David Booher: My teaching activities focused on PPA 271 and PPA 272. In particular, I reorganized PPA 272 to offer it as Saturday classes in the fall to make it more convenient for students and alumni. PPA 272 is offered again this fall. I guest lectured in PPA 210 and PPA 270. In addition, this year the second group of students who completed the Certificate Program in Collaborative Governance received their Certificates. My research activities focused on completing the book I wrote with Judith Innes. Planning with Complexity: An Introduction to Collaborative Rationality for Public Policy is now in production and will be published by Routledge on January 8th, 2010. I also presented a paper for a conference on civic engagement at Kumamoto University in Japan. I presented two papers related to climate change policy and collaboration at the University of California Berkeley. Several articles Judith and I co-wrote were reprinted: “Network Power in Collaborative Planning” Urban Studies-Society, editor, Ronan Paddison, Sage, 2009; "Collaborative Policy Making: Governance Through Dialogue,” (Chapter 1 in Deliberative Policy Analysis: Understanding Governance in the Network Society) in Multiparty Negotiation Vol 2, editors, Lawrence Susskind and Larry Crump, Sage 2008; and “Consensus Building as Role Playing and Bricolage: Toward a Theory of Collaborative Planning” and “Network Power in Collaborative Planning” both in Essays in Planning Theory, Vol III Contemporary Movements in Planning Theory, Patsy Healey and Jean Hillier editors. Ashgate, 2008. I reviewed several articles for the Journal of Planning Education and Research and Planning Theory and Practice. I served on the editorial board of the latter. My practice activities this year focused on working with the Administration and Faculty Senate of Sacramento State to develop a proposal for shared governance. Among other activities, I facilitated a joint administration/faculty team that developed a proposal now discussed on the campus. The administration and faculty have made amazing progress since the tensions of 2007. The WASC accreditation team took note of this progress in their report when they found that “Nothing short of a remarkable cultural shift has occurred at Sacramento State towards best practices in transparency and collaborative governance.” I also had the opportunity to consult with leaders in New Orleans on their public involvement strategy for rebuilding after Katrina.
Peter Detwiler: In the fall 2008 semester, I taught PPA 250 and I am teaching “California Land Use Policy” again this fall. In January 2009, I was a Conference Advisor to UCLA Public Policy Extension’s annual “Land Use Law and Planning Conference.” In addition to my usual briefing on land use legislation, I was on a panel that explored “One Hundred Years of the Planning Movement.” From that panel came “The Four Thread,” now one of the Department’s working papers. I am still waiting for Solano Press Books to publish my “Introduction” chapter in 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. I continued to serve on the Board of Editors for the journal, State and Local Government Review. I am still a public member on the Board of Directors for the nonprofit Special District Leadership Foundation. The California Association of Local Agency Formation Commissions (CALAFCO) gave me its Distinguished Service Award last fall.
Tim Hodson: In the past year, I had two opinion pieces published by the Los Angeles Times and one by Capital Weekly. The first Times piece was co-authored with PPA’S Ted Lascher and Floyd Feeney of UC Davis Law School. We argued that California simply makes it too easy to amend the state constitution. The second piece addressed the budget stalemate. The article in Capital Weekly focused on art and California. The state budget crisis generated a myriad of press calls and I was quoted in all the major California newspapers as well as Germany’s Der Stern and Japan’s Foresight (the latter two a function of the international fame/infamy of the Governor). Following the passage of Proposition 11, the redistricting reform initiative in November 2008, I was asked by the Bureau of State Audits to advise it on implementation questions and by the National Conference of State legislatures to brief the NCSL’s redistricting task force on the measure. I also testified before the Senate Elections and Reapportionment Committee and the Assembly Select Committee on the Census. This summer I co-directed the fifth Legislative Staff Management Institute hosted by Sacramento State and the University of Southern California. I also am engaged in the planning of a major conference on fundamental constitutional reform to be held October 14, 2009. The conference is co-sponsored by the Center for California Studies, the Institute of Government Studies at UC Berkeley and the Lane Center for the Study of the American West at Stanford. Finally, I continued my service on the Fair Political Practices Commission and the state Supreme Court’s Commission on Impartial Courts.
Su Jin Jez: During this past year at WestEd, I continued work with the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation's network of early college schools, worked on a couple of community college focused projects, and assisted with the monitoring of the Federal Charter School Grant Program. I received a Best in Class award from WestEd for my performance in the 2008 year. In the spring of 2009, I taught two quantitative methods courses at Mills College's School of Education --one for the Educational Leadership EdD students and one for the Infant Mental Health MA students. At AERA in April of 2009, I presented a paper "Developing a College-Going Culture in a Middle School" and chaired a session on "State Policy to Support College-Going High Schools for Underserved Students". I co-authored with Andrea Venezia "Looking Ahead: Synthesizing What We Know About National, Regional, and Local Efforts to Improve Student Preparation and Success", which was the concluding chapter in Policies and Practices to Improve Student Preparation and Success, a volume of New Directions for Community Colleges. In June 2009, I gave an invited talk at Saxion University in Enschede, the Netherlands on college readiness. In August of 2009, I was the keynote speaker at Utah's Canyons School District's educational leaders' retreat, speaking on preparing students for postsecondary education. I am really looking forward to starting at Sac State!
Mary Kirlin: The 2008/2009 school year brought the culmination of two major efforts for me. The first was the successful re-accreditation of the campus by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC). The accreditation process has been a multi-year effort and serves as interesting study in public policy. The process was designed to facilitate self-study and reflection and in this case, I think that happened. The review team was very impressed with the progress we have made and commented so publicly. I was happy to be involved in the drafting of the final report, chairing a sub-committee, and then working through the three-day visit of the accreditation team. We were notified of our reaccreditation in June 2009. The other effort that concluded was the approval of a five-year strategic plan by the YMCA Youth & Government Board of Directors. I have served on the Board for nearly 15 years and chaired the Strategic Planning Committee. The plan is the first ever adopted and seems to have real traction, setting realistic but ambitious goals for the organizations future. Honored to be part of the organization for so long but have now decided to practice what I preach. I resigned from the Board in June to facilitate turnover on the board and to insure that others take ownership of the strategic plan implementation process. My ongoing efforts include teaching, working on the "Futures" initiative for the campus (a long term visioning process), serving on the Faculty Senate and campus Strategic Planning Council and, along with my husband, raising our two children.
Ted Lascher: I have now completed my first semester as Associate Dean for the College of Social Sciences and Interdisciplinary Studies. Overall, I have enjoyed my foray into administration. For example, I was able to make use of some of the principles we discuss in our collaborative policy courses when getting involved in conflicts between departments. Unfortunately, I have not yet discovered that drawer in the dean’s office with bags of money to be allocated whichever way I want within the College… With respect to scholarly pursuits, I am continuing to do research on direct democracy, California political parties, local elections, and student retention. My colleague Joshua Dyck and I wrote an article entitled “Direct Democracy and Political Efficacy Reconsidered” that is forthcoming in the academic journal Political Behavior. I co-presented a paper on independent voters at the 2009 meeting of the Western Political Science Association, and was elected to the Executive Council for that organization. I also collaborated with PPA colleagues on two editorial pieces: an op-ed entitled “It’s Too Easy to Amend California’s Constitution” that appeared in the Los Angeles Times in February (working with Tim Hodson, as well as Floyd Feeney from UC Davis), and an op-ed on California State University funding that appeared in The Davis Enterprise in July (working with emeritus Professor Cristy Jensen). Additionally, I am pleased to again be teaching a PPA core class, this time returning to PPA 205 after a brief sabbatical from that important course. Finally, let me note that while my office has moved (to Amador 258) I am still glad to have visitors.
Bill Leach: Rounding home plate on my first full year as a faculty member, I return this fall to teach research methods, PPA 205, and collaborative policy, PPA 270. Applied economics, PPA 220B, is on deck again for spring semester. In addition to continuing as Research Director for the Center for Collaborative Policy, I added three new roles last spring: (1) Program Director for the Faculty Research Fellows Program through the Center for California Studies, (2) Affiliate Faculty for the doctorate program in the Department of Education Leadership and Policy Studies, and (3) Chair of the PPA Human Subjects Research Committee. Last November I participated in several panels at the annual conference of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management in Los Angeles. I co-authored a chapter on collaborative watershed management for the second edition of Toward Sustainable Communities: Transitions and Transformations in Environmental Policy, published this spring by MIT Press. Currently, I am leading an NSF-funded study of regional efforts to resolve controversies surrounding the marine aquaculture industry (also known as fish farming). In that role, I supervise PPA student Scott Vince who is ably conducting much of the field research.
Nancy Shulock: The Institute for Higher Education Leadership & Policy (IHELP), which I direct, has completed several major policy reports this past year. One is the third in our series of reports (called The Grades are In: Analyzing the performance of California higher education in areas such as participation, completion, and affordability. It presents performance data by region and by race/ethnicity, and discusses key policy issues and recommendations for each category. Another report analyzes California’s looming shortage of educated workers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields and offers recommendations to meet workforce needs and maintain the economic benefits that have resulted from the state’s historical strength in STEM employment. A third report is a good “textbook” policy analysis that looks at the community college transfer policies in eight states to see what lessons can be drawn for devising a more student-centered transfer policy for California. I am also involved in two national projects to strengthen state policies on college and career readiness to reduce college remediation rates and improve the production of college degrees across the nation. IHELP is also working for the CSU Chancellor’s Office on a project to improve productivity and degree completion in the CSU system. We just received a grant from the James Irvine Foundation to study several career pathways in high-wage/high-need fields and develop recommendations for improving student success through those pathways. This is part of our effort to increase our research focus on issues of career technical education.
Rob Wassmer: I continue as the Chairperson of Public Policy and Administration at Sacramento State and teaching PPA 220A (Applied Economic Analysis) in the fall and PPA 207 (Quantitative Methods) in the springs. This past academic year my administrative responsibilities expanded to becoming the Director of the Master’s in Urban Land Development Program, which the PPA Department now entirely coordinates, and Interim Associate Director of the Education Doctorate Program, which PPA co-coordinates with the College of Education. My scholarly related accomplishments include the publication of a co-authored article on "What Determines Whether a Manufacturing Firm Locates and Remains in California?" in California Politics and Policy; an article on “Using California’s Farmland Preservation Programs to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Cornell Real Estate Review; an article on "Community Planning Councils as a Way to Satisfy the Tieboutian Drive for Local Control," in the National tax Association’s Proceedings of the 100th Annual Conference on Taxation; a chapter on "The Increasing Use of Property Tax Abatement as a Means of Promoting State and Local Economic Activity in the United States," in Erosion of the Property Tax Base: Trends, Causes, and Consequences published by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy; and book reviews in the Journal of the American Planning Association and Journal of Urban Affairs. I was honored to be invited to participate in a national conference on urban policy sponsored by the Brookings Institution and Urban Land Institute at George Washington University and write a paper on "The Effect of Commuter Taxes in U.S. Metropolitan Areas," which will appear in forthcoming book on Urban and Regional Policy and its Effects. In addition, I received a CSU-wide competitive grant from the Social Science Research and Instructional Council to attend a weeklong instructional seminar on Introduction to Spatial Regression Analysis at the University of Michigan. I serve on the editorial boards of three academic journals and just this year was asked to serve on a fourth, California Politics and Policy. This keeps me quit busy as a referee a journal referee. I also serve on Sacramento State’s Graduate Education Policy Committee.
Bob Waste: I 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; and as a consultant for the City of Sacramento on a Capitol Mall Visioning Project. I also served as a Board Member for the American Leadership Forum, and for the Sacramento Tree Foundation.
