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Evans School of Public Policy & Governance

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Event Recap | Theory to Practice: The Intersection of Human-Centered Design & Public Policy

 

During our fall 2021 Theory to Practice event, The Intersection of Human-Centered Design and Public Policy: How you can apply design-thinking principles to solve complex public challenges, our guests Rachael Cicero, Dr. Mark Childs, and Krissy Kimura explored the fundamental ideas and methods of human-centered design, shared applicable ideas and tools to help solve challenges you are facing in your own professional sphere, and shared their lived experience using design methodology for solving complex community challenges. Check out the recording and resources available below:

 

Review Resources

 

Rachael Cicero, is the City of Seattle’s civic designer. In her current role, she is responsible for spearheading research, engagement, and evaluation efforts for City programs and service delivery. Prior to joining the City of Seattle in 2019, Rachael spent over six years managing design and engineering work at companies such as Twitter and Seattle-based design consultancy, Artefact.

Mark Childs

Dr. Mark Childs, an Evans School alum, is a professor emeritus, writer, poet, and architect. Dr. Childs recently retired from serving as interim dean of architecture and planning at the University of New Mexico where he had been on the faculty for the last 26 years. An accomplished scholar and academic, he was also a senior Fulbright scholar in Cyprus in 2005 where he researched architectural development and civic space. Prior to that he worked as a planner and architect in Seattle.

Krissy Kimura is the Interim Assistant Director for the Institute for Innovation and Global Engagement at the University of Washington Tacoma. Previously based in Washington, DC, she was a contractor for the federal government under the General Services Administration on the Code.gov team and at the Department of Energy, where she worked as a User Experience Designer.

New Cohorts of MPAs, EMPAs, and PhDs Join Evans School Community

This Autumn, the Evans School welcomes new students from across its academic programs, all passionate about the pursuit of advanced degrees in public policy and public administration.

One of the largest cohorts in Evans School MPA program history, the MPA class of 2023 is comprised of 220 students, hailing from 29 states and 20 countries around the world. Their top policy areas of interest are Environmental Policy and Management, Social Policy: Poverty, Education, & Social Welfare, and Public Policy Analysis and Evaluation. These students are excited to come to the Evans School for a strong sense of community, educational resources and opportunities, and to take advantage of living in one of the most beautiful parts of the country.

The 24 students in incoming EMPA Cohort 19 largely call Washington state their home. Other students join us from Arizona, Oregon, and Washington D.C. We welcome multiple program managers, directors, an energy consultant, a Chief of Police, and a CEO among many others who, together, hold more than 337 years of professional experience.

This year’s four incoming PhD students will focus on a broad range of professional and academic issues including Social & Health Policy, Labor & Education Policy, Climate & Community Reaction, and Education Policy.

We are incredibly excited for such a diverse and inspirational group to join the Evans School that clearly exemplifies equity, courage, and service. Our school and our field will become greater because of your contributions. Welcome, all!

Evans School Graduate Selected for the 2021-22 WSG Hershman Fellowship

September 2, 2021.  The University of Washington College of the Environment announced that recent Evans School graduate Allison Lu and four other UW graduates have been awarded the Washington Sea Grant Hershman Fellowship for 2021-2022. This fellowship places highly motivated, qualified individuals with marine and coastal host offices throughout Washington, providing fellows with a unique perspective on building marine policy and allowing them to share their academic expertise with the host offices.

 

As a WSG Hershman Fellow, Allison will support the Northwest Seaport Alliance’s air quality and sustainable practices team with their climate and zero emission commitments.

Allison Lu

Allison was born and raised in the Seattle area and grew up playing on Alki beach, kayaking across Lake Sammamish, and sailing around Puget Sound with her family. She spent her summers studying abroad and eventually moved to the United Kingdom to pursue her bachelor’s degree in law at University College London. After graduating, she moved to Southern California to be the primary guardian for her teenage sister. She had developed a passion for environmental law throughout her undergraduate studies, so after her sister left the nest, Allison decided to pursue a master of public administration, concentrating in environmental policy, at the UW Evans School of Public Policy & Governance. During this time, she also worked as the nonprofit coordinator at the Washington State Parks Foundation. Throughout her academic work in and professional experience in outdoor recreation and conservation, she knew she wanted to pursue a career in marine and coastal policy, specializing in natural resource management.

Congratulations, Allison! 

Read about the other fellowship recipients.

Research, education hub on ‘coastal resiliency’ will focus on earthquakes, coastal erosion and climate change

Ocosta Elementary School in Grays Harbor County, Washington, is home to the first tsunami vertical evacuation center in North America, completed in 2016. NOAA

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September 7, 2021. The National Science Foundation has funded a multi-institutional team led by Oregon State University and the University of Washington to work on increasing resiliency among Pacific Northwest coastal communities.

The new Cascadia Coastlines and Peoples Hazards Research Hub will serve coastal communities in Northern California, Oregon and Washington. The hub’s multidisciplinary approach will span geoscience, social science, public policy and community partnerships.

The Pacific Northwest coastline is at significant risk of earthquakes from the Cascadia Subduction Zone, an offshore fault that stretches more than 600 miles from Cape Mendocino in California to southern British Columbia. The region also faces ongoing risks from coastal erosion, regional flooding and rising seas due to climate change.

The newly established Cascadia CoPes Hub, based at OSU, will increase the capacity of coastal communities to adapt through community engagement and co-production of research, and by training a new generation of coastal hazards scientists and leaders from currently underrepresented communities.

The initial award is for $7.2 million over the first two years, with the bulk split between OSU and the UW. The total award, subject to renewals, is $18.9 million over five years.

“This issue requires a regional approach,” said co-principal investigator Ann Bostrom, a UW Evans School professor of public policy and governance. “This new research hub has the potential to achieve significant advances across the hazard sciences — from the understanding of governance systems, to having a four-dimensional understanding of Cascadia faults and how they work, and better understanding the changing risks of compound fluvial-coastal flooding, to new ways of engaging with communities to co-produce research that will be useful for coastal planning and decisions in our region. There are a lot of aspects built into this project that have us all excited.”

The community collaborations, engagement and outreach will focus on five areas: Humboldt County, California; greater Coos Bay, Oregon; Newport to Astoria, Oregon; Tokeland to Taholah, Washington; and from Everett to Bellingham, Washington.

Read the full story on UW News.

UW Evans School Relaunches Program for Undergraduates Interested in Public Service Careers

For the first time in decades, the UW Evans School of Public Policy & Governance will host a summer fellowship program designed to transform how students engage in the field of public policy and public administration and to build new pathways to public service for all who are called to serve.

The UW Evans School’s Summer Institute will provide undergraduate students with a deeper appreciation of current issues and trends in public and international affairs, a greater understanding of career opportunities in public service fields, and enhanced knowledge and skills to support their future pursuit of careers in public policy.

“This program is critical to delivering on our purpose to inspire public service and democratize the work of public policy,” Evans School Dean Jodi Sandfort described. “We have an imperative to build a more robust career pathway for historically underrepresented students into rewarding jobs in the public policy and international relations arenas. It is central to our ability to strengthen the public sector for years to come.”

The UW Evans School’s Summer Institute program is a rigorous seven-week summer program with a curriculum that includes economics, policy analysis and implementation, quantitative methods, and community engagement – all designed to sharpen students’ quantitative, analytic, and leadership skills.

Evans School Summer Institute participants will also gain exposure to the breadth and richness of public service in the Pacific Northwest through experiential learning opportunities, including mentorship, shadowing public service professionals, and engagement with community-based practitioners, regional leaders, and elected officials.

“The world is filled with incredibly complex problems that demand sustained public attention and innovative policy solutions. The Summer Institute provides an opportunity for students to learn about the public policy approaches necessary to address such problems,” highlighted Assistant Professor Karin Martin. “Highly motivated students who are eager to have a positive impact on the world will appreciate the excellent teaching, practical skills, and career development that happens at the Summer Institute.”

Overcoming Barriers to Access Health Care The Challenges Facing Minorities and Immigrants in Washington State

 

Washington state’s BIPOC and immigrant communities face worse health outcomes and a lower standard of care compared to their white counterparts. Barriers to access, both at the individual and system levels, are the primary drivers for inadequate care and unmet needs. As a purchaser and regulator, Washington State and its agencies can exercise their authority to finance, implement, and oversee interventions to help reduce and/or eliminate systemic barriers that disproportionately affect minority and immigrant households.

In this report, Layla G. Booshehri (Associate Director of Center for Health Innovation and Policy Science) and Jerome Dugan (Faculty in Health Systems and Population Health & Adjunct Faculty at the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance) examine what Washington State can do to reduce disparities in health care access experienced by Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) and immigrant communities.

 

Read the Report

 

Sharing Power: The Landscape of Participatory Practices & Grantmaking Among Large U.S. Foundations

August 25, 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic and fights for racial justice highlighted questions about whether mission-driven organizations can effectively deliver on their social impact goals without engaging with the communities that they seek to impact. Philanthropic foundations, in particular, have come under scrutiny amidst recent and growing concerns about their undemocratic nature and shrouded grant-making processes.

Philanthropic foundations in the United States hold significant power in the policy landscape, as they can both define societal challenges and determine the manner in which those challenges are addressed. The work of foundations is tax subsidized, but they are held to few standards of accountability, leading to increasing calls for foundations to shift their power to affected communities, to democratize decision-making through greater stakeholder participation, and to be more accountable to those whose lives they affect.

As part of the University of Washington Philanthropy Project, Evans School researchers Kelly Husted, Emily Finchum-Mason, and David Suárez sought to understand how large philanthropic foundations – with substantial assets and power – engage the people they serve in their governance and grant-making policies and practices. They launched a survey of the 500 largest private and community foundations in the United States between May and December 2020 to answer this question. These are their key findings:

  1. Many foundations solicited and incorporated feedback from grantees, community-based organizations, beneficiaries, and the public directly into decisions regarding governance and grant-making, but true decision-making power was rarely given to these stakeholders.
  2. The vast majority of foundations are using stakeholder participation as a way to increase their innovativeness and effectiveness rather than to share power, despite the fact that rhetoric surrounding these practices is focused on breaking down power silos.
  3. For the largest foundations in this country, the primary impediment to stakeholder participation was a perceived lack of time and capacity to implement, despite the sheer volume of assets that these foundations wield.

By learning more about grantmaking practices that are currently in place, the motivations for using these approaches, and the key challenges to incorporating stakeholder participation, researchers hope to lower the barriers that some foundations may face in making stakeholder participation an integral part of their governance and grant-making.

Greater accountability from philanthropic foundations represents an important step to a more equitable future. When large, powerful foundations listen to those they aim to benefit, they can more effectively direct their giving in ways that align with community needs.

Read the Full Report

 

About the UW Philanthropy Project

The UW Philanthropy Project is a multiyear research program seeking to understand the many important roles that philanthropic foundations play in American society.