Note to Readers: This is the 50th Tidings column in this quarterly series, which began more than a dozen years ago, in July 2008. As I reflect on this milestone, I want to thank all those who have encouraged me to write these essays across these years and to thank the many of you who have read and commented on them. Writing these columns continues to be a great personal and professional privilege. MOS
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Public Colleges and Universities and the Nation’s Governance Crisis
BY MAX STEPHENSON JR
Director, Institute for Policy and Governance
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In principle and at their core, colleges and universities exist to pursue truth and to provide the fruits of that effort to the societies of which they are a part. As he worked to establish the University of Virginia, for example, Thomas Jefferson wrote the English historian William Roscoe:
[T]his institution will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind. for here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.[i]
Jefferson’s comments exhibited his Enlightenment-informed, life-long belief in the power of reason to guide a democratic people and to permit it to make choices that would ensure that population’s probity, peace and freedom. He nonetheless worried that fear, selfishness and the individual or mob tyranny often aligned with these human proclivities could impede the exercise of reason and quest for truth and undermine popular sovereignty and democracy.
For Jefferson, then, the great challenge democratic countries posed for universities’ role within them was dialectical in character. Higher education institutions at once had the enormous responsibility to provide the necessary knowledge for self-governing citizens to advance their society and to understand their role as sovereigns within it and, at the same time, to ensure that those citizens so highly regarded universities as persistently to grant them sufficient legitimacy to address those challenges in a largely unfettered way. For Jefferson, that space was essential for the free exercise of reason, whose workings should and could serve as bulwarks against error.
I want to sketch briefly two interrelated major trends in American society that are now working to undermine the role Jefferson envisioned for public colleges and universities in the project of self-governance. Both trends have joined to undermine the legitimacy and social trust accorded higher education institutions and to narrow the space available to them to respond to the social strictures imposed on them.
Before embarking on that analysis, however, I should make clear that I believe that the Institute for Policy and Governance is no less vulnerable to these strategic trends than its parent institution, Virginia Tech. As the latter has been reshaped from without and within in past decades by these changes in its social and political environment, the same pressures have confronted the Institute. Indeed, no U.S. academic institution has been immune from these societal shifts in recent decades.
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Dr. Lyusyena Kirakosyan, Senior Project Associate at VTIPG, published an article on the "Educational Legacy of the Rio 2016 Games: Lessons for Youth Engagement" in Societies, an international peer-reviewed, open access journal of sociology. Her article has also been integrated into the Olympic World Library (OWL). The Olympic World Library is an initiative of The Olympic Studies Centre (OSC) and is simultaneously a library catalogue, an information portal and a search engine for Olympic knowledge.
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ASPECT alumnus Mario Khreiche accepted a position at New York University and is now a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at NYU. Mario received a Ph.D. in Political and Cultural Thought from the Alliance of Social, Political, Ethical, and Cultural Thought (ASPECT) at Virginia Tech and was a very active participant in the Institute’s Community Change Collaborative.
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VT PhD alumnus Dr. Damion Blake had a piece published in the Journal of Ethnographic & Qualitative Research. The article, entitled, "Researching Violence: Conducting Risky Fieldwork in Dangerous Spaces Across Latin America and the Caribbean," outlines fieldwork strategies that can make qualitative fieldwork research safer for researchers and participants. Damion finished in ASPECT in December 2012 and currently is serving as an Assistant Professor of Political Science and Policy Studies at Elon University. Professors Max Stephenson, Jr. and Karen Hult co-chaired his dissertation committee.
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Planning, Governance and Globalization PhD student Danny White successfully defended his dissertation in July entitled, “Sport and Social Capital: Perceptions of Sport for Development Organization Leaders in Kigali, Rwanda.” Special thanks to Dr. John Dooley, CEO Virginia Tech Foundation, Jocelyn Widmer, Assistant Provost for Academic Innovation, Texas A and M University (formerly of Virginia Tech), David Kniola, Assistant Professor of Practice-Education for serving as members of Danny’s advisory committee. VTIPG's Max Stephenson Jr. served as chair of that group. Dr. White is the 36th individual closely associated with the Institute for Policy and Governance to complete their doctorate since IPG was founded on July 1, 2006.
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Third year ASPECT student Molly Todd published a review of Daniel Nemser's (2017) book, Infrastructures of Race: Concentration and Biopolitics in Colonial Mexico. This review considers Nemser's thoughtful exploration of colonialism’s legacies, and the ways in which material structures and bodies in space worked to create what he calls “operative categories of race.” Dr. Max Stephenson, Jr. and Dr. Laura Zanotti serve as co-chairs of Molly’s doctoral advisory committee.
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VTIPG Associate Director Mary Beth Dunkenberger is now serving as a co-investigator on a recently awarded $2.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (Institute on Drug Abuse). The funds will be used to develop studies on how to best provide peer support services for individuals being treated for opioid use disorder.
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Congratulations to Planning, Governance and Globalization PhD student Rachel Gabriele on successful oral defense of her preliminary examination! Her faculty advisory committee is comprised of co-chairs, Maggie Cowell, Urban Affairs and Planning and Max Stephenson Jr., SPIA-VTIPG, Sharóne Tomer, Architecture and Andrew Newman, Anthropology, Wayne State University.
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ASPECT PhD candidate and current President of the Institute’s Community Change Collaborative, Nada Berrada, recently learned she had been awarded the American Institute for Maghreb Studies Jeanne Jeffers Mrad Award to participate in the Middle East Studies Association conference in October of 2020. Congratulations to Nada, whose doctoral advisory committee is chaired by VTIPG Director Max Stephenson Jr.
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The Community Change journal published their third volume, "Environmental and Climate Change." Community Change is an online, peer-reviewed, graduate student-run journal at Virginia Tech that examines the practices, processes, and individual and collective struggles that produce change at all levels of society. In this third issue, the contributors explore questions, setbacks, and possibilities for hope in addressing one of the preeminent global challenges of the 21st century: anthropogenic climate change, a human-caused phenomenon described in scholarly publications and studied by experts in the field.
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VTIPG's Federal Reimbursement Unit (FRU) has ongoing responsibilities to support youth being served by Fairfax County’s Foster Care and Adoptions program and the Fairfax/Falls Church Children’s Services Act (CSA). Fewer county tax dollars are spent to support children who are in receipt of services through these two programs because of the team’s vigorous efforts to obtain all pertinent available federal, state and parental resources to assist them. The team continues to be very productive, yielding positive fiscal and program outcomes for Fairfax County. During FY 2020, the team had a fiscal impact on the two county programs the team supports in the amount of $1,125,609.
Despite very tough economic times and the COVID-19 pandemic, the County renewed the university’s contract without changes. The FRU team seamlessly transitioned to working remotely in mid-March and will continue to do so for the immediate future, following the lead of the County’s program’s they support.
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The PACE to Recovery initiative of Piedmont Community Services, in partnership with Carilion Franklin Memorial Hospital, Sovah Health – Martinsville and funded by the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Development Services (DBHDS), will soon officially launch in the West Piedmont health district. A technical assistance team led by VTIPG (Mary Beth Dunkenberger, PI) has supported this initiative since Fall 2019.
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Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic (CCBHC) Project
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A research team from VTIPG and VT’s Center for Public Health Practice and Research (College of Veterinary Medicine) has continued to provide ongoing data management and outcomes and process evaluation services for the Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic (CCBHC) project for New River Valley Health Services (NRVCS) this fall. The CCBHC project targets adults with serious mental illness, serious substance abuse disorders or co-occurring disorders and children with serious emotional disturbance. Specifically, the project seeks to expand capacity and provide more comprehensive care to the population of NRVCS adults and youth who are medically under-or-uninsured.
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Evaluation of New River Valley Drug Court
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VTIPG is working with the VT Office of Economic Development on an Evaluation of the New River Valley Drug Court. The Principal Investigator of this project is Sarah Lyon-Hill, Economic Development Specialist in the Office of Economic Development. This research is investigating the impact of the drug court from an individual, family and community perspective. The team is using a mixed methods study design employing qualitative and quantitative methods. They are also evaluating the Court’s fiscal impact at the locality level. The research team will present its results in October.
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Medication Assisted Treatment Messaging for Detention Center and Drug Court
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This analysis, which is led by Professor Nneka Logan in the VT School of Communication, is examining the use of medicated assisted treatment in the detention and drug court setting. The area of focus is the Blue Ridge Behavioral Healthcare service area, which includes the cities of Roanoke and Salem and Botetourt, Craig and Roanoke counties. The study’s purpose is to create evidence-based outreach and training materials for professional stakeholders involved in detention settings and drug courts employing medication assisted treatment. VTIPG researchers have conducted an extensive literature review as well as individual interviews with members of the medical, behavioral health and criminal justice and law enforcement communities. The research team will present its results later this fall.
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Connection to Care (C2C) Project
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VTIPG has been awarded an extension for its Connection to Care (C2C) project, which had been slated to end in November. Because of COVID-19 and the community-based character of his research, the project’s sponsor has extended its timeline through August of 2021. Face-to-face research has been restrained during the COVID-19 pandemic, but will continue at a future date. VTIPG faculty and students are partnering with several Roanoke area agencies to provide REVIVE! training through several drive thru events in the Roanoke area. REVIVE! Is the Opioid Overdose and Naloxone Education program for the Commonwealth of Virginia. REVIVE! provides training on how to recognize and respond to an opioid overdose emergency using naloxone.
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David Moore, VTIPG Senior Research Associate, continues to serve on contract as the Project Director for Total Action for Progress (TAP) SwiftStart program under a longstanding partnership between VTIPG and TAP. In a related initiative, in October of last year, TAP announced a new program called RESTORE (Re-employment, Support and Training for the Opioid-Related Epidemic) Southwest Virginia. TAP is one of only five agencies in the United States to be granted funds for this program for women impacted by the opioid crisis. RESTORE assists families affected by the opioid epidemic by providing career services and job training to women in recovery and those otherwise personally affected by the crisis. TAP recently announced that Charysse Hairston will serve as the Project Manager for the RESTORE program.
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COMMUNITY CHANGE COLLABORATIVE
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In September 2020, Community Change Collaborative (CCC) members welcomed Lily Yeh, an internationally celebrated artist and award-winning founder and former executive and artistic director of the Village of Arts and Humanities. Lily Yeh developed a unique methodology for using the arts as a tool for community building and personal transformation during her tenure at The Village. Founding Barefoot Artists in 2002, Lily Yeh has since worked internationally in efforts employing the arts to spur community change in Rwanda, Kenya, Ghana, Ecuador and China, among other nations. Barefoot Artists aims to train and empower local residents, organize communities, and take action for a more compassionate, just and sustainable future. Yeh’s work in northern Rwanda with a community as it worked to address the long-term effects of that nation’s genocide has been famously and sensitively treated by the multi-award winning author Terry Tempest Williams in her searing, Finding Beauty in a Broken World (New York: Vintage Publishers, 2009).
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SOUNDINGS
A commentary series authored by VTIPG Director Max Stephenson
RE: REFLECTIONS & EXPLORATIONS
Online essay series hosted by VTIPG and edited by Professor Max Stephenson Jr., written by graduate students across the University to reflect on their ongoing work in governance and policy related concerns.
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For the past several years, VTIPG has been partnering closely on several research projects with the Center for Public Health Practice and Research (CPHPR). CPHPR is housed in the Department of Population Health Sciences, in the College of Veterinary Medicine and is supported by the Institute for Society, Culture and Environment at Virginia Tech. CPHPR’s mission is to foster interdisciplinary, collaborative public health practice and research activities at Virginia Tech and among external public health agencies, organizations, practitioners and researchers. CPHPR’s research portfolio can be found here: www.cphpr.publichealth.vt.edu. As part of this enduring partnership between CPHPR and VTIPG, we here highlight Dr. Kathy Hosig, CPHPR Director, and Dr. Sophie Wenzel, CPHPR Associate Director.
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Marcel Pambo is a first-year Planning, Governance and Globalization Ph.D. student at Virginia Tech working with Professor Max Stephenson, Jr. Before entering the PGG program, Marcel completed a Master's in Senegal from Le Centre des Hautes Etudes de Défense et de Sécurité (CHEDS; The Center for Advanced Studies of Defense and Security, a unit of Université Cheikh Anta Diop of Dakar), where he conducted his thesis on the topic of "Lessons Learned from Peacekeeping Operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast, and Mali: The UN Facing States' Sovereignty."
Marcel believes that the dependence on external assistance for security is a major challenge to the autonomy of any country and that the principles of Good Security Sector Governance (SGG) offer substantial possibilities to address this concern. His research interests include West Africa’s Regional Security Organizations, Security Sector Governance, financial dependence and accountability issues. He is particularly interested in the impact of external assistance on regional security structures in West Africa.
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Institute for Policy and Governance
201 W. Roanoke Street
Blacksburg, VA 24061
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