Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

Latin America: When The Pope’S Economic Message Finds Home, Denise Chrispim Marin

Journal of Vincentian Social Action

When Pope Francis wrote that “we have to say ‘thou shalt not’ to an economy of exclusion and inequality”, this new “commandment” could not find a more challenging audience than in Latin America. According to United Nations Development Program (UNPD) data, Latin America was the only region in the world that has managed to reduce the income inequality in the last decade. In this same region, alternative forms of doing business are flourishing as a result of the social, cultural and environmental engagement of old and new companies, either for the sake of their image or for their own conviction. …

Economy Of Exclusion: Global Perspectives On Pope Francis On Capitalism, Charles Clark

Journal of Vincentian Social Action

Twenty-eight years after the fall of communism and final victory of capitalism, there is increasing unease with the ideology and lived reality of capitalism around the world, and even in America (the Cold War victor). While it is impossible for any one entry to fully represent a continent’s perspective, it is hoped that geographic diversity will also reflect the diversity in the lived experience of capitalism. In challenging capitalism, Pope Francis is thus joining a long tradition of popes who have critiqued both the ideal and the reality of it. The values of capitalism are those that led the rich …

Table Of Contents

Journal of Vincentian Social Action

No abstract provided.

Editors

Journal of Vincentian Social Action

No abstract provided.

Cover Page

Journal of Vincentian Social Action

No abstract provided.

The Opioid Epidemic: A Practice And Policy Perspective, Gail D'Onofrio

Center for Policy Research

I will be talking about the escalating opioid epidemic and some innovative solutions my colleagues and I at Yale University and throughout the state of Connecticut, are working on to mitigate the consequences of this public health crisis.

Table Of Contents, Marc E. Gillespie

Journal of Vincentian Social Action

No abstract provided.

Editors, Marc E. Gillespie

Journal of Vincentian Social Action

No abstract provided.

Cover Page, Marc E. Gillespie

Journal of Vincentian Social Action

No abstract provided.

A Cross-Sectional Exploration Of Household Financial Reactions And Homebuyer Awareness Of Registered Sex Offenders In A Rural, Suburban, And Urban County., John Charles Navarro

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As stigmatized persons, registered sex offenders betoken instability in communities. Depressed home sale values are associated with the presence of registered sex offenders even though the public is largely unaware of the presence of registered sex offenders. Using a spatial multilevel approach, the current study examines the role registered sex offenders influence sale values of homes sold in 2015 for three U.S. counties (rural, suburban, and urban) located in Illinois and Kentucky within the social disorganization framework. Homebuyers were surveyed to examine whether awareness of local registered sex offenders and the homebuyer’s community type operate as moderators between home selling …

Outlandish Outsourcing, Traci Grodner

Best Integrated Writing

Grodner Provides a review of Thomas Friedman’s The Lexus and the Olive Tree that relates a personal anecdote about outsourcing to her academic analysis of the text. Grodner concludes that outsourcing has dire implications for both domestic and foreign workers.

Worcester Black Small Businesses And Racial Inequality In Wealth, Shamen Laquan Radcliffe

Sustainability and Social Justice

This research presents findings from scholarly literature, two background cases, and three key informant interviews about why Black small businesses might receive less loan assistance through the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) than White small businesses. Specifically, it addresses whether racial inequality in wealth explains why Black small business owners receive less loan assistance than their White counterparts in the City of Worcester. By examining existing literature around topic, this research offers policy recommendations to improve conditions for Black small businesses and their minority counterparts in the small business market.

Mitigating An Energy Utility Death Spiral In The United States: Applying Lessons From Germany, Eric W. Hopf, Will O'Brien, Timothy Downs, Alistair Pim

Sustainability and Social Justice

The purpose of this paper is to present evidence that the United States is entering a "Utility Death Spiral" - a dramatic shift away from the utility based model of electricity supply to consumers. It also explores how U.S utilities can reposition themselves to best mitigate the economic losses associated with a Death Spiral. A Utility Death Spiral is currently taking place in Germany called the "Energiewende" and it is having immediate impacts on its energy landscape. The case study of the Energiewende is presented, its impacts, and the response taken by the country’s “big four” utility companies. After analyzing …

Dehumanization: A Case Study, Regina Varthi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The capstone “Dehumanization” is divided into three main parts.

The first part contains a brief presentation on the UN family (or UN system), showing its role through its organizational and managerial structures. All data are derived from UN corresponding websites.

The second part, “Homelessness,” focuses on the SDG 11 of the 2030 GA Agenda. In 2014 the United Nations Human Rights Council appointed Leilani Farha Special Rapporteur on adequate housing in order to conduct research on the subject of homelessness as a violation of human rights. In her report, presented at the Human Rights Council in March 2016, Farha claims …

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 …

Do Tourists Tip More Than Consumer? Evidence Of Taxi Rides In New York City, Amir B. Neto, Adam Nowak, Amanda Ross

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

We revisit the mechanisms that drive tipping behavior by comparing tourists and locals in New York City. It is unlikely a tourist will tip as a way of enforcing repeated interactions since they are not from the area, while a local may tip as an enforcement mechanism. However, if people tip because of social norms, we should see both tourists and locals tipping similar amounts. We compare locals and tourists who are theatergoers to control for education and income, as these factors are likely to affect tipping behavior. Using data from the New York City and Limousine Commission on yellow …

Extending Time Series Forecasting Methods Using Functional Principal Components Analysis, Isaac Michael Wagner-Muns

Masters Theses

"Traffic volume forecasts are used by many transportation analysis and management systems to better characterize and react to fluctuating traffic patterns. Most current forecasting methods do not take advantage of the underlying functional characteristics of the time series to make predictions. This paper presents a methodology that uses Functional Principal Components Analysis (FPCA) to create smooth and differentiable daily traffic forecasts. The methodology is validated with a data set of 1,813 days of 15 minute aggregated traffic volume time series. Both the FPCA based forecasts and the associated prediction intervals outperform traditional Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (SARIMA) based methods"--Abstract, …

Vincentian Education: The Role Of Compassion, Jerrold Ross

Journal of Vincentian Social Action

The renowned Vincentian Center of St John's University brings with it additional prestige and recognition to the research faculties who produce important findings for all levels of Catholic education and for the perpetuation of a tradition long associated with the University. Beginning with Catholic education in preschool and continuing through higher education, Vincentian education, now in its second century, should provide Hope, answer our dreams and refresh its reaction to a vibrant social context, so that people can understand its meaning beyond philosophical statements.

The Heart Of Vincentian Higher Education, Dennis H. Holtschneider Cm.

Journal of Vincentian Social Action

It means a great deal to me to be here at St. John’s University, where I began my university service twenty-seven years ago. It has been my own great joy to spend my life in Vincentian education. Working in Vincentian Universities combines my love for the intellectual life with a desire to serve the poor that I myself received because I attended a Vincentian university in my youth. And it’s the great heart of a Vincentian university to see possibility in ALL the young. I doubt that Bishop Loughlin, whose idea that there should be a university for immigrants led …

Jovsa: Editorial, Marc E. Gillespie

Journal of Vincentian Social Action

Vincentian Universities are engaged in service at so many levels and in so many ways, yet it is easy to move through our day unaware of the herculean efforts that our students and colleagues are engaged in. The Vincentian Universities seem rooted in the idea of service. For us, service is not another trend that we adopted, but rather it has always been part of our constitution. The work presented in this issue provides two direct examples of how we can better serve.

Cover Page

Journal of Vincentian Social Action

No abstract provided.

Heritage Tourism In Washington County, Tennessee: Linking Place, Placelessness, And Preservation, Chad F. Bailey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the formation of spatial theory and the linkage between space and place and their relationship with historic preservation and heritage tourism. First, this thesis analyzes the terms space and place, and how scholars define each term. Second, this thesis focuses on the concept of placelessness. Third, this thesis examines historic preservation as a strategy to help alleviate placelessness and as a crucial link to heritage tourism. This thesis also will use regional examples of preservation and tourism as exemplified by the preservation efforts of private organizations, citizens, and government officials in Jonesborough,Johnson City, and Washington County,Tennessee. This …

A Roadmap For Reducing Gun Violence In America, Daniel Webster

Center for Policy Research

How do you reduce gun violence in America? It seems rather daunting. I’m going to take you through some key things I think we can do to have far less gun violence in America

Religious Tourism And Italian Sacred Mounts: Experiences Of Networking And Co-Operation At A Unesco Site, Raffaella Afferni, Carla Ferrario

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

A Sacred Mount is a historical holy site and former pilgrimage attraction. It is a devotional complex located on a mountain, and composed of a series of chapels and shrines in which scenes from the life of Christ, the Virgin Mary or the saints are represented through paintings and sculptures. In 2003 the Sacred Mounts of Piedmont and Lombardy were included in the UNESCO World Heritage List being considered as representative of something that can be understood, in part, through visitor interactions with the areas in which they are located (see Di Giovine, 2009:208).

The visitors to Sacred Mounts are: …

Where Is Portland Made? The Complex Relationship Between Social Media And Place In The Artisan Economy Of Portland, Oregon (Usa), Stephen Marotta, Austin Cummings, Charles H. Heying

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Portland, Oregon (USA) has become known for an artisanal or ‘maker’ economy that relies on a resurgence of place specificity (Heying), primarily expressed and exported to a global audience in the notion of ‘Portland Made’ (Roy). Portland Made reveals a tension immanent in the notion of ‘place’: place is both here and not here, both real and imaginary. What emerges is a complicated picture of how place conceptually captures various intersections of materiality and mythology, aesthetics and economics. On the one hand, Portland Made represents the collective brand-identity used by Portland’s makers to signify a products’ material existence as handcrafted, …

When Meaningful Writing Reflects Vincentian Values, Michele Eodice, Anne Ellen Geller, Neal Lerner

Journal of Vincentian Social Action

In The Meaningful Writing Project – our study of over 700 seniors at three universities – students describe how education values are embodied in writing projects in and out of school. In brief, our results show that students find meaning when they are invited to tap into the power of personal connection, see what they are writing as applicable and relevant to the real world, imagine their future selves, immerse themselves in what they are thinking and writing about, and experience research for learning. In many cases, the experiences students reported are aligned with Vincentian values for higher education, namely …

Summary Report Of A Faculty Colloquium Held On The Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’ Of The Holy Father Francis On Care For Our Common Home, Mark C. Kiley

Journal of Vincentian Social Action

The Papal Encyclical, issued in summer of 2015, elicited the attention of ten faculty members in St. John’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. All but two of the participants were faculty members based primarily in Staten Island. What follows is a collection of highlights from the formal presentations.

Development Of A Mission-Aligned Campus-Community Partnership Model: The Urban Institute Flu Vaccine Initiative For The Indigent Of Nyc, John M. Conry

Journal of Vincentian Social Action

Despite its position as a powerful country which offers the opportunity for state-of-the-art high-quality patient-centered care, many people within the U.S. do not have access to or cannot afford health care. The Urban Institute of the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences at St. John’s University was successful in developing a community outreach initiative that provided free flu vaccines to an underserved indigent patient population in New York City in an effort to decrease their risk for flu-related morbidity and mortality.

English Language Instruction, Student Engagement, And Sustainable Practices In Rural Ecuador, Pablo J. Sanchez, Morgan R. Zajkowski

Journal of Vincentian Social Action

St. John’s University’s Vincentian Institute for Social Action aims to develop student commitment to social justice through required coursework, international travel, and community service. A strong theoretical foundation ensures that administrators and students are consistently reflecting on the dynamics of power and engaging with community members in an ethical manner. Our framework should continue conversations with the community about the value of foreign language education in their particular regional and global context and encourage students to see themselves as part of a sustainable process. Where many universities and organizations provide volunteer experiences similar in theory, we hope to improve on …

From Mission To Scholarship: Welcome To Jovsa, Deanne A. Southwell, John M. Conry

Journal of Vincentian Social Action

St. Vincent de Paul’s devotion to addressing the needs of the poor is rooted in the foundation of a Vincentian education. As a Catholic and Vincentian institution, the University provides a distinctive, value-based education to its students. In addition to this proud tradition, the University continues to enhance its resources to address the needs of a transforming world. In 2008, the University created a new unit to highlight and strengthen the distinctiveness of its mission. The Vincentian Institute for Social Action was created as part of the University’s strategic plan, with a goal of broadening the Catholic and Vincentian mission …