

WEST HILLS

MIRACLE MILE

UCLA PALMS

BOYLE HEIGHTS MONTEBELLO

CRENSHAW

VERNON

VENICE

CONTRIBUTIONS AS A PERCENT OF ADJUSTED GROSS INCOME, BY NEIGHBORHOOD

2.1% AND OVER

1%–2%

0.1%–1/0%

0%

NO DATA

WESTCHESTER

WATTS

MANHATTAN BEACH

COMPTON

DOWNEY

PARAMOUNT

CARSON

LA COUNTY AVERAGE: 2.1% WILMINGTON LONG BEACH

SAN PEDRO

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COVER FEATURE

WORKING AL

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LL THE ANGLES

Ask any student or recent graduate of the school why they chose to attend UCLA Luskin, and they’ll tell you about the strength of their degree programs and the caliber of education they knew they’d receive. With a top-five Urban Planning department, a Public Policy department with a reputation for producing influential research despite only just celebrating its 20th anniversary, and a longrunning Social Welfare department whose graduates have reshaped social services across Los Angeles County, the benefits of earning a degree in one of these departments at UCLA are easy to see.

UCLA MEYER AND RENEE LUSKIN SCHOOL OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS luskin.ucla.edu

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COVER FEATURE

But as the School of Public Affairs continues to grow following its naming in 2011 by Meyer and Renee Luskin, something unique has been maturing in the halls. Like a musical mashup, where different and seemingly disparate songs are combined, the students and faculty are beginning to take on a similar pitch and tempo. One that is centered around a common interest: changing the world.

Making that change a reality requires new approaches.

As researchers have become increasingly aware of the complexity of social issues—that there are a vast array of interrelated factors associated with any particular problem—the study of these issues is becoming increasingly interdisciplinary. While much of academia is not set up to support easy crossing of disciplinary boundaries, the UCLA Luskin School has been looking for more and more ways to facilitate it.

“To begin producing real solutions to some of the world’s most pressing problems, there needs to be more than one viewpoint at the table,” Dean Frank Gilliam says.

TAKING THE TORCH Fall quarter at UCLA Luskin saw the first ever “Season of Service,” which rallied students around the topic of serving underserved populations. Ten student organizers from all three departments helped to brainstorm and produce several panel discussions that brought together experts from the fields of planning, policy and social welfare to discuss the issue of homelessness.

Social Welfare and Public Policy students hosted a screening of a film that explored food access for homeless and low-income families. Students from all three departments held a panel discussion on homelessness as a housing problem, examining various housing policies currently in place in LA County.

“I loved having the opportunity to interact with our Public Policy and Social Welfare students,” says Diana Benitez, a first-year Urban Planning student and graduate student researcher for the Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies. “I enjoyed working with my co-leads on the

“ It only makes sense that we draw from the intellectual capital of all three departments.”

Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs “What we strive to do is bring all those voices, perspectives and expertise together—to discuss, collaborate and develop new ideas. And we want our graduates to have learned how to approach challenges with an open mind, have a multifaceted view, and to pull from all parts of their education to find an answer.”

For years now UCLA Luskin’s various centers and initiatives have attracted researchers from various departments, serving as a gathering point for ideas and creativity. Bring smart people together around a common interest and give them some resources, the thinking goes, and new approaches and methods of thinking will emerge.

But now this sort of approach is beginning to spread.

The School has gradually been introducing and developing courses, certificate programs and institutes that emphasize interdisciplinary learning and conversation. Students and faculty are coming together around these common themes with positive results.

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‘Homelessness as a Housing Problem’ panel and was able to get more familiar with the Luskin School.”

Departmental lines are also being blurred through the Global Public Affairs program. This supplement to a traditional UCLA Luskin degree allows students to form intellectual congregations around questions of global public affairs—the study of social challenges with transborder causes and effects. Students completing the program earn certificates at graduation in topics ranging from global urbanization and regional development to global health and human services. Thirteen students earned their certificates in 2014, the first year the program was in effect, and now with 43 courses offered and 27 professors teaching—including nine from UCLA Luskin faculty—more than 30 students from UCLA Luskin departments are enrolled this academic year.

And in a move unprecedented at UCLA Luskin, two students from different departments have teamed up to do

Urban Planning professor Michael Lens’ research focuses on disparate outcomes resulting from inequities in housing markets, neighborhood stratification, and effects of housing subsidy programs. Lens also has a background in Public Policy. their final client projects. When Public Policy student Rhianon Anderson and Urban Planning student Alexa-Rae Navarro discovered they share a passion for the tech industry, they decided to petition their departments to allow them to team up.

The client for their project is Indie Desk, a company that offers office space in downtown Los Angeles for freelancers, startups and other creative types. Anderson and Navarro’s project will seek to understand the reasons that encourage or discourage emerging startups in DTLA from leaving or staying in the area. They will then present to the client ways to mitigate discouraging factors and develop incentives. It is a spatial project with policy involved.

While Anderson has taken the Methods of Policy Analysis class that will help inform the analytical method they will use on their project, Navarro has core urban planning skills and is able to look at things from a specialized lens in urban design.

This combination of skills is a win for the client, but also beneficial for Anderson and Navarro, who said they are learning a lot from each other.

“We have a Venn diagram of skills. There are some overlapping skills that we can check each other and support each other on, but we also have peripheral skill sets,” says Anderson. “It’s really great to see where policy and planning intersect as we work on this project. At the same time there are all those other

skills in the Venn diagram that we are learning from each other, giving us a greater understanding of how the city works.”

Not to mention the fact that once they get jobs in the real world, it’ll be rare that they’ll ever be working with a group of people from the same disciplinary background.

“It’s really important to understand how different disciplines interact and understand the kind of language that they speak,” Navarro says. “It’s important for me as a planner to understand how people from the discipline of policy really think and interact, and the same goes for public administrators and business people. This project adds that value for me.”

TOP DOWN The desire for discussion and knowledge-exchange across departments has not evaded the faculty. This is the second year that a group of junior faculty has gathered as a grant-writing group under the guidance of Associate Dean Lois Takahashi and Social Welfare professor Bridget Freisthler. As Takahashi tells it, Freisthler, who is “really good at grants,” thought it would be a good idea to put together groups of faculty to work on grants together.

Freisthler and Takahashi have hosted trainings and discussions of how to write successful grant proposals for different funders, and they encourage the group members to share their proposals with each other and give feedback.

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COVER FEATURE

Urban Planning student Alexa-Rae Navarro (left) and Public Policy student Rhianon Anderson are the first students to propose a joint client project across departmental lines.

“It was very important that this group represent all three departments because while our disciplines are different, there are also many lessons from the different disciplines that make grant proposals stronger since a lot of funding agencies are looking for multi-disciplinary kinds of projects,” Takahashi says. “The faculty were able to provide some great insights that their colleagues in other departments might not see, because they look at things differently.”

In addition, the diversity of the expertise that the faculty grant writing group members bring is like having “seven or eight brains working on your problem, and they’re all super nice, supportive people,” Takahashi says.

Urban Planning professor Michael Lens and Professor Paavo Monkkonen were able to get a $610,000 grant from the MacArthur Foundation as a result of the grant-writing group. Lens says getting feedback from colleagues in other departments was helpful, because it highlighted areas of his proposal that were inaccessible to people outside of his discipline.

“Some of the audience that you are sending your proposal to is not in your subject area. So having people that can read your work and say, ‘I don’t understand what this means.

You need to make it clearer to people who don’t speak your language every day,’ that’s pretty necessary,” Lens says.

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Lens himself is an interesting addition to the UCLA Luskin faculty. His background is in Public Policy, but his faculty appointment is in the Urban Planning Department.

He also teaches a doctoral class on research design that draws several students from Social Welfare. He notes that it’s not always typical for faculty to spend much time talking to colleagues in other departments about research, but because many of the UCLA Luskin faculty have a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds even within one department, they are more inclined to chat across departmental lines about overlapping areas.

The grant-writing group has helped facilitate that type of interaction. In the past few months, Lens says, members of the group have been circulating drafts of their proposals to the other members, and where others are able, they provide feedback.

“It’s great. I’ve done that for Ian [Holloway], Paavo [Monkkonen], Randy [Akee], and they’ve done that for me—that’s all three departments right there. It’s been really nice to just have this expectation that someone is going to look at it—you scratch my back, I scratch yours,” he says.

Some senior faculty have also formed a trans-disciplinary health group to gather faculty working on health research.

The group has been meeting to talk and reflect on the topic with colleagues of differing perspectives.

Members of this group include Public Policy chair and political scientist Mark Peterson, Social Welfare professors Mark Kaplan, David Cohen and Bridget Freisthler, Policy professor Manisha Shah, and Urban Planning professor and associate dean Takahashi.

“This kind of space is really important for people. You have to be able to just talk with your colleagues,” Takahashi says. The group aims to serve as a sounding board for project proposals and areas of further inquiry.

Manisha Shah says the trans-disciplinary health group is one of the few groups she participates in where there are “a lot of people who think about things I think about.”

“I’ve enjoyed it because we talk about topics that we all care about or we all do research on, but we approach them from different methods and thinking,” she says. “It’s fun and interesting to hear about how they think about things that I’m also interested in, and I see the potential for research to come out of it.”

Shah notes that while there is a big push from grant funders for trans-disciplinary work, in the world of academic journals, researchers are still writing for a narrow audience usually specific to one discipline.

“That’s a conflict and it’s something we haven’t had to deal with yet because this group is in the early stages, but it’ll be interesting to see how things pan out,” Shah says.

LOOKING FORWARD UCLA Luskin is in the beginning stages of creating a research institute on the broad themes of inequality and democracy.

This forward-thinking institute aims to explore the relationship between democracy and issues of inequality that threaten it. It also echoes back to that underlying drumbeat that pervades the school—the desire to elevate and empower underrepresented groups.

The requirements for the institute’s new director are equally forward thinking. The position is meant to hold an appointment in at least two of the School’s three departments.

“Inequality and democracy are broad issues that are at the core of the work of faculty and students in all three departments at UCLA Luskin,” says associate dean Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris. “This includes Social Welfare efforts to expand opportunities and services for underprivileged households; Urban Planning efforts to bring about physical and economic improvements to poor neighborhoods; and Public Policy efforts to reformulate policies that narrow the educational, health or income gaps among citizens.

“Therefore, it only makes sense that we draw from the intellectual capital of all three departments.”

In addition to the academic offerings and research collaborations that cross department lines, UCLA Luskin offers services to all students, regardless of program focus. Some highlights:

83 201 89 CAREER SERVICES

Employer information sessions hosted each academic year LEADERSHIP PROGRAMS

Community leaders that have participated in the Senior Fellows mentorship program SPECIAL EVENTS

Schoolwide events hosted in a typical academic year EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING

Students have lived and worked abroad during spring and summer breaks, traveling to China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Myanmar, The Philippines, South Africa and Zambia, among others.

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PROFILE

MARK S. KAPLAN

In studying suicide, he shines a light on a secret shame When people think of public health, they do not often think of “suicidology”—the study of the causes and prevention of suicide. Historically, public health has been either associated with Hollywood-style images of government workers investigating disease outbreaks or mistakenly conflated with local health departments responsible for restaurant inspections.

But more recently, the ever-changing public health field now faces a growing list of problems, including chronic diseases such as cancer, heart disease and diabetes. Social Welfare professor Mark Kaplan is working to ensure that

As each year comes to a close, Kaplan reflects on some of the most salient facts about suicide that he has learned—points that continue to spur him onward in further study.

First, male and female veterans face high risk of suicide.

Second, two-thirds of gun deaths in the United States are suicides. Third, more than 80 percent of suicides among older men involve firearms. And lastly, about a third of all suicide victims consumed alcohol immediately before their death, and many of them were acutely intoxicated, particularly those who died of self-inflicted gunshot wounds.

“ Sadly, suicide as a public health priority is often neglected in contemporary societies.

Silence and shame still surround suicide victims and their survivors.” suicide, the tenth-leading cause of death in the United States, is on this list.

While the causes of suicide are complex, during his 20-plus years studying it Kaplan has become a leading suicidologist working to understand the range of determinants that lead to suicide.

At the heart of Kaplan’s study is one motivating factor: “To do work that can save lives.” In many of his conversations, Kaplan mentions two statistics that tumble off his tongue with the speed and familiarity of someone who has spent years laboring under them. Nearly 40,000 people die by suicide every year in the United States and more than half of all suicides involve firearms.

“In general, we underappreciate the impact that suicide has on our country, and even globally,” Kaplan says. “Not only is the victim of concern, but scores of others are affected, such as family members. A colleague of mine at my former university took her life at the peak of her career and left behind a very young child. We have all been touched by suicide.”

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Kaplan’s research has focused on using populationwide data to understand suicide risk factors among veterans, seniors and other vulnerable populations. And his work has significantly influenced clinical practices and public policy. Many references to his suicide research have appeared in reports by the prestigious Institute of Medicine. He has contributed to state and federal suicide prevention initiatives.

Kaplan’s foray into what is generally thought of as a somber topic was through one of his professors while he was a public health graduate student at UC Berkeley.

Richard Seiden had just published his groundbreaking study in 1978 of people who had attempted suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. Years later, Kaplan collaborated with a colleague at the University of Illinois on a study that was the first to point out that, as of the mid-1980s, firearms were the most common suicide method among elderly women. They also demonstrated that despite this risk, few primary care providers would ask their at-risk elderly patients about access to firearms.

By Sharon Hong

Mark S. Kaplan “This discovery was troubling to me as a researcher and a family member with elderly relatives,” Kaplan recalls. “And sadly, suicide as a public health priority is often neglected in contemporary societies. Silence and shame still surrounds suicide victims and their survivors.”

Recently Kaplan has focused his efforts on breaking the silence about suicides by those who have served in the armed forces. He’s testified before the Senate Special Committee on Aging at its hearings on veterans’ health and was appointed by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to the Blue Ribbon Work Group on Suicide Prevention in the Veteran Population.

In recognition of his work on veteran suicide—Kaplan and his colleagues published a landmark study in 2007 on the risk of suicide among male veterans—Kaplan received a Distinguished Investigator Award from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

A study Kaplan published in 2010 was the first to estimate suicide risk among women with U.S. military service. The results showed that young women veterans have nearly triple the suicide rate of young women who have never served in the military.

“The elevated rates of suicide among female veterans should be a call to action, especially for clinicians and caregivers to be more attentive to the warning signs of suicide among women with military service,” Kaplan says.

As Kaplan and his colleagues in suicidology know, much more research is needed to understand how personal, environmental and social factors determine suicide risk across people of different ages and how preventive interventions should be designed to best address the national suicide crisis. Currently, he is lead investigator on two National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism funded projects: “Acute alcohol use and suicide” and “Economic contraction and alcohol-associated suicides: A multi-level analysis.” So far, this research shows a high prevalence of alcohol involvement among persons who died by suicide during the recent economic downturn.

“I continue to see some positive developments in the field, such as a push to advance awareness of suicide prevention,” Kaplan says, “but there is still a need for a spotlight on this issue. The investment in suicide research and prevention is vastly underfunded. There is far more funding for research of other epidemics than there is for suicide.”

Kaplan is committed to training and mentoring the next generation of suicide researchers. He’s included many graduate students and young scholars in producing these important studies. “It’s imperative we offer students opportunities to conduct prevention research on one of the most pressing public health issues facing us today.”

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DONOR HONOR ROLL

Recognizing gifts made between July 1, 2013 and June 30, 2014

The UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs gratefully acknowledges the following alumni, friends, students, faculty, staff, and foundation and corporate partners for their donations made during the 2013-14 fiscal year. Listed are those who made contributions of $100 or more. To view gifts of less than $100, please visit our website at luskin.ucla.edu.

We deeply appreciate the generosity of all supporters of UCLA Luskin, as well as those who have lent their time and talents to enhance the educational experiences of our students.

Renewing donors who have sustained their support over the last two consecutive fiscal years are specially recognized with the symbol §. New donors are acknowledged with the symbol *. $500,000 and above John S. Long ’69 and Marilyn Long § The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation $100,000 and above The California Wellness Foundation The Ford Foundation John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation § Paulina June and George Pollak ’51, MPA ’52 * Ann C. Rosenfield Estate § Mr. & Mrs. Ralph J Shapiro & Family § $50,000 and above The Annenberg Foundation * Marjorie ** ’46 and Ralph Crump ’50 Jill and Timothy Harmon * Mary L. Hruby ’65, MA ’68 * Los Angeles Police Foundation * Brian A. Rishwain ’87 and Erin Rishwain § Southern California Edison Company $25,000 and above Archstone Foundation § Asian Americans Advancing Justice LA Stephanie N. Bronson ’81 and Harold Bronson ’72 § Lynne G. Zucker and Michael R. Darby § David I. Fisher and Marianna Fisher § Jeffrey Glassman ’69 and Cecilia Glassman JD ’88 § Calvin B. Gross and Marilyn B. Gross § Mark Kleiman § Judy and George Marcus Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation § Beth Wallis § Weingart Foundation § $10,000 and above Mary Leslie and Alan Arkatov * James R. Bergman ’64, MBA ’66 and Judy G. Bergman ’66 § David C. Bohnett § The Capital Group Companies, Inc. § Coalition for Clean Air * Corday Family Foundation § Linda Geffeney and H. Perrin Garsombke MBA ’72, PHD ’76 * Joanne C. Kozberg § Los Angeles Business Council § Michael M. Mahdesian MA ’83 and Natalie Mahdesian § Noel Massie §

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Cynthia D. McClain Hill ’78, JD ’81 and Philip E. Hill MD ’82 § Vicki Reynolds ’58 and Murray S. Pepper ’56 § Regional Studies Association * Susan F. Rice MPA ’76 and Donald B. Rice § Jeffrey A. Seymour ’73, MPA ’77 and Valerie J. Seymour ’73 § Maureen E. Stockton ’86 and Bryan G. Stockton § Catherine and Leonard Unger ’67 * $5,000 and above Alan Nathan Berro ’82 * Ralph D. Fertig JD ’79 § The J. Paul Getty Trust § The Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation § Susan N. Bales ’72 and Michael Goldstein § Microsoft Corporation Timothy N. Papandreou MA ’04 § Loren Rothschild ’60 and Frances Rothschild ’63, LLB ’66 § Robert F. Schilling and Sheryl L. Miller § Servicon Systems, Inc. § Annette F. Shapiro and Leonard Shapiro § Trabajadores De La Raza, Inc. * Antonia P. Tu MSW ’73 and Norman K. Tu § Mary Jane Varley ’93 and Jo C. Sherman § Helen and Martin Wachs $2,500 and above Gregory S. Baer MA ’89 and Sindhu N. Baer § Astrid Beigel MA ’67, PHD ’69 § Vanessa M. Dingley and John Dingley MA ’75, PhD ’83 § Cecilia Valerie Estolano MA ’91 Estolano LeSar Perez Advisors * Elaine and Bram Goldsmith * Karen Malmuth Kaufmann ’81, MBA ’85, MA ’93, PhD ’98 and Gadi Kaufmann ’79 § Jennifer Lynn Le Sar MA ’92, MBA ’93 * Cindy Miscikowski ’70 and Douglas Ring Katherine Aguilar Perez MA ’97 § Ryan T. Snyder ’79, MA ’85 § Ruth S. Sugerman MSW ’67 and Jay Sugerman § Henry L. Taylor, Jr. and Claudette L. Taylor § $1,000 and above Linda ’72 and Arnold Berghoff ’70, MPA ’73 * Joyce and Stanley Black * Rev. Frederick Borsch and Barbara S. Borsch § Edythe and Eli Broad * California Community Foundation § Toni ’63 and Bruce Corwin *

Aileen Adams and Geoffrey Cowan * Laurie MSW ’04 and Ian Eddleston § Donna Black JD ’75 and Harvey Englander ’72 Jonathan Eric Freedman ’86, MS ’91 * Janet and Jerry Givens ’71, MPA ’75 * Myna MA ’73 and Uri Herscher * Shirley Hsiao MA ’79 and An-Chi Lee § Jemmott Rollins Group, Inc. * Joan C. Ling MA ’82 § Janine and Peter Lowy * Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP * Ellen and James McCormick * Lowell Jay Milken JD ’73 * Lori and Michael Milken * Marilyn A. Ortner § John P. Petrilla MPP ’09 § Eleftheria and Theodore Polychronis * Jeanne and Tony Pritzker Wendy ’86 and Kenneth Ruby * Tom Safran MBA ’78 * Donald C. Shoup and Patricia Shoup § Alan Gerald Sieroty * Victoria and Ronald Simms * Sound Body Sound Mind Foundation § Cynthia Tapia ’89, MSW ’92 and Edwin Price III * The Marilyn S. Broad Foundation, Inc. § Caryn and Alan Viterbi ’84, MBA ’89 * Joel Stahler Wachs ’61 * Karren Ganstwig ’74 and Howard Welinsky ’72 $500 and above Adams Cowan Foundation * Warren T. Allen II ’99, MPP ’03 and Chandra Keller-Allen MPP ’03 § Harriet A. Bonn ’57 and Richard Mednick** ’54 § Mirle R. Bussell PhD ’99 and Stuart Bussell § David C. Castle MPP ’10, MBA ’10 § Ellen Smith Graff ’57, MSW ’68 and Fred Cowan Kori and Martin Czasnojc Alexa Delwiche MPP ’06 and Christopher Elias MPP ’08 Glorya ’77 and Wilfrid Dixon * Lucy JD ’75 and David Eisenberg * Exxon Mobil Corporation § EY LLP § Amy Frances Ford-Wagner MA ’12 * Gretchen MA ’89 and Mark Hardison Scott D. Kutner ’81, MA ’85 and Linda F. Kutner ’84, MSW ’88 § Las Doñas UCLA *

Sharon JD ’88 and Richard Leib * Connie Bruck and Mel Levine * Cynthia Lim PHD ’98 § Anastasi Loukaitou-Sideris and Athanasios Sideris § Twen Ma MA ’78 * Victoria Manshardt-Sta Romana ’09 Michele McGrath MA ’90 § Jerome F. Prewoznik and Marilyn J. Prewoznik ’63, MPP ’00 § Jody ’74, EDD ’99 and Thomas Priselac * Cristina Rose and Scott Fitzrandolph * David I. Sausjord MA ’83 and Susan Karlins MPH ’84 § Heidi Schulman and Michael Kantor * Gabriel Sermeno ’95, MPP ’06 § Danilo S. Torres, Jr. ’92, MA ’96 § Nicole Vermeer MA ’96 Yamada Assembly 2012 Officeholder * $250 and above Delis Giana Alejandro ’78, MSW ’82 * Elreen MSW ’87 and Paul Bower § John S. Bragin ’65 § Ava S. Bromberg MA ’07 § Maria Burgos MSW ’00 * Paula Castro Evelyn Castro-Guillen MSW ’86 W. D. Coggins MSW ’55 and June C. Coggins § Gwendolyn E. Davis MSW ’03 § Bonnie Faherty MN ’75, MPH ’76 and Edward Feldman ’63, JD ’66 * Timothy M. Foy MA ’90 § Rachel C. Freitas MPP ’04 and Jason Cohen § Larry D. Gasco MSW ’79, PhD ’97 and Delia Gasco § Michelle Go MA ’11 § Virginia and Lawrence Gotlieb * Lois and Richard Gunther ’48 * Mercy R. Hyde MSW ’85 and Thomas Hyde § Intel Corporation Rachel Iskow MA ’89 § Thomas I. Lichterman MA ’79 and Janet F. Lichterman § James E. Lubben and Maureen Lubben § Mark A. Peterson and Jane S. Margolis § Kathleen E. Matchett MA ’09 and Kevin Matchett § Juan M. Matute MBA ’09, MA ’09 and Sirinya T. Matute MA ’09 § Selena Mc Curdy MSW ’73 § Rose L. Jacobs-Meltzer MSW ’91 and James L. Meltzer § Claudia ’88, MSW ’92 and Michael Mercier MBA ’89 * Eric A. Morris MA ’06, PHD ’11 § Charles Arthur Norris ’50, MPA ’52 and Carol L. Norris § Kate O’Neal § Jackeeline Corona-Cordoba and Rorie Overby MA ’04 Jeannee L. Ow MSW ’92 Paul & Elreen Bower Living Trust * Lylia Dawn Ramirez MSW ’02 Robert J. Rodino PhD ’03 and Elaine Rodino § Kerry ’79, JD ’83 and Jed Silverstrom JD ’82 * Thomas E. Smith, Jr. MA ’76 and Lorraine C. Smith § Beth C. Tamayose PHD ’11 § Claude A. Townsend ’49, MSW ’51 § Richard T. Washington ’67 §

Elizabeth and Emmanuel Yeow MA ’98 David Julian Zimmer MPP ’09, MBA ’09 $100 and above Mary E. Ahuero MSW ’71 and Manuel Ahuero MSW ’71 § Laura Aldrete MA ’96, MA ’96 and John Plakorus Enrique Anorve ’79, MA ’81, MBA ’83 and Lucy A. Anorve § Rosina Becerra § Alison Leigh Becker MA ’98 Karra Linda Bikson MSW ’00, PHD ’07 * Mary A. Black MSW ’90 § Gladys Branic DSW ’76 § Melonia Musser-Brauner and Thomas Brauner MA ’89, MSW ’92 § Thomas Wayne Brock PHD ’92 California Community Fdn. Christopher Eric Chandler Fund § Jill S. Cannon ’91, MPP ’98 and Mykel D. Lefkowitz MBA ’98 § Masako MA ’75, MBA ’77 and Jeffry Carpenter MA ’71 Christopher Chandler MPP ’09 § Stephen Cheung ’00, MSW ’07 Vivian Clecak MSW ’69 § Stephen K. Commins ’71, PhD ’88 and Sharon M. Commins ’72 § Francisco Javier Contreras MA ’04, MAR ’04 Thomas Michael Coyne MA ’07 Gloria MSW ’85 and Paul Crane ’59 Tina Rachelle Crowe ’70, MSW ’84 § Rob Kaufman MSW ’86 and Linda Dach-Kaufman ’68 § Jane ’70 and Thomas David ’70, MA ’72 Lautaro R. Diaz MA ’88 * Ming Zhang and Matthew Dresden MA ’06, JD ’06 § Michael Estrada MA ’81 Donna Louise Fernandez ’77, MA ’79 Catherine H. Foltz MA ’75 Elma Dean Forrest Stewart ’69, MSW ’71 Karen Renee Francis MSW ’94 * Bridget J. Freisthler and Karl Creek § John E. Gahbauer MPP ’10, MBA ’10 and Rachel L. George MA ’09 § Cynthia Ghorra-Gobin PHD ’94 § Leslie L. Goldenberg MA ’96 and David H. Goldenberg § Junko Goto PHD ’93 § Bill B. Gould MSW ’92 § Lurana L. Kelly Graham MSW ’67 Nancy Cedarleaf-Grey and Gerald Grey MSW ’69 § Jeanette and Joseph Gunn * Jason Merritt Hall MPH ’05 * Kathleen M. Haugh MSW ’80 Kara Heffernan MA ’00 § Gretchen Henkle MPP ’01, MSW ’01 and Seth Mallios Susan Herre MA ’03 § Stanley R. Hoffman ’66, MA ’72 and Linda J. Hoffman ’71 § Jennifer Ito MA ’00 and Rafael Garrett Woodrow Jefferson Jr. MSW ’79 Jennifer Yuan Kang * Rose Kanzaki * Mark S. Kaplan *

Robert Ivan King MSW ’07 * Jennifer and Lauren Krieger * Annie Kuo MPP ’12, MBA ’12 * Janette Lawrence and Russell Worden Tuey Jean Lee ’66, MSW ’74 Loh-Sze Leung MPP ’02 and Peter Tsai PHD ’03, MD ’05 Richard A. Lieboff § Susan Logan MPP ’06 * Alcene and Robert Looper MSW ’71 Kelly Diane Main PHD ’07 Jo Ann and Michael Maisterra MSW ’70 Alissa Marquez MAR ’06, MA ’06 and Luis Frayre John C. McDermon MA ’90 and Regina K. McDermon § Celeste Miller MPP ’13 and Paul D. Butler § Katherine Moret * Jane Jelenko and Bill Norris * Hilary Norton, Exec. Director of Fixing Angelenos Stuck in Traffic § Joseph A. Nunn ’65, MSW ’70, PhD ’90 § Kevin Andrew Ocubillo MA ’11 * Carole R. Oken ’81, MA ’83 § Mary Kay Oliveri Lavera MSW ’58 and Eno Otoyo Miranda J. Ow MSW ’86 and Gilman Jung § Hector Ruiz Palencia MSW ’08 * Pennella Productions § Jacqueline Georgina Perez MSW ’11 * Deborah Gail Perlman MPP ’06 Gerald Edward Phillips II MA ’08 Anaite Caceres and William Pitkin MA ’97, PHD ’04 Joan MSW ’75 and Brian Podrow MBA ’74 Cosette Polena ’87, MA ’89 Sarah K. Price MA ’10, MBA ’10 Teresa and Steve Randall MA ’81 Kenneth H. Roehrs and Sara McGah § Brad Thomas Rowe MPP ’13 * Anita G. Sadun MA ’89 and Lorenzo Sadun § Iczel Santizo ’08, MPP ’10 and Leland Katz Catherine B. Sapiro MPP ’05 § Molly M. Scott MPP ’02 § Anne McAulay Shah MA ’06 Eric David Shaw ’98 § Sarah Shoff MPP ’09 and Ryan Garver § Laura Telles and Daniel Solorzano * Gigi Marie Szabo MA ’02 Thomas Brauner, LCSW, Ph.D., Inc. § Elvira Castillo and Fernando Torres-Gil Rebekah Rianna Trachsel * Steffen I. Turoff MA ’04 Diana Hope Varat MA ’08, JD ’08 Shirley Tse-Wachs and Steven Wachs Marion L. Walsh MPP ’98 § Peter Lawrence Weinberger ’87 * Wells Fargo Bank § Emily Williams ’91, MPP ’98 and Randall Scharlach MD ’95 Susan J. Woodward * Hajime Glenn Yamada ’97 * Karissa J. Yee MPP ’11 § Celia Yniguez ’88, MA ’90 § Rima Zobayan MPP ’01 §

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IN SUPPORT

GIVING ACROSS GENERATIONS Investments in UCLA Luskin students today translate into a stronger civil society MULTIFACETED GIVING

PAYING TRIBUTE

For Harold and Stephanie Bronson, a gift to UCLA Luskin students helps amplify other areas of their philanthropy, by helping the service agencies they support ensure there’s a steady stream of capable staff members to keep them running.

The Bronsons’ support of student fellowships help UCLA Luskin students like Daniel Lee work at the Liberty Hill Foundation, one of Los Angeles County’s top social justice nonprofits. It’s a win-win: Lee gets professional on the job training, while Liberty Hill benefits from Lee’s focused attention and a fresh perspective. “Organizations and people can learn from one another, and this presented a good opportunity,” says Harold.

The Bronsons’ support has inspired other donors to follow suit.

Paula Litt, a community activist and longtime volunteer with Liberty Hill, was motivated to involve UCLA Luskin students with the organization as a means of training the next generation of leaders.

The Kathleen Lewis Family Fellowship was established in 2013 by Kathleen’s family, in remembrance of a life led without regard for the challenges life put in her way.

Born into a broken home and raised by her aunt and uncle, Kathleen Lewis was the first in her family to graduate from college. She went on to a career in social welfare and political advocacy in the San Fernando Valley. As her daughter remembers her saying, “I didn’t teach my children how to bake cookies, but they knew how to organize a protest.”

Today, the Lewis Family Fellowship goes each year to an outstanding MSW student that is passionate about helping others.

In supporting the next generation of workers in the helping professions, Kathleen Lewis’ family has ensured her legacy lives on.

UCLA gave me an excellent education, employment and a network of valued friends and professional colleagues, so it just felt right to establish a charitable gift annuity. It was easy to set up, doesn’t require mega-dollars and is a wonderful way to give back while I get back.

Mary Hruby set up a charitable gift annuity to benefit Social Welfare students. This gift planning arrangement provided Mary with an immediate charitable tax deduction, with the benefit of receiving fixed, lifetime income not tied to market fluctuations.

Plus, she reduced her capital gains tax since she used appreciated stock to fund her gift. For more information about planned giving, contact Kate O’Neal, koneal@luskin.ucla.edu.

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INTERNATIONAL FOCUS Every summer, UCLA Luskin students are working and learning abroad thanks to the generosity of Jim Bergman (center) and his wife, Judy. Their support is an integral part of the International Practice Pathway study-abroad component of the Global Public Affairs at UCLA Luskin program.

SOCIAL WELFARE LEGACY GROWS For some UCLA alumni that gathered at the Faculty Center in October, 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.

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1 Sophia Poster MSW ’52 (with Bill Coggins MSW ’55) believes that students following in her footsteps are on an 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 says. “How many of us know the other person in ourselves? A social worker can do that.”

2 Second-year student Dawnette Anderson spoke with the alumni about her experience as a former foster youth who works in L.A. County’s foster-care system as part of her field-education requirement.

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3 For Ruth Sugerman MSW ’67 her UCLA education “was just a wonderful opportunity for me to grow and develop as a social worker and a person.” She enjoyed the freedom to explore her academic interests at the outset of her long career as a social worker in communities across Southern California. “Social workers can do so many interesting things,” she says. “I was really inspired by the school of social work telling me that once I had my degree it was just a start.”

4 The afternoon concluded with a walking tour of campus, including a stop at Dodd Hall, which housed Social Welfare for much of its history.

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.

Arthur Nelson MSW ’57

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ALUMNI NOTES

CHANGING THE WORLD, NOT THE CHANNEL

Viewers of the OWN series “Operation Change” learned about Snejana Daily MPP ’12 and her commitment to making the world a better place. The series followed founders and volunteers of the Starkey Hearing Foundation as they traveled to the world’s most impoverished countries, partnering with local organizations to empower and improve communities. Daily was a key member of the nonprofit team, and over the course of the series she built a house in post-earthquake Haiti, worked on a community center in a war-torn Colombian neighborhood, and dug water wells in a Tanzanian village. Daily believes in the power of media to promote progress. “You can shift the dynamic of policy by working directly within the structure, but you also need the support of people. Media raises awareness, catalyzes action and works in support of policy change.”

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NACK JOINS FEMALE ENTREPRENEURS AT WHITE HOUSE

LOEB FELLOWSHIP AT HARVARD FOR PLANNING ALUM

In September, Jaime Nack MPP ’02 joined members of the National Women’s Business Council for briefings with senior White House staff and Congressional representatives to discuss policies impacting women entrepreneurs.

As founder and president of the environmental consulting firm Three Squares, Nack contributed her expertise in clean technology and environmental consulting.

“It is an honor to serve on the Council and work to build out an ecosystem that encourages economic growth for women entrepreneurs,” Nack said. She is the youngest member of the Council, which advises the President, Congress and the Small Business Administration.

Nack is a two-time UCLA Bruin. In addition to her MPP, she has a bachelor’s degree in international economics with a minor in Urban Planning.

“The network I created at UCLA was instrumental in launching a career that has led me from corporate strategy sessions to White House environmental briefings,” Nack has said. “I’m incredibly thankful.”

Marc Norman MA UP ’92 is spending this year as a Harvard Graduate School of Design Loeb Fellow, which will allow him to study and work on projects through Harvard GSD and MIT. Norman has worked in community development and finance for over 15 years, focusing on economic development, employment opportunities, and affordable housing for the community. He is currently on leave from his position as director for UPSTATE, a center for design, research and real estate at Syracuse University School of Architecture.

“I started interning at Skid Row Housing Trust while studying at UCLA, which exposed me to ways planning skills could be applied to address the affordable housing crisis,” says Norman. “[Urban] Planning really set up a wealth of opportunities and experiences.”

As a Loeb Fellow, Norman is examining finance and design practices to identify the best approach to funding equitable and progressive urban development.

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STAYING POWER: SOCIAL WELFARE ALUMNI MAKING A DIFFERENCE ON SKID ROW

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’ 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. Former field education director Joseph A. Nunn called the module “one of the most meaningful learning experiences offered” to first-year students. 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 MSW ’96 (below left, at left), 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.

students will learn to find what they’re passionate about and to make the most of their fieldwork.

“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.”

For Njambi Kingori MSW ’09 (below right), 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.

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 says when asked what she experienced on the tour that drew her to Skid Row. “I had a sense that this is where social work should be.”

Like Murray, Jenn Ma-Pham MSW ’07 (above center) was drawn to the area because of its clear sense of community and the strength and resilience amongst the community members.

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

“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 says.

She 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.

Still, there is a lot of work to be done to find affordable and supportive housing for the homeless. 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 says.

In art, the ordinary can become extraordinary.

You can see how images presented in certain ways can speak to you.

Diego Cardoso MA UP ‘87, who is a photographer and painter in addition to his work as executive officer for transportation development and implementation at Los Angeles Metro

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LASTING IMAGE

CAVALCADE OF COLOR Artwork by children at the Center for Child and Adolescent Wellbeing in Delhi, India, glows with colorful personality. Christina Metz, a second-year student in Social Welfare, traveled to Delhi last summer as part of the International Practice Pathways program, which exposes students to the practice of public affairs in international settings through paid internships and foreign residence. While there, Christina toured the poverty-stricken areas of Sunder Nagri, visiting with families and learning about their hopes and dreams. “I was reminded yet again about the sheer resilience of people,� Christina reflected.

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