Civic and Community Engagement Commons^™

Community Land Trusts: A Help Or Hindrance To Community Development In The United States, Andrew Kuka

Student Research – Stevenson Center

The availability of affordable housing in the United States continues to be an issue for Americans who are on the brink of homelessness, rely on housing subsidies, or struggle to pay their mortgages or rents. These issues, as well as the gentrification threat that community development poses to low-income residents can have deleterious effects on democratic participation and community development efforts. One proposed solution to these problems is the implementation of more community land trust programs nationally. This paper will assess the practicality of CLTs, and what such an implementation would mean for individuals, government entities, community members, and community …

Senior Wellness: Gracefully Aging Across Generations, Sarah Abuali, Angela Bourassa, Patricia Erickson, Nikki Kupferman, Jay Lloyd-Montgomery, Srividya Murthy, Aditi Reddy, Samira Tella, Kevin Trac, Taylor Walter

ISCOPES Posters and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Nasis 2017: Nebraska Annual Social Indicators Survey Questionnaire, Bureau Of Sociological Research

Nebraska Annual Social Indicators Survey (NASIS)

We need your help to learn about how Nebraskans think, feel, and live. Researchers from the University of Nebraska and across the state are counting on your help to learn about a variety of issues. Your responses will help shape program and policy development in Nebraska now and into the future.

125 questions; 16 pages

Training Locally Elected Representatives To Act As Change Agents To Promote Egalitarian Gender Norms: Lessons Learned From The Do Kadam Barabari Ki Ore Programme—Policy Brief, K.G. Santhya, Shireen J. Jejeebhoy

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This policy brief describes an intervention, the Do Kadam Barabari Ki Ore (Two Steps Towards Equality) project in Patna district, India that sought to train locally elected representatives to act as change agents to promote egalitarian gender norms among men and women in their communities, and the effects of exposure to the project among members of the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs, local self-governance bodies) and men and women from the community. The project was undertaken by the Population Council, together with partners, the Centre for Catalysing Change and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and with support from …

Equity & Inclusion Matters - Issue 2, Janurary 2017, Otterbein Office Of Social Justice & Activism

Equity and Inclusion Newsletter

In This Issue:

• Otterbein Launches New Equity & Inclusion Website
• African American Alumni Network Renews Commitment to Otterbein Students, Alumni
• Otterbein Well Represented at Women's March
• New Race and Ethnic Studies Minor Aims to Increase Campus Conversations

Cultivating A Culture Of Food Justice: Impacts Of Community Based Economies On Farmers And Neighborhood Leaders In The Case Of Fresh Stop Markets In Kentucky, Heather Hyden

Theses and Dissertations--Community & Leadership Development

In this thesis, I focus on two tensions within the alternative agro-food movement. First is a question of who/what community is allowed to define food systems problems and then implement solutions. For example, food desert metaphors rely discursively on defining communities as being “without”, which perpetuates needs-based narratives, in which only professional “experts” know how to solve problems of food access. These representations ignore the creativity, agency, and resiliency of everyday food justice mobilizations happening at the grassroots level. Second, what form can solutions take within hegemonic constructions of development? I build a theoretical model based on Black geographies (McKittrick, …

Happiness Index Methodology, Laura Musikanski, Scott Cloutier, Erica Bejarano, Davi Briggs, Julia Colbert, Gracie Strasser, Steven Russell

Journal of Sustainable Social Impact

The Happiness Index is a comprehensive survey instrument that assesses happiness, well-being, and aspects of sustainability and resilience. The Happiness Alliance developed the Happiness Index to provide a survey instrument to community organizers, researchers, and others seeking to use a subjective well-being index and data. It is the only instrument of its kind freely available worldwide and translated into over ten languages. This instrument can be used to measure satisfaction with life and the conditions of life. It can also be used to define income inequality, trust in government, sense of community and other aspects of well-being within specific demographics …

Happiness In Communities: How Neighborhoods, Cities And States Use Subjective Well-Being Metrics, Laura Musikanski, Carl Polley, Scott Cloutier, Erica Berejnoi, Julia Colbert

Journal of Sustainable Social Impact

This essay, the fourth and last of a series published by the Journal of Social Change, is intended as a tool for community organizers, local policy makers, researchers, students and others to incorporate subjective well-being indicators into their measurements and management of happiness and well-being in their communities, for policy purposes, for research and for other purposes. It provides case studies of community-based efforts in five different regions (São Paulo, Brazil; Bristol, United Kingdom; Melbourne, Australia; Creston, British Columbia, Canada; and Vermont, United States) that either developed their own subjective well-being index or used the Happiness Alliance’s survey instrument …

Sharing Student Research: Student Colloquia At University Of South Florida St. Petersburg, Camielle Crampsie, Kaya Van Beynen

USF St. Petersburg Campus Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Nebraska Annual Social Indicators Survey (Nasis) 2016-2017 Methodology Report, Bureau Of Sociological Research

Nebraska Annual Social Indicators Survey (NASIS)

2016-2017 NASIS Methodology Report

Contents

Introduction 3

Mode Selection 3

Design and Item Selection 3

Sampling Design 4

Experimental Design Treatment 4

Data Collection Process 4

Response Rate 5

Data-Entry Training, Supervision, and Quality Control 5

Processing of Completed Surveys 5

Data Cleaning 5

NASIS Sample Weights 6

Design Effects 6

Questions 6

Estimate of Sampling Error 9

Appendices 10

Appendix A: Cover Letters 10

First Mailing – Version 1 (Long version with incentive) 10

First Mailing – Version 2 (Short version with incentive) 11

First Mailing – Version 3 (Long version with no incentive) 12

First Mailing – Version …

Lost & Found, Owen Gottlieb, Ian Schreiber, Kelly Murdoch-Kitt

Presentations and other scholarship

Lost & Found is a strategy card-to-mobile game series that teaches medieval religious legal systems with attention to period accuracy and cultural and historical context.

The Lost & Found games project seeks to expand the discourse around religious legal systems, to enrich public conversations in a variety of communities, and to promote greater understanding of the religious traditions that build the fabric of the United States. Comparative religious literacy can build bridges between and within communities and prepare learners to be responsible citizens in our pluralist democracy.

The first game in the series is a strategy game called Lost & …

A Retrospective Illustrative Case Study On The Barriers Facing First Generation College Students And How A Targeted Program Ameliorates These Barriers, Samuel Kosydar

International Journal of Undergraduate Community Engagement

First generation college students face a particularly unique set of challenges navigating the college pathway to success. Financial concerns aside, lack of awareness of campus resources and stigmatization that can also be dependent upon race and gender may impede academic performance and impose additional stressors. In a retrospective illustrative case study, barriers facing first generation college students are examined from the vantage point of a community based first generation college scholarship program designed to recruit and retain these students at a private university. Observational and census data are used as analysis. While many such barriers are ameliorated at least in …

Travels On The St. Johns River., Thomas Hallock, John Bartram, William Bartram, Richard Franz

Faculty Books

In 1765 father and son naturalists John and William Bartram explored the St. Johns River Valley in Florida, a newly designated British territory and subtropical wonderland. They collected specimens and recorded extensive observations of the plants, animals, geography, ecology, and native cultures of an essentially uncharted region. The chronicle of their adventures provided the world with an intimate look at La Florida. Travels on the St. Johns River includes writings from the Bartrams' journey in a flat-bottomed boat from St. Augustine to the river's swampy headwaters near Lake Loughman, just west of today's Cape Canaveral. Vivid entries from John's Diary …

Increasing Energy Acces In Southeast Asia Through Social Enterprises, Haneol Jeong

Social Space

The 21st century has seen cars go driverless and virtual reality become a reality—yet one fact remains: one in seven people still do not have access to electricity.1 In an age where more people have access to mobile phones than toilets,2 electricity has become as vital a necessity as clean water. To address this issue, social enterprises such as M-KOPA and Sunlabob have pioneered efforts to provide renewable energy for off-grid communities, and yielded innovative energy alternatives and financing solutions. Southeast Asia, however, remains a largely untapped market, with approximately 19 per cent of its population still without access to …

Dear Reader, How Do We Go On? Letters Of Reflection On Community Care In Climate Activism In Maine, Ester Topolarova

Honors Theses

Climate activist groups in Maine often see their members become too tired to continue organizing. Thus, I decided to explore how these activists enact community care. I conducted my fieldwork with 350 Maine and its local nodes. I explore community care as a practice and as an aspiration. Community care is practiced through the acts of people taking care of each other. Aspiration, therefore, is a way of living and seeing the self as striving to replicate the world activists are fighting for. I conceptualize care as racialized, gendered, classed, and embedded in neoliberal capitalism. In activist meetings, care is …

Defining Civic Mindedness: A Study Of The Butler Community Arts School, Emma Edick

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

The term “civic-mindedness” is broad, but it relates to specific experiences and behaviors we, as citizens and members of communities across the country, live out in our daily lives. But what does the term’s definition boil down to? I conducted a study to complete my thesis for the Butler University Honors Program, starting with the question: how is “civic-mindedness” defined in our culture and in what ways do the arts, specifically, impact an individual’s development of civic-mindedness? To answer this question, I focused on the dual mission statement of the Butler Community Arts School (BCAS), which reads, “…providing quality arts …

Charting Syriza's Swift Rise And Fall, Despina Lalaki

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Towards Buen Vivir: Brian Massumi’S "The Power At The End Of The Economy”, Robert Leston

Publications and Research

In this review of The Power at the End of the Economy, Lestón delineates the theoretical apparatus of Massumi's book and its possible implications.

Cle Promising Practices: Using Staff Networks To Build Community Membership, Oliver Lyons, Thinkwork! At The Institute For Community Inclusion At Umass Boston

All Institute for Community Inclusion Publications

LOQW (Learning Opportunities/Quality Works) is a community skills training, service coordination, and employment services provider in northeast Missouri. LOQW operates several satellite offices in addition to its main office in Monroe City, MO. One of these satellite offices is located in Hannibal, MO, a city with a population of less than 18,000. But being located in a small city does have its advantages. One advantage is that a majority of the Hannibal staff has lived there for their entire lives, and they have countless connections in the area. Staff often use their own networks to bring people they support into …

Cle Promising Practices: Flexible Scheduling And Creative Staffing, Heike Boeltzig-Brown, Thinkwork! At The Institute For Community Inclusion At Umass Boston

All Institute for Community Inclusion Publications

Headquartered in a small rural town in northern Maine, Katahdin Friends, Inc. (KFI) provides community employment and life engagement supports, as well as home supports, to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). A flexible approach to staffing and support scheduling helps KFI ensure customized daily support schedules that meet individual goals. This approach also allows individuals to interact with a variety of direct support professionals, which is important for having a more engaged and meaningful life in the community.

Cle Promising Practices: Using Mobile Communication Technology, Oliver Lyons, Thinkwork! At The Institute For Community Inclusion At Umass Boston

All Institute for Community Inclusion Publications

SEEC (Seeking Equality, Empowerment, and Community) is a Maryland-based provider of employment, community living, and community development supports to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). Because SEEC has no central facility, having ways to maintain contact between staff and management is paramount. From prepaid cell phones in 2005 to outfitting every staff member with a tablet or a laptop today, SEEC has embraced mobile communication since it started its conversion. By pursuing non- disability-specific grants and reallocating resources, SEEC is able to maintain a mobile organization.

Cle Promising Practices: A Staffing Approach Based On Client Relationships, Heike Boeltzig-Brown, Thinkwork! At The Institute For Community Inclusion At Umass Boston

All Institute for Community Inclusion Publications

Avenues Supported Living Services of Valencia, California was founded in 1997 by a husband- and-wife team, Scott and Lori Shepard. The agency provides supported living and community life engagement (CLE) services to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). Key to Avenues’ success is a staffing approach that is grounded in client relationships.

Cle Promising Practices: Braiding Community Employment And Life Engagement Services, Heike Boeltzig-Brown, Thinkwork! At The Institute For Community Inclusion At Umass Boston

All Institute for Community Inclusion Publications

WorkLink is a program that braids community employment and life engagement services. The goal is to enable individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) to work while receiving wrap-around day supports, as needed. Started in 1996, WorkLink is a program of TransCen, Inc. and is based in San Francisco.

WorkLink clients do not have to give up day supports when deciding to pursue work. In addition to helping individuals establish and maintain meaningful community relationships, day supports are used to discover and explore vocational goals and job options. This information then helps guide individuals’ employment planning process.

Cle Promising Practices: Using Human And Social Capital To Decrease Dependence On Paid Supports, Jennifer Sulewski, Thinkwork! At The Institute For Community Inclusion At Umass Boston

All Institute for Community Inclusion Publications

SEEC (Seeking Equality, Empowerment, and Community) is a Maryland-based provider of employment, community living, and community development supports to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). Like many providers of individualized supports, SEEC has had to find creative ways to individualize supports even though its funding structures do not support 1:1 staffing. One way they do this is by deliberately building both human capital (community living skills) and social capital (relationships in the community). As skills and relationships are built, paid supports can be faded, thus making more efficient use of resources in the longer term.

Stand Clear Of The Closing Doors, Please: Transit Equity, Social Exclusion, And The New York City Subway, Taylor Novick-Finder

Pitzer Senior Theses

The history of transportation planning in New York City has created disparities between those who have sufficient access to the public transportation network, and those who face structural barriers to traveling from their home to education, employment, and healthcare opportunities. This thesis analyzes the legacy of discriminatory policy surrounding the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and city and state governments that have failed to support vital infrastructure improvement projects and service changes to provide multi-modal welfare to New York’s working poor. By exploring issues of transit equity as they pertain to the New York City subway system, this thesis raises the …

A Refuge For Refugees: The Historical Context And Socioeconomic Impact Of Palestinian Refugees In Jordan, Amelia Marie Dal Pra

Global Tides

Today more than 41 percent of the Jordanian population is comprised of Palestinian refugees. Some argue that Jordan has become the new Palestinian state in place of their former land pre-1948. This paper presents the complications of this claim by focusing on the Jordanian government’s constitutional provisions on refugee citizenship, Palestinian support programs and the role the Palestinian identity has played in the integration, or lack thereof, of Palestinian refugees into the social, political, and economic spheres of Jordanian society.

A Synthesis Of James Howard Kunstler’S Themes Of Urbanization And The Impending Oil Crisis In The Geography Of Nowhere, Home From Nowhere, The City In Mind, And The Long Emergency, William S. Humphrey

Tenor of Our Times

This paper examines and synchronizes the thoughts put forth by American social critic and author James Howard Kunstler in his four books, The Geography of Nowhere, Home from Nowhere, The City in Mind, and The Long Emergency. Kunstler asserts that human beings are losing their sense of being while simultaneously facilitating daily life, thus leaving a world rife with nothingness. A large portion of Kunstler’s argument deals with how humans have knowingly increased suburban sprawl while depleting valuable resources; such activity, left unchecked, will worsen the state of the world. The United States, in particular, is the most problematic. …

A Theory Of Veteran Identity, Travis L. Martin

Theses and Dissertations--English

More than 2.6 million troops have deployed in support of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Still, surveys reveal that more than half feel “disconnected” from their civilian counterparts, and this feeling persists despite ongoing efforts, in the academy and elsewhere, to help returning veterans overcome physical and mental wounds, seek an education, and find meaningful ways to contribute to society after taking off the uniform. This dissertation argues that Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans struggle with reassimilation because they lack healthy, complete models of veteran identity to draw upon in their postwar lives, a problem they’re working through collectively …

17th Legislative Session, 2017-2019 File, Texas Silver-Haired Legislature

Texas Silver-Haired Legislature

17th Legislative Session 2017-2019 File . The first file in the folder, information on the orientation session, is the primary document on this record and the additional documents inside the file are attached to this record as additional files. See list below for additional files contents.

Guía Curricular De Abriendo Oportunidades: Para Niños De 8 A 12 Años, Population Council

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

El programa Abriendo Oportunidades® en Guatemala tiene diez años de experiencia en el proceso de educación no formal enfocado en niñas y jóvenes indígenas en el área rural del país, especialmente en comunidades que viven en condiciones de exclusión económica y social. La guía curricular se ha enriquecido con las observaciones e insumos obtenidos durante este proceso, para incluir temas relevantes, objetivos centrales, ejercicios y actividades, así como materiales de referencia y apoyo. Por su estructura, es posible adaptar esta guía a diferentes entornos y contextos, manteniendo siempre como esencial el desarrollo de habilidades de liderazgo comunitario, relacionamiento social, de …