May 21, 2010
Written by C.N.
Links & Announcements #27
Here are some more announcements and links out that have come my way relating to Asians, Asian Americans, or racial/ethnic minorities in general. As always, links to other sites are provided for informational purposes and do not necessarily imply an endorsement of their contents.
Summer Institute: Queens College Asian/American Center
The Asian/American Center is offering a Summer Institute from July 26-31, 2010 entitled “Studying the Global in the Local: Asian American Communities in Multicultural Queens” as part of its efforts to build a new Asian American Pacific Islander Community Studies (AAPICS) Program.
The Summer Institute will be hosted at the Queens College campus and all participants will stay at The Summit for the duration of the program. The week-long program will offer participants the opportunity to learn about the history and experiences of Asian Americans and their inter-ethnic relationships in multicultural Queens.
- The Summer Institute will include lectures, neighborhood excursions and meetings with community leaders.
- We are seeking applications from all candidates aged 18-25 nationwide. Queens College students are also encouraged to apply.
- Room and board will be provided, and students will receive a stipend.
Please encourage students you believe to be strong candidates to apply. Information and application forms may be accessed at www.qc.cuny.edu/Academics/Centers/Asian
Thank you for your help,
Dr. Nila Chatterjee
Director, Summer Institute
Asian/American Center, Queens College
65-30 Kissena Boulevard
Flushing, NY 11367
Tel: 718-997-3050
Email: nila.chatterjee@qc.cuny.edu
Position Available: Asian American Studies Program, Univ. of MD
Under general supervision, provides complex administrative support to the Asian American Studies Program office and works independently to coordinate the operational tasks involved in day to day administration. Work requires skill in dealing with issues related to policy, procedures, and confidential matters, and involves considerable participation in the work of the supervisor. Will also be expected to perform routine office work and function as a receptionist or file clerk.
Salary: $30,305-$36,366. Visit the Univ. of Maryland website for more information and to apply online.
“Cry Wolf” Project: Call for Proposals
We are looking for faculty and graduate students (in history, sociology, economics, political science, planning, public health, and public policy) interested in writing short (2000 word) policy briefs for which we can pay $1,000.
We are writing to ask for your help in an important project in the battle with conservative ideas. Today, as in the past, the fight to transform American politics and policy takes place on a battlefield in which ideas, narratives, and the construction of a politically driven conventional wisdom constitutes a set of highly potent weapons. Too often conservatives in the Congress and the media have captured the rhetorical high ground by asserting that virtually any substantial, progressive change in public policy, especially that involving taxes on the wealthy or regulation of business, will kill jobs, generate a stifling government bureaucracy, or curtail economic growth.
But history shows that in almost every instance the opponents of needed social and economic change are “crying wolf.†We therefore need to construct a counter narrative that demonstrates the falsity or exaggeration of such claims so that the first reaction of millions of people, as well as opinion leaders, will be “There they go again!†Such a refrain will undermine the credibility and arguments of the organizations and individuals who use such dire social and economic prognostications to thwart progressive reform.
To give substance and scholarly integrity to this “crying wolf†argument, we are calling upon historians and social scientists, in training or well established, to use their research skills to identify instances, in recent years as well as in the more distant pass, in which the “crying wolf†scare was put forward by industry executives, conservative politicians, and right-wing pundits before the passage of legislation or the promulgation of regulations that have become hallmarks of popular and progressive statecraft.
On each issue we seek to document three things: First, historical examples and quotes drawn from speeches, legislative testimony, newspaper and other media opinion pieces, think-tank reports, or political platforms which claim that a proposed policy or regulation would generate a set of negative consequences; second, a discussion of how these crying-wolf claims impacted the new laws or regulations as they were passed into law; and third, a well-documented analysis of the extent to which conservative and special interest fears were or were not realized during the years and decades after the new laws or regulations went into effect.
This work is sponsored by the San Diego-based Center on Policy Initiatives and funded by a grant from the Public Welfare Foundation. Donald Cohen of CPI, Peter Dreier of Occidental College, and Nelson Lichtenstein of UC Santa Barbara constitute the ad hoc committee now administrating this initiative.
Based on some of the policy areas listed below, we solicit one page proposals for the kind of short studies outlined above. If we think the proposal promising, we will then ask the applicant to develop a larger policy brief, perhaps 2,000 words in length. It should be well documented and scrupulously accurate. We will pay $1,000 for each brief that meets these standards. We hope that many of these become the basis for opinion pieces designed to run in the mainstream media, on line, on the air, or in the press.
We will be focusing on the following policy areas.
- Taxes and public budgets
- Labor market standards
- Food, tobacco and drug health and safety
- Environmental protection: air, water, toxics, etc.
- Workplace safety
- Financial regulation
- Consumer product safety
- Local issues (i.e. inclusionary housing, building code standards, etc.)
We will be looking for the following things in each case study/policy brief:
- Specific Laws or Regulations within the policy area
- Why the law or regulation was needed: citations of studies, articles that demonstrated need, etc.
- Principle opponent interest groups
- The quotes and claims: Reports, correspondence and/or public testimony of interest groups that lobbied against passage and implementation of laws and regulations. [While some quotes will certainly be included in the policy brief, we would like all quotes that are found to be included in appendices]
- Principle proponent groups (for research and help)
- Any existing retrospective qualitative and quantitative costs and benefits of laws
- Major books, articles, sources on the history and impact of legislation/regulation.
Proposals should be sent to Donald Cohen at dcohen@onlinecpi.org. Please feel free to forward this RFP and/or to send ideas, references and proposals.
Sincerely,
Peter Dreier
Donald Cohen
Nelson Lichtenstein
Study in Need of Asian American Participants on Menopause
I am a Nurse Practitioner and also a doctoral student at the University of Massachusetts Graduate School of Nursing in Worcester, MA. For my dissertation, I am conducting a research study about women’s experiences with discontinuing menopause hormone therapy.
Currently there is little information to support women who are stopping menopause hormone therapy. This study will explore women’s experiences with discontinuing menopause hormone therapy. The results will provide information for developing programs to educate and support women during hormone therapy discontinuation.
Women who have attempted to discontinue menopause hormone therapy within the past two years are eligible. Participation in the study will involve one 30-60 minute interview (either online through a protected server at the university or by telephone). During the interview, participants will be asked to describe their experiences of discontinuing hormone therapy and then answer a short questionnaire. Compensation will be provided.
This study has been approved by the Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects in Research at the University of Massachusetts/Worcester and is being supported by a grant from the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners. If you are interested in participating in this study please email me at mary.fischer@umassmed.edu.
Mary Fischer
Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner
Certified Menopause Practitioner
University of Massachusetts/Worcester
Graduate School of Nursing