Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration Commons^™

Pitchers And Catchers, David Aldridge

Mighty Pen Project Anthology & Archive

A soldier in Vietnam deals with a personnel issue immediately following his assignment to three-six; two male soldiers involved in what was at the time a violation of military code.

Articles, stories, and other compositions in this archive were written by participants in the Mighty Pen Project. The program, developed by author David L. Robbins, and in partnership with Virginia Commonwealth University and the Virginia War Memorial in Richmond, Virginia, offers veterans and their family members a customized twelve-week writing class, free of charge. The program encourages, supports, and assists participants in sharing their stories and experiences of military experience …

Into The Unknown, Ken Mick

Mighty Pen Project Anthology & Archive

An Army pilot grapples with the consequences of captured gear during a mission in Vietnam—what appears to be friendly fire may not be as simple as it looks.

Articles, stories, and other compositions in this archive were written by participants in the Mighty Pen Project. The program, developed by author David L. Robbins, and in partnership with Virginia Commonwealth University and the Virginia War Memorial in Richmond, Virginia, offers veterans and their family members a customized twelve-week writing class, free of charge. The program encourages, supports, and assists participants in sharing their stories and experiences of military experience so both …

Black Males Accessing And Usage Of Sex Education In Mississippi, Devin D. Moss

Dissertations

in the United States, sex education curricula sponsored by public school districts varies from state-to-state. Nationally, this arrangement provides students with varied levels of exposure to critical sex education information. Sex education is mandatory in Mississippi, but is not required to be medically accurate, include HIV education, and be culturally appropriate or unbiased. Mississippi's sex education curriculum is mandated to be age appropriate and can promote religion. the parameters of sex education in Mississippi have led to sex information gaps for youth. Black males experience this lack of information and turn to other sources to fill in the resulting information …

Sculpting The Public Land Base Of Northern Minnesota: Past, Present And Future, Lori A. Dowling-Hanson Dr

School of Business Student Theses and Dissertations

Sculpting the Public Land Base in Northern Minnesota Counties: Past, Present and Future. This 3-article dissertation addresses the large public land base in the Arrowhead Region of Northern Minnesota. One fourth of all lands in the state are public lands, with the overwhelming majority located in the Arrowhead Region. These counties have anywhere from 30% to 92% public lands. The region relies heavily on a natural resource economy. Methodology for research includes secondary data analysis from several preexisting research projects and studies. Data was acquired from state auditor government costs of maintaining and managing public lands. Data was also collected …

Attitudes On International Standards For Criminal Hacking In The Public And Private Sector, Melinda Shoemaker

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

There is a current gap in the literature regarding uniform and consistent standards and policies for addressing criminal hacking at the international level. The purpose of this quantitative dissertation was to explore the relationship between individuals in the public and private sectors and their attitudes toward the need for international law defining criminal hacking and the penalties associated with the act. Since the advent of information and communication technologies, there has been a need to address security holistically. The security and sustainability of evolving technologies are examined in light of the threat landscape of criminal hacking, privacy concerns, and policies …

Organizational Capacity-Building To Battle Addiction In The Oneida Community, Anita F. Barber

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Oneida Nation community members created a new and developing organization The Healing Society (fictious name) operated by a volunteer board. The board needed strategic direction to build organizational capacity and sustainability to address the lack of awareness in the community about the increase in opioid and heroin abuse after a well-known community member died from an overdose. The purpose of this postpositivist constructionist qualitative case study was to gather empirical data from the perspectives of internal and external stakeholders through a SWOT analysis focused on their perspectives. Their answers addressed: (a) the organizational strengths and weaknesses of The Healing Society …

Managing Occupational Stress Among Nigerian Police Officers Deployed To Borno State, Nigeria, Babatunde Salmon Alabi

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The police officers in Borno State, Nigeria, lack adequate training to manage the occupational stress when deployed to perform their civic duties of protection of lives and properties. Using the theory of psychological stress and coping, the purpose of this general qualitative study was to explore strategies that police officers deployed to Borno State of Nigeria used in managing occupational stress when discharging their duties. The research question was written to address the strategies required by police officers deployed to Borno State, Nigeria, in managing occupational stress when discharging their duties. Using semistructured interviews, 15 participants were selected who had …

Oligarchic Cartelization In Post-Suharto Indonesia, Bonifasius -. Hargens

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

A few ruling individuals from party organizations overpowered Indonesia's post-authoritarian, representative democracy. The legislative process of the 2017 Election Act was the case study employed to examine this assumption. The underlying thinking was that there was a contest between “wealth power” (oligarchy) and “participation power” (democracy). The power of wealth controls the party and government institutions. Notwithstanding the presence of participation power, there was, however, no balance between wealth power and participation power, because the formal control of politics was in the hands of party oligarchs. The study purpose was to bridge the gap in knowledge by exploring how the …

Calworks Participation And Poverty Rates In Multigenerational Families, Destiny Wray Lovato

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The State of California aids more than a million individuals under the California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) program at a cost of billions of dollars each year. Although adult recipients are given supportive services and offered various programs in a motivational attempt to achieve self-sufficiency, the needs of children, who are the highest population group living in poverty, are not currently addressed. The absence of programs and services targeted to children may perpetuate the generational cycle of poverty. Yet researchers have not yet examined the underlying reasons behind multiple generations receiving CalWORKs and the continuation of poverty …

Battle Of The Sexes: A History Of Social Change And A Solution For Maintaining A Child’S Best Interest In Light Of The #Metoo Movement, Jackie Calvert

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

No abstract provided.

The Child Welfare System: A Misnomer In Need Of Services, Allison Hilmer

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

No abstract provided.

Move Or Improve? Place, Policy, And Educator Labor Markets, Cory Curl

Theses and Dissertations--Public Policy and Administration

What is the role of place and policy in shaping educator labor markets during the decade following the Great Recession of 2008? This research leverages data on Kentucky students, educators, schools, and school districts from 2009 to 2018, with a focus on the rural, isolated Appalachian region. Many counties in the region have long struggled with poverty, low rates of labor force participation, lower educational attainment, and dependence on public transfers (Ziliak, 2019). Despite these challenges, the people of Appalachia demonstrate a strong attachment to the region. With this research, I enhance understanding of contexts and conditions, such as unique …

Evidence-Based Approach To Drug Crisis, Jiebing Wen

Theses and Dissertations--Public Policy and Administration

I am devoted to health policy research, especially tackling the opioid crisis, and evaluating marijuana laws and newly emerging issues associated with legal recreational drugs. Opioid overdose in the United States continues to jeopardize public health. Meanwhile, the majority of states have legalized medical marijuana and one third of them further liberalized recreational marijuana. Marijuana liberalization, although originally independent of the growing opioid crisis, may be a harm reduction approach to the crisis because marijuana may be a substitute for opioids in pain management at a relatively lower risk. However, marijuana liberalization may also lead to marijuana-related harms, such as …

Essays On Economic Development Policies, Hakyeon Lee

Theses and Dissertations--Public Policy and Administration

Tax increment financing (TIF) policy is the most popular economic development policy in the United States. Despite the popularity of research on TIF, only a few comprehensive reviews of previous studies on TIF policy tool have been conducted. In light of this, the purpose of this paper is to review previous TIF studies relating to the controversy surrounding TIF programs. Specifically, previous studies do not provide clear answers about the efficacy of TIF and, indeed, raise more questions than answers. At the same time, this situation begs the question: why do local governments frequently use economic development policies? This is …

Examining The Effects Of Public Policies And Addiction On Purchase Of Tobacco Products With Causal Inference And Machine Learning Methods, Xueting Deng

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

My three essays explore the effects of tobacco policies and addiction on the consumption of e-cigarettes and other tobacco products. Recently, jurisdictions imposed taxes and other regulations on e-cigarettes, with the hope to raise tax revenues and address health concerns regarding e-cigarette use, especially youth addiction. My first essay in Chapter 1 focuses on the effects of e-cigarette taxes on sales of e-cigarettes. It compares the two types of tax policies on sales of e-cigarettes, cigarettes, and smoking-cessation products. This comparison provides information for lawmakers on decisions of taxes regarding the perspectives of revenue generation and tobacco control. Second, after …

The Dynamics Of Financial Condition In The U.S. State, Local, And Territory Governments : Financial Reporting, Public Service Delivery, And Tax Policy, Youngsung Kim

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

A large body of literature in public administration has demonstrated the importance of financial condition in managing government organizations. Scholars have found that financial condition affects many aspects of public management while governments actively respond to their financial conditions. Using data from varied levels of U.S. governments – states, localities, and territories – this dissertation examines the dynamic roles of financial condition in three important areas of public management: financial reporting, public service delivery, and tax policy. The first essay examines how financial condition affects the ways in which state governments communicate with stakeholders through official financial documents. It applies …

Using Systems Archetypes And Generic Structures To Support Water Resource Management Studies : The Case Of Cropping Pattern Change In New Mexico State, Babak Bahaddin

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

A wide range of managerial problems are similar in nature, and yet they continuously appear in different forms and in different geographical locations. Compared to other sciences, it seems that in the field of management, managers have a hard time facing these similar problems. Part of this issues is caused by the extreme complexity of the systems and another part is caused by the lack of a universal language with which managers can communicate their lessons. This dissertation offers a set of tools that have been previously manufactured in systems science, and more specifically in System Dynamics.

Naral And The Art Of Playing Defense : How Interest Groups Act When They Seek To Protect The Status Quo Of Public Policy, Katherine Elaine Slye-Hernandez

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Why do interest groups take certain actions in policy debates and not others? How do groups seeking to protect the status quo of policy act? These questions, and others, cannot be answered well by the current interest group literature, and this dissertation seeks to delve into this line of research with a case study of the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL). While certain aspects of the interest group literature, and a large part of the venue shopping literature specifically, can help scholars understand some actions of groups like NARAL, there are a whole host of actions NARAL took that …

Education's Death Row : The Standardization Network And A Persistently Lowest Achieving School In The Era Of Common Core, Valarie J. Karas

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

In 2010, New York State both adopted the Common Core Learning Standards and identified the State’s first 67 “persistently lowest achieving” schools, the most severe failure designation available under the State’s accountability system as based upon standardized test performance and/or graduation rates (Common Core Standards Initiative, 2015; NYSED, 2010a). The Common Core Learning Standards were advertised as a pathway to a high-quality education for all American students (Common Core Standards Initiative, 2015; Supovitz & McGuinn, 2019). However, a public uproar occurred in the late summer of 2013 following the release of standardized “Common Core” test scores which showed an increase …

Contracting Out For Performance Of Democratic-Constitutional Values And Procedural Tasks In Federal Agencies : Evidence From The Equal Employment Opportunity Discrimination Complaint Process, Iseul Choi

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Contracting out has been considered one of the main performance management strategies for reducing costs and bringing more expertise into government agencies. Previous studies have examined the effects of contracting use on agency performance, but have focused more on measurable, traditional performance in the public sector. There is a lack of research analyzing the influence of contracting use on non-traditional performance outcomes, which are usually non-mission based and difficult to measure, such as fairness, nondiscrimination, due process, and individual rights. Scholars have pointed out that performance measurement processes pay less attention to these non-mission-based values and tasks.

Modeling An Open Data Ecosystem : The Case Of Food Service Establishments Inspection In New York State, Mahdi Mirdamadi Najafabadi

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Open Government Data (OGD) is becoming an increasingly popular initiative around the world. OGD initiatives have a broad number of stakeholders from different sectors and are influenced by many political, societal, and technological factors. In this thesis, I used the notion of Open Government Data Ecosystem (OGDE) as a holistic perspective to the OGD phenomenon, which encompasses important actors, their reciprocal interactions, and their impacts on the OGD environment.

An Exploratory Mixed Methods Study Of Geographic Mobility And Homeless Service Use In Northeastern New York State, Amanda Aykanian

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This study used a mixed methods design to explore the geographic mobility of homeless service users in northeastern New York State and the relationship between mobility and homeless service use, engagement, and delivery. For the quantitative component, a sample of Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) data—that includes adults accessing homeless services in 2017 across 21 counties in northeastern New York State—was used to describe service users’ mobility and the demographic, background, and service use characteristics associated with mobility. For the qualitative component, semi-structured interviews with homeless service providers in those same counties were used to understand providers’ views of mobility, …

Families Belong Together: The Path To Family Sanctity In Public Housing, Mckayla Stokes

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

In its 2015 landmark civil rights decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court finally held that the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the United States Constitution guarantee same-sex couples’ marital equality. The Court’s unprecedented declaration that the right to marry is a fundamental right under the Due Process Clause strengthened married couples’ right to privacy because it subjects government actions infringing on marital unions to heightened scrutiny. The Supreme Court has the option to minimize the impact of Obergefell by interpreting the right to marriage very narrowly—as only encompassing the right to enter into a state-recognized union …

The Pursuit Of Comprehensive Education Funding Reform Via Litigation, Lisa Scruggs

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

No abstract provided.

Panel Discussion: The Right To Education: With Liberty, Justice, And Education For All?

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

No abstract provided.

Leveraging Big Data : Predicting Traffic Risk And Providing Early Warning Due To Adverse Weather Conditions, Sreekumar E. Nampoothiri

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The proliferation of big data has allowed researchers to delve deeper into data and gain better understandings within almost every field. In the fields of transportation planning and traffic management, past research has shown direct relationships among weather conditions and traffic speed, volume, and congestion. However, these studies have mostly relied on static data that were spatially and temporally sparse or collected on a specific roadway for a specific time period for research purposes. With the need to address the impacts of climate change, including an increasing number of extreme weather events as well as an increasing intensity of such …

Does Public Ownership Of Utilities Matter For Local Government Water Policies?, George C. Homsy, Mildred E. Warner

Public Administration Faculty Scholarship

What differentiates local governments that implement water policies on equity and the environment? Analyzing a 2015 survey of 1,897 U.S. municipalities, we find municipalities that own their water utilities more likely have policies to protect low-income residents from disconnection and to implement water resource management. Respondents from 8% of municipalities report protecting residents from disconnection. State economic regulation of publicly owned utilities and Democrat-majority municipal governments are positively associated with policies protecting low-income households from shutoffs but bear no association with resource management. Public ownership of utilities and state economic regulation may play a role in meeting water policy goals.

Balancing Multi-Level Politics In Local Environmental Policy Choices, Luke Fowler, Geoffrey Rabinowitz

Public Policy and Administration Faculty Publications and Presentations

Although local governments are well poised to address complex environmental policy problems, balancing local and supra-local politics is a key obstacle to overcome. The authors argue that when making policy choices, local policymakers balance local and supra-local influences by exploiting uncertainty in policy goals and associated target populations. Using probit models and survey data of city and county agencies, the authors examine how local and supra-local politics influence local policy choices. Four scenarios are identified: (a) pollution prevention and regional cooperation initiatives affected by local politics, (b) outreach initiatives affected by supra-local politics, (c) transportation alternative initiatives affected by both …

Nebraska School Violence Prevention Toolkit For K-12 School Threat Assessment Teams, Tarik Abdel-Monem, Denise Bulling

University of Nebraska Public Policy Center: Publications

Introduction

This toolkit provides guidance for school threat assessment teams to encourage the reporting of concerning behavior that may threaten safety and security of schools. Part I (“Reporting School Violence Before it Happens”) provides an overview of the importance of reporting school violence, and outlines specific barriers to reporting among youth, school staff, and parents/guardians. Part II (“Developing and Implementing a Reporting Process”) provides guidance on important features of a reporting process for potential or actual violence and other safety concerns. Part III (“Special Considerations”) discusses three particular problems affecting school youth: suicide, bullying/cyberbullying, and dating- related violence and abusive …

Population And Harvest Dynamics Of Midcontinent Sandhill Cranes, Aaron T. Pearse, Glen A. Sargeant, Gary L. Krapu, David A. Brandt

United States Geological Survey, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center: Publications

Sandhill cranes (Antigone canadensis) inhabiting the midcontinent of North America have been hunted since the 1960s under management goals of maintaining abundance, retaining geographic distribution, and maximizing sustainable harvest. Some biologists have raised concerns regarding harvest sustainability because sandhill cranes have lower reproductive rates than other game birds. We summarized demographic information in an age‐structured matrix model to better understand population dynamics and harvest. Population indices and recovered harvest since the early 1980s suggest midcontinent sandhill cranes have experienced an average long‐term annual growth of 0.9%; meanwhile, harvest has increased 1.8% annually. Adult survival and recruitment rates estimated from field …