This Appendix contains brief descriptions illustrative
of the various ongoing public service and outreach activities
at the University of Washington. While by no means is it exhaustive,
this list does illustrate the breadth and depth of current projects.
The projects described in this appendix are only a handful for
which there was documentation readily available, from among the
many the Task Force encountered during its work.
Other recent examples include the design of a playground
by Architecture students; teaching of elementary school students
and teachers about the Human Genome Project in local schools by
the molecular biotechnology department faculty, staff, and students;
the Partnership for Youth Project described in the body of this
report; convening of a "Working Together" Forum for
newly elected and appointed Puget Sound area leaders by the Graduate
School of Public Affairs; the host of services provided by the
University's hospitals, clinics, and programs of the Health Sciences
schools; the libraries; seven legal assistance clinics; continuing
education and summer programs; University Computing and Communications
and their KUOW and UWTV stations; the Seismology Laboratory; inclusion
of high school science teachers on the University's 274-foot research
vessel to study underwater volcanoes; University theatrical and
musical presentations; sports and recreational events and opportunities;
and University Relations and its publications and speaker's bureau.
High school teaching materials about Japan available
nation-wide on multiple web sites. Teacher workshops about other
countries and cultures in rural areas of Washington, Oregon, and
Idaho. An international video festival for elementary school students.
Summer teacher institutes on campus and in Asia which combine
multi-disciplinary perspectives on the world with innovative teaching
ideas. Evening dinner discussions about the stories behind world
news headlines. High school students linked with UW international
studies graduate students in an electronic mentoring program.
These are just a few of the many projects undertaken by the Jackson
School Outreach Centers.
The UW is the home of more federally-funded area
and international studies centers than any other university. The
centers are awarded through a comprehensive and competitive grant
process, so the seven area studies centers, the International
Studies Center, and the Center for Business education and Research
reflect UW's preeminent position nationally. This funding provides
vital student fellowships, curriculum enhancement, and library
support, plus underlying support for outreach programs and services.
Drawing on the expertise of faculty in may different departments,
the centers work to bring new and deeper perspectives on he world
to K-14 educators, business people, the general public, and colleagues
at other institutions.
Since 1992, the Carlson Leadership and Public Service
Office, a unit of Undergraduate Education, has supported individual
faculty in a variety of disciplines throughout the University
in their efforts to integrate public service into their courses
to provide undergraduate students service learning opportunities.
In 1995, with funding from a FIPSE grant, the Carlson Office and
the Geography department began a partnership to develop service
learning at the departmental or curricular level, with the goal
of providing students opportunities across courses and over time
that could deepen their investments and critical understandings.
In little more than a year the number of Geography
faculty offering students service learning options has grown from
three to eight, including Chair David Hodge, and four graduate
teaching assistants have either supported or taught service learning
courses. This curricular innovation has impacted not only undergraduate
students, but the teaching and research interests of faculty and
the professional goals of graduate students. For example, Prof..
Lucy Jaroszs service learning teaching experience has been instrumental
in refocusing her research interests from agrarian change and
food security in sub-Saharan Africa to how, gender, class, and
race relations shape and are shaped by food production and distribution
systems in the Yakima Valley and other areas, and how these systems
impact development. As well, this departmental effort has forged
strong, ongoing relationships between the community and the department,
a foundation which has spawned creative initiatives neither could
undertake alone.
Courses in the department which now include service learning opportunities are:
To cite one example of the innovations these campus-community
partnerships and teaching initiatives can foster, Prof. Gunter
Krumme, an active faculty participant in the UWired Project, combined
service learning with instructional technology to engage students
with community-based organizations lacking the funds or technical
expertise to design web pages. The Carlson Office is currently
exploring a multi-quarter project for the Geographic Information
Systems (GIS) courses to assist the Seattle Public Schools (SPS)
in its efforts to map demographic data more comprehensively onto
the service distribution system for a review of SPS summer free
and reduced lunch program which serves several thousand children
across the city.
UWTV's public service and outreach contribution has
two important components. First, UWTV brings a selection of University
events such as Commencement and Convocation as well as lectures
and colloquia to roughly 750,000 viewers in Washington State.
UWTV has been bringing the University into peoples' homes in Seattle,
most of King County, parts of Snohomish County including Everett,
and Tacoma and Pierce County for about two years. In October,
1996, UWTV became Channel 18 on the cable system in the Wenatchee
Valley and will shortly become available in Spokane as well.
The second part of UWTV's public service and outreach
mission is operating engineering and maintaining a cable channel,
making it possible for Seattle Public Schools, Lake Washington
Public Schools, and the Seattle Community Colleges to air programming
of particular interest to their students. All of these institutions
rely on UWTV's expertise to ensure that their programming can
be viewed over the cable system. UWTV recently extended this same
opportunity to Wenatchee Public Schools, Wenatchee Valley College,
WSU, and Central Washington University. By operating maintaining,
and engineering Channel 18 in the Wenatchee Valley, UW brought
a new learning opportunity to the community and a new access vehicle
to the other educational institutions serving that community.
For the past two years, the Northwest Center for
Research on Women, an interdisciplinary center, hosts a two week
summer camp for 29 girls from rural schools to encourage their
interest in science. The girls come from 16 school from around
the state, each with a student body of less than 400; a significant
number of the girls are of Native American or Hispanic heritage.
The girls are paired with a faculty member in their area of scientific
interest. Their teachers and counselors also come for a one week
course in order to support and mentor the girls after they return
home. In each school, a program is also held to address parents'
concerns. When the girls return to their home communities, a mentor
from UW periodically follows up with them via phone and email.
One of the distinctive characteristics of the project
is how University staff have developed collaborative working relationships
with the rural communities. For example, in Neah Bay, a meeting
with the elders was held as a way to recruit young women. UW staff
have visited each school and have developed WEB pages for each
school.
Dr. Marge Plecki of the College of Education directs
a study that examines the conditions of schools in Washington
State. Her research group recently concluded a study sponsored
by over 15 school districts and the State to carefully examine
the status of public education in Washington. The findings have
been presented to the Legislature, sponsoring school districts,
and the community at-large. The report is the first state-wide
analysis of school data and will help inform the discussion about
public schools and shape educational policies.
As part of its public service and outreach mission,
the University of Washington's Computing & Communications
office has been working closely with various agencies in the Puget
Sound area and around the State to engineer the development of
sophisticated telecommunications networking throughout Washington.
AS part of the public service commitment of the University, C&C
is providing its extensive engineering and operating expertise
to Seattle Public Schools, the City of Seattle, King County, and
the developing K-20 Educational Telecommunications Network.
UW networking and telecommunications engineers are
key contributors to the design of the Seattle Public Schools networking
effort. Working closely with the Office of Superintendent John
Stanford, the Alliance for Education, and the UW's Department
of Computer Science and Engineering, C&C is creating a design
to ring robust Internet and related connectivity to all of the
Seattle Public Schools.
Also in Seattle, the UW is working with the City
on a model fiber optic sharing agreement with the City as well
as exploring the possibility of sharing SONET electronics with
partners.
King County is also in the process of creating a
fiber optic network linking schools, libraries, and other public
agencies and institutions at high speeds in a cost effective manner.
This opportunity arose out of the cable franchise agreement King
County recently negotiated with TCI (in which UW also consulted
with the County on, bringing the University's experience to bear
in these negotiations as well). King County formally asked the
University to guide the engineering of the network infrastructure
in a standards-based, scaleable, and enabling direction, leveraging
the UW's own experience in successes in the areas of Internet/intranet,
cable distribution, and videoconferencing. AS a matter of public
service to the community and with the goal of ensuring the best
use of this opportunity, UW will be providing this service to
the County.
In June of 1995, the Washington state Legislature
appropriated over $40 million to the development of the K-20 Education
Telecommunications Network. UW's Computing & Communications
has accepted the lead role in designing this complex network.
The goal of the first phase of K-20 is to connect all of the Educational
Service Districts, the four-year colleges, and the research universities
and their branch campuses. Given the sheer size of this effort
and the short timeline (to be completed by June 1996), this is
a substantial task requiring significant technical expertise and
the ability to communicate complex engineering concepts to a group
of people with widely varying expertise. UW is once again leveraging
its experience to meet the public service goal of ensuring an
interoperal network of networks enabling many user communities
to collaborate, share resources, and teach using many flavors
of technologies.
The School of Fisheries maintains a WEBSITE on the
Columbia River, which provides citizens of the state with daily
updates about natural/geographic and legislative changes associated
with the Columbia River. Because of the conflicting interests
associated with the Columbia River, the WEBSITE is intended to
provide equal access to data for all stakeholders. The University
is well positioned to provide tools and access to information
to diverse constituencies throughout the state through such technology.
In turn, the School of Fisheries also responds to citizens' questions
about the Columbia River through the WEBSITE. The use of this
information base is growing rapidly and presents the School with
a challenge of how to provide more of what is known on the WEBSITE.
UW experts are part of the small team responsible
for the design of the widely- publicized Internet-II project,
which is intended to provide a suitable network infrastructure
for next-generation research and education applications, as well
as defining a flexible method for accessing a variety of services
via "GigaPOP" exchange points.
The University of Washington has benefited over the
years from the Internet's spirit of sharing and cooperation, as
evidenced by the many software tools that are freely available
over the 'net. UW has endeavored to keep that spirit alive by
making some of our software freely available to others. One example
is the Willow bibliographic search tool; another is the Pine messaging
system. From its modest beginnings as a limited scope email project
for UW administrators, the Pine program has become an international
phenomenon. It is estimated that over 5 million people now use
Pine in over 50 different countries. UW has also developed and
made available several other related programs, and has been instrumental
in development and standardization of an advanced client-server
messaging protocol for the Internet called "IMAP." As
a public service, UW hosts the IMAP Connection, information clearinghouse
on the Web, and has hosted two international conferences on this
subject.
Finally, UW staff participate in the Internet Engineering
Task Force and are regularly asked to give talks at conferences
on the work they are doing in messaging, distributed system architecture,
advanced networking, and library automation.
A UW student interned at Project P.A.C.E. (Personalizing
Autistic Children's Education) working one to one with an autistic
child. This student learned what types of therapy improved the
child's education, and emotional and social development while
discussing and sharing these lessons with other therapists. To
connect this service with her studies, the student worked with
an academic sponsor to research theories of therapy.
A student in the Psychology Department assisted the
Delridge Youth Group in creating and facilitating programs focused
no community involvement, nutrition, interpersonal communication,
the environment, and career exploration. Through this internship
and with guidance from the academic sponsor, she was able to make
a positive impact on the youth group, develop program management
skills, and see how the theories learned in courses actually worked
with the youth.
Another student worked as an intern at the Washington
Environmental Council. She learned about the role of grassroots
environmental organizations in local transportation, forest management,
and water quality issues while developing skills in event planning
and finance research under the joint direction of the organization's
Development Director and her academic sponsor.
A student intern at the Union Gospel Mission established
a relationship between the Mission's mentoring program and teenage
youth in the community. To link the experience with her studies,
the student worked closely with the Teen Director at the Mission
as well as an academic from the University.
Finally, the Undergraduate Research Program provides
opportunities to enhance education through research projects for
undergraduates. One recent example involved the study of gender
roles within dance in an attempt to explain gender differentiation
within society as a whole by studying Filipino Folk dancing.
Computing & Communications is planning for timely
access to library information resources with the other five State
of Washington public baccalaureate institutions through the Council
of Presidents' Cooperative Library Project. Based on work already
done for the UW campus by C&C and the University libraries,
Computing & Communications will be providing access to a full
library catalog of the six institutions' holdings. Students of
any of the institutions will have access to the holdings of any
of the six libraries as will the general public when visiting
those libraries.
C&C and UW Libraries are also providing students
at the other five baccalaureate institutions access to primary
bibliographic reference tools such as Medline, ERIC, and Current
Contents for the other institutions. Robust search interfaces
(such as the Willow suite of products) developed at UW for the
X-Windows, Microsoft Windows, and character-cell environments
are also being supplied to other campuses.
For two years beginning in September, 1992, the coastal
resources specialists of Washington and Oregon Sea Grant Programs
collaborated on a small city waterfront revitalization national
demonstration project, funded in part by NOAA's National Coastal
Resources Research and Development Institute (NCRI). The project
teamed the two specialists and other researchers, with the cities
of Raymond, Wash. And Warrenton, Ore. And the Ports of Willapa
Harbor and Astoria, to assist the communities to develop and implement
revitalization plans for their respective waterfronts utilizing
a planning model designed by the two PIs. In 1994 both communities
adopted their plans and are implementing a series of waterfront
projects.
On August 3, 1996, the city of Raymond dedicated
its new downtown waterfront park. New activity on the river front
includes: an historic tall ship-the "Krestine"-is moored
at its permanent home at the new downtown public dock. An associated
Willapa Seaport Museum will be located in an adjacent saw shop
being refurbished by the city. A Rails-to-Trails bike/jogging
trail connects Raymond's waterfront with South Bend, five miles
down river.
On the opposite bank of the South Fork a $5 million
private development complex is underway. An upscale grocery store
with perimeter service businesses and a fast-food restaurant are
now open; a motel, family restaurant, a service station, and quick-lube
are planned for a later phase. The developer who has deeded the
entire riverbank perimeter of the site to the city for public
access stated that Raymond's waterfront revitalization plan was
a major reason for investing in the community.
In Warrenton, at the Third Street River Park on Skipanon
River adjacent to downtown, a small boat dock for kiyakers and
canoeists has been completed. A pedestrian trail system with interpretive
signage has been built atop the city's protective dike system
and as dedicated last summer.
These improvements were the result of grants totaling
over $1.5 million. In Raymond, grants to implement elements of
the community's waterfront redevelopment plan included: Rails-to-Trails
and adjacent street improvements ($1 million), maritime museum
building repairs and improvements ($200,000), public boat landing
and public plaza ($272,000), and interpretive program signs and
brochures($30,000). Warrenton received a $20,650 Section 306A
Coastal Zone Management grant for the Third Street waterfront
park and $11,000 for waterfront trail and access way improvements.
Each of these projects will produce short term construction employment.
Long term community economic growth will occur through
the increased attractiveness of the communities to visitors, tourists,
and retirees; new waterfront activity and the ripple effects of
new expenditures in adjacent downtown business establishments.
Non-economic benefits include enhanced community capacity to develop
and implement successful community plans; improvements in the
visual, esthetic, and experiential qualities of the communities'
waterfronts; and empowerment of citizens to make their lives better
through community improvements.
Teresa Ash, the research assistant supported on the
project and supervised by Bob Goodwin, produced an instructional
video, "Revitalizing Raymond's Waterfront," as the principal
component of her non-traditional Master of Marine Affairs thesis.
Partial production support for the slide-based video was provided
by the Washington state Department of Ecology through a federal
coastal zone management act Section 306 grant. The video, which
documents the activities of Raymond's waterfront planning team
during the first year of the project, was the cornerstone of a
one day workshop conducted by Bob Goodwin for the Pacific Coast
Congress of Harbormasters and Port Managers at its Spring, 1995
meeting in Eureka, California. The video was also featured in
a "Tools of the Trade" poster session at Coastal Zone
85 in Tampa, Florida.
An extensive slide set, documenting both communities'
planning activities and waterfront settings is available for future
educational programming.
A two volume final report on the project, published
jointly by NCRI and the Washington Sea Grant Program, is reported
by NCRI staff to be in "higher than usual demand" for
such products. The report, authored by Bob Goodwin and Jim Good
(OSU Extension/Sea Grant) provides a detailed assessment of the
demonstration project's successes as well as lessons to be learned.
At the 1996 World Congress on Coastal and Marine
Tourism in Honolulu, Hawaii, with financial assistance from NCRI,
Bob Goodwin presented a workshop on waterfront revitalization
which featured the experience gained in Raymond and Warrenton.
A third year enhancement grant proposal for a national
teleconference on small city waterfront revitalization submitted
to NCRI in 1995 is in abeyance pending the results of a coastal
community, recreation, and tourism development workshop NCRI will
convene in 1996, if funds permit. NCRI's objective is to get guidance
on future research directions before funding any more projects
in his program area.
The Community Health Services Development program
(CHSD) helps rural towns and counties strengthen their health
care. Program Director Peter House, of the University of Washington's
Department of Family Medicine, believes that local problems are
bet attacked by the local communities themselves. "The program
empowers communities by helping them understand rural health care
in general and their health care services in particular,"
House said. "This is followed by assistance in planning for
better health care. While communities control their own destinies,
sometimes outsiders can circumvent thorny issues."
To date the program has consulted with 56 towns and
counties in Washington, Alaska, Montana and Idaho. Most are small
places with only a handful of physicians. The program's methods
are based on the findings of the Rural Hospital Project completed
a few years ago.
A functioning and strong small town health system
can be a magnet for new physicians. The converse, a town where
the hospital is failing, the Board and the doctors are fighting,
and patients are going elsewhere for care, has little appeal to
doctors seeking to set up practice.
The program staff surveys the local residents, studies
the health care system, including its market share of patients,
and presents the results to community leaders. The townspeople
determine what to do with the information. Many participating
towns have undergone a turnaround and are creating a more solid
base for the provision of health care. (Medicine Northwest, Vol.
VIII, #2, 1993, p8)
Washington MESA served 3,396 students in the 1996 academic year program. Services provided to pre-college students include MESA middle level mathematics and science classes, high school careers class, study groups, Saturday Academy and workshops, tutoring, SAT preparation, and family math sessions. Washington MESA currently partners with 24 business and industries in Washington, 62 public schools, 12 community agencies, and 14 Universities and colleges in Washington. MESA'a vision is Washington State's underrepresented students achieving and contributing their full potential
in mathematics, engineering, and science.
Frank Ashby, Seattle MESA Assistant Director, is
preparing 40 8th grade boys for the Washington Science and Engineering
Contest planned for February 17th, 1997. This is one of their
follow-up activities from their 4 week summer science camp held
on campus. The program focuses on the Physics of Robotics and
included an introduction to computers, the study of machines and
electricity, and the construction of robots. The College of Engineering
and CH2M Hill have a partnership that supports Frank's work in
the MESA program.
Since 1992, the Edward E. Carlson Leadership and
Public Service Office has supported after-school tutoring programs
at local elementary schools. Initiated by two undergraduates who
recruited fellow students to tutor children at Bailey-Gatzert
elementary, the project now includes programs at Whittier and
Stevens elementary schools. All three programs are run by teams
of undergraduates in collaboration with Kid REACH, a citywide
tutor training and referral service.
More than 100 UW students and 150 elementary students
participate in the three programs each year. A number of the children's
families are struggling with homelessness or the disruptions of
unstable housing. Student coordinators work with teachers and
Atlantic Street Center caseworkers to identify children for the
program. UW students travel to the schools to work with the children
two days a week, providing assistance with homework, creative
activities, and a nutritious snack.
A simple idea with precious impact, these programs
provide an adaptable model for other students interested in working
with kids to foster learning and healthy development. This year,
the UW chapter of Phi Eta Sigma, a national service honor society,
has begun a similar partnership with Meany Middle School and other
student groups are exploring similar initiatives.
The Institute for Public Policy and Management (IPPM),
housed within the Graduate School of Public Affairs, initiates
and conducts major applied research projects. Through research,
consultancy, conferences, publications, and training, the Institute
enhances the ability of public servants and the general public
to understand major public policy issues and to make sound public
management decisions. The Institute has developed a reputation
as the leading university-based applied public policy research
center in the region and has a national reputation for its excellent
record both in designing analytical procedures that are beyond
reproach and in broadly communicating the results of such studies.
The Institute regularly provides critical assistance
to policy makers and citizens throughout the state. It acts as
a catalyst in helping Washingtonians identify and implement strategies
to shape the future, and as a bridge between university scholarship
and the needs of communities. The Institute draws upon the resources
of University faculty members, maintaining ties with the UW Graduate
School of Business Administration and the Schools of Social Work,
Public Health and Community Medicine, and the College of Education,
faculty from other academic institutions. The Institute and center
directors also have an extensive network of informal advisors
around the state, including public and private leaders, experienced
and knowledgeable practitioners, other sources both within the
state, nationally and internationally. No major project is initiated
without extensive consultation with critical constituency groups.
The Institute has developed several innovative strategies
for disseminating the results of policy studies, including mock
trials, teleconferences, convening contending parties and mediating
solutions to major public problems. Over the years, IPPM's work
has influenced policy makers on the state, regional and national
levels and the Institute has developed a distinguished reputation
for producing analyses and fostering constructive community debate
about major policy issues.
Report on Transportation Corridor Management
--
Roads are part of a larger ecosystem that interacts with natural
environments, wildlife, and human communities. While there is
increasing attention to the connections between transportation,
land use and the environment, and broader definitions of ecosystem
management, there are few models of local, regional, and state
efforts to manage and protect transportation corridors. The report
resulting from IPPM research, Transportation Corridor Management:
Are We Linking Transportation and Land Use Yet?, finds and
presents examples where local, regional and state levels of government
have formed new ways to coordinate transportation and land use
authority. Reports are now being marketed and distributed to policy
makers, citizen activists and transportation and land use professionals
and their constituents nationwide.
Assessment of Tacoma's Enterprise Community Initiative
-- The Institute has been working with community leaders throughout
implementation of the city's Enterprise Community (EC) initiative.
The assessment, which began in March 1996, will continue through
September 1997 and will involve a series of key informant interviews,
interviews with other civic leaders and a series of focus groups.
Through this process, the Institute has been able to provide valuable
feedback on program successes and areas for improvement. Researchers
have also gathered valuable baseline data against which to measure
the impact of the EC initiative.
Study on Workplace Violence
-- Workplace violence is defined as a physical or sexual assault
upon an employee resulting in psychological and/or physical injury.
It includes not just physical acts of violence against an employee,
but also tampering with equipment, graffiti, writing, bullying,
verbal harassment, intimidation, threats, stalking, hate crimes,
and suicide. Increasingly, workplace violence is being recognized
as a significant part of the continuum of interpersonal violence
in the United States. According to the National Institute for
Occupational Safety and Health, each week in the United States,
an average of 20 workers are murdered and 18,000 are assaulted
while at work.
The Study on Workplace Violence, conducted in cooperation
with the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries,
is a three year project now in its initial stages. The study will
identify levels of awareness and attention to workplace violence
and its consequences among Washington State employers, and in
turn will identify model prevention and crisis response plans
which may be adapted to meet specific needs or risk factors of
employers, employee groups, and work situations. A unique and
important distinction of the study design is demonstrating the
importance of recognizing the link between workplace violence
and interpersonal violence -- and in particular, domestic violence,
in the larger community. The study results will include descriptions
of model programs which can be tested before widespread implementation
and will identify targeted interventions to reduce and prevent
violence for specific workplace situations. The interventions
will include 'good practice guides,' as well as conferences and
symposia on risk factors and underlying causes of violence.
Collaboration with the Washington State Department
of Corrections
--
Since 1993, the Washington State Department of Corrections (DOC)
and the UW have been working together to improve services for
mentally ill offenders with a focus on prevention, treatment and
reintegration into society. The collaboration has involved the
efforts of individuals in the departments of Psychiatry, Psychosocial
Nursing, Social Work and the Institute for Public Policy and Management
at the UW. The Institute has played a vital role in convening
state agencies, local service providers and other key stakeholders
to improve intersystem understanding and collaboration with respect
to the treatment and supervision of mentally ill offenders. During
the last year, the Institute has facilitated the development of
a state-wide workplan to improve the provision of necessary treatment
services to mentally ill offenders upon their release into the
community.
The Northwest Policy Center, established in 1987, is dedicated to improving public strategies which foster the vitality of Northwest communities, the economic well-being of the region's people, and the health of the natural environment. The Center is a unique resource providing quality research, analysis, and counsel to leaders in the five Northwest states of Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington.
As an observer and forecaster of the changing economic and social climate, the Center seeks to enhance the region's understanding of the complex and dynamic relationship between economic and environmental forces.
As a catalyst for change, the Center challenges policymakers and practitioners to reexamine traditional responses, to ask hard questions and to approach critical issues in new ways.
As a convenor and facilitator, the Center works to form unique collaborations and develop regional networks, linking people and ideas across traditional barriers.
As an evaluator of promising initiatives and a student of model policy approaches in other states and nations, the Center promotes and shares "best practice" throughout the region.
As a link between policy and practice, the Center
informs and helps shape the policy agenda in the Northwest.
The Center's efforts focus on five program areas.
Working within these areas and at the intersections between them,
the Center conducts policy research and designs innovative responses
to the often competing demands of the region's people, communities,
enterprises and ecosystems.
Regional Economic Trends
-Strategies
to improve economic performance while protecting and enhancing
environmental quality cannot be devised without a clear understanding
of regional economic trends. Thus, the Center provides data and
analysis of economic trends at the local, state, and multi state
regional levels.
Entrepreneurial Vitality
-Support
systems for dynamic small businesses are a crucial aspect of the
economic development infrastructure. The Center helps economic
development professionals in their efforts to aid firms in becoming
more competitive by devising strategies to foster networks of
businesses; build strong, service-oriented industry associations;
and develop sectorally focused assistance centers.
Rural Community Development
-With
two thirds of the population of the Northwest living outside its
major urban centers, the health of the region's smaller towns
and rural areas are crucial to the vitality of the region as a
whole. The Center works as a catalyst for innovations in policy
and practice designed to help rural citizens and enterprises respond
to economic transformations that might otherwise overwhelm them.
Workforce Development
-The
skills of workers and the organization of work are key to the
region's economic vitality. The Center's work focuses on advancing
several workforce development strategies, including those aimed
at expanding work-based learning opportunities, building business
and labor capacity to be partners in workforce and economic development,
diffusing technology and reorganizing work, improving service
delivery, organizing communities to meet their workforce challenges,
and linking workforce and economic development to grow high wage,
high skill jobs.
Community and Environment
-Environmental
quality is one of the strongest and most cherished characteristics
of the Northwest. True economic progress must strengthen, not
compromise, that environmental quality to pass the test of long
term sustainability. Through examination of local best practice,
the Center seeks to discover the keys to long term synergy between
economic vitality and environmental quality, and to turn those
lessons into improved public policy for resource management and
economic development.
The Northwest Policy Center communicates its work
to the policy community in a number of ways, including producing
reports and publications on specific policy initiatives and hosting
conferences, workshops, and colloquia. In addition, the Center
publishes an annual economic forecast and review, and its newsletter,
The Changing Northwest: Strategies for a Vital Economy,
that reports on issues affecting the region as well as activities
and publications of interest to policymakers in the Northwest.
Center staff also frequently contribute articles to regional and
national publications and provide expert commentary to print and
broadcast media.
The activities of the Center are shaped and guided
by the Northwest Policy Center Leadership Council. The Council
meets twice a year to share information across the region, to
review major substantive issues the Center is addressing, and
to help the Center meet its goals and reach its target audience.
The Human Services Policy Center (HSPC) was established
in 1990 as a collaborative effort, drawing upon faculty expertise
at the graduate schools of Public Affairs, Education, Communications,
Social Work, Nursing, Public Health and Community Medicine. The
goal of HSPC is the better integration of human services, facilitating
interdisciplinary and interagency linkages and cooperation. major
projects within HSPC include the Training for Interprofessional
Collaboration (TIC), Washington Kids Count and the
Child Health Initiative.
The TIC project addresses the need for services to
be delivered in a cohesive, client-responsive manner by teachers,
social workers, health professionals, administrators, and policy
analysts who work in collaborative teams with children and families.
This project delivers a new model of in-service and pre-service
training to instill knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary
for interprofessional collaborative service provision. The Collaborators'
Network facilitates interagency collaboration and cooperation
amongst educators, health care professionals, social/family service
providers, administrators, and elected officials across Washington
State. The Network offers a database of people and organizations
involved in collaborative service in the state and a Faculty Matching
service, which matches people's areas of interest with research
expertise among University of Washington faculty. The Network
also organizes conferences to address a broad range of policy
issues related to collaborative service delivery, including school-linked
services, guns and violence in our communities, and the working
poor.
Washington Kids Count
works to improve the health and well-being of children by helping
to strengthen public policies and community strategies in the
state of Washington. The project identifies, monitors, and analyzes
data on the health, education, and socioeconomic conditions of
children and families, and makes this information widely available
to the general public, community leaders, and state and local
In conjunction with the UW School of Public Health
and Community Medicine, issues an annual report on The State
of Washington's Children. The report examines indicators reflecting
the well-being of children in five areas: family and community,
economic well-being, health, education, and safety and security.
Policy makers are able to use these indicators to provide more
effectively for children's health and education needs.
The Child Health Initiative
is a demonstration project designed to improve the delivery of
health services to children with multiple health care needs through
better surveillance of child health and improved care coordination.
HSPC administers grants to nine public and private nonprofit organizations
across the country to pursue locally-developed strategies to improve
health services for at-risk children in their communities.
Established in 1993, the Fiscal Policy Center is
a primary resource to state policy makers and advocacy groups
on issues of state tax and spending policy affecting low-income
and vulnerable populations, and is funded by major grants from
the Ford Foundation, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, and the Northwest
Area Foundation. The Fiscal Policy Center's research and communications
strategy is designed to inform and stimulate a vigorous public
policy debate on fiscal policies among public policy makers and
a wide array of advocacy groups.
During the first two years of its operation, the
Fiscal Policy Center's research helped shaped the initial response
of the Governor and the Legislature to proposals for balancing
the federal budget, and is helped to frame the debate over the
need to change state spending limits.
In the fall of 1995, the Fiscal Policy Center used
a series of reports to initiate a public dialogue on state fiscal
policy issues, beginning with an assessment of the impact of proposed
federal budget cuts on Washington state, and in particular, the
impacts on programs and institutions that serve those with the
lowest incomes. The report was cited by Mayor Norm Rice at a National
Press Club speech before the U.S. Conference of Mayors (of which
Rice is president) and by the state budget office in its own report
on the impact of proposed federal budget cuts.
Subsequent reports analyzed state spending and tax
policies in the context of Initiative 601, which limits state
general fund spending to a growth rate equal to inflation plus
population growth, culminating in a fall conference on 'The Collision
Course: Shrinking Resources and Growing Needs?" This conference
featured a mock trial of Washington's public policy makers in
the year 2005, charging them with failure to adequately anticipate
the impending fiscal crisis and threat to public services. The
conference also featured an address by the chair of the State
Senate Ways and Means Committee, and included several editorial
writers. The conference was taped and rebroadcast several times
on TVW.
Like most state legislatures, the Washington Legislature
focuses its greatest attention on how to survive the current legislative
session, the current budget cycle, and the next election. Overcoming
the inertia of this institutional incrementalism is perhaps the
greatest challenge in affecting the nature of the debate over
fiscal policy and its role in helping people out of poverty, particularly
since the real significance of these policy changes can only be
seen over time. Through its timely reports, the Fiscal Policy
Center has been able to characterize these policy changes in terms
of longer term policy priorities -- before the short term, incremental
problems they present can be characterized as insignificant and
lost in the emotional arguments of the day. This approach has
proven to be particularly effective in shaping the direction and
tone of the debate.
FCC's latest project, conducted in cooperation with
the Human Services Policy Center Washington Kids Count project,
is tracking the local impact of recent fiscal policy changes on
federal and state policies and programs that support working families,
as well as the impacts of welfare reform on children and families
in the state welfare system. Last Spring, FPC co-sponsored a well-attended
conference, "A Working Puget Sound: Meeting the Welfare Challenge,"
with the state Department of Social and Health Services and the
federal Region X Administration for Children and Families. Recently
FPC has held briefings for the Washington Attorney General's office
and other groups on the impacts and implications of welfare reform,
and has worked with several state legislators in helping them
identify policy options for responding.
The Cascade Center's mission is to promote innovative
and effective leadership in public service by providing leaders
in public and nonprofit agencies with opportunities to strengthen
their management skills and judgment. Cascade accomplishes this
mission by conducting executive education programs, developing
and distributing interactive teaching materials to other universities
and training programs, supporting effective teaching in universities
nationwide, and conducting other research projects dedicated to
effectiveness in public service. The Center was launched in 1984
as part of the Institute for Public Policy and Management, in
the Graduate School of Public Affairs and since then has trained
nearly 3,000 managers and elected officials in state and local
government and nonprofit organizations in the Northwest. Below
are three examples of public service work conducted by the Cascade
Center.
Leadership Training for Public and Nonprofit Managers
Each year the Cascade Center attracts nearly 300
public and nonprofit leaders from the Northwest to a variety of
management training courses. Recognizing the substantial experience
and expertise that mid-career managers bring to the classroom,
the Cascade Center has designed course curricula that challenge
these professionals by using interactive teaching tools to help
build judgment and give practical experience in analyzing problems
and developing solutions.
In 1997, the Cascade Center will conduct the Cascade
Management Series, a set of six week-long courses, that delves
into specific management topics critical to the success and advancement
of mid-level managers; the Cascade Public Executive Program, a
two-week intensive course for senior managers and elected officials
that covers the managerial and policy issues that face all senior
executives; and the Executive Management Program, designed in
conjunction with the Washington State Department of Personnel
to address the needs of top-level managers in state government.
Nonprofit Outreach Project
At a time when the responsibility for designing and
delivering public services is shifting from the federal level
to the state and local level, it is imperative that community
leaders are exposed to effective tools and techniques for managing
agencies that provide vital public services. Better management
in public and nonprofit agencies results in more effective programs
and customer service, improved board-executive-staff relations,
more stable finances, and greater community involvement.
With more than ten years of experience in designing
and delivering executive education programs for managers in public
agencies, the Cascade Center for Public Service launched the Nonprofit
Outreach Project to improve the management and viability of nonprofit
organizations throughout the Northwest. An advisory committee
of leaders from local nonprofit and public agencies and businesses
was established to guide the project, which consists of case writing,
course scholarships, and course design and delivery.
To improve the quality and availability of teaching
materials for graduate and executive-level nonprofit management
training, the Cascade Center researches, writes, and distributes
case studies that showcase innovative relationships between nonprofit
organizations and state and local government agencies.
U.S. Department of Labor Task Force on Excellence
in State and Local Government Through Labor-Management Cooperation
As a testament to his expertise in labor issues facing
the public sector, Cascade Center Chair Jon Brock was chosen by
U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich to serve as the Executive
Director of a national task force dedicated to finding innovative
solutions to labor-management issues in the public sector. The
work of the Task Force has recently been published in a report
titled "Working Together for Public Service: Report of the
U.S. Secretary of Labor's Task Force on Excellence in State and
Local Government Through Labor-Management Cooperation".
The Task Force conducted the majority of its research
by visiting over fifty public sector sites across the country
and by holding hearings in five regions of the country, along
with an additional seven public hearings in Washington D.C. In
the Northwest, the Task Force either visited or heard testimony
about innovations in labor-management relations from: King County's
Transit Department (formerly METRO), the King County Waste Water
Treatment Facility, the City of Mercer Island, the City of Seattle,
the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries, and several
agencies in Portland, including the Portland Water Bureau. With
this collection of site visits, public testimony, and the response
to a survey sent to hundreds of public agencies nationwide, the
Task Force developed a set of guidelines that seem key to building
effective labor-management relations in the public sector.
Locally, the City of Seattle then asked Professor
Brock to participate in the City's launching of a new labor-management
structure. By providing information about the Task Force findings
to Mayor Norm Rice, council members, and staff, Professor Brock
was able to illustrate to the City of Seattle the types of labor-management
structures that have proven effective elsewhere, as well as the
types of services that can best be re-examined when labor and
management decide to enter into new types of negotiations.
Over the next two years, Professor Brock will be
involved in the dissemination of the report to both practitioner
and academic audiences nationwide (to date, over 15,000 reports
have been distributed). Since this Task Force and its report is
the largest investment in labor-management relations in the public
sector in almost twenty years, it is critical that every effort
be made locally and nationally to share this valuable information.
The Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE)
seeks to develop and evaluate methods of public oversight that
can allow individual schools to be focused, effective, and accountable.
The research program, which was established in 1993, is based
on research into the current governance arrangements in public
education, which found that the most productive schools follow
coherent instructional strategies in an environment free of regulation
and compliance imperatives. The Center pursues a national program
of research and development on such proposals as charter schools,
school contracting, choice, and school system decentralization,
via alliances with the Brookings Institution, the RAND Corporation,
Vanderbilt University, and the University of Chicago. It also
conducts research into reform initiatives in Washington State
and the Seattle Public Schools.
Some of the Center's current projects relating to
Seattle and Washington State include:
The Washington State Forum on Education
-On
a monthly basis, the Center convenes the Washington State Education
Forum, a group of citizens-educators, business people, public
officials, academics, parents and interest group leaders-who meet
to discuss the needs of K-12 education in Washington State.
The Charter Schools Project
-Recently,
the Center has been actively involved in the Washington State
charter school reform discussion, acting as a resource to the
business community, the state legislature and school and community
organizations. The Center has published a series of reports on
charter school options for Washington state, including What
are Charter Schools, How Does the Washington State Education
Code Compare with the Charter School Statutes of Other State?,
and Point Paper: A Comparison of Initiative 177, 173 and Charter
Schools.
Contracting
-The
Center is exploring how school boards can create "contract
schools" that will be legal entities operating under specific
arrangements with school boards. Paul Hill, the Center's Director,
and Larry Pierce, a Senior Researcher at the Center, are co-authors
of a forthcoming book on contract schools, Reinventing Public
Education: How Contracting Can Transform America's Schools.
Evaluation of the Seattle Public Schools
-At
the district level, the Center has presented research findings
to district policy makers and local business coalitions with an
interest in reform strategies. The Center has also published an
assessment of private contributions to the Seattle Public Schools,
Random Acts of Kindness? External Resources available to Seattle
Public Schools and will lead the Consortium on Seattle Schools
Research, which will track the effects of Seattle education reform
efforts via school-based surveys and analysis of student outcomes.
Two Center staff members are also co-authors of a forthcoming
book on school decentralization efforts in Seattle, Chicago, Cincinnati,
Los Angeles, Charlotte, and Denver.
For the past 2 years Professor William Zumeta has
supervised the evaluation of a school-to-work training program
run by the Alliance For Education and numerous major Seattle employers
(Boeing, Group Health, Nordstrom, UW Medical Center, etc.), mostly
for girls and students of color who are juniors in Seattle public
high schools. The program involves after school work skills training
sessions put on by corporate trainers, a summer computer "camp"
run by Boeing Computer Services and summer jobs for the students.
In each year a current Graduate School of Public Affairs student
or recent graduate did much of the work and in one case the report
formed part of the student's degree project. Betty Jane Narver
has also played a supervisory role and the project is funded via
a small donation to Institute for Public Policy and Management.
The evaluation has been designed to be formative in nature and
has helped improve the program such that Superintendent Stanford
has asked the Alliance to expand the program from 90 to 150 students
this year.
The HUD Community Development Work Study Program,
administered by theGraduate School of Public Affairs and the Department
of Urban Design and Planning, has provided 8 UW graduate students
over two years with funding to complete a series of community
development internships in the Seattle area, at no cost to the
internship agency. This program is funded by the U.S. Department
of Housing & Urban Development (first award-1995-1997; second
award 1996-1998), and is intended to recruit and train economically
disadvantaged, minority, and/or disabled students for careers
in community development. The program provides valuable professional
experience to selected UW graduate students and offers graduate
internship assistance at no cost to several local government agencies
and nonprofits that receive community development funds.
Current projects include siting, locating and developing
an open space/green space park area within the confines of the
International District for the International District Housing
& Social Services agency, collecting information that describes
cooperation among city departments to implement neighborhood plans
and identifying & reporting on policy issues that emerge from
a review of the neighborhood scopes of work for the City of Seattle,
and assisting in the development of the public participation element
of a "Transfer of Development Rights Market Study" for
the King County Department of Natural Resources.
Other agencies utilizing the skills of CDWSP interns
over the past two years include the Sunnyside Housing Authority
(Sunnyside, WA), the Seattle Tenants Union, the City of Seattle
Human Rights Department, the City of Seattle Office of Management
& Planning, and Southeast Effective Development.
In 1985 Professor J. Patrick Dobel was asked to Chair
the King County Ethics Board. It oversees all ethics legislation
in King county and issues advisory opinions as well as serving
as the collector of disclosure forms and the board of appeals
for people indicted for ethics violations by the ombudsman.
In his first two months Professor Dobel found out
that after 17 years of work the Board had no full-time staff,
no visibility and only five pages of records on file with no advisory
opinions having been issued in the previous four years! When a
newspaper came to us to find disclosure forms, it was discovered
that the disclosure forms had been lost and we could only fine
two years of them in unsecured location. During the first several
months no one even came to us since no one knew we existed.
The next two years were spent working with the Board
and Manager of Records and Elections to get staff, start promoting
some visibility and professionalizing our service. After two years
we actually had secured records and did a few advisory opinions.
After three years we were able to hire professional staff, send
out brochures, start a hot line and started doing about 10 advisory
opinions a year. Then in one year several major ethics scandals
broke the county looked into getting anew ethics Code. The Board
developed a draft and became an active players in the writing
a new King County Code which went into place five years ago. We
then got full time staff and started doing regular advisory reports,
issuing reports, writing newsletters and initiating an education
program. Professor Dobel left after serving for nine years as
Chair and although he kept resigning, he was asked to stay on
by the County Executives. Now the Board is functioning fairly
well and much more visible and respected with its own institutional
capacity and political support.
The collections of the University Libraries are open
to the general public for in-house use. Individuals have access
to over 5 million volumes, an equal number of microforms, 50,000
journal subscriptions, and the expertise of over 300 staff members.
The general public makes extensive use of the Libraries, representing
nearly 20% of overall library use. Borrowing privileges are provided
to faculty and distance learning students from state baccalaureate
institutions, government employees, graduate students from other
institutions, independent researchers, UW Alumni Association members,
and others. The Libraries Resource Sharing Service provided nearly
25,000 books and photocopies of journal and newspaper articles
to libraries, individuals, business, and government agencies in
the state of Washington during 1994/95.
Government Publications and Patent and Trademark
Depository Libraries
The University Libraries is a government depository
library. As such, the Libraries provides free access to US government
publications and information. The Libraries staff provides service
and user support for depository materials to the general public,
government employees and information. The Libraries staff provides
service and user support for depository materials to the general
public, government employees and elected officials, and businesses.
The Libraries also is a Patent and Trademark Depository Library
and provides public access to patents and all other documents
and publications provides by the US Patent and Trademark Office.
A self-paced Web tutorial for patent searching is available through
the Libraries home page at http://www.lib.washington.edu.
University Libraries Services to K-12
The University Libraries maintains an extensive collection
of school textbooks, curriculum materials, and science kits that
is used and loaned regularly to public and school libraries, teachers,
psychologists, education administrators, and the general public.
The Libraries also maintains the State's archive of children's
literature and makes these materials freely available to public
and school libraries and teachers. Several librarians teach sessions
in ongoing in-service teacher training programs around the state.
Others work with teachers enrolled in the Puget Sound Writing
Program. Librarians from the Health Sciences Library and Information
Center take an active role in a number of summer institutes for
K-12 teachers and students, included the Making Connections Institute
for 5th-12th grade health and science educators; UDOC, a six-week
summer program for underrepresented high school students who are
interested in medicine; RAP (Research Apprentice Program), a six-week
program that helps prepare underrepresented high school students
for careers in health care or scientific research; and Science
for Success, aimed at 11th and 12th grade students.
Library and Information Science "Best Practices"
UW librarians and staff regularly present workshops and training and serve as consultants to libraries, businesses, and government agencies throughout the state on a wide variety of topics, including the Internet as consultants to libraries, businesses, and government agencies throughout the state on a wide variety of topics, including the Internet and World Wide Web; software development and testing; teaching and technology in libraries, cataloging, indexing and database construction; networking, management practices, international resources for K-12 teachers and librarians; and preservation.
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