Civic and Community Engagement Commons^™

Well-Being In Metropolitan Nebraska: 2021 Nebraska Metro Poll Results, Rebecca J. Vogt, Heather Akin, Cheryl A. Burkhart-Kriesel, Bradley Lubben, L. J. Mcelravy, Timothy L. Meyer, Steven A. Schulz

Nebraska Rural Poll

Most metropolitan Nebraskans believe they are better off than they were five years ago, are better off compared to their parents when they were their age and will be better off ten years from now. However, certain groups are more likely to be optimistic about their current situation and their expected future. Persons with higher household incomes are more likely than persons with lower incomes to think they are better off compared to five years ago, are better off compared to their parents when they were their age and will be better off ten years from now. And, persons with …

Does Fear Of Government Corruption Affect Voter Turnout?, Ryan Nahmias

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

According to the Survey of American Fears (2020-2021) fear of corrupt government officials is the number one thing Americans fear: 79.6 % of them in fact. In addition, voter turnout is one of the quintessential pillars that allows a democracy to function properly. In this paper I will examine the extent to which fear of government officials’ corruption affects voter turnout. Using the data from the Chapman Survey of American Fears and variables from the American National Election Study between 2020 and 2021, I expect to find a moderately strong relationship between fear of government corruption and voter turnout. Moreover, …

Gentrification, Amie Thurber, Amy Krings

Social Work: School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Other Works

Gentrification can be understood as the process through which geographical areas become increasingly exclusive, which disproportionately harms people living in poverty and people of color, as well as the elderly, families, and youth. As such, this article argues that macro social work practitioners should view gentrification as a key concern. Thus, to help guide macro interventions, the article begins by first defining gentrification and describing ways to measure it, while emphasizing its difference from revitalization. Second, the article explores causes of gentrification, including its relationship to systemic racism. Third, the article explores the consequences of gentrification on individuals’ and communities’ …

Costs And Consequences Of Traffic Fines And Fees: A Case Study Of Open Warrants In Las Vegas, Nevada, Foster Kamanga, Virginia Smercina, Barbara G. Brents, Daniel Okamura, Vincent Fuentes

Sociology Faculty Research

Traffic stops and tickets often have far-reaching consequences for poor and marginalized communities, yet resulting fines and fees increasingly fund local court systems. This paper critically explores who bears the brunt of traffic fines and fees in Nevada, historically one of the fastest growing and increasingly diverse states in the nation, and one of thirteen US states to prosecute minor traffic violations as criminal misdemeanors rather than civil infractions. Drawing on legislative histories, we find that state legislators in Nevada increased fines and fees to raise revenues. Using descriptive statistics to analyze the 2012–2020 open arrest warrants extracted from the …

The Imperative For Climate Action At Portland State University, Stephen Percy

Office of the President Publications and Presentations

Portland State University President Stephen Percy announces the formation of the Climate Change Initiative.

Taking A Survivor-Based Approach To Anti-Human Trafficking Initiatives In New York: An Educational Advocacy Toolkit, Madison Turunen

Women’s and Gender Studies

In this toolkit, readers will engage in a concise overview of current human trafficking initiatives in New York and how they can be transformed to better reflect the needs of survivors. Further, definitions will be provided for: human trafficking, survivor-based approach, and trauma-informed approach. This toolkit will also provide advocacy examples and resources for individuals to call for survivor-based initiatives.

A Game Theoretic Study On Csr And Government Intervention For Sustainable Production, Katherine Ann J. Fernandez, Joshua Ryan C. Go, Jean Nicole L. Ng, Bianca Alanis Ysabel C. Redulla, Jason P. Alinsunurin, Dickson A. Lim, Mariel Monica R. Sauler

Angelo King Institute for Economic and Business Studies (AKI)

We use a game theoretic approach to assess how the government can influence firms’ CSR investment and production decisions to enhance social welfare, considering the negative externalities brought by unsustainable production and positive externalities brought by CSR investments. Using a Stackelberg duopoly as a base model and lump-sum tax as the government’s decision variable, we find that when the government chooses not to intervene, it results in greater environmental damage as firms will underinvest in CSR and overproduce in quantity to achieve profit maximization. As such, the model extends to the assumption that the government acts as a benevolent dictator …

Resilience And Urban Regeneration Policies. Lessons From Community-Led Initiatives. The Case Study Of Canfugarolas In Mataro (Barcelona), Diego Saez Ujaque, Elisabet Roca, Rafael De Balanzó Joue, Pere Fuertes, Pilar Garcia-Almirall

Publications and Research

This paper addresses socio-ecological, community-led resilience as the ability of the urban system to progress and adapt. This is based on the socio-cultural, self-organized case study of CanFugarolas in Mataró (Barcelona), for the recovery of a derelict industrial building and given the lack of attention to resilience emerging from grassroots. Facing rigidities (stagnation) observed under the provisions of urban regeneration policies (regulatory realm), evidenced in the proliferation of urban voids (infrastructural arena), the social subsystem stands as the enabler of urban progression. Under the heuristics of the Adaptive Cycle and Panarchy, the study embraces Fath’s model to analyze the transition …

Int 312: Collaborative Communication Oer Curation, Chealsye Bowley

Curated OER Collections

This OER curation is an annotated bibliography of prospective OER for the GVSU course INT 312: Collaborative Communication, assembled by request from the instructor.

Narrativas De La Autoconstrucción: Posicionalidades E Identidades En Migrantes Venezolanos En Quito, Ecuador, Vicente Bickel

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The purpose of this project is to explore the identities of the Venezuelan population in Quito, Ecuador. The country itself has received more than a million people from Venezuela, some who have continued their journey and around 500,000 who have stayed in Ecuador. Most migrants left to the unstable political situation in Venezuela which reached its breaking point around 2015, the year in which this population began to enter Ecuador en masse. The central question of this study is: "What is the self-constructed identity of Venezuelan migrants and refugees in the city of Quito, Ecuador and how has their migratory …

Cbos As A Tool For Sustainable Community Development: The Case In Kapchorwa, Annie Manges

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The purpose of this research was to assess the ability of Community Based Organizations, or CBOs, in the Kapchorwa District of Uganda to create long-term and sustainable community development that meets the needs of their community. To provide the necessary context for the study, I conducted a literature review of poverty in Uganda, theory in sustainable and community development, the connection of CBOs to sustainable community development, challenges and strengths for CBOs, and the general context of the structure of and the regulations for a CBO in Uganda.

The participants in the research were members of CBOs in the Kapchorwa …

Building A Feminist Commons In The Time Of Covid-19, Miriam Ticktin

Publications and Research

The global response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been structured around the idea that human connection and sociality are bad—they are dangerous. This essay suggests that, perhaps paradoxically, rather than isolating to stay healthy, people are forging new egalitarian forms of connection. I argue that COVID-19 has enhanced experiments in what I will call a “burgeoning feminist commons.” These foreground new, horizontal forms of sociality, and they build the grounds of resistance, refusing to separate the time of political organization from that of reproduction. I discuss three such experiments: masked mobs, friendly fridges, and pandemic pods. Each form of connection …

Serving Synergy: A Service-Learning Capstone, Rochelle A. Wright

IPS/BAS 495 Undergraduate Capstone Projects

For my capstone project I chose to work with the non-profit organization Women’s and Children's Alliance in Boise, Idaho. I worked with the community to provide much needed items. In order to collect donations I reached out to the community and received so much support that we were able to provide help to two other non-profit organizations the City of Lights, and Dress for Success. I was able to help organize my community to come together and provide a service to the more vulnerable in our community.

Weed Infestation: A Service Learning Capstone Project, Catherine T. Clemens

IPS/BAS 495 Undergraduate Capstone Projects

Infestation of weeds can be most upsetting to anyone who finds themselves dealing with them. Whether they are in your garden, lawn, or you pass by them thinking they are a pretty flower, weeds definitely make their appearance in most places. For ranchers, weeds can take a huge toll on them and their operation. Since I live on a ranch it was only fit for me to create a project that would not only benefit myself and other ranchers in the Harney County community. My project was about the importance of weed control. It is a huge part of ranching …

The Multi-Step Approach To Covid Prevention In The Casamance Region, Saraí Hernandez Salguero

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Located in the Oussouye Department approximately 43 kilometers away from the city of Ziguinchor in the Basse Casamance region of southern Senegal is the Oussouye commune where I had the pleasure of staying for three weeks. I had learned that the inhabitants of this village were not significantly impacted by the Covid-19 virus since it became global knowledge at the start of 2020. As of March 2020, the village had only reported 69 active cases and the department saw only 8 deaths in total. I sought to figure out what could be the cause of this and through a series …

The Gap Between Policy And The People: A Case Study Of The Buikwe Fishing Communities, Capri Gutiérrez

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

To examine the implementation of Local Government development planning in periphery and hard to reach communities in Uganda, the fishing villages of the Buikwe District were used as a case study. The objective of the study was to explore how Local Government development planning is implemented in the fishing villages to identify gaps. Implementation was broken down into three areas: consultations, needs and services, and service delivery.

The study mimicked the bottom-up approach to decentralized development planning in Uganda, beginning with seven focus group discussions in five fishing villages of Buikwe. Eleven key informant interviews were then conducted with Local …

Indigenous Conceptions Of Community Organization And Autonomy In Oaxaca’S Sierra Norte: Answers And Resistance To State-Sponsored Practices Of Internal Colonialism, Carter Minnick

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Over the past century, the Mexican government has continued to reproduce dominant, colonial relationships with its indigenous populations. Within the last few decades, clashes between harmful neoliberal visions of national development and continued demands for indigenous autonomy have only intensified. In the context of such events, this present work seeks to explore a specific conception of community identity, coined as la comunalidad, in the Sierra Norte region of Oaxaca. After the breakdown of its most fundamental tenets, I will attempt to both underscore its position as a framework of resistance in combatting historical and ongoing state-organized aggressions against these communities, …

Idaho’S Food & Beverage Service: Creating Meaning In An Unstable Industry Following The Covid-19 Pandemic, Leah J. True

IPS/BAS 495 Undergraduate Capstone Projects

The contents of this cumulative educational project will highlight some of the major ongoing systemic problems within the service industry in right-to-work states like Idaho using my own company (a locally owned small business) as a case study. It will also highlight some major concerns of workers within my company specifically regarding employee benefits, compensation, health risks, and wellbeing of workers, and some of the steps my company is currently taking or has taken recently to address those concerns. Additionally, it will explain the methodology, process, and results of an event that I organized in partnership with my company’s management …

Supporting Older Workers And Caregivers Who Volunteer: Examples From The Field, Jennifer Crittenden, Abbie Hartford, Rachel Coleman

Maine Center on Aging Research and Evaluation

In the spring of 2018 a multi-phase study, funded by the AmeriCorps and AmeriCorps Seniors (formerly Corporation for National and Community Service and Senior Corps), was launched to examine: 1. the relationship between holding multiple roles (such as caregiving, working for pay, and informal volunteering) and older adult volunteering outcomes; 2. the benefits that older adults gain from volunteering; and 3. the strategies used by both volunteers and volunteer programs to help older adults juggle increasingly “full plates” of activities. Using a national sample drawn from the Retired and Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP), the study yielded valuable information about how …

The State Of Nonprofits In Southeast Louisiana In 2021: Adaptability & Racial Equity In Year One Of The Covid-19 Pandemic Technical Report, Steven W. Mumford

Political Science Reports, Studies, and Presentations

In 2021, the Greater New Orleans Foundation partnered with the University of New Orleans to study the regional nonprofit sector in Southeast Louisiana, exploring the sector’s adaptability to the COVID-19 pandemic and racial equity in its nonprofits’ leadership. This study followed a spring 2020 survey focused on the pandemic’s immediate impact. A total of 756 public charities received an online survey in January and February 2021; 335 responded, for a 44% response rate. Results suggest nonprofits adapted to the pandemic’s financial toll and increased demand for essential services by shifting services online, accessing federally backed emergency loans, and reducing staff …

Climate Communication And Storytelling, Emma F. Bloomfield, Chris Manktelow

Communication Studies Faculty Publications

As part of its Assessment Reports (ARs), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) publishes Summaries for Policymakers (SPMs) that review key findings on climate science and climate change’s potential impacts. We argue that the IPCC could create more engaging SPMs by incorporating narrative features. This project evaluates AR5’s SPM for narrative opportunities, which are elements that could be narratively restructured or strengthened. Storytelling does not compromise the goals of the IPCC but rather helps public audiences understand and relate to the information. We encourage the adoption of storytelling elements to increase public understanding of and engagement with climate science.

An Analysis Of Citizenship Education In Maine Middle Schools, Tom Adams

Honors College

An essential responsibility of public schooling is to cultivate civic awareness in students and prepare them to participate in a democratic society. Schools have, however, broadly failed this task, a trend the Maine Department of Education has attempted to reverse through policy. The 2019 edition of the MDoE’s Maine Learning Results (“MLR”) standards mandates that middle school social studies teachers implement civic action and service-learning projects (a.k.a. “citizenship education”) to address community needs and foster students’ civic identity. Existing literature suggests that citizenship education improves students’ civic awareness, community engagement, and future voting behavior, but the effectiveness of this new …

Measuring Social Integration: Linking Personal And Associational Ties In Ego Networks, Sela Harcey

Department of Sociology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Objective: Social integration is a foundational feature of society that influences individual-level outcomes. However, as our social worlds increase in complexity, integration becomes difficult to precisely measure. Contributing to research on social integration, this dissertation: (1) develops more precise ways to measure social integration, (2) identifies who is socially integrated, and (3) explores which social ties have the most influence on social integration.

Study 1: The first study aims to measure social integration more precisely by establishing a network structure and set of measures that utilize personal and associational ties with ego network data. Defined as personal affiliation networks (PAN), …

The Intersection Of Community Engagement And Library Science, Katherine A. Laflamme

Librarian Publications

A community is not just a place where people live, but an aggregation of folks brought together, whether by chance or design, who share like avocations. This article details frameworks for community engagement, and also identifies the discernible intersection between community engagement work and librarianship. The main focus is to look at these intersecting fields and establish what can be done to elevate a cohesive, homogeneous patron experience and embrace the larger community as a whole.

Sustainable Tourism Challenges: Systems Change - Slovenia Tourism's Green Scheme, Hannah Bromm, Jonathon Day

Tourism Insights

The report addresses ways that Slovenia has encouraged the adoption of sustainable tourism practices

The Digital Void Of Voluntourism: Here, There And New Currencies Of Care, Orlando Woods, Siew Ying Shee

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper explores some of the ways in which “care” is being transformed in response to the mediatory role of digital technologies. Digital mediation has caused care to become an increasingly cross-border practice, and a more expansive construct, that destabilises the assumption of presence (“here”) and absence (“there”). Indeed, as the physical and digital merge into one integrated way of being in the world, they enable connectivity across geographical distance, but so too can they create emotional distance within situations of geographical proximity. These outcomes reflect the “digital void” within which caregivers, and society more generally, are implicated. Digital voids …

Citizen-Led Assessments: A Model For Evidence-Based Advocacy And Action To Improve Learning, Suman Bhattacharjea, Sehar Saeed, Rajib Timalsina, Syeed Ahamed

Assessment and Reporting

Designed as household-based assessments, citizen-led assessments (CLAs) are implemented by local organizations who assess children in their homes, thus reaching the most marginalized children, families, and communities, often in remote areas. CLAs add an essential piece of information for truly monitoring progress and help realistically represent the learning levels of all children – at national, regional, and global levels. By using simple tools and easy-to-understand reports, CLAs engage parents and community members in discussions about learning and help foster understanding of the importance of ensuring quality education through civil action. In this publication, members from organizations conducting CLAs in India, …

Sanctuary Says, Alexandra Délano Alonso, Abou Farman, Anne Mcnevin, Miriam Ticktin

Publications and Research

In 2018, the New School Working Group on Expanded Sanctuary collaboratively organized a series of workshops in New York to reflect on the question of sanctuary as a conceptual and practical starting point for cross-coalitional politics, including its tensions and risks. This short piece is an attempt to bring together the sentiments expressed in those workshops by activists, organizers, students and academics focusing on anti-racist, pro-migrant, and pro-Indigenous struggles, in a form that engages sanctuary as an ongoing question.

Reimagining The Role Of Physical Space In Future Human Thriving, Adrian Young

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

As a positive psychology practitioner and residential planner, I divide energy and effort into two distinct fields; one focused on human welfare and the other on optimal aesthetics and functionality of our physical surroundings. This text explores a philosophical shift in motivation for space design prompted by the experience and new potential that result from COVID-19. Rather than space as a means to epitomize style and serve utility, I urge considering the full complexity of the human experience and what would be most conducive to general well-being as a new leading priority. What influence can environmental design bring to generalized …

Reconsidering Extension: Defining Urban Extension In Kentucky, Kristina D. Hains, Jeff Young, Addie Reinhard, Bryan J. Hains

Community & Leadership Development Faculty Publications

As the vast majority of the population in the United States shifts to dwelling within large population centers, it is necessary to examine the responsibility and role that Cooperative Extension has to serve urban communities. Throughout its history, the land-grant system, through Cooperative Extension, has demonstrated the ability to impact the lives of individual citizens and communities positively. Within this theoretical discussion, we illuminate Cooperative Extension’s responsibility to serve urban communities in the 21st Century and highlight essential milestones in the development of urban Extension throughout the past 100 years. Also, we explore the foundations and relevance of recently developed …