CPCS News Archive

March-April 2005

How you will protect yourself from unwanted medical procedures when you cannot speak for yourself?

Instructor, Beth Clemens and her Advanced Practice Seminar class, Promoting Choice in Health Care through Advanced Directives answered this question with a presentation entitled: If I can't speak, who will speak for me - Protecting your rights with a Health Care Proxy and Living Will on April 27th. The event was a huge success and the students learned a lot from the process they had to go through to put on such an important presentation. Read the Mass Media Article: Aging and Human Services Holds Workshop on Terry Schivo and Living Wills

Op Ed by CPCS Professor Michael Stone
CPCS Community Planning Professor, Michael E. Stone, and Felix D. Arroyo, Boston City Councilor at-Large co-wrote and Op Ed Article for The Allston-Brighton Bulletin - "Unaffordable 'affordable' housing needs to be made a city priority".

Excerpt: "The state of Massachusetts and particularly the City of Boston face well-documented housing affordability crises. Political conservatives claim that private market housing production is the only solution. But with tenants across the city struggling to pay historically high rents and most Boston residents priced out of homeownership, it is disingenuous to suggest that the market alone can solve the problem." ... Read the full article

Kevin Johnson and CPCS Professor Joan Arches presented with 6 hic cup youth at a conference at Emerson College called Reimagining Community.


Ties Between Community and Work Cited
By Joe Buckley
Published: Thursday, March 24, 2005

The Mass Media

Excerpt: Massachusetts' workers are facing a multitude of daunting problems. Globalization, the intensification of work, reorganization, and new technology are a few of the challenges that have impacted workers and their communities. In response to these events the UMB Labor Resource Center hosted a conversation, "Good Jobs Build Strong Communities," on March 15. Representatives of labor groups, community organizers and the academic community met in the fourth floor student lounge in Wheatley Hall to share their views and develop a progressive response. ...

Susan Moir, the Director of the Labor Resource Center opened the session with some examples of the changing nature of work. She pointed out that as the European work week is being pared down to thirty-two hours, the American worker's week is steadily climbing to the fifty hour mark.

To read the full article, go to http://www.the-mass-media.com/news/2005/03/24/News/Ties-Between.Community.And.Work.Cited-901322.shtml

See the University Reporter's April edition for these CPCS News Items, and many others...

Scholar Helps Advance Latino Studies Programs

By Catherine Gardiner
Excerpt: Since the first Latino Studies consortium was held in May 2004, UMass Boston has been involved in a regional project to bring together colleges and universities to share their ideas and research on Latino studies and how Latinos are affected by and affect United States societies. Luis Aponte-Pares, associate professor of community planning and director of the Latino Studies Program, holds an important role in the planning and implementation of the consortium and the Latino Studies Project, which is impacting the field across the nation. ...

Slomoff Lecturer Leads Discussion on Conflict Transformation
By Leigh DuPuy
Excerpt: Protestor, peace activist, and author John Marks discussed the coda for success in conflict transformation during the 2005 Benjamin and Sylvia Slomoff Visiting Lectureship in Dispute Resolution, held on March 7 in the Campus Center Ballroom. Following an introduction by program director David Matz, Marks shared insights from his experiences as founder and president of Search for Common Ground, the largest nonprofit in the field of conflict resolution. The organization specializes in societal conflict transformation, working in 16 countries, 65 percent of which are in sub-Saharan Africa. ...

Connecting to Our Past: Women and Social Reform in Nineteenth Century Boston

Pictured here with Mayor Menino are students from the College of Public and Community Service (CPCS) who are enrolled in Professor Shoshanna Ehrlich's applied history capstone seminar. Supported by funding from CPCS and the UMB Honors Program, the students will be traveling to Virginia at the end of April to present their research at the National Undergraduate Research Conference. They also hope to present at the statewide conference, which will be held here at UMB in April.

Seminar students are exploring the lives of eight women who were active in the Abolitionist and/or the Women's Suffrage Movements in Boston. Some of the women, such as the Grimke sisters, are quite well known. Others, such as Maria Stewart, who historians credit as being the first African-American woman to author a political manifesto, have received little public attention. Of central importance, is uncovering each woman's link with and contribution to the intricate network of reform activity in Boston, as well as her geographical connections to the city.

To situate the lives of these reformers in a historical context, we are also exploring Boston's rich history as a center of reform activity. As we are learning, it was a hub of both abolitionist and women's rights activism. Not only were important reform groups born in this city, Boston was also a hotbed of intellectual fervor, and contributed to the anti-slavery movement through the publication of influential slave narratives, including Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, by Harriet Jacobs. Bravely addressing the sexual exploitation of female slaves, this book was intended to arouse the sympathy of Northern women, and inspire them to reach out to their enslaved sisters in the South.

Once our research is complete, we intend to write a booklet that will be distributed by the Boston Women's Heritage Trail to teachers, historians, and visitors to Boston. By educating people about the city's vibrant past, we hope to encourage individuals to stand up and make a difference in their communities today.

J. Shoshanna Ehrlich, Associate Professor

College of Public and Community Service

CPCS's Diane Dujon, Director of the Competency Connection Makes Front Page News