David Booher: I taught PPA 271 in the spring semester. I also had the opportunity to guest lecture for PPA 210, PPA 240, PPA 270, and the Executive Fellows Program. I also presented a paper on the direction of California climate change policy to the Institute of Urban and Regional Development at UC Berkeley. My chapter “Civic Engagement as Collaborative Complex Adaptive Networks” was published in a new book Civic Engagement in a Network Society (2008) edited by Kaifeng Yang and Erik Bergrund (Information Age Publishing). I also co-edited a special feature in Planning Theory and Practice (September 2008) that brings together perspectives on civic engagement and spatial planning from the US, Europe, Asia, and South America. I wrote the lead article, “Civic Engagement and the Quality of Urban Places”, to help frame the issues and present insights from examples in the US. I co-presented a paper, “Linking Knowledge and Action” at the joint conference of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning and the European Schools of Planning and moderated a panel on Intergovernmental Cooperation. I reviewed several articles for the journals Planning Theory and Practice (and serve on its editorial board) and Journal of Planning Education and Research. On the practice side I am working with the Sacramento Regional County Sanitation District to assist them with collaboration methods. I also worked on the Sacramento State Assessment on Governance, Culture, and Climate commissioned by the President and Faculty Senate Executive Committee (www.csus.edu/ccp). The President and Faculty Senate jointly agreed to pursue our recommendations and I am now working with them to help implement the recommendations.
Peter Detwiler: In the Fall 2007 semester, I taught PPA 250 “California Land Use Policy.” In January 2008, I was a Conference Advisor to the 22nd Annual “Land Use Law and Planning Conference,” sponsored by UCLA Public Policy Extension. At that UCLA conference, I was the co-panelist for the key panel on “The Economy, The Environment, The Equity: Cases and Bills Affecting Planning, Zoning, and Development Laws.” My “Introduction” chapter is in press for the Second Edition of Exactions and Impact Fees in California: A Comprehensive Guide to Policy, Practice, and the Law, by William W. Abbott, et al., published by Solano Press Books. I serve on the Board of Editors for the journal, State and Local Government Review. I am a public member on the Board of Directors for the nonprofit Special District Leadership Foundation. Best wishes for the semester ahead!
Tim Hodson: In early 2007 I was appointed by Governor Schwarzenegger to a four year term as a member of the state Fair Political Practices Commission. The appointment represents a “back to the future” moment as my areas of expertise when working in the state legislature included the Political Reform Act and the FPPC. In the fall of 2007 I was asked by California Supreme Court Chief Justice Ron George to serve on the Court’s Commission on Impartial Courts. In October I was a panelist at the university’s commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s speech in campus. In March I provided an introductory lecture for the California Lecture Series presentation of Willie Brown Jr. In the spring of 2008, I taught PPA 260 and was asked to serve on a WASC review subcommittee. In June I co-wrote an analysis of 2007 local election results as part of the Center for California Studies’ California Election Data Archive project (CEDA). The CEDA Report supplied the data for an op-ed piece on local tax measures published by the Los Angeles Times that I co-authored. This summer I coordinated the fourth Legislative Staff Management Institute hosted by Sacramento State and the University of Southern California. Finally, in August I was asked to be on the inaugural advisory board for a new on-line journal on California politics and policy being created by the Institute for Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley.
Cristy Jensen: I am now an Emeritus Faculty member! I retired in June after two years in the Faculty Early Retirement Program. and am SLOWLY figuring out what's next. I continue my interests in higher education policy and am working with Nancy Shulock on a paper on the community college associate degree as a mechanism to improve transfer. We're looking forward to some travel this year and possibly doing some work again in Russia and the former Soviet Republics. I am trying to follow the advice of those who have gone before me by not making any long term commitments yet. I am available to serve as a second reader for thesis where I can offer some assistance. Welcome to all the new students!
Mary Kirlin: Since the adoption of the campus strategic plan (www.csus.edu/spc) in November of 2007, I have been working actively with groups and task forces on campus to focus our implementation efforts. The goals contained in the strategic plan dovetail with several important efforts including our accreditation process. As part of the SPC process I assisted in drafting our first “assessment” of the strategic plan implementation. I am chairing a sub-committee for our WASC accreditation review and drafted our first report. As part of this assignment I am working closely with the campus WASC team. I have also continued my work on civic skills and civic engagement. This summer I accompanied Provost Sheley to a conference focused on increasing civic engagement on college campuses. Following that meeting we were selected as one of eight campuses nationwide that will undertake a project titled Civic Agency. I will be leading our campuses efforts. I confess that I enjoyed a wonderful summer respite from (most) of my professional duties. I spent a glorious month in the Pacific Northwest and returned to the mid-west for a family reunion. The highlight of my Midwest visit was talking a student through thesis changes from the poultry barn at the Indiana State Fair. All in all it was a great trip.
Ted Lascher: I will be continuing to serve for one more year as Director of the Serna Center on campus. This organization, named for the late Sacramento mayor and his wife, focuses especially on Latinos in the Sacramento region. I was very satisfied with my worth with the Center last year, as we brought the Latino Film Festival to the campus for the first time as well as prominent speakers such as Marcos Bretón of the Sacramento Bee and the grandson of Mexican Revolution hero Emiliano Zapata. With funding and helpful input form the Institute of Higher Education Leadership and Policy, I also completed a report on retention of Latino and non-Latino college students (http://www.csus.edu/sernacenter/assets/publications/retention.pdf). More recently I have assumed the role of Associate Director of the campus Educational Doctorate Program, replacing our colleague Miguel Ceja who recently took a position at CSU Northridge. I continue to work on a variety of research projects including a critical assessment of claims about the secondary benefits of the ballot initiative process (presenting a paper on this topic at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association), exploration of whether gender affects incumbent safety in local races, and analysis of how fiscal variables influence happiness. Rob Wassmer and I have an article on the last topic forthcoming in The Journal of Happiness Studies (in answer to one of my colleagues' wry queries: there is not at present a Journal of Sadness Studies). But my two most visible roles in the department may be these: 1) I am again the "czar" of the PPA list serves; and 2) I remain the key promoter of the monthly PPA "happy hour." That must say something about my priorities!
Bill Leach: I joined the Department as an assistant professor in late August 2008, having served five years as research director for Sacramento State’s Center for Collaborative Policy. As a faculty member, I will continue to work with the Center through a 40% assigned-time research appointment. I had the pleasure of doing quite a bit of travel last year to present research findings. At the American Political Science Association conference in 2007, I presented an early draft of David Sumi's PPA Master's research on public participation in California’s state and regional water quality control boards. (Sorry you couldn’t join me, David!). At a retreat for legislative staff sponsored by the Mercatus Center, I gave a talk called "Collaborative Governance of Water in California: What Role for the Legislature?" For a conference of the U.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution in Tucson, I presented “Collaborative Versus Conventional Environmental Policymaking: The California Water Plans of 1998 & 2005.” At the Mayors and Council Members Executive Forum hosted by the League of California Cities, I co-presented “Measuring the Success of Civic Engagement.” I also gave invited talks at Oregon State University, UC Santa Barbara, and MIT. For CCP clients, I evaluated an emergency management public awareness campaign for California Volunteers in the Office of the Governor, and I recently began working on a review of research on the clinical and cost effectiveness of telemedicine for the California Telemedicine and E-Health Center. I gained a fast education in the workings of public universities by contributing to CCP’s assessment report on the Governance, Culture, and Climate of California State University, Sacramento. My primary role was to author a literature review to help place Sac State’s situation in a broader national context. The review paper was published as an appendix titled “Shared Governance in Higher Education: Structural and Cultural Responses to a Changing National Climate.” Finally, I secured a grant from the National Science Foundation to support a couple of graduate students doing research on stakeholder involvement in policy disputes on marine aquaculture policy, and additional funding from the College (SSIS) to hire a student to work on an new quarterly research digest on collaborative policymaking.
Linda Shafer: I taught PPA 291 “Court Governance & Operations” (F07) and PPA 292 “Court Management” (S08) with Ken Torre. I am teaching those classes again Fall 2008 and Spring 2009, respectively. A statewide committee on which I have been active – the Judicial Careers Education Program – completed its work with the San Mateo Community College District (which received a $600,000 grant from the California Community College State Chancellor’s Office). The three-year project (managed by Sherry Dorfman of SCD Consulting, chaired by Dr. Sandra Mellor, Dean of Corporate and Continuing Education, San Mateo Community College District, and funded by a $600,000 from the State Chancellor's Office), designed a Judicial Administration community college certificate program and Judicial Administration AA program that have been implemented at San Jose City College and San Mateo Community College. The templates and related resources and materials of the finished program will be available for interested community colleges throughout at the state at the State Chancellor’s Office.
Nancy Shulock: As director of the Institute for Higher Education Leadership & Policy, I have been continuing to work on issues of student success in the California Community Colleges. We produced three reports addressing the policy reforms that could increase student success, completing our series on that topic. I have given numerous talks in and out of the state on the importance of policy change in creating the conditions to promote student success, including as an advisor to three national projects on community college policy. For another project, on the effectiveness of P-16 Councils to help smooth the transitions from high school to college, I conducted case studies in Kentucky, Rhode Island, and Arizona and am working with a team to prepare a policy report on that topic. I am currently working with California Forward, a bipartisan organization committed to helping the state solve its chronic fiscal and governance problems, to apply their principles of long-term, results-oriented finance policies to the community colleges. We are bringing stakeholder groups together at a major event in October to consider these issues. I will be teaching the Executive Fellowship academic seminar again this year, through the Center for California Studies.
Rob Wassmer: In addition to serving as chairperson of the Department of Public Policy and Administration and co-Director of the Urban Land Development Master’s Program, my professional time was spent on research, consulting, conference, and service activities. This last year, two of my papers on "Sub-National Fiscal Activity as a Determinant of Individual Happiness: Ideology Matters" (with Ted Lascher and Stephan Kroll) and "Causes of Urban Sprawl in the United States: Auto Reliance as Compared to Natural Evolution, Flight From Blight, and Local Revenue Reliance," respectively appeared in the Journal of Happiness Studies and the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. Also I reviewed two books on The Social Impacts of Urban Containment and Privileged Spaces: Race, Residence, and the Structure of Opportunity for the Journal of the American Planning Association and the Journal of Urban Affairs. The professional journal State Tax Notes published an article that I wrote on "California's Revenue Roller Coaster After Proposition 13." As a consultant, I began a study for California Department of Conservation on "California’s Farmland Preservation Programs, Taxes, and Furthering the Appropriate Safeguarding of Agriculture at the Urban Fringe to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions" and completed a study for Sacramento County on "A Statistical Analysis of the 2006 Community Survey of Sacramento County's Community Planning Councils Pilot Project.” I was fortunate to be invited to Georgia State University to present my paper on "California's State and Local Revenue Structure After Proposition 13: Is Denial an Appropriate Way to Cope?," and to George Washington University to present my paper on "The Increasing Use of Property Tax Abatement as a Means of Promoting State and Local Economic Activity in the United States." Both of these are scheduled to be published in books that will come out soon. I was also called upon last year to referee a dozen articles for various academic journals and served on the editorial board of three academic journals.. I attended the National Tax Association and Allied Social Science Association meetings, and presented and discussed papers at each. Some of the personal spare time I had last year was spent as President of the East Sacramento Little League and riding bicycles when I was not hurt from a previous crash.
Bob Waste: I published a chapter on "Urban Development Policy," in James Midgley and Michelle Livermore (eds.), The Handbook of Social Policy (Sage Publications, 2008), and served as a consultant for The California Endowment on the Sacramento County Health Improvement Project (SHIP), an on-going collaborative effort to craft a consensus view of achievable healthcare reforms for Sacramento County.
