TABLE OF CONTENTS

Tidings from the Director

"Beggaring the Imagination"


Accomplishments

Lyusyena Kirakosyan

Regan Price

Marcel Worphy Pambo

Nicole Nunoo

Bob Leonard

Jake Keyel

Rabita Reshmeen Banee


Project Updates

  • New River Valley Community Services and Mount Rogers Community Services' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration CCHBC Expansion Grant Updates
  • AbilityOne Program and Economic Impact Evaluation Completed for Melwood


Conferences & Events

  • The Frontera Project Visits Virginia Tech
  • VTIPG and Department of Political Science Host University of Fondwa Visitors
  • Multimedia Journalism Career and Internship Fair
  • Recent Scholarship
  • Upcoming CCC Events
  • American Evaluation Association Conference


Announcements

  • VTIPG Introduces Five Pieces Each Week
  • VTIPG is hiring!


Commentaries, Essays & Publications

  • Soundings
  • Books
  • Articles and Conference Papers


Faculty Spotlight

Dr. Desiree Poets, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science


Graduate Student Spotlight

Mia Williams, Graduate Assistant, Master's Student in Public Health

TIDINGS FROM THE DIRECTOR

Beggaring the Imagination

BY MAX O. STEPHENSON, JR.

Director, Virginia Tech Institute for Policy and Governance

Writing at the end of July as the nation's primary nomination electoral cycle was in full swing for this fall's midterm election, national political columnist Charles Piece highlighted the following as an example of very typical GOP-hopeful rhetoric:


In Early July, at a town hall meeting in southwest Washington state, congressional Republican Joe Kent told his audience that the 'phony riot' on Jan. 6 was being 'weaponized against anybody who dissents what the government is telling us. ...' 'These are the types of tactics that I would see in Third World countries when I was serving overseas. ...You'd see the Praetorian Guard or the intelligence services grab the opposition and throw them in the dungeons. I never thought I'd see that in America.1


In fact, Kent had not seen anything remotely like his description occur in the United States. The would-be congressman was offering his listeners a perspective that not only had no relationship to truth, but also went much further into fantasy and assigned active culpability to unnamed "Democrat" others for the now infamous events that occurred on January 6, even as he trivialized the atrocities and murder committed during that abomination. The upshot of these wild assertions was to contend that the Democratic Party is willfully and knowingly undermining U.S. governance. Nothing could be further from reality. Kent's grotesque imaginings bear no connection to anything that occurred on that fateful day in January 2021 or since. 

READ MORE

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Dr. Lyusyena Kirakosyan, a Non-Resident IPG Senior Project Associate, has published a new article, "Legacy Challenges and Opportunities: Comparing the Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020 Paralympics." The analysis outlines critical debates addressing sporting mega-event legacies, with an emphasis on the legacy of the previous two summer Paralympic games. You may find an electronic version of the article here

 

Congratulations, Lyusyena!

Regan Price, recent graduate of the Virginia Tech Master of Public Administration Program (May '22), undertook a summer internship at the United Nations headquarters in New York with that institution's Department of Economic and Social Affairs with the support of VTIPG. Regan wrote a policy brief as a capstone project of her experience, entitled, "Furthering the targets of SDG5 on Gender Equality Through Building Strong Public Institutions and Strengthening Collaboration," in coordination with IPG Director Dr. Max Stephenson Jr., Associate Director Mary Beth Dunkenberger, and senior staff members of the United Nations. You may find details of her internship and the brief here


Regan has accepted employment as a Senior Project Coordinator with the International Development Group LLC, a Washington D.C.-based consulting firm engaged in a variety of USAID projects. She attributes her ability to obtain her post to her UN internship experience.

 

Congratulations, Regan!

Marcel Worphy Pambo successfully completed his preliminary examination in the Planning, Governance, and Globalization (PGG) Program on October 5, 2022. His next step is to complete and defend his dissertation proposal. Special thanks to his committee: Chair and IPG Director Max Stephenson Jr.; Professors Laura Zanotti and Yannis Stivachtis, Department of Political Science; and Professor Onwubiko Agozino, Department of Sociology.  

 

Congratulations, Marcel!

Nicole Nunoo, PhD candidate in the Agricultural, Leadership, & Community Education (ALCE) program, successfully defended her dissertation her proposal on October 14, 2022. Her work is entitled "Examining the Collective Agency of Black Farmer Organizers in the Advocacy for Racial Justice in the Food System: A Focus on Black Farmer Organizers in Virginia." Nicole will now conduct her research and write her dissertation, followed by a final defense before her committee. Special thanks to those faculty members serving on her advisory committee: Chair and Center for Food Systems and Community Transformation Director Kim Niewolny; ALCE Professor Tom Archibald; IPG Director and Professor Max Stephenson Jr.; and Sociology Professor David Brunsma.


Congratulations, Nicole!

Professor Robert (Bob) Leonard, School of Performing Arts at Virginia Tech, has joined IPG as a Senior Fellow. Professor Leonard has been a longtime collaborator with the Institute and Director Max Stephenson Jr. For the past 17 years, the two have co-taught the graduate seminar "Arts, Culture, and Society" each fall, for example. Professor Leonard is the primary advisor for the MFA program in Directing and Public Dialogue. Most recently, Professor Leonard and Dr. Stephenson worked together to bring The Frontera Project to Blacksburg this fall. You can read more about his appointment here

 

Congratulations, Bob!

Dr. Jake Keyel, Research Fellow with the Institute for Research in the Social Sciences and affiliated faculty in the Department of Political Science at Colorado State University, has announced that his book, Resettled Iraqi Refugees in the United States: War, Refuge, Belonging, Participation, and Protest, will be available early next year. The text is a revision of Dr. Keyel's PhD dissertation.

 

As Volume 47 of the Berghahn Books (Oxford, England) Forced Migration series, Dr. Keyel's book explores the lives of 15 Iraqis who left their country as refugees because of the 2003 American invasion and who resettled in a society that has often viewed them as a dangerous "Other." The volume examines the widespread anti-refugee, anti-Arab, and anti-Muslim currents in American society as well as ways that those experiencing such discrimination can challenge those exclusions. You may find additional details here

 

Dr. Keyel has also recently accepted a 5-year editorial board appointment with The Sociological Review Journal.

 

VTIPG Director Max Stephenson Jr. served as Chair of Dr. Keyel's doctoral advisory committee (2019). During his PhD program, Dr. Keyel was also engaged with Community Voices, now the Community Change Collaborative, and he co-founded the graduate student journal, Community Change.

 

Congratulations, Jake!

Dr. Rabita Reshmeen Banee, Center for Public Administration and Policy Ph.D., successfully defended her doctoral dissertation on August 9, 2022. Entitled "Examining the Association Between Transformational Leadership and Public Organizational Performance," her research explored that form of leadership in U.S. federal organizations. You may find her complete dissertation here. Her committee consisted of SPIA Professors Matthew Dull (Chair), David Bredenkamp, Joe Rees, and Patrick Roberts. Rabita has started a new position as a Policy Analyst with the Virginia Department of Energy in Richmond, VA. 


Rabita joined IPG as a graduate research assistant in May 2020 and worked as an evaluation and data team member on two large federal mental health services grants funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Her hard work and dedication during the past two years were greatly appreciated.


Congratulations, Rabita!

PROJECT UPDATES

New River Valley Community Services and Mount Rogers Community Services' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration CCHBC Expansion Grant Updates

IPG's Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic (CCBHC) Evaluation Team, including Associate Director and Principal Investigator Mary Beth DunkenbergerSenior Research Associate Liz Allen, and Research Associate Laura York continue to provide program evaluation and data management support to New River Valley Community Services (NRVCS) and Mount Rogers Community Services (MRCS) for their on-going CCBHC and CMHC (Community Mental Health Center) national grants. Evaluation support currently included conducting Community Needs Assessments for MRCS and NRVCS. The Institute will also provide evaluations of the Certified Community Behavioral Health Center Improvement and Advancement grants received by Mount Rogers Community Services and New River Valley Community Services starting this fall through the fall of 2026.

 

Additional data team members have included former IPG GRA Dr. Rabita Banee (Ph.D., Public Administration and Public Affairs) who worked on the project for more than two years and new team members and current GRAs, Mia Williams (MPH) and Ali Hartwick (MURP).

AbilityOne Program and Economic Impact Evaluation Completed for Melwood

In partnership with Sarah Lyon-Hill, Associate Director for Research Development, Afroze Mohammed, Associate Director for Strategic Alliances, and graduate research assistant Allison Ulaky with the Center for Economic and Community Engagement at Virginia Tech, Dr. David Moore, Research Scientist, and Lara Nagle, Research Scientist at IPG, completed a programmatic and economic impact assessment of the AbilityOne program at Melwooda major nonprofit organization serving those with disabilities, in the greater Washington D.C area.


The Virginia Tech research team drew from existing industry and academic literature, interviews with AbilityOne stakeholders, and Melwood operating data to identify the outcomes and impacts of the AbilityOne program. The return on investment findings represent a conservative estimate of programmatic impact, as many benefits of AbilityOne could not be quantified or included in the model the team developed. 


The AbilityOne Program, administered by the U.S. AbilityOne Commission, facilitates the employment of people in national agency funded posts, who are blind or have significant disabilities so they may achieve their maximum employment potential.

CONFERENCES & EVENTS

The Frontera Project Visits Virginia Tech

After nearly two years of preparation, The Frontera Project, a bilingual theatre experience addressing life along the U.S.-Mexico border, was performed at Theatre 101 on Virginia Tech's campus on October 1, 2022. Members of the cast in collaboration with the Community Change Collaborative also conducted three workshops for interested students and faculty while in Blacksburg. Special thanks to VTIPG Director Max Stephenson, Jr., School of Performing Arts Professor and IPG Senior Fellow Bob Leonard, and ASPECT PhD student Molly Todd for their work to bring this production to Blacksburg. You may find additional information about this event here, and a perspective on one workshop conducted with the Community Change Collaborative as shared by IPG graduate assistant and PGG PhD student, Brad Stephens, here. Photo credit: The Frontera Project.

VTIPG and Department of Political Science Host University of Fondwa Visitors

IPG Director Max Stephenson Jr. and Political Science Associate Professor Laura Zanotti hosted Lesly Joseph, Dean of Agronomy, and Thomas Moteler, Vice Rector for University Affairs, from the University of Fondwa (UNIF) from Oct. 2-6. Their visit was the latest step in a collaboration of more than a decade that Drs. Stephenson and Zanotti have had in helping to build the Haitian university's physical and social infrastructure and continuity of operations.


Mr. Joseph and Mr. Moteler met with several individuals across Virginia Tech's campus to obtain information on university leadership, governance and fiscal systems. They also met with faculty members from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and Fralin Biomedical Institute at Virginia Tech Carilion to learn how their rural university can improve its agricultural and veterinary medicine programs and better serve their nation's farmers and population. Many thanks to the countless people behind the scenes who helped make this visit successful!  

Pictured in photo, from left to right: Max Stephenson Jr., Thomas Moteler, Laura Zanotti, Nancy McGehee (Professor of Hospitality and Tourism), Lesly Joseph

Multimedia Journalism Career and Internship Fair

Billy Parvatam, IPG's Communications Coordinator and Administrative Specialist, participated in the fifth annual Multimedia Journalism Career and Internship Fair on October 14, 2022, hosted by the Virginia Tech School of Communication. He had the opportunity to meet with current students and provide career advice. Billy is a two-time alumnus of the School, having graduated with a B.A. in 2019 and an M.A. in 2021. Photo credit: Cory Van Dyke, School of Communication's Communication and Marketing Specialist.

Recent Scholarship

Max Stephenson.jpg

Dr. Max Stephenson Jr, Director of VTIPG, guest lectured in Dr. Andrea Bertke's Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine "Neglected and Emerging Infectious Diseases" class on September 27. He discussed international non-governmental organizations and national non-governmental organizations and their role in addressing infectious diseases across the globe.


Dr. Stephenson will be presenting at the 14th annual Conference of Canadian Association for Refugee and Forced Migration Studies. The conference will be held virtually in collaboration with The Human Rights Program at United College at the University of Waterloo on Nov. 2-4 2022. He will be presenting with IPG's Non-Resident Research Associate Dr. Neda Moayerian and Jordanian Professors Muddathar abu-Karaki and Renad Abbadi. You may find additional details here. Dr. Stephenson will also chair the panel, "Gender and Sexuality in Forced Migration" for the conference.

Upcoming CCC Events

The Community Change Collaborative (CCC) is an interdisciplinary group of graduate students and faculty affiliated with IPG exploring the dynamics of social change. Members meet weekly via Zoom on Mondays at 4 p.m. Upcoming events include:


  • October 24th at 4 PM - A Community Change Collaborative Info Session - Any interested graduate student is invited to attend and learn more about CCC. Register here to attend.


  • October 31st at 4 PM - Faculty Forum with Dr. Jessica Taylor, Department of History. - Please join us to hear Professor Taylor share her work collecting oral histories as a public historian. Learn about how this compelling and meaningful work is done! Register here to attend.

American Evaluation Association Conference

VTIPG Associate Director Mary Beth Dunkenberger, Research Associate Laura York, and Research Scientist Lara Nagle will be presenting at the American Evaluation Association Conference, November 9-12 in New Orleans, Louisiana, highlighting the Institute's Connection to Care project and the community and stakeholder engaged design of a backpack to support housing insecure individuals with substance use disorder.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

VTIPG Shares Five Pieces Each Week

Following the good example of our colleagues at the Center for Food Systems and Community Transformation, VTIPG has been sharing five articles each week that we find timely, meaningful, and that address critical concerns related to the state of our democracy and civil society. We aim to offer pieces that illuminate the varied dimensions of our governance challenges and the status of social norms that sustain the possibility of addressing those issues successfully.


If you would like to share an article and—we encourage all to do so—please send it to Billy Parvatam, IPG's Communications Coordinator and Administrative Specialist. You may find previous editions of Five Pieces here

VTIPG is hiring!

With deeply mixed emotions, we announce the pending retirement of our wonderful colleague Karen Boone. We are happy that Karen is moving on to new adventures, but she will be greatly missed. Karen has been with IPG, managing our fiscal operations, since our founding in 2006, and she worked for Virginia Tech for many years prior. We will share more details about Karen’s many contributions in our January newsletter.

We are currently advertising for the Institute's Senior Fiscal Technician position at https://careers.pageuppeople.com/968/cw/en-us/job/522322/fiscal-technician-senior. Please share the posting with qualified colleagues who may be interested.

COMMENTARIES, ESSAYS & PUBLICATIONS

SOUNDINGS

A commentary series authored by VTIPG Director Max Stephenson.

October 17: Of Damning Facts and Destructive Fantasies

September 19: A Descent into Popular Madness and a Central Truth of Self-Governance

September 5: The Perils of False Equivalence for Human Freedom

August 22: Staying the Course in the Quest for Social Justice

July 25: A Shared Quest for All or a Single Imposed 'Patrimony'?

July 11: Reaping a Whirlwind of Hate

June 27: Banning Books and Pondering Democratic Possibility

June 13: Synodality and the Crisis of Democratic Politics

Books
Book contributions and publications by VTIPG Director Max Stephenson.
  • Maré from the Inside: Arts, Culture and Politics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Editor with Nicholas Barnes and Desiree Poets. Blacksburg, VA: Virginia Tech Publishing, 2021. Paperback 978-1-949373-54-7; PDF978-1-949373-55-4.
  • Also: for that volume, Max Stephenson Jr., “Truth-telling, Meaning Making and Imagining the Future” (Chapter 6) and “Conclusion: On the Struggle for Freedom and Dignity”(Chapter 7). To accompany the Art Exhibit: Maré from the Inside shown at Virginia Tech Newman Library, April 19, 2021-September 30, 2021 and virtually as well.
  • This book also was published in Portuguese, Maré de Dentro, A exposição | Favelas do Rio de Janeiro | Complexo da Maré | Policiamento no Rio de Janeiro, Blacksburg, VA: Virginia Tech Publishing, 2021.  
  • Conversations in Community Change: Voices from the Field. Editor with Cathy Grimes. With Introduction, Foreword, Afterword and Index, 250 pages. Blacksburg, VA: Virginia Tech Publishing, 2021. ISBN: EPUB 978-1-949373-40-0; Paperback, 978-1-949373-38-7; PDF 978-949373-39-4.

Articles and Conference Papers

Research contributions and publications by VTIPG Faculty.

Accepted

“Community Cultural Development and Collective Agency in a Brazilian Favela,” for annual conference of the International Studies Association, March 15-18, 2023, Montreal, Canada, Accepted September 14, 2022. Neda Moayerian,* Desiree Poets, Max Stephenson.



Morshedzadeh, E.*, Dunkenberger, M.B., Nagle, L., Ghasemi, S., York, L., & Horn, K. (2022). Community Participation in the Design Process for Innovative Solutions: The Connection to Care (C2C) Project. Policy Design and Practice. 


Published

“Conceptualizing Cross-sectoral Partnership Building in Two Small Appalachian Towns,” Community Development Journal, Neda Moayerian (IPG Non-Resident Research Associate)*, Lara Nagle, Max Stephenson. https://doi.org/10.1093/cdj/bsac012



“Community Agency, Cultural Development and Sustainable Tourism.” Annals of Tourism Research, Neda Moayerian*, Nancy McGehee (Department Head, Hospitality and Tourism Management), Max Stephenson.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0160738322000068

*Corresponding author

FACULTY SPOTLIGHT

Dr. Desiree Poets, Assistant Professor of Postcolonial Theory in the Department of Political Science at Virginia Tech, and a core faculty member of the Alliance for Social, Political, Ethical, and Cultural Thought (ASPECT) PhD program, has been a collaborator on several VTIPG projects and initiatives. Alongside Prof. Max Stephenson, Dr. Poets has co-led an international research group on Arts, Memory, and Community Change in Rio de Janeiro’s Favelas with several members from the Community Change Collaborative. The collective, whose members span Iran, Brazil, and the United States, is finalizing two initial research activities. The first has examined how community-produced arts, notably dance, generatively challenge pejorative social imaginaries about favelas, and how their residents use art to affirm their right to the city. The second project investigates how community newspapers in the two favelas of Rocinha and the Complexo da Maré have expressed and strengthened community agency as well as social resilience during the COVID-19 public health crisis. Through these research activities, the group has been building long-term collaborations with the locally run Redes da Maré NGO, located in the Complexo da Maré favela, to support community-led data gathering that can inform policy in the areas of socio-environmental wellbeing and public security.


Dr. Poets has been working with urban Indigenous, maroon (in Portuguese, quilombola), and favela communities in Brazil since 2013. Her forthcoming book, Unsettling Brazil (University of Alabama Press), tells the stories of five such urban communities to examine the points at which their political movements focused on land, housing, security, and memory converge, and where they diverge. This intersectional approach centers Black and Indigenous political thought and practice and pushes at boundaries of the Marxist dependency theory of urbanization as well as Settler Colonial Studies. With colleagues at VTIPG, Poets hopes to continue to deepen her collaborative research practice and to expand the networks she has been building across Brazil and the United States, with the aim to help create a more democratic university and further academia’s positive impact in the world. 

GRADUATE STUDENT SPOTLIGHT

Mia Williams received her B.S. from Virginia Tech in Human, Nutrition, Foods, and Exercise with a concentration in Science of Food, Nutrition, and Exercise in May 2022. She is currently an accelerated Masters of Public Health student with a Public Health Education concentration and will be graduating in May 2023. Her work at VTIPG has focused on substance use treatment and recovery interventions to address the opioid epidemic. Mia is the lead graduate research assistant on the Connection to Care project, where she plays an instrumental role in coordinating and managing REVIVE! events throughout the Roanoke Valley, as well as supporting data management and visualization, and comprehensive literature reviews. Her time at VTIPG has allowed her to apply her knowledge to social challenges and to further her education through increased data competency and opportunities for leadership.

 

A fun fact about Mia is that she fosters kittens from an animal shelter in Roanoke. She currently has two male cats, named Dean and Bean, who keep her very busy outside of work!

Institute for Policy and Governance
201 W. Roanoke Street
Blacksburg, VA 24061

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