News from Our Members

Fall 2008

Victoria Basolo of the University of California, Irvine, has been appointed Associate Director at the University of California Center, Sacramento, for the 2008-2009 academic year. She will be overseeing Policy Research Initiatives.

Robert B. Denhardt has been named first recipient of the Lattie and Elva Coor Presidential Chair at Arizona State University. The chair will enable a variety of leadership related initiatives at the university.

Nan Ellin delivered the Opening Plenary Address at the “Metropolis” Conference in Copenhagen in June 2008 and was an Invited Speaker at the World Social Summit on the theme “Fearless: Discussions on How to Combat Global Anguish,” which took place in Rome in September 2008.

Jeffrey R. Henig has published Spin Cycle: How Research is Used in Policy Debates: The Case of Charter Schools (Russell Sage Foundation/The Century Foundation, 2008). Henig looks at the consequences of a highly controversial New York Times article that cited evidence of poor test performance among charter school students. In the ensuing drama, reputable scholars from both ends of the political spectrum launched charges and counter-charges over the research methodology and the implications of the data. Henig uses this political tug-of-war to illustrate broader problems relating to social science: of what relevance is supposedly non-partisan research when findings are wielded as political weapons on both sides of the debate?

Leslie Martin has been appointed to the Affordable Housing Task Force of the George Washington Regional Commission in Fredericksburg, VA. The Task Force will provide recommendations for regional strategies to address housing problems, including the foreclosure crisis.

John Mollenkopf, director of the Center for Urban Research of The Graduate
Center, CUNY (www.urbanresearch.org) has joined the International Scientific
Review Committee of the Netherlands Institute for City Innovation Studies (http://www.nicis.nl/nicis/).

UAA members Marla Nelson, Sabina Deitrick, and Victoria Basolo with their teams received awards from the National Urban Policy Initiative Competition for their papers:

• "Job Chains and Career Ladders in Health Care: An Economic and Workforce Development Strategy for Greater New Orleans" (University of New Orleans)
• "Community and Economic Development Workforce Initiative: Training Tomorrow's Professionals" (University of Pittsburgh)
• "Sustaining Affordable Housing in the Face of Foreclosures: A Strategy for Maintaining Stable Urban Neighborhoods" (University of California, Irvine)

These policy ideas papers and others will be presented at the 2009 Annual Meeting of the Urban Affairs Association.

During October 2008, Philip Nyden will be visiting scholar at the University of Western Sydney to develop a research initiative around resident voice in affordable housing communities. Nyden is also co-editor of a new e-journal: Gateways: International Journal of Community Research and Engagement, which will launch its first issue in October 2008 (jointly published by the Loyola University Chicago Center for Urban Research and Learning and the University of Technology Sydney Shopfront).

Susan Saegert is among seven new faculty members (mostly urban scholars) in Vanderbilt University’s program in Human and Organizational Development, which offers a Masters degree in Community Development and Action, and a PhD in Community Research and Action.  Coming on the heals of the publication of The Community Development Reader  (Routledge) with James Defilippis, the move opens up new community development opportunities as director of the Center for Community Studies at Vanderbilt and as a member of the steering committee on a Nashville-wide pilot project to develop a shared equity housing sector.

Andrew Sancton, director of the Local Government Program at the University
of Western Ontario, has just published a new book: The Limits of Boundaries: Why City-regions Cannot be Self-governing (McGill-Queen's University Press).

Daphne Spain, James M. Page Professor and Chair of the Department of Urban
and Environmental Planning at the University of Virginia, won the 2008
Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning Margarita McCoy award for the
advancement of women in the planning profession.

Michael Timberlake has stepped down as department chair, Department of Sociology, University of Utah, after six years and has been rewarded with a one year administrative leave. During this time he will hold visiting appointments at the University of Glasgow (Department of Geographical and Earth Sciences) and Universiteit Gent (Geography Department), working collaborative with colleagues in each department. He remains one of two North American editors of Urban Studies journal.

News Archives

Summer 2008