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Robert M. La Follette
School of Public Affairs
1225 Observatory Drive
Madison, WI 53706

Telephone: 608.262.3581
Fax: 608.265.3233

Last updated:
February 1, 2008

News: Fall 2006

Public affairs, public health dual degree nears final OK

The La Follette Schools dual degree in public affairs and public health is one step away from final approval.

The academic planning council for the University of Wisconsin-Madison is to consider the proposal soon.

Health policy and public healthcare management are becoming ever more important components of public affairs, says La Follette School Director Barbara Wolfe. Understanding the relationships between public health and how policymakers allocate resources is crucial.

The 55-credit dual degree will take two years, including two summers to complete. The student would graduate with two masters degrees, one in public health and one in public affairs. The MPH and the MPA alone are each 42 credits.

The dual-degree program is a partnership between the La Follette School of Public Affairs and the School of Medicine and Public Healths Department of Population Health Sciences. The academic planning councils of School of Medicine and Public Health and of the College of Letters and Science, which is home to the La Follette School, have approved the dual degree.

The master of public affairs and the master of public health degrees already had a number of courses in common, so creating a dual degree program was a natural fit, says La Follette Associate Director Karen Holden.

Having the two degrees gives people additional credibility when they look for work in health policy, Holden says.

From the public affairs side, people working in public health need to know how issues related to health status and behavior affect the provision of health care, Holden says. From the medical side, people need more information on management and analysis of health policy.

Applicants for the dual degree must apply to and be admitted to each program. The prerequisites for the MPA include courses in American government, introductory statistics and microeconomics . Work experience in public health is recommended for people seeking admittance to the MPH degree program. This could include employment with social service agencies, public health departments or health-care organizations that focus on more than patient care.

Graduates of the dual degree program will be well-suited for careers with medical schools, state and federal health agencies, hospitals and nongovernmental organizations that focus on health policy research and management, Wolfe says. Students graduating with these dual degrees will be prepared to conduct research and craft public policy that affects people of all ages, whether they create prenatal care programs or help to reshape Medicaid.

-- posted Dec. 22, 2006

Chinn shares insight on dollar's value on Wall Street Journal blog
La Follette School professor Menzie Chinn discusses the dollar's recent drop, the long-term outlooks for the currency and how the dollar's value could affect everything from interest rates to the bloated U.S. current account deficit, which rose to $225.6 billion -- or 6.8 percent of gross domestic product -- during the third quarter. He shares his thoughts with Salem College economic Kash Mansori on the Wall Street Journal's Econoblog.

-- posted Dec. 21, 2006

Students collect coats for international group
A drive by the La Follette School Student Association brought in 17 warm winter coats for international students. Madison Friends of International Students loans the coats to international students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

"Students from other countries that don't get as cold as Madison often don't have coats that are warm enough," says Louisa Kennedy, one of the students who coordinated the collection.

Madison Friends of International Students loans the coats for $5 for the duration of the student's stay in Madison. The group also has furniture for loan.

"Buying a new coat may not fit into a student budget," says Jen Blonn, who also worked on the La Follette coat drive, "it may not make much sense for a person here for only one or two winters."

-- posted Dec. 11, 2006

Alum to publish collection of essays on miscarriage
Alum Jessica Berger Gross is filling an important gap in the literature. Her first book, "About What Was Lost: Twenty Writers on Miscarriage, Healing, and Hope," is to be released by Plume in late December.

Berger Gross spent three years compiling the collection of essays by women who had miscarriages.

Jessica Berger Gross

For many women, a miscarriage can be more than just the loss of a dream; it can feel like the loss of a child, says Berger Gross, who lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her husband, Neil, whom she met at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The societal stigma and silence around pregnancy loss, leaves women and their partners feeling all alone in their grief.

Berger Gross started working on the volume after her own miscarriage. I was shattered, she says. I felt like I'd lost more than the promise of a baby, I felt like I'd lost a part of myself. I have always looked to books for comfort and community, and so I went to the bookstore searching for intimate stories about how other women had dealt with their losses and gone on to try (or not) again.

Berger Gross found only self-help books and academic tomes at the bookstore, but I came away with an idea for a book of my own, she says.

Berger Gross wrote her essay Miscarried along with a book proposal that Plume/Penguin accepted, and she began inviting notable and emerging writers who'd experienced miscarriage to contribute essays. I decided which essays to include and edited the selected pieces, Berger Gross says. I received wonderful editorial guidance from my editor at Plume, Danielle Friedman, and my literary agent, Doug Stewart, who helped me shape the initial idea.

The 2000 La Follette grad says her shift to a freelance writing career is a natural extension of her training in public affairs and career with nonprofits. La Follette helped my improve my writing skills, she says. I had the freedom to take classes in English and writing and sociology, and these, along with my La Follette core courses, helped me to become a better writer. The publications director, Alice Honeywell, was one of my best writing teachers.

Berger Gross work has appeared in Salon, Yoga Journal, Yoga International, and Healing Lifestyles & Spas magazines. She teaches personal essay and memoir at the Harvard Extension School and writes a column on international adoption for Literary Mama, the online magazine. She has a piece in the 2006 book It's A Girl: Women Writers on Raising Daughters and another in the forthcoming anthology Walk this Way: The New Face of the American Family.

I hope that, through my writing, I can make a contribution to the world around me, she says, as so many of my fellow La Follette grads are doing.

-- posted Dec. 11, 2006

Zeitlin named editor of journal

Jonathan Zeitlin

La Follette School faculty member Jonathan Zeitlin has been named an editor of Socio-Economic Review, a journal published by Oxford University Press.

Originating in the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics, Socio-Economic Review is part of a broader movement in the social sciences for the rediscovery of the socio-political foundations of the economy. Devoted to the advancement of socio-economics, it deals with the analytical, political and moral questions arising at the intersection between economy and society.

Zeitlin is professor of public affairs, sociology, political science and history; co-director of the European Union Center; and director of the Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy, all at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research focuses on the comparative and historical analysis of socioeconomic governance, business organizations, and employment relations, with particular emphasis on contemporary Europe.

He is one of three La Follette School professors to serve as journal editors. Carolyn Heinrich is editor of the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, and Charles Engel is editor of the Journal of International Economics.

Alum honored for work on behalf of crime victims

Steve Derene, left, and U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who presented the La Follette alum with the 2005 National Crime Victim Services Award.

Alum Steve Derene has been honored for his work as the executive director of a national organization for administrators of a federal funding program that supports crime victim assistance.

Derene received the Public Policy Award from the U.S. Congressional Crime Victims Rights Caucus in April. He also received the 2005 National Crime Victim Services Award from U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Derene is the co-founder and executive director of the National Association of VOCA (Victims of Crime Act) Assistance Administrators, a position he has held since 2001.The organization supports administrators of state and other programs that receive funds from the Office for Victims of Crime, which is part of the U.S. Department of Justice. The Victims of Crime Act established the office in 1984 to provide financial assistance to support a variety of services and activities to assist victims of crime.

The U.S. Congressional Crime Victims Rights Caucus honors individuals in the victim advocacy field who improve the lives of victims through direct or indirect services, policy initiatives or volunteer work. For 25 years, Steve has had a powerful impact on the field of victims' rights and services and on the lives of countless victims and survivors of crime and those who serve them, says the Office for Victims of Crimes announcement of Derenes 2005 award. While known and revered by those in the field as a policy wonk and the world's leading expert on VOCA, his commitment and service to the field also includes his valuable research.

Derene graduated from the La Follette Schools predecessor, the Center for Public Policy and Administration, in 1971 and served as executive assistant to the chair of the Wisconsin Public Service Commission from 1972 to 1976. He was director of research and information for the Wisconsin Department of Justice from 1976 to 1984 and then worked for the Office of Crime Victim Services until 2000.

-- posted Dec. 6, 2006

La Follette students tutor middle-schoolers
Between writing papers and working, two La Follette School students find the time to get in a little dodgeball and basketball, plus some extra math and .geography.

Jen Blonn and Kevin Murphy spend a couple of hours each Wednesday tutoring students at a Madison middle school. "We help them with all sorts of subjects," says Blonn. "For the second hour we play basketball and dodgeball. Its a lot of fun."

The two volunteer through an after-school program that organizes tutors. Blonn says she and another La Follette student hope to offer an environmental program on Fridays next spring.

"Tutoring has been a great opportunity to get out in the community and interact with young people," Murphy says. "I really enjoy both the time we spend on homework and the recreational activities. The students are a lot of fun."

Blonn says she appreciates the relationships she has developed with the students over the course of the semester. "Its been great to get to know the students have them tell me about their lives."

-- posted Dec. 6, 2006

Economics study group crafts lasting relationships

As part of this year's reunion, these La Follette grads took a hike through Indian Lake park near Madison. From left: Erin McGrath, Helene Stebbins, Sue Gander, Becca Swartz and Monique Currie. Mary McGreevy took the photo.

A two-year stopover in Wisconsin created lifelong friendships for Erin McGrath.

She came to the La Follette Institute in 1993 with her husband, who enrolled in the economics departments masters program. “It was a two-year plan. We moved to Madison, lived there for two years and moved on,” says McGrath, who is now a project manager for the mayor of San Francisco.

Yet, 11 years after graduating, McGrath is still looking back. She and five friends from a La Follette economics study group formed such close friendships that they promised each other to hold an annual reunion and they are keeping their word. Since 2004, they have gotten together three times for long weekends in spots around the country, including Madison in November 2006.

“We stayed in touch in the early years after graduation by attending each others' weddings,” says Helene Stebbins, who works in an occasional visit to Madison with her work. “But as life got busy, it was harder to stay in touch. So we agreed to meet for a weekend, and we had a fabulous time in Miami Beach. Our second trip was going to be New Orleans, but that was only six weeks after Katrina, so we had to relocate to Vegas.”

Prior to making the commitment to gather every year, McGrath would visit Stebbins and Sue Gander in the Washington, D.C., area when she traveled for work, but family and other commitments made schedules too complicated for everyone to meet.

“We went a number of years without seeing each other, or a couple of us would get together, but not everyone at once, McGrath says. “We missed getting together, so we’ve committed to seeing each other every year.”

They picked Madison for their early November reunion because it is home for two of the groups members, Monique Currie and Becca Swartz. Mary McGreevy drove down from St. Paul to join them.

They spent Friday night in Madison and had dinner at a new restaurant on Williamson Street, near the Capitol. “We ran into Karl Scholz, who taught the economics class where we all met and formed that study group,” McGrath says. “We got a good laugh out of that.”

The November weekend was the first time McGrath returned to Madison. On Friday, McGrath, Stebbins, Swartz and Gander drove through campus just as dark was falling. They stopped at the La Follette School at the top of Observatory Hill. “We tapped on the door, and someone let us in, McGrath says. “The student lounge looks the same. I love that little building.”

The group isn’t sure where they will meet next year, but they are already looking forward to it. Figuring out where to go is always the hardest part of getting together, Stebbins says.

“The truth is, the economics study group brought us together, but we had so much in common before we met that getting to know one another sometimes felt more like a reunion, Stebbins says. “We all have Catholic backgrounds, four of us have fathers who are university professors, four have Italian grandmothers from Pennsylvania, etc.

“I never felt so connected to a group of strangers, so quickly, as I did with these ladies.”

Alum develops expertise on children
Helene Stebbins is focusing on early childhood development at home and at work. After more than six years with the National Governors Association, she started her own policy and research firm specializing in the coordination of the health, education and care of children from birth to first grade.

“I decided to work for myself to allow for more flexibility to focus on the early childhood development of my own children (now 6 and 2),” Stebbins says.

The National Center for Children in Poverty is one of HMS Policy Research’s two major clients. The center is about to release state policies and indicators of early childhood development that Stebbins pulled together. Her other major client is the District of Columbia Mayor's Advisory Committee on Early Childhood Education, whose task force she staffed.

The rest of the gang
Sue Gander is a senior policy specialist with the US Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Energy-Environment State Partnership Program in Washington, D.C.

Becca Swartz is a project coordinator with the Wisconsin Caregiver Background Check Pilot in the state Department of Health and Family Services in Madison.

Monique Currie is a budget and policy analyst for the Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services in Madison.

Mary McGreevy is now home with her children in St. Paul, Minnesota. She is board president for the Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis. Ffter graduating from La Follette, she was the executive director of an AIDS clinic on the Texas/Mexico border.

After graduating from La Follette in 1995, Stebbins served as a presidential management intern with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which rotated her through to the National Governors Association.

“While there I specialized in early childhood development, or what states can and are doing to promote the healthy development of children before they enter kindergarten,” Stebbins says. This included child care, Head Start, pre-kindergarten, maternal and child health, and a little bit of welfare policy.

Project manager works on stadium development
When Erin McGrath was taking a course in central city planning as part of her master of public affairs degree at La Follette in the mid-1990s, she never imagined shed be in the middle of a debate about a football stadium.

As a project manager in San Franciscos mayors office, McGrath found herself caught up in the negotiations about how the city would participate financially in building a stadium for the San Francisco 49ers. The football team has been trying to build a stadium for 10 years; its current home, Candlestick Park, is the oldest football stadium in the country.

“We've been working on a lot of public-private partnerships to try to develop the land and the new stadium,” McGrath says. “The city of San Francisco is trying not to use tax dollars for that.”

The city is also trying to get the developer to cover the costs of replacing the public housing that would be lost to the project near the stadium. “We would like to integrate public housing into the project,” McGrath says, “especially since there is no more federal money for new housing.”

McGrath has been in the mayor's office since 1999. Prior to that she was a deputy director of the mayor's budget office, where she worked for many years.

Her course work and experiences with La Follette furthered her interests in economic development and expanded her knowledge about urban planning and development. “One of the nice things about La Follette was they encouraged us to take courses in other departments,” McGrath says. “One of my urban planning classes took us to Chicago for three days. We visited the public housing projects and saw the relationships between poverty and how people live.

“I keep that trip in mind when I'm working on San Francisco's stadium project.”

-- posted Dec. 6, 2006

Internship puts public affairs student to work on international legal affairs

Jamisen Rueckert

Jamisen Rueckert got a taste of her dream job last summer and an idea of what it takes to land it permanently some day. The La Follette School student interned with the Commercial Law Development Program, housed in the U.S. Department of Commerce's Office of the General Counsel in Washington, D.C.

"CLDP works with the governments of developing nations to improve the rule of law in those countries," Rueckert says. "A good legal system encourages economic development because business owners know that the courts and police will function to protect their investments."

The program provides technical assistance to developing nations through consultative services and educational programs that take place in host countries and in the United States. Rueckert helped plan an intellectual property adjudication forum in Pakistan that brought together judges, government officials and intellectual property professionals.

Donation made stipend possible

The summer internship was the first time Rueckert had lived in Washington, D.C. She worked in the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center.

"It was exciting to be in the heart of Washington, to walk by the White House every day," Rueckert says.

A stipend from the La Follette School made possible with a gift from a friend of the school went a long way in helping Rueckert be able to accept the unpaid internship.

"That support made a huge difference to me," Rueckert says. "I am very grateful for alumni and friends who can support the school to provide opportunities like this."

More on La Follette School internships

She also worked with a delegation of business and government officials from Bahrain who came to Washington, D.C., to explore options for implementing a corporate governance code in their country. As part of this program, Rueckert accompanied the visitors to the Securities and Exchange Commission and arranged a meeting between an official at the Small Business Administration and her Bahraini counterpart.

CLDP works primarily on strengthening commercial and business laws in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, but it is starting to branch out to South Asia, Rueckert says. The agency is considering expanding to Latin America, which is Rueckert's area of expertise. She is working on a dual degree in law and international public affairs with an emphasis on international development.

Rueckert prepared a 107-page report that identified programs in five Latin American countries that seek to improve intellectual property rights, good governance and judicial capacity. She described the existing programs and identified possible areas where CLDP could provide assistance.

In working with the attorneys and specialists who operate CLDP's programs, Rueckert came to appreciate the need for a new attorney to get solid experience before going to work for an agency like CLDP.

"Most of the attorneys had prior legal experience before coming to CLDP," Rueckert says. "Working there, I learned that you really need to understand the way law works in practice before you can help others utilize it in a way that advances their goals."

To that end, Rueckert plans to practice law after she graduates, ideally with a firm that has some international business. She plans to take Indiana's bar exam in February because she will be moving to the Indianapolis area after graduation to join her fiancé, who is enrolled in a graduate program there.

"Long term, I'd love a job like what I experienced at CLDP that combines policy and legal work with international travel," Rueckert says. "But first, I'm going to get some more experience."

-- posted Nov. 28, 2006; updated Nov. 29, 2006

Extra ballot measures didn't work as planned, prof theorizes
The ulterior motives behind putting the death penalty and the constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage and civil unions on Wisconsin's Nov. 7 ballot may have backfired, La Follette School professor Dennis Dresang says.

Dennis Dresang

"The gay marriage ban and the death penalty measure were largely efforts to mobilize a certain constituency to vote," Dresang says. "The Legislature delayed putting them on the ballot until November thinking that would help whoever the Republican candidate for governor would be."

Republic Mark Green lost to incumbent Jim Doyle. Republicans lost the state Senate but kept their hold on the Assembly.

The Wisconsin State Journal reported that about a third of voters who supported the gay marriage ban voted for Doyle, according to an exit poll conducted by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International.

That strategy didn't help Assembly Speaker John Gard, a Republican from Peshtigo, Dresang adds. Gard resigned his seat to run for Congress, a race he lost Nov. 7.

Dresang, a political scientist, spoke at the Nov. 8 La Follette School Seminar. Barry Burden from the Department of Political Science joined him.

Burden says the Republican losses in Congress were "not all about Iraq and President Bush. There was lots else going on."

Barry Burden

Exit polls, Burden says, showed that the economy was extremely or very important to 82 percent of voters, followed by corruption and scandal at 74 percent. Sixty-eight percent of those polled said Iraq is extremely or very important, Burden says.

"This is a big shift, as big as when the Republicans took control of Congress in 1994," Burden says.

The Democrats who will be taking their seats in the U.S. House and Senate "will play a pivotal role in the Democratic Party's future," Burden says. They are not the traditional, old-guard New Deal Democrats who run the party's leadership.

Some of the new Democrats are more conservative, which may lead to policy disputes within the party, Burden says.

Nancy Pelosi, who is likely to become speaker of the House, may find holding the party together difficult. "I'm not sure Pelosi has an easy job ahead of her," Burden says.

Across the country, Dresang says, before the 2006 elections, parity existed in partisan control of state legislatures. The effect of the elections was to return the country to a situation similar to what existed before the 1994 elections, with the Democratic Party having an advantage, albeit now within a generally competitive environment. Republicans control both houses in 15 states. Democrats control both in 24 states. The parties split control in 10 states, including Wisconsin. Nebraska's unicameral legislature is nonpartisan.

The 2006 election left 28 Democrats and 22 Republicans holding governorships, Dresang adds.

Wisconsin voters re-elected Doyle by a larger margin than predicted, Dresang says.

The governor took a pretty pro-business stance, and businesses thanked him for that during the first two years of his term, Dresang says. "But, in the end, business chose to support the Republican candidate. This might affect Doyle's agenda for his second term in office."

-- posted Nov. 14, 2006

Student helps organize presentation on stopping genocide
People can help stop genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan, says La Follette School student Louisa Kennedy, and they can find out how at a presentation on Tuesday, November 21.

Mark Hanis, founder and executive director of the Genocide Intervention Network, will speak at the Pyle Center from 1-2 p.m. His talk, Have a Hand in Stopping Genocide, will provide an overview of the crisis in Darfur and will explain how each audience member can make an impact. The La Follette School is one of the event's sponsors.


Louisa Kennedy	Mark Hanis

"With a situation like Darfur, where more than 450,000 people have been killed and more than 100 people die every day, it's easy to feel powerless," says Kennedy, one of the event's organizers and a second-year international public affairs, "but there are ways that we can all help."

As Hanis told NBC News last spring, people cant stop the genocide if they dont know about it. Genocide Intervention Networks mission is to empower individuals and communities with the tools to prevent and stop genocide. Network members are educating their communities, lobbying their elected officials and fund-raising to provide civilian protection.

Hanis, the grandson of four Holocaust survivors, founded the Genocide Intervention Network in 2004 as an undergraduate at Swarthmore College. Chapters have sprung up at more than 250 U.S. colleges and universities. Hanis and the Genocide Intervention Network have been featured in the New York Times and on CNN Headline News, NBC and National Public Radio.

"Mark Hanis has already made a huge impact through his organization's education, advocacy and fund-raising, and he just graduated from college a few years ago," Kennedy says. "Students will come to this event and see that young people really can make a difference on something like genocide, which seems so insurmountable."

Organized by the UW-Madison student organization Action in Sudan, Hanis talk has been met with an outpouring of support from the campus community, Kennedy says.

Sponsors include African Studies Program, Associated Students of Madison, International & Comparative Education Research Group, La Follette School of Public Affairs, La Follette School Student Association, Multi-Cultural Council, Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy, Hillel, and the Wisconsin Union Directorate Contemporary Issues Committee.

Information: lckennedy@wisc.edu

-- posted Nov. 13, 2006; updated Jan. 11, 2007

Chinn discusses paper at IMF conference
La Follette School professor Menzie Chinn, on stage, served as a discussant at an International Monetary Fund conference.

Chinn discussed a paper, "Europe and Global Imbalances," by Philip Lane of Trinity College in Dublin and Gian Maria Milesi-Ferretti of the IMF, on Nov. 9 at the seventh Jacques Polak Annual Research Conference at IMF's headquarters in Washington, D.C.

-- posted Nov. 13, 2006

Conference examines governance of nanotechnology
Representatives from government agencies, the nanotechnology industry, advocacy organizations, individuals and other stakeholders are spending three days in Madison talking about nanotechnology and how to shape systems to govern and manage this growing industry.

"The nature of the nanotechnology industry requires a strong reliance on the involvement of relevant stakeholders in the development and evolution of formal and informal government regulations and industry standards," says Terry Shelton, outreach director at the La Follette School of Public Affairs, which is hosting the conference in conjunction with the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Participants in the conference, Getting Nanotechnology Right: Governance Strategies and Policies for Healthy, Green, Socially Valuable Nano, will consider an innovative range of management systems and accountability mechanisms to create a sustainable and reliable system that assures public health and environmental protection while facilitating the growth of a fledgling, but potentially transformative, industry. They will participate in policy discussions, hands-on nano experiments and a trip to a nanotechnology business.

The conference runs Sunday, Nov. 12, through Tuesday, Nov. 14. Information: shelton@lafollette.wisc.edu.

Lawmakers look to tiny technology to create big business, January 2007, Stateline, Council of State Governments Midwestern Office

-- posted Nov. 13, 2006; updated Jan. 10, 2007

WisconsinEye shares table talk on state constitution
Look out YouTube. The dinner conversation of three Wisconsin governors and a lieutenant governor is available online via WisconsinEye as part of its coverage of an October conference on the Wisconsin Constitution. The La Follette School was one of the conference's sponsors.

Former Wisconsin governors Patrick Lucey, Lee S. Dreyfus and Tony Earl, and former Lieutenant Governor Margaret Farrow kicked off the conference with a roundtable discussion the evening of Oct. 5. The webcast is available at www.wiseye.orgrg.

Conference examines state constitution, Oct. 6, 2006

-- posted Nov. 7, 2006

Reschovsky participates in discussion on higher education
La Follette School professor Andrew Reschovsky was was a respondent to a presentation on improving the measurement of state support for higher education. Philip A. Trostel from the University of Maine presented at a forum organized by the Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education on Oct. 26.

La Follette School second-year student Kate Clark organized the forum as part of her project assistantship with WISCAPE. Her responsibilities involved scheduling speakers, handling tactical details, taking notes and preparing the executive summary of the event.

Forum considers alternatives for public higher education, Oct. 19, 2006, campus news service

-- posted Nov. 7, 2006

La Follette School welcomes 1,000 to national conference
The Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management conference Nov. 2-4 at Monona Terrace in Madison brought together the top public affairs researchers in the country and a few La Follette School alumni, faculty and students.

Hosted by the La Follette School of Public Affairs, the conference drew 1,050 policymakers and researchers, the largest attendance at APPAM's fall research conference held outside Washington, D.C. The meeting was called "Tax and Spend: Designing, Implementing, Managing and Evaluating Redistributional Policies."

Although the conference includes panels of researchers covering the full range of public policy and management issues, there has always been a strong emphasis on social policy," says La Follette School Professor David Weimer, who is president of APPAM. "It was therefore especially fitting to host the conference in Wisconsin, the birthplace of social security and the home of the highly influential Institute for Research on Poverty.

La Follette faculty report that the conference was a great success. "All the comments I heard were extremely positive," says La Follette School Director Barbara (Bobbi) Wolfe. "Attendees loved Monona Terrace and its view of Lake Monona, and many have suggested APPAM should return here."

Thirty-five La Follette School students attended the conference, five of them thanks to donations by alumni and friends of the school. The La Follette School Student Association did some fund-raising of its own and secured funds from the Associated Students of Madison student government and the university's Provost's Office to send another 12 students. Professors were able to fund registration fees for the other 17.

"I appreciate the gifts from alumni and other friends of the school, which meant a number of us were able to attend, especially because it is so rare to have a conference like this right here while we're in school," says second-year student Kate Clark. "I got to go to several sessions that related directly to papers I'm writing this term."

Clark met 2005 La Follette alum Natalie Walleser at the conference. "I appreciated getting a chance to talk with her and to share our experiences," Clark says. "We compared notes and it turned out she had done a class project on incarceration and now I'm working on a similar one. Both involved cost-benefit analysis. Then we went into a session and one of the presenters talked about how important cost-benefit analysis is."

Walleser appreciated the opportunity to connect with other people working in public policy. "Learning about the latest public policy research makes me a better practitioner," says Walleser, an analyst with the Legislative Audit Bureau. "It's important to know about the most recent ideas in order to make relevant recommendations to improve state programs."

As conference host, the La Follette School held a reception Thursday night at the Capitol that 500 to 600 people attended.

Over the conference's three days, 10 La Follette faculty members presented research, discussed papers, chaired sessions or led roundtables. Presenters also included La Follette School alumni.

"The conference provided a good exposure to the different fields in public affairs," says first-year student Barbara Dearth, who attended sessions on Social Security, employment of women and the environment, in addition to one of the sessions examining poverty research over four decades held in honor of the Institute for Research on Poverty's 40th anniversary.

"The different perspectives were intriguing," Dearth adds, "and it was interesting to hear the discussants' critique of the papers. It was a nice introduction to what's out there."

La Follette School Students Association wins grants to fund student attendance, Oct. 31, 2006

Conference presentations
Medical Governance: Are We Ready to Prescribe?, Nov. 3, 2006, presidential address by David Weimer for APPAM conference

Public Policies, Citizenship Outcomes and the Implications for Performance Measurement: An Analysis of the Program Assessment Rating Tool, Nov. 2, 2006, paper by Amber Wischowsky and Donald P. Moynihan presented at APPAM conference

The Sufficiency of Savings: A Two Cohort Comparison of Savings at Retirement and Several Years Post Retirement, July 2006, paper by Robert Haveman, Karen Holden, Barbara Wolfe and Andrei Romanov presented at APPAM conference. Presentation slides

What Makes Hierarchical Networks Succeed? Evidence from Hurricane Katrina, November 2006, paper by Donald P. Moynihan presented at APPAM conference.

-- posted Nov. 6, 2006; updated Nov. 7, 2006

Public affairs writer in residence to visit La Follette School
Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Walt Bogdanich from the New York Times will be on campus next week as the fall 2006 public affairs writer in residence. He will meet with students, faculty and staff from the La Follette School and elsewhere on campus.

He will be at a brown bag at the La Follette School on Monday, Nov. 6. The session, titled "My Life as a Watchdog," will be noon to 1 p.m. in the school's conference room.

Bogdanich won journalisms top prize in 2005 with the New York Times for his reporting on fatalities connected to the railroad industry and in 1988 with the Wall Street Journal for his reporting on substandard medical laboratories.

Information: shelton@lafollette.wisc.edu, 262-3038

Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter to visit, Oct. 30, 2006, campus news service

-- posted Nov. 1, 2006

Institute for Research on Poverty celebrates 40 years
The University of Wisconsin-Madison's Institute for Research on Poverty the nation's first poverty research center next month marks 40 years of studying why Americans live in poverty and what can be done to end it.

"Fighting poverty is not simply a matter of increasing budgets or cutting programs," says Maria Cancian, the institute's director. "We need to understand economic and family change in order to most effectively use public and other resources to eliminate poverty."

Institute researchers have developed methods to gauge the level and trend of poverty over time and have pioneered experimental evaluation of social welfare programs such as the negative income tax, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, Medicaid, food stamps and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.

Beginning in the 1980s, researchers at the institute undertook an intensive re-evaluation of the U.S. child support system. And the institute has evaluated many welfare reform programs instituted in the late 1990s. Its work has led to tangible changes for families nationwide.

La Follette School faculty have played a role in these research projects and in the institute's administration. Four La Follette faculty members have served as IRP directors or associate directors. Many La Follette faculty are IRP faculty affiliates, and many La Follette students conduct research as part of IRP projects.

Institute for Research on Poverty marks 40 years of innovative work, Oct. 24, 2006, campus news service

-- posted Nov. 1, 2006

Student honored as mentor
The University of Wisconsin-Madison Graduate Student Collaborative recognized Rachel Howard, a 2006 La Follette School alum, with a Graduate Student Mentor award. These awards are given to graduate students who take time to help fellow students succeed in graduate school. La Follette students all now alumni Laura Antuono, Jenna Griffin, Bai Linh Hoang, Katie Maguire, Camille Salas, Karina Silver and Jennifer Zillmer nominated Howard for the award.

Howard said she is honored to receive the award, and she hopes La Follette students will continue to nominate their peers, since helping each other succeed in classes is a part of the La Follette experience.

"I never considered myself a mentor, particularly because explaining concepts to others helped me to internalize them. All of my study group members deserve equal recognition for helping me do well in graduate school," Howard added.

Howard received her master of international public affairs degree in August after completing a study abroad program in Vladimir, Russia.

-- posted Nov. 1, 2006

La Follette School faculty to present research at conference La Follette School Students Association wins grants to fund student attendance
La Follette School students will attend the fall Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management research conference thanks to a fund-raising effort and a reduced registration fee.

Gifts from alumni and friends of the La Follette School will send five students to the conference.

In addition, the La Follette School Student Association won a grant from the Associated Students of Madison, the student government organization. The group parlayed that into additional funds from the campus Provost's Office, so at least 17 students will have their $60 fee covered.

Other La Follette students who are project assistants may have their attendance fees paid through their work.

"APPAM attracts the top researchers in a number of policy disciplines and it is a once in a lifetime event to have it come to Madison," says LSSA Vice President Callie Gray. "This is a rare chance for policy students to access presentations and discussions from world leaders in policy right in our own backyard."

La Follette School of Public Affairs hosts 900 public policy experts
The Robert M. La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison welcomes more than 900 public policy experts to a national conference this week at Monona Terrace.

The La Follette School is the host for the annual fall research conference of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management. The conference meetings are titled Tax and Spend: Designing, Implementing, Managing and Evaluating Effective Redistributional Polices. the conference will be held from Thursday, Nov. 2, through Saturday, Nov. 4.

At the conference, 10 La Follette School faculty members are giving presentations, chairing sessions or serving as discussants. In addition, John Witte will lead a roundtable discussion on Three Decades of School Choice in Milwaukee: What Do We Know? Where Are We Going? at 9:30 a.m. on Friday, Nov. 3.

La Follette School professor David Weimer, the current APPAM president, will deliver the plenary address at 4:30 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 3. Weimer will speak on the problem of designing appropriate forms of medical governance, the processes through which policy makers allocate medical resources

Conference research sessions will address numerous policy issues, with sessions on welfare reform, Social Security, health policy, Medicaid reform, urban redevelopment, marriage, environment, school choice, education, poverty and school finance, among others.

Schedule of La Follette School faculty presentations

APPAM conference information

Full conference schedule

Campus news story

Research on retirement savings, home mortgage tax credits, pensions and child support are among the public policy topics that La Follette School faculty are presenting at the fall research conference of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.

The La Follette School is hosting the event at Monona Terrace in Madison. It runs Thursday, Nov. 2, through Saturday, Nov. 4.

Scholars examine adequacy of retirement savings
Whether people have enough resources to escape poverty or near poverty at the time they retire is the subject of a paper three La Follette School of Public Affairs professors will present Thursday, Nov. 2, at 2 p.m. at the session Social Security and Retirement: What Reforms are Needed?

In The Sufficiency of Retirement Savings: A Comparison of Two Cohorts of Retired Workers at the Time of Retirement, Robert Haveman, Karen Holden and Barbara Wolfe, and co-author Andrei Romanov of the Economics Department, examine two groups of retirees, one that initiated Social Security benefits in 1980-81 and a second that started drawing benefits in the mid 1990s.

The authors obtained information on the financial resources of the older population in each of these groups, their Social Security and private pension benefits, and value of their home (if they own one). From this information they calculated the annual resources that the retirees had available to support their level of living in retirement.

These researchers find that on average, those retiring in the mid-1990s had more wealth and hence the ability to support a higher standard of living than the 1980s group, Wolfe says. However, people who lacked education and skills, who did not work consistently, or who were unmarried were more likely to be poor in retirement in the 1990s than in the 1980s.

The problem is distribution of wealth, Wolfe says. On average, people have enough resources, but people on the lower end of the economic scale are clearly worse off now than they were in the 1980s.

Public pension systems correlate to reduced poverty among older women
Pamela Herd explores what the United States can learn from pension systems in other countries in her presentation. The structure of U .S. private and public pension systems means that older American women are significantly more likely to be poor than their counterparts in other countries.

Herd presents at the session Gender, Race, and Class in Retirement: Views From the United States and Europe at 9:30 a.m. on Friday, Nov. 3.

Women are more likely to avoid poverty when they are old in countries with public pension systems, Herd says. Older women in the United States generally have not held full-time employment for as long as men and they generally worked lower paying jobs. Both these factors mean their pensions are less than those men receive.

Herds paper examines pensions in Western Europe, discusses Social Security and explores the effects of applying a more European model to the United States. In particular, she emphasizes that the tendency in the United States to link benefits to marital status, as opposed to the work involved in raising children or more general minimum income guarantees, explains the higher poverty rates among older women in the United States, compared to Western Europe.

Karen Holden will present Employment and Economic Security in Retirement: How Changes in Employment Have Altered Retirement-Related Economic Risks for Women at the same session. Holden also gives The Insurance Women Hold Against Later Life Risks: What Do They Know and How Much Do They Cover? at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 4.

La Follette School alum Eugene Steuerle also presents at that Nov. 4 session, a paper he co-authored with Melissa Favreault. They both work for the Urban Institute. Steuerle also presents at the 2 p.m., Nov. 2 session on Social Security.

Changes in tax policy could boost home ownership
Reforming the way in which federal tax policy subsidizes homeownership could increase homeownership rates among minority and low-income households, according to research to be presented by Andrew Reschovsky.

He and co-author Richard Green of George Washington University examine the impact on homeownership rates of a proposal to eliminate the mortgage interest deduction and to replace it with a 15 percent mortgage interest tax credit.

This proposal was part of the final recommendations of President Bushs Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform.

Reschovsky and Green also will look at the effect of an optional mortgage interest credit plan that would allow all taxpayers to choose between the existing deduction or a refundable mortgage interest credit.

One important benefit of a refundable credit is that it would increase tax subsidies for lower-income homeowners who dont itemize their taxes, Reschovsky says. A larger tax benefit for home ownership for low-income people would make housing more affordable and thus increase ownership, especially among groups that traditionally have low ownership rates.

Reschovsky presents the research Saturday, Nov. 4, at 1:15 p.m. in the panel Home Ownership.

While almost 69 percent of all households were homeowners in 2005, the homeownership rate for African Americans was 48.8 percent, Reschovsky says. For non-Hispanic whites, the rate was 76 percent, while 49 percent of Hispanic households owned homes.

While well over 90 percent of families in the top income quintile are homeowners, the homeownership rate is 40 percent for those in the bottom income quintile, he adds.

Paper looks at relationship between child support policy and multiple-partner fertility
Maria Cancian is presenting the paper Multiple Partner Fertility and Child Support Policy with co-author Daniel Meyer of the School of Social Work and Institute for Research on Poverty. They appear on Saturday, Nov. 4, at 1:15 p.m. in the session on Social Policy, Family Formation and Child Support.

Substantial divorce and remarriage, plus the increase in people having children without being married have contributed to a higher incidence of multiple-partner fertility, Cancian says. More families include half-siblings who share one, but not both parents. This makes child-support policy very complex.

Cancian and Meyer estimate the prevalence of multiple-partner fertility and the subsequent legal and financial obligations for all families involved in the child support enforcement system.

We draw on current policy and recent proposals for change to simulate the effects of alternative policies on mothers, fathers and their children, Cancian says. We also consider how the possible policies would affect financial incentives for the custodial and noncustodial parents.

Cancian will present another paper with Carolyn Heinrich on child-support enforcement at a Nov. 4 session, Examining the Impacts of Child Support on Parental Behavior.

In addition, these La Follette School faculty will present papers:

Joe Soss presents at the session titled "Implementation of Redistributive Policies in Different Economic and Political ContextsContexts on Thursday, Nov. 2, at 12:15 p.m. His paper, written with Richard Fording of the University of Kentucky and Sanford Schram of Bryn Mawr College is titled The Politics of Performance and Punishment: Administrative Feedback and the Dynamics of Welfare Sanctioning. He also will present with Elizabeth Rigby the paper "Local Implementation of Medicaid in Wisconsin: A Comparison of Take-Up Under Different Federal-State Welfare Policy Models " at the same session.
Donald Moynihan will discuss the U.S. Department of Homeland Securitys system to coordinate organizations that come together to respond to a large-scale disaster in a presentation titled "The Aftermath of Katrina: Lessons for Management" at 1:15 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 4.

Alum Douglas Harris will chair a session on school choice at 9:30 a.m., Nov. 3; present a paper "Teacher Training and Teacher Productivity" on Thursday, Nov. 2 at 2 p.m.; and serve as a discussant.

Another alum, Mark Cassell, presents Saturday, Nov. 4, at 10:30 a.m.

-- posted Oct. 31, 2006; updated Nov. 1, 2006

Study finds Wisconsin program expands health-care coverage for low-income families
The state of Wisconsins BadgerCare program is expanding health insurance coverage for families who have left welfare, says a just-published paper by scholars from the Robert M. La Follette School of Public Affairs and the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

We find that BadgerCare means fewer poor families are going without health insurance, says La Follette School Director Barbara (Bobbi) Wolfe. The program is working very well.

This finding is especially significant because other states and the federal government are studying the programs eligibility criteria, financing and benefit structure, she adds.

Wolfe is the first author on a paper appearing in the November 2006 Journal of Health Economics. Her co-authors are Robert Haveman of the La Follette School, Thomas Kaplan of the Institute for Research on Poverty, and Yoonyoung Cho, who is now with the Korea Development Institute in Seoul. She received her Ph.D. in economics from UW-Madison in 2006.

Families on cash assistance receive health-care coverage through Medicaid, Wolfe says, but as they move off cash assistance and their earnings increase, they quickly lose eligibility for Medicaid. A 1997 federal initiative called the State Children's Health Insurance Program, implemented as BadgerCare in Wisconsin, offers publicly financed coverage for children at higher income levels than does Medicaid. In Wisconsin, initial eligibility is set at 185 percent of the federal poverty level, and enrollment can continue until a familys income grows to 200 percent of the federal poverty level. In addition, BadgerCare covers parents, not just children.

Wisconsin was one of only four states that initially expanded coverage to parents of eligible children, Wolfe says. BadgerCare is one of the countrys most extensive state reforms in response to SCHIP.

BadgerCare started in July 1999. Six years later, research shows that BadgerCare is increasing the health insurance coverage of low-income families, which is what the program intended to do, Wolfe says.

We conducted several analyses, all of which indicate that BadgerCare substantially increased public health-care coverage for mother-only families leaving welfare, Wolfe says. For all adults leaving welfare, BadgerCare increased public health-care coverage by 17 to 25 percent.

SCHIP expansion and parental coverage: An evaluation of Wisconsin's BadgerCare, November 2006, Journal of Health Economics (Access to article depends on personal or institutional entitlements.)

Study: BadgerCare expands health care coverage for low-income families, Oct. 30, 2006, campus news service

New Study Shows BadgerCare Expanding Health Care Coverage to More Families, Oct. 30, 2006, news release, Office of the Governor

-- posted Oct. 26, 2006; updated Oct. 30, 2006

Alum helps organize policy debate on proposed constitutional amendment
A debate on the proposal to amend Wisconsin's constitution to ban same-sex marriage and civil unions will take place Tuesday, Oct. 24, in Madison, thanks in part to the efforts of La Follette School alum Brian Larson.

Larson invites alumni and students to attend the event at the Orpheum Theatre, 216 State St. Hors d'oeuvres will be served at 5:15 p.m., followed by a panel discussion at 6:15 p.m. Attendance and food are free of charge. There will be a cash bar. The event is hosted by a coalition of professional and University of Wisconsin-Madison groups and sponsored by Cullen Weston Pines & Bach LLP.

"We're targeting this event at young professionals in Madison and Dane County to provide them with an opportunity to make connections and participate in a policy discussion about a topic of common interest," says Larson, a 2005 alum who earned a dual degree in law and public affairs.

The panelists will include:

Christopher Wolfe, a professor of political science at Marquette University who supports the amendment.
Rick Esenberg, an attorney in Milwaukee and adjunct professor at Marquette Law School who supports the amendment.
Tamara Packard, a civil litigator in Madison who opposes the amendment.
Bruce Harville, a Madison-based consultant for a national accounting and consulting firm who opposes the amendment.

Information: Brian Larson, (608) 257-2281, blarson@stroudlaw.com.

Downtown Debate Focuses on Proposed Marriage Amendment, Oct. 25, 2006, Channel300.com

-- posted Oct. 19, 2006; updated Oct. 25, 2006

Students research highlights need to identify homeless schoolchildren
La Follette School student Samuel Hall is calling on Wisconsin school districts to do their part in identifying homeless children in their areas and making sure they are getting an education.

Hall makes this argument in an op-ed published in the October 17 Capital Times newspaper. More than half of Wisconsins school districts are not doing their part to identify homeless students, despite federal and state laws requiring them to do so, Hall says, based on research he has conducted.

Sam Hall

Some districts report they have no homeless students, even though their demographics suggest that they must, Hall says.

I estimate Wisconsin has well over 14,000 homeless schoolchildren, from kindergarten to high school, many of whom go quietly unhelped, Hall says in the op-ed.

So far, more than 5,000 homeless students have been identified in Wisconsin, Hall says. Madison, for instance, reports 485 for the year 2004-2005, Milwaukee had close to 2,000, and even Abbotsford found 24, he writes. Some of these students are in districts with total populations as low as 1,800 people. These reported homeless students are all over the state, in rural as well as urban areas.

Hall says about 9,000 students are unidentified because their districts are not looking for them. That's the conclusion I came to after interviewing officials in school systems around the state, Hall writes. And the numbers back this up. We need to realize that there are homeless people - with kids - in the majority of our communities.

Hall started this research as an undergraduate student in political science when he won a Hilldale research grant from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

At La Follette I am focusing on social and poverty policy, so my research on homelessness is and was a natural outgrowth of my courses, especially Joss Soss's class on the politics of welfare and Carolyn Heinrich's welfare management course, says Hall, a second-year student who enrolled at La Follette through the schools accelerated program that enables University of Wisconsin-Madison undergraduates to earn a master of public affairs or master of international public affairs with a fifth year of study.

In the summer of 2006, Hall interned in U.S. Senator Russ Feingold's Washington, D.C., office.

In the long term, he says, I hope to continue to conduct research on poverty policies and take a more active role in policy leadership, both in terms of initial policy creation and community acceptance.

Samuel Hall: State school districts must look for homeless children, October 17, 2006, Capital Times

-- posted Oct. 18, 2006

La Follette student investigates education standards, Pell grants
While working as a fifth-grade teacher in New York City, La Follette School student Matthew Steinberg watched students struggle to meet the new standards imposed by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.

His three years in New York Citys Teaching Fellows program led Steinberg to think about the relationship between public policy and how resources are allocated for low-income and minority students in primary and secondary education, and how well those students achieve as a result.

Matt Steinberg

"With an increased focus on standardized exams, the individual learning needs of my students suffered as I was required to administer practice tests to prepare them for the state assessment exams, Steinberg says. The time and resources dedicated to producing outcome measures in the form of test scores diminished my capacity as a teacher to help students acquire the critical thinking skills that generally fall outside the domain of standardized exams.

Now, as a second-year student at the La Follette School, Steinberg is working with a professor from the University of Wisconsin-Madisons Department of Educational Policy Studies on a series of articles that examine the Supplemental Education Services provision of the No Child Left Behind Act.

Steinberg came to the La Follette School because of its strong relationships with other campus units. A strength of the school is that we are encouraged to take courses in other departments, Steinberg says. Ive been able to pursue my interests in public affairs and educational policy.

Access to higher education for low-income students is also on Steinbergs research agenda. Education finance is one of the most critical issues policymakers face, he says.

With tuition rates increasing rapidly and need-based state and federal financial aid declining over the past 20 years, more and more academically qualified students from low-income families are finding the possibility of attending college out of reach, says Steinberg, who hopes to continue his education by pursuing a Ph.D. in a program related to his public policy interests.

Steinberg, La Follette School professor Bob Haveman and Institute for Research on Poverty Visiting Scholar Patrizio Piraino collaborated this summer to examine the prevalence of Pell Grant recipients at nearly 150 public and private universities. The three seek to explain differences among institutions of higher education in attracting and retaining low-income students. The project was inspired by University of Wisconsin-Madison administrators who were interested in evaluating the universitys performance relative to its peer institutions.

Steinberg collected data and worked with Haveman and Piraino to develop a methodology to predict the expected rate of Pell Grant take-up for each school. The analysis controlled for differences such as the cost of attendance, median SAT scores, demographic differences among states and the number of international students at each school.

Comparing the expected rate of Pell Grant take-up to the actual percentage of undergraduates receiving Pell Grants at each school revealed that some schools perform poorly in attracting and retaining low-income students. Steinberg, Haveman and Piraino drafted a paper that explains the results and offers suggestions for next steps for institutions seeking to improve their Pell Grant performance.

Steinberg led the presentation of the paper at the La Follette School Seminar Series on October 11. More than 30 faculty, administrators, and students attended the session, which provoked lively discussion about the implications of the research findings for the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

My goal for this project is to provide a foundation from which policymakers can discuss what UW-Madison might do to increase low-income participation at the university, Steinberg says. My hope is that this work will inspire policymakers to address this issue from an analytical perspective in order to arrive at workable solutions."

Four students win language fellowships

Student works on Chinese political reform projects
International public affairs student Brandon Lamson spent much of his summer internship with the Carter Center's China Program monitoring foreign and Chinese news sources for stories and commentaries about political reform.

He made translations from Chinese into English and edited English content that others wrote. Some of the materials were quite sensitive so it was exciting to be a part of the project, Lamson says. I also helped redesign the projects portion of the Carter Center web site.

Lamson assisted with writing an annual white paper on democratization in China, the first the Carter Center is to publish. Its scope expanded beyond local elections to analyze reforms in the legislative system, inner-party democratization and governance innovation, he says.

The goal is to chart general changes in openness in Chinas political system and offer thoughts on prospects for further democratization.

Four international public affairs students have won Foreign Language and Area Studies Graduate Fellowships from the U.S. Department of Education.

First year-student Andria Hayes-Birchler is using her FLAS to study Swahili through the universitys African Studies Program. When she finishes at La Follette she wants to do research on policy and programs related to international development in Africa.

In the past I've found the single best way to experience a country is by speaking the language of the people and thus I want to become as proficient as possible in Swahili before looking for work in East Africa, Hayes-Birchler says. I have studied Swahili while working in Tanzania; Bahasa while working in Indonesia; and French and Bambara while living in Mali.

The other three recipients are second-year students.

Allison Quatrini completed an intensive language studies program in August at Wisconsins Beloit College, where she studied intermediate Mandarin Chinese.

We made significant gains in vocabulary acquisition and in our ability to speak, read, write, and listen, says Quatrini, who is applying for funding to study in China and eventually wants to pursue a Ph.D. in political science and Asian Studies.

Quatrini says the intensive immersion was a great learning experience. Im really amazed and impressed with how much I know and understand now given how little I thought I knew when I began, she says.

Chinese is also part of Brandon Lamsons studies. His academic year fellowship covers language and East Asian studies courses this fall and next spring. These courses build on Lamsons summer internship in Atlanta with the Carter Centers China Program, through which he pursued his interests in political reform in China.

Yeri Lopez, kneeling, talks with Bolivia campesinos (farmers) regarding conservation strategies and management of the puma population.

Yeri Lopez also has the academic-year FLAS. He is studying Quichua, the predominant indigenous language of the Andes, with area studies courses about Latin Americas indigenous groups. I learned a little Quichua during my Peace Corps service in Bolivia before enrolling at La Follette, and I am focusing as much as possible on this area during my studies here, Lopez says.

The language fits nicely with my eventual goal to return to the Andes and work with indigenous populations to resolve natural resource conflicts and to promote sustainable development, he adds, a continuation of work that I did in the Peace Corps.

The U.S. Department of Education funds these fellowships to encourage area and international studies and to stimulate foreign language acquisition and fluency. FLAS fellows must be engaged in full-time foreign language and area or international studies course work or dissertation research during the academic year, or in intensive language study during the summer award period.

Graduate students pursue FLAS fellowships in addition to possible La Follette School funding, says Associate Director Karen Holden.

We cant provide funding for all our students, Holden says, so its wonderful that these enterprising students have sought and won financial support that advances their career goals. Their success is a marker of their professionalism.

-- posted Oct. 9, 2006; updated Oct. 18, 2006

Chinn to give talk at U.S. Treasury, publishes article
La Follette School professor Menzie Chinn will give a talk on "Approaches to Assessing Currency Misalignment" at the U.S. Treasury's Office of International Affairs on October 26. He also has published an article in the Milanese newspaper "Il sole 24 ore" in Milan, Italy. The English version is available at Chinn's weblog.

-- posted Oct. 6, 2006

Conference examines state constitution
The relevance of the Wisconsin Constitution is the topic of a conference co-sponsored by the La Follette School Oct. 5-6 that includes comments by La Follette School professor Andrew Reschovsky.

Staged by the Marquette University Law School and several Capitol players, "Wisconsin Constitution -- Is the Wisconsin Constitution Obsolete" explores this timely and provocative question a month before voters in the state decide whether to constitutionally ban same-sex marriage and certain civil unions and whether to send a message to bring back the death penalty.

At least five ex-Wisconsin governors committed to appear in a roundtable on the evening of Oct. 5 in Milwaukee to kick off the conference and set the stage for a full day of discussion on Oct. 6. On that Friday, national experts and Wisconsin scholars will explore key areas such as taxation, local government, education, and checks and balances.
Reschovsky commented on a presentation by Cato Institute chair William Niskanen on "On Wisconsin: Some Friendly Constitutional Advice."

Marquette Law Professor Michael McChrystal says the conference is focusing not on particular rights or issues but on the overall framework of government. He says the state constitution, one of the oldest in the country and amended many times, is being criticized as outmoded and as hindering the state's ability to compete economically.

"The point of the conference is to probe the question,'' McChrystal says. "Does it meet the needs of the 21st Century?''

"It is not a Democrat vs. Republican kind of issue at all," he adds. "We're exploring the question.''

He doesn't rule out that the discussion could some day lead to a constitutional convention to remake the document.

In addition to the La Follette School of Public affairs, the conference is sponsored by Marquette University Law School and the Wisconsin Alliance of Cities. Groups participating in conference planning include the Wisconsin Counties Association, the Wisconsin School Boards Association, the Wisconsin Realtors Association, the League of Wisconsin Municipalities, AFSCME Council 40 and the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO.

-- posted Oct. 6, 2006

La Follette School hosts Bavarian delegation
The La Follette School plays host this week to 10 Bavarian officials for an international dialogue on the role that environmental regulations, performance and self-responsibility can play in regulatory agencies, businesses and communities.

The group, sponsored by the U.S. State Department, is on a week-long tour that includes Washington, D.C., and Madison. Other hosts include the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. The visit is part of a multiyear innovation agreement on environmental reform signed two years ago by Wisconsin Gov. James Doyle and the free state of Bavaria.

"This is an opportunity to exchange ideas with a comprehensive delegation from our sister state in the international community," said Terry Shelton, La Follette's outreach director who is helping arrange the trip. "Members range across both the legislative and executive branches with representatives from the areas of finance, human health, natural resources and environment."

Shelton said this will be a facilitated discussion directed at understanding current environmental policy directions in the European Union, innovations in both Bavaria and the United States that hold promise for government and business, and potential for long term communications between the two states that can produce value in both Bavaria and Wisconsin.

Some of those briefing the Bavarians include Julius Svoboda, a La Follette student who interned in the Bavarian ministry over the summer; Professor Graham Wilson, who has been studying environmental innovation for several years; Professor Louise Trubek of the Law School, who has taught a course on the subject with her husband, David Trubek, for the past two years; Professor Don Moynihan, who taught a policy analysis class that helped study Wisconsin's new Green Tier law; and Kate Gordon, who works with the Apollo Alliance, a collaborative effort of the Center on Wisconsin Strategy.

The delegation and their positions are:

Dr. Gert Heinrich Fabian Von Laffert
Director, energy policy, utilities and gas, Bavarian Ministry of Economics since 2005
Klaus Wilhelm Ewald Herzog
Section chief, Ministry of Finance (since 1993)
Dr. Birgit Maria Schmidt am Busch
Section chief, legal counsel to health dep. in the Ministry for Environment, Health and Consumer Protection since 2005
Konrad Schmid
Section chief, federal agricultural policy since 2003, Bavarian State Ministry for Agriculture and Forestry
Dr. Rdiger Werner Joachim Detsch
Department. section chief, agricultural policy since 2005, Bavarian State Chancellery
Dr. Carsten Schulz
Deputy section chief, legislative affairs since 2005, Bavarian State Chancellery
Dr. Daniel Mathias Mueller
Director, State Forest Office Berchtesgaden since 2005, Bavarian State Forest Agency
Dr. Richard Kurt Mayer
Section chief, general policy and food safety since 2003, Bavarian State Ministry for Environment. Health and Consumer Protection
Hermann Josef Blomeyer
Project manager for airport expansion - environment, soil, water since 2005; Airport Munich
Helmut Friedrich Parzefall
Section chief, interior ministry affairs, Bavarian State Chancellery

La Follette advisory board to convene
An address by University of Wisconsin-Madison Provost Patrick Farrell will be one of the highlights of the fall meeting of the joint La Follette School-Political Science Board of Visitors when it meets in Madison this week.

Farrell will talk about his new job as provost and his priorities for the university to the board, which advises public affairs and political faculties on issues including internships, outreach and development. The board, whose membership includes about 25 University of Wisconsin-Madison alumni, meets twice a year.