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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:
October 14, 2009

© Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System

La Follette School News

Chinn comments on Obama's expected "New Deal," economy

Economists are debating what kind of public works program will best fight the recession. Some federal programs do a better job at getting people to spend money. Unlike tax cuts, direct spending by government can do more, Reuters reports.

President-elect Obama has mentioned a public infrastructure program, but that investment could take longer to pay off. "'Investment in infrastructure will have a longer-term payback in increased output because we're increasing the nation's stock of capital (but) there is a substantive debate over the size of this long-term impact,'" La Follette School professor Menzie Chinn tells Reuters. The question is how "'much more efficient is the economy when you have to spend an hour less time in traffic, or you don't have to shut down a (part) of a city because the sewer pipes have collapsed'?"

Chinn tells the Wisconsin State Journal that people will feel recessionary pangs for months. "'The consensus view is that (economic growth) will be negative until the middle of next year,'" he says. "'For the ordinary American, it may feel like you're in a recession for a lot longer than that.'

"Chinn calls the current crisis the 'Great Deleveraging,' a time in which everyone from investment bankers to the average consumer suffered a hangover from the nationwide borrowing binge that pushed housing prices to unsustainable levels."

Obama's "New Deal" will give growth crucial boost, December 11, 2008, Reuters

Economic uncertainty plagued Wisconsin in 2008, December 21, 2008, Wisconsin State Journal

— posted December 23, 2008

Video of economic crisis panel discussion available online

Video of two La Follette School professors and other panelists speaking at a November session on the global economic crisis is available through the Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy web site.

Menzie Chinn and Mark Copelovitch and three other University of Wisconsin-Madison professors addressed on November 20 what the bursting housing bubble, the volatile stock market, limited credit and recession mean for the global economy and how proposals for domestic and international solutions can be evaluated. Chinn explored macroeconomic linkages — trade and capital flows, deleveraging, terms of trade — between the developed and emerging markets, and the ramifications for economic conditions. Copelovitch discussed the politics of global financial governance and how they will shape policy responses to the crisis, including new national-level regulation, international regulatory harmonization, and reform of the International Monetary Fund.

— posted December 22, 2008

2002 MPA grad to run for city council

2002 alum Shawn Pfaff has taken out nomination papers to run for the Fitchburg (Wisconsin) city council. “I am running for alder because I believe that City Hall needs a fresh perspective, strong voice and clear vision for Fitchburg’s future,” Pfaff says.

Pfaff works as a consultant with Capitol Consultants Inc. in Madison. He serves on the Fitchburg Police and Fire Commission and is vice president of the Fitchburg Lions Club. He earlier served as Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle’s liaison to local government officials across the state. In that role, Pfaff worked closely with local government and law enforcement leaders on important issues like crime prevention, economic development and state aid funding.

“Fitchburg is a great place to live and raise a family,” Pfaff says. “During these uncertain economic times, we need strong leaders at City Hall who are fiscally responsible and committed to holding the line on property taxes while at the same time working hard to make our city’s future even brighter.”

Shawn Pfaff for Fitchburg Alder web site

— posted December 22, 2008

Alum casts one of Wisconsin's electoral votes

La Follette School alum Gordon Hintz was one of the 10 Democrats who cast Wisconsin's electoral votes on for Barack Obama on December 15.

Joining the Assembly member from Oshkosh were Governor Jim Doyle, state Senator Fred Risser, state Democratic Party chair Joe Wineke, state Representative Polly Williams, and other Democrats from around the state.

Hintz is a 2001 graduate of the La Follette School and represents his home town of Oshkosh in the Wisconsin Assembly. He won his second term in November with 66 percent of the total vote.

Hintz worked on the 1996 U.S. Senate campaign of the late Paul Wellstone before going to work for U.S. Senator Herb Kohl and former U.S. Representative Jay Johnson as a legislative staff assistant in Washington, DC. Hintz served as a research assistant for Governor Tommy Thompson’s Commission on State and Local Partnerships for the 21st Century (Kettl Commission). Hintz then was selected for the prestigious Management Assistant Program in the City of Long Beach, California’s fifth largest city. He went on to work in the Long Beach Budget Bureau as an analyst on the city’s $1.7 billion annual budget.

— posted December 16, 2008

 

Experts to share insight on nursing shortage

Efforts to address the national shortage of nurses will be explored in a session on Thursday, January 8, at the Wisconsin Capitol.

Janet Allan, dean of the University of Maryland School of Nursing, and Judy Warmuth, vice president for workforce development at the Wisconsin Hospital Association, will speak at a briefing, “Rx for RNs: Addressing the Nursing Shortage,” in room 300SE of the Capitol from 9 to 10:30 a.m. The session is sponsored by the Evidence-Based Health Policy Project, a partnership of the La Follette School of Public Affairs and the Population Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the Wisconsin Joint Legislative Council to bridge medicine and health policy, research and practice, and to link academic research in a meaningful way in service to government and the Wisconsin Legislature.

Allan and Warmuth will explore the causes and implications of the nursing shortage, as well as state initiatives to recruit, retain and advance nurses. Allan will present her research on the faculty shortage in nursing schools and review an effort she coordinated with health-care providers to alleviate Maryland’s shortage of faculty and nurses. Warmuth will describe the Wisconsin Hospital Association’s work to advance the educational levels of the nursing workforce and the challenges in measuring Wisconsin’s health-care workforce needs. She will highlight public-private initiatives and regional partnerships that unite technical colleges, workforce investment boards, nonprofit organizations and health-care providers to create leadership and advancement opportunities for nurses.

Continental breakfast will be served. RSVP by Monday, January 5, to , or 262-2318.

— posted December 10, 2008

		Students visit ethanol plant Left: Students listen as La Follette School student Nate Inglis-Steinfeld, third from left, asks a question of their guide in the white hat at the The Renew Energy plant in Jefferson, a town about 30 miles east of Madison. Below: Those participating were, from left, ag student Lucas Sterr, La Follette Career Development Coordinator Mary Russell, and La Follette students Andrew Kell, Jami Crespo, Wangari Gichiru, Nate Inglis-Steinfeld, Michelle Chou, Scott Williams and Erik Viel. The Energy, Environment, Science, and Technology Policy Group organized the trip.

— posted November 26, 2008

Professors share expertise on tax policy, exchange rates, public management

Several professors at the La Follette School have been or will be talking about their areas of expertise with journalists, policymakers and other scholars.

Donald Moynihan discusses the role of political appointees in managing the federal government and the difficulties that can cause in an article in the Washington Post. In the administration of President George W. Bush, "'[l]oyalty and ideology were valued over expertise, and policy and management suffered as a result,'" Moynihan says in the November 24 issue. "Political appointees helped to handicap FEMA, which contributed to the dire response to Katrina. White House appointees tried to shape the judgments of the EPA on the causes of global warming. Political appointees pushed weak intelligence to make a case for the war on Iraq. They illegally politicized the selection of career positions in the Department of Justice. Inexperienced but politically connected appointees in the Coalition Provisional Authority failed to manage the rebuilding of Iraq."

Moynihan and other experts tout the benefits of career civil servants, who hold institutional memory and have longer tenures.

Andrew Reschovsky will give a summary and concluding remarks at a December 5 workshop in Chicago sponsored by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and the University of Illinois' Institute of Government and Public Affairs. The workshop, Property Tax Relief: A Tragedy of the Fiscal Commons?, will examine property tax relief strategies available in Cook County, Illinois.

In December, Menzie Chinn will present his research on the how exchange rate regimes affect the rate at which current account balances and currency values adjust, at the International Monetary Fund's Research Department, and the European think tank Breugel, based in Brussels. He will also present his work on China's exchange rate and trade balances at the European Commission's Economic and Financial Affairs directorate. Finally, he'll be giving the keynote speech at the "International Workshop on Food-Feed-Fuel Competition," organized by CATSEI, a consortium involving the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, D.C., the School of Oriental and Asian Studies in London, the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy in Beijing, and other institutions in the Netherlands and Austria. He appeared on Minnesota Public Radio on November 25 to discuss President-Elect Obama's announcement of his economic team.

Who Are the Better Managers — Political Appointees or Career Bureaucrats?, November 24, 2008, Washington Post

— posted November 26, 2008

Psychologist to explore job loss, race, education at Tuesday's seminar

The last La Follette School Seminar for the semester will feature professor Ariel Kalil from the University of Chicago. She will address "Parental Job Loss and Children's Educational Attainment in Black and White Middle-Class Families" at the La Follette School Seminar in Tuesday, November 25, at noon in the conference room.

Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, Kalil will discuss how black and white children experience parental job loss differently, even when they share the same socioecnomic class. Race differences in household wealth, long-run measures of family income and, especially, parental experence with long-term unemployment explain about one-third of the differential impact.

Kalil is an associate professor with the Harris School and director of the Center for Human Potential andd Public Policy. As a developmental psychologist, she studies how economic conditions affect children and families. Her projects have examined how transitions from welfare to work affect mothers and children, barriers to the employment of welfare recipients, as well as family processes and child development in female-headed, teenage-parent, and cohabiting-couple households.

The La Follette School Seminar Series resumes February 9 with a presentation by professor David Weimer. Information: .

— posted November 21, 2008

Alum working at Pentagon with Army

As part of the Crisis Action Team at the Pentagon, 1994 alum Major Andrew Diefenthaler helps to monitor the U.S. Army's worldwide operations. Diefenthaler recently completed a tour in Iraq where he was training the Iraqi army. He is on extended leave from Virginia's Department of Planning and Budget for which he was a senior budget and policy analyst on financial policy for kindergarten through 12th grade and higher education.

— posted November 19, 2008; updated November 20, 2008

Prof predicts economic slowdown won't be worse than Depression

La Follette School professor Karen Holden says the U.S. economy likely will not sink to the depths of the Depression.

"'We're certainly in for a period of slowdown and economic decline but not to that magnitude,'" Karen Holden says in the November 16 Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

"Foreclosures and bankruptcies are on the rise, but as a result of the Depression, Holden said, Americans have more protections now, including unemployment insurance, bank deposit insurance and Social Security. "'Even though the elderly are panicked about the large declines in their personal savings accounts, we're not going to have that deep economic distress that was the motivation for the Social Security system to begin with,'" says Holden, an authority on retirement security.

Civilian Conservation Corps alumni mark programs 75th anniversary, November 16, 2008, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Public affairs professors share expertise, November 14, 2008, La Follette School News

— posted November 19, 2008

Dodgeball team wins five

The Fightin’ Bobs dodgeball game won five games in a tournament last weekend.

While records are sketchy, team member professor Greg Nemet says the Bobs won at least one game in each of three tournaments last season.

Saturday’s wins demonstrate the soundness of team captain and school director Carolyn Heinrich’s strategy of adding students to the roster — and brought the Bobs’ age cohort into better alignment with the opposing teams’ demographics. First-year student Jami Crespo says she joined the team because it enabled her “to revert to elementary school and just throw balls at people.”

“The data suggest a positive outlook for the season,” says Nemet, who was still a little sore on Tuesday. “We should be able to pick up several more wins this year.”

Heinrich attributes the team's success to a variety of factors, including J.P. Muller's amazing ability to jump about 3 feet in air while being pelted; bold catches by Crespo and Lindsay Read; a tall and threatening front line that included Nemet, Tom Robinson and Tom Hinds; the cunning "camouflage and throw" combinations used by Bartoz Szkatula and Dan Bellefleur; Erin Fifield's red suit that attracted opposing team throws like a matador's flag; and publications director Karen Faster's "fear no evil" approach to charging the middle court.

"I'm hoping that more students will come out in the future to experience the glory and painful bruises that come along with this great sport!" Heinrich says.

“It felt good to win,” Crespo enthuses. “Considering our past record, we’re on an upswing and looking forward to a better future.”

— posted November 19, 2008

Alum leads budget office for Department of Corrections

1982 grad Roland Couey is the new budget director for the Wisconsin Department of Corrections. He leads the Bureau of Budget and Facilities Management, which develops the department's biennial budget and capital budget requests. Prior to this position Couey worked eight years as a budget supervisor in the Office of Policy and Budget for the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development.

— posted November 17, 2008; updated March 4, 2009

Student policy group plans trip to ethanol plant

The Energy, Environment, Science, and Technology Policy Group is organizing its first venture, a field trip to an ethanol plant on Thursday, November 20. The Renew Energy plant is in Jefferson, a town about 30 miles east of Madison. The plan is for carpools to leave at 1 p.m. for the 2 p.m. tour.

Nate Inglis-Steinfeld organized the outing after he started examining ethanol for professor Pamela Herd's introductory policy analysis course. "Having grown up in Iowa, I've seen how important ethanol production is to rural communities," he says. "Now that I've studied the economics of the public policy of subsizing ethanol production, I want to hear from industry and see how everything comes together."

Inglis-Steinfeld encourages students from the La Follette School and other departments to join the policy group on the field trip. "The plant prefers to give tours to larger groups," he says, "and the more people we have, the more interesting questions we can ask."

To find out where to meet and other details contact Inglis-Steinfeld, .

Students are forming policy groups this fall as a way to explore career options and learn about issues. Groups can have discussions, attend lectures, meet with alumni or pursue other ideas.

Management policy group meets Thursday, November 4, 2008, La Follette School News

— posted November 14, 2008

Public affairs professors to speak on global economic crisis

Two La Follette School professors will help explain how problems in the U.S. housing market grew into a full-blown economic crisis as part of a panel discussion on Thursday, November 20, from 7 to 9:30 p.m. in Grainger Hall's Morgridge Auditorium.

Menzie Chinn and Mark Copelovitch and three other University of Wisconsin-Madison professors will address what the bursting housing bubble, the volatile stock market, limited credit and recession mean for the global economy and how proposals for domestic and international solutions can be evaluated. Chinn will explore macroeconomic linkages — trade and capital flows, deleveraging, terms of trade — between the developed and emerging markets, and the ramifications for economic conditions. Copelovitch will discuss the politics of global financial governance and how they will shape policy responses to the crisis, including new national-level regulation, international regulatory harmonization, and reform of the International Monetary Fund.

The Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy organized the panel; the La Follette School is a co-sponsor. The panel also features Edward Friedman, political science; Darian Ibrahim, law; and Jeffrey J. Diermeier, finance. Information: .

— posted November 14, 2008; updated November 17, 2008

Public affairs professors share expertise

Twelve La Follette School faculty members are included in a University of Wisconsin–Madison web resource of experts on the economic and societal impacts of the global financial crisis. From the banking and market collapses to the longer-term local implications of a struggling economy, La Follette School experts can comment on a wide range of topics. The 12 are:

1. Maria Cancian: welfare, poverty and the safety net
2. Menzie Chinn: international finance, trade deficits, currency movements
3. Mark Copelovitch: global financial governance, exchange rates, monetary institutions, effect of global capital flows on national economic policies
4. Thomas DeLeire: economic mobility, health insurance expenses, well-being of poor households
5. Carolyn Heinrich: labor markets, workforce development, social welfare policies, government management of economic programs
6. Pamela Herd: Social Security, retirement, poverty
7. Karen Holden: retirement, Social Security, personal savings, financial literacy
8. Donald Moynihan: government management and performance on economic initiatives
9. Andrew Reschovsky: fiscal policy and local and state impacts of the market downturn
10. Timothy Smeeding: economics of public policy, national and cross-national comparisons of income and wealth inequality, poverty
11. Geoffrey Wallace: labor economics, economics of marriage and family, poverty
12. Barbara Wolfe: poverty, health and education

Tip: Online Resource Promotes UW-Madison Economy Experts, November 13, 2008, University of Wisconsin-Madison News

— posted November 14, 2008

Faculty-student team returns to gym for dodgeball

The Fightin’ Bobs are marching back onto the dodgeball court in a tournament this Saturday. After a match last spring left faculty and students a bit battered and bruised, director Carolyn Heinrich’s strategy this term is to add more students to the roster.

“With only six teams signed up, the organizer is doing a round-robin tournament, so we’re facing five matches instead of three,” Heinrich says, “so that makes the student component all the more vital.”

The first round starts at 6 p.m. at Keva Sports Center in Middleton, “and we would welcome a cheering section,” says Heinrich, “as we'll need all of the support we can get with going against teams like the Heavy Hitters and Skillz that Killz.”

Faculty show their mettle on dodgeball court, February 13, 2008, La Follette School News

Dodgeball strategies, secrets and tips, Spudart.org

— posted November 14, 2008

Grad to present paper on energy efficiency programs

Alum Erinn Monroe will present a paper at the Association of Energy Service Professionals’ 19th Annual National Energy Services Conference in January. The paper discusses how Commonwealth Edison engaged market providers to deliver energy efficiency programs to businesses in the service territory.

“The paper I'm presenting will discuss how we promoted the program by working through the supply chain (with market providers) instead of marketing directly to customers,” says Monroe, a program manager with Commonwealth Edison since early 2008. “We have found this is a more cost-effective approach to acquiring efficiency resources.”

Since graduating in 2005, Monroe has been working on demand-side management programs in the energy industry. Commonwealth Edison is an electric transmission and distribution utility that is part of Exelon, a large utility holding company. “The program I manage helps business customers reduce their energy usage by offering financial incentives to offset the costs of capital improvements,” she says. “The three-year goal for the program is about 524,000 megawatt hours or enough to power about 58,000 homes.”

— posted November 12, 2008

Winner brings La Follette expertise to county board

New Dane County (Wisconsin) board member Jeremy Levin attended the Public Affairs Capstone Certificate Program and received his certificate in May 2002. He is a lobbyist with the Wisconsin Medical Society, and earlier worked for a state representative. He was an appointee to Madison's Downtown Coordinating Committee.

Levin elected to Dane County Board, November 5, 2008, Capital Times

— posted November 12, 2008

Professor uses Fulbright to examine science policy in Europe

Assistant professor Gregory Nemet is one of five University of Wisconsin-Madison professors who won grants from the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program. He spent last summer in Berlin and Brussels studying the ways in which science is used to inform the policymaking process in Germany and in the European Union. Several aspects of this topic will be covered this spring in his seminar, PA 866 Global Environmental Governance.

In other faculty news, the Wall Street Journal quoted Andrew Reschovsky about the effect of the economic crisis on school districts and on incoming president Barack Obama's federal education policy. He also noted the difficulty of predicting the long-term economic effect of Rhineland, Wisconsin, spending $23.35 million on school building projects. The referendum failed November 4. He also will appear on the Joy Cardin show on Wisconsin Public Radio at 7 a.m. on Monday, November 17.

Obama is Expected to Put Education Overhaul on back Burner, November 11, 2008, Wall Street Journal

UW-Madison is a leader in Fulbright felows with top 10 ranking, November 11, 2008, University of Wisconsin-Madison News

Moment of Truth: Impact of Tuesday's School District referendum may be felt for years to come, October 21, 2008, Rhinelander Daily News

— posted November 12, 2008; updated November 14, 2008

Faculty, alumni contribute to national public policy conference

Presentations by alumni, faculty members and faculty affiliates at the fall research conference held by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management in November showcase the variety of research coming out of the La Follette School of Public Affairs.

Four alumni, eight faculty members and three faculty affiliates participated in the conference, which was November 6-8 in Los Angeles. Topics covered welfare, health, disability policy and employment, property taxes, performance standards and methods for studying school vouchers. The theme of the conference was “The Next Decade - What Are the Big Policy Challenges?” La Follette professors Pamela Herd and Andrew Reschovsky and 1972 alum Eugene Steuerle, vice president of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, served on the program committee.

Steuerle also participated in a roundtable discussion on aging and retirement.

Alum Deven Carlson presented a paper, “Long Term Effects of Public Low-Income Housing Vouchers on Means-Tested Program Participation,” he co-authored with Professors Barbara Wolfe and Robert Haveman. Carlson graduated from La Follette in 2007 and is pursuing a Ph.D. in political science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Wolfe presented a paper co-authored with Haveman and several others from the university that examines link between tribal gaming and health status, health-care access and health-related behaviors of American Indians. Haveman served as discussant for a panel on the distributional role of government.

1993 alum Barry Delin of the UW–Stout presented a paper called “Experimentation and Collaboration to Enhance Employment for Persons with Disabilities: Assessing the Wisconsin Pathways Projects' Efforts to Explore Systems Change.” He addressed the public management issue of whether and, if so, how the terms of inter-organizational collaboration in separate case studies facilitated progress toward “systems change” in the relevant issue domain.

La Follette School and IRP faculty affiliate Lawrence Berger gave a paper called “Family Structure and Adolescent Physical Health, Behavior, and Emotional Well-Being” that he co-authored with 2007 La Follette School grad Callie (Gray) Langton, who is a Ph.D. candidate in public policy at the UW–Madison. Berger also presented a paper during a panel on parenting and child well-being in complex families that was chaired by La Follette School faculty affiliate Katherine Magnuson and for which Professor Maria Cancian served as discussant. Magnuson also presented paper on the long-term effects of preschool and participated in a poster session.

Cancian presented a paper called “Welfare Dropout: Implications of Pre-Participation TANF Exits.” She also participated in a poster session.

In a session on climate change and technology policy, professor Gregory Nemet gave the paper “Linking Cost Containment in Climate Policy to Public Investment in Technology Development and Adaptation.”

Professor Andrew Reschovsky discussed his paper on whether the perception that homeowner property tax burdens are growing rapidly is fact or fiction. He also chaired a session on the design of intergovernmental grants.

Director Carolyn Heinrich explored the pros and cons of performance standard adjustments in a paper authored with Burt Barnow, a UW economics Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins University’s Institute for Policy Studies. She chaired a panel that explored what affects public employee attitudes and performance.

Professor John Witte described methodological approaches in a new longitudinal study of school vouchers in Milwaukee. He and faculty affiliate Daniel R. Meyer participated in poster sessions, as did a second Wisconsin public policy doctoral student, Hilary Shager, class of 2005.

Professor Timothy Smeeding, IRP director, participated in a roundtable discussion on the earned income tax credit in the lives of the working poor. He also chaired a panel on poverty and social policies in East Asian countries.

— posted November 12, 2008

Australian professor to speak on gun buybacks, concentrated wealth

A top Australian economist will speak on the effectiveness of gun buyback programs and the impact of concentrated top incomes at two free talks in November in the first of a series of lectures that brings an international perspective on public policies to the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Andrew Leigh, an associate professor at the Research School of Social Science at the Australian National University, will discuss taxation data and income inequality in "Why Should We Care About Top Incomes?,"  at 4 p.m. on Monday, November 17, in the Pyle Center,

“We now have top incomes estimates for nearly 20 countries, which provide a clearer picture of trends in inequality across the 20th century,” says Leigh. “Estimates of top income shares make it possible to revisit theories about the causes of inequality — such as taxation, politics and migration threat — and allow us to look afresh at some of the theories about the consequences of inequality, such as on health, savings or growth.”

The second talk, “Do Gun Buybacks Save Lives? Evidence from Panel Data,” will be at noon on Tuesday, November 18, in the La Follette School’s conference room, as part of the school's seminar series.

Leigh will review Australia’s 1997 large-scale gun buyback, which reduced the stock of that nation’s firearms by about 20 percent. “We exploit this unique policy experiment – the world’s largest civilian gun destruction program in recent decades – to test whether a reduction in firearms availability affects firearm homicide and suicide rates,” Leigh says. 

His studies show that the gun buyback led to close to an 80 percent drop in the firearm suicide rates and had no statistically significant effect on non-firearm death rates. Estimates of the effect on firearm homicides suggest a proportionate reduction similar to that in suicides, but these estimates are less precise, he adds.

Leigh’s visit is sponsored by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s La Follette School of Public Affairs and Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy.  His lecture is the first of four this academic year sponsored by WAGE and the La Follette School. Also planned are:

• Thursday, February 19: Francesca Bignami, professor of law, George Washington University, speaks at 4 p.m. at the Law School.
• Tuesday, March 10: Robert W. Fairlie, professor of economics, University of California at Santa Cruz, speaks at noon at the La Follette School.
• Tuesday, March 31: John Micklewright, professor of social statistics and policy analysis, University of Southampton, United Kingdom, speaks at noon at the La Follette School.

— posted November 5, 2008

Management policy group meets Thursday

The second student policy group will meet this week at the La Follette School, following a successful gathering of students interested in health policy.

The Public and Non-Profit Management Policy Group will meet with professor Dennis Dresang and talk with him about his experience and take-aways from working with state government. The discussion will be at 9 a.m. on Thursday, November 6, in the La Follette School conference room.

The Health Policy Group met with professor Pamela Herd in October at a breakfast roundtable discussion about the McCain and Obama health-care plans. This was the first policy group to meet, and “it couldn't have gone better,” says Lindsay Read, one of the organizers. Eleven students and Herd met for an hour, and everyone spoke up and shared ideas.

The La Follette School Student Association is encouraging students to form policy groups this fall as a way to explore career options and learn about issues. Groups can have discussions, attend lectures, meet with alumni or pursue other ideas.

The groups are loosely based on the school’s Policy Focus Fields. They include:

• Policy Analysis
• Energy, Environmental, Science and Technology
• Social & Poverty Policy
• Education Policy
• Law & Public Policy
• International Business & Trade Policy
• International Development Policy
• International Energy and Environmental Policy

— posted November 4, 2008

Students seek soccer spectators tonight

Editor's note: The team lost 2-1.

Fans are needed tonight at the Fighting Bobs’ semifinal intramural soccer game. The game starts at 7:30 p.m. at the Near East Fields, east of the Natatorium on Observatory Drive.

Riding high on a 2-1 come-from-behind victory Tuesday night, the undefeated team is taking on the one opponent it tied this season. If the Bobs win, they go on to the championship game Thursday night.

First-year student Ian Ritz hopes La Follette students, faculty, staff and friends will come out to watch tonight’s game, an easy downhill walk from the school. Ritz is technically the team captain, since he sent out the e-mail and did the initial organizing to produce a team of first- and second-year students. Most are at the La Follette School, though a couple of economics students also play.

“We had a good response,” he says, “and we have a really large team. This is part of what helped our season.” The league features seven players on a team, and with nearly 20 signed up, if people’s schedules don’t work, they have enough Bobs to fill the roster. “We usually have nine or 10 players show up, so we can substitute players during the game, which really helps,” Ritz says. “It’s a hodgepodge of styles, but we play well together and have fun.”

He attributes the Tuesday night win in part to the team “creating a lot of chances and finally getting some nice combinations to make goals. We missed a lot of opportunities, as well,” Ritz admits.

The full team was not able to go out and celebrate Tuesday night. Instead several members had a study session for a problem set to complete for the PA 818 statistics class with Geoffrey Wallace. In order to play Tuesday at all, one-third of the team switched their schedules this week and attended the Tuesday and Thursday morning sessions rather than the three-hour Tuesday night class, Ritz says.

That dedication is paying off. “We’ve been speculating that we must be one of the most successful intramural teams in La Follette history,” Ritz says, “and since there are no records, we’ll claim that title.”

— posted October 29, 2008; updated November 4, 2008

Chinn to address global financial crisis on radio, in lecture

La Follette School professor Menzie Chinn will discuss "The Global Financial Crisis: What You Need to Know Now" in a lecture sponsored by the Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy at noon on Thursday, October 30, in the Capitol Conference Room, 5120AB Grainger Hall. He appeared on the Joy Cardin show on Wisconsin Public Radio's Ideas Network on October 28.

Chinn was a senior economist for international financial issues on the White House Council of Economic Advisers from 2000-01. He is a research associate in the National Bureau of Economic Research and has been a visiting scholar at the International Monetary Fund, the Congressional Budget Office and the Federal Reserve Board. He served as a WAGE senior fellow from fall 2005-spring 2008, leading a research collaborative on current account sustainability.

The event is sponsored by WAGE, the Robert M. La Follette School of Public Affairs, the Department of Economics, the Center for International Business Education and Research, the Division of International Studies and the Wisconsin Alumni Association.

Chinn to speak on global economics, October 14, 2008, La Follette School News

— posted October 27, 2008; updated October 28, 2008

Seminar to examine chances for post-election health reform examined

Whether America is primed for health-care reform will be addressed by population health sciences professor Thomas Oliver at noon on Tuesday, October 28, in the school’s conference room.

Oliver will speak on “The Post-Election Agenda for Health Reform” as part of the La Follette School Seminar series.

Oliver, who is also director for health policy for the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, will focus on the U.S. health-care system and the state of the political environment for reform. He will examine how the politics and policy options compare with the last period of significant reform efforts in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and the chief barriers policymakers encounter while  pursuing strategies for comprehensive reform.

Other La Follette School Seminar speakers, all on Tuesdays at noon at La Follette unless otherwise noted, include:

• November 18: Andrew Leigh associate professor, Economics Program, Research School of Social Sciences,Australian National University.
• November 25: Ariel Kalil, associate professor of public policy and director of the Center for Human Potential and Public Policy, University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy.
• February 3: David L. Weimer, professor of public affairs and political science.
• Thursday, February 19: Francesca Bignami, professor of law, George Washington University. 4 p.m. Law School.
• March 10: Robert W. Fairlie, professor of economics, University of California at Santa Cruz.
• March 31: John Micklewright, professor of social statistics and policy analysis, University of Southampton, United Kingdom.
• April 14: Michael E. Kraft, professor of public and environmental affairs, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.
• April 28: Michael Collins, assistant professor of consumer science, School of Human Ecology.

Chances for post-election health reform examined during La Follette lecture, October 22, 2008, University of Wisconsin–Madison News

— posted October 23, 2008

Loftus helps launch foundation to support peace, human rights

The new Oslo Center–U.S. Foundation held its first program in September under the guidance of alum Tom Loftus as the chair of the foundation’s board of directors. Read more…

Professors comments on student political involvement

Paul Soglin and Kathy Cramer Walsh see young adults as politically active despite the dearth of large protests against the wars or the federal bailout of the financial service industry.

Soglin, former antiwar activist and adjunct associate professor at the La Follette School, tells the Capital Times that the current generation of young adults is one of the most involved since the 1960s. "'I don't think there's much question about that,'" he says. "'But it's not fed by the danger that my generation felt due to the war draft.'"

Cramer Walsh, a La Follette School faculty affiliate, suggests that political protest might not be as public as it once was, that people are boycotting or purchasing products because of a company's political or economic stance, and that their political discourse may not be as obvious because students use technology rather than protest to communicate. Students are concerned about world events, but they may feel disenfranchised from government, she says. "'So it could be that protests are one of those things that people think is just not going to matter.'"

Campus long known for activism churns out few rallies, October 22, 2008, Capital Times

— posted October 23, 2008

Professor to speak on ways to address energy, climate problems

La Follette School professor Greg Nemet will participate in a panel discussion that addresses the question "Do We Need a 'Manhattan/Apollo Project' to Solve the Energy/Climate Problem?" at the University of Colorado at Boulder on October 30. The panel will address whether greater use of renewable energy technologies will lead to climate stabilization, or whether the nation needs a large-scale investment in new energy research and development like the Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb and NASA's Apollo Project that sent a man to the moon.

He will give a second presentation on solar energy at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory on the same day. The presentation is titled "Demand Subsidies vs. Funding R&D: Characterizing the Uncertain Impacts of Policy for a Pre-Commercial Low-Carbon Energy Technologies."

CU Panels on Climate Change, Energy Linked to 2008 Election, October 20, 2008, University of Colorado News Center

— posted October 22, 2008

School notes 25 years with special issue of Policy Report

The Robert M. La Follette School of Public Affairs is marking its 25th anniversary with an expanded issue of the La Follette Policy Report that showcases Wisconsin public affairs research.

Ten school faculty describe how their research informs public policy in Wisconsin in the just-released fall issue of the La Follette Policy Report, which demonstrates the school’s commitment to the Wisconsin Idea, the practice of extending the University of Wisconsin-Madison's boundaries to the state’s borders.

“The La Follette School of Public Affairs is engaged in so much research that relates to Wisconsin that we doubled the size of our usual Policy Report to celebrate our anniversary,” says school director Carolyn Heinrich. “From school choice to better health-care coverage to the effects of welfare reform, our faculty are examining challenging issues and helping Wisconsin policymakers to design and understand the effects of public policy.”

The Wisconsin Legislature established the La Follette Institute of Public Affairs to provide research, public service and education to advance knowledge of public affairs and the application of that knowledge to the state’s needs. The 1983-84 academic year was the institute’s first.

Started 20 years ago, the Policy Report is a primary vehicle of the La Follette School for sharing domestic and international research by public affairs faculty of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Published twice a year in print and online, it is disseminated to policymakers, scholars and La Follette School alumni around the United States.

The issue includes brief discussions of research undertaken at the La Follette School that directly affects public policy:

• Carolyn Heinrich on the effect of state policies on the accessibility and affordability of a pharmaceutical agent for treating alcohol addiction
• Bobbi Wolfe on health-care coverage for families leaving welfare
• Andrew Reschovsky on the crisis in funding public education
• John Witte on charter schools
• Leslie Ann Howard and Kathy Hubbard on closing the racial achievement gap in third-grade reading
• Donald Moynihan on the turnover of public employees
• Dennis Dresang on a needs assessment for the Menominee Nation
• Robert Haveman on the benefits of Section 8 housing vouchers
• Maria Cancian on child support and how Wisconsin influenced federal policy
• Geoffrey Wallace on child support and non-marital childbearing

Plus, Haveman explores the history of the Wisconsin Idea and the La Follette School's role in practicing it; Heinrich looks at the history of the school; and outreach director Terry Shelton discusses public service partnerships and students' contributions to the Wisconsin Idea via the public affairs workshops.

La Follette School notes 25 years with special issue of ‘Policy Report’, November 11, 2008, University of Wisconsin-Madison News

— posted October 21, 2008

Founding director Dennis Dresang to retire after 39 years at UW

The 25 years of growth of the La Follette School of Public Affairs from a center into a full-fledged school is due in part to the dedication of founding director Dennis Dresang, who retires at the end of the fall 2008 semester after 39 years with the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the State of Wisconsin. Hundreds of public servants in Wisconsin and elsewhere in the United States have taken his courses in public management.

Many civil servants in other countries are also applying Dresang’s public management principles, for he first taught the course through the university’s Center for Development. As director of the Center for the Study of Public Policy and Administration, he won a Ford Foundation grant so faculty could conduct research for the State of Wisconsin. “The program brought together state agencies and the university, and it enabled us to enhance the center and create what became the La Follette Institute of Public Affairs 25 years ago,” Dresang says.

Dresang nursed the unit through its transition, working with Wisconsin Assembly speaker Tom Loftus, a 1972 center alum, and Rep. Tom Harnisch to phase in the institute as part of the university’s budgeted state funding. “It was kind of improbable that we began the institute when we did because we were in the middle of the Reagan era and the recession,” Dresang says.

In the 25 years since the Wisconsin Legislature established La Follette, the institute has grown into a full-fledged school within the university’s College of Letters and Science. Building on the success of the Center for the Study of Public Policy and Administration, which had been awarding master of arts degrees since the late 1960s, the institute began hiring its own tenured and tenure-track faculty in the early 1990s. The university’s Center for Development became part of the School of Public Affairs, and the school began granting a master of public affairs in 2000 and a master of international public affairs in 2002. The current faculty of 23 includes scholars with doctoral degrees in economics, political science, public policy and public administration, sociology, social history, and energy and resources.

“Here we are 25 years later with a strong, internationally recognized faculty and program, thanks in part to Dennis Dresang’s vision,” says director Carolyn Heinrich. “The school has trained hundreds of policymakers who work for the State of Wisconsin, local and state governments around the country, and in the federal and private sectors. Our alumni carry out the Wisconsin Idea every day.”

— posted October 21, 2008

Folks on campus can debate election issues in speedy fashion

Students and others on campus can discuss election issues in an informal event styled on speed dating on Wednesday, October 22, 7-9 p.m. in Memorial Union. "Couples" will pick controversial, mostly non-partisan, topics out of a jar and then debate them. Possible questions include:

• Should the Electoral College be abolished?
• Is a free health-care system possible in the United States for citizens like in Europe?
• Does the prohibition of religious paraphernalia (Muslim veils, crosses, yarmulkes, etc.) in schools represent a human right violation?
• Should public schools mandate the pledge of allegiance?
• Should the United States participate in international organizations like the International Criminal Court?
• Is ethanol a solution to the energy crisis, a cause of the food crisis, or both?

Megan Sallomi, a first-year student in international public affairs, helped to organize SPEED DebATE through her role as director of the Society and Politics Committee in the Wisconsin Union Directorate.

— posted October 20, 2008; updated October 21, 2008

Students to walk corn maze, pick pumpkins

An excursion to the country for students, staff and faculty of the La Follette School will take place Saturday, October 25, when the La Follette School Student Association organizes a trip to Treinen Farm to pick pumpkins, take a hayride and walk Wisconsin's largest corn maze.

LSSA is asking that people meet at the school by 3 p.m. to carpool to Treinen Farm, which is 30 minutes north of Madison. "We'll catch a hayride out to the pumpkin patch for those who want to pick out the perfect pumpkin," says organizer Jami Crespo. "After that we'll head over to the corn maze and see how fast we can get lost. Be sure to check out this year's design — a 15-acre dragonfly — on the web site."

Costs are $7.50 for the hayride, one pumpkin and admission to other farm activities. The corn maze alone is $8, while the pumpkin patch and maze together cost $14.50. People planning to attend should e-mail Crespo, , and if anyone can drive, let her know that as well.

— posted October 20, 2008; updated October 21, 2008

Students form policy groups to pursue interests together

La Follette School students have a new mechanism for exploring their policy interests. The La Follette School Student Association is encouraging students to form Policy Groups whose members will attend or create an event that focuses on each interest area.

Loosely based on the school’s Policy Focus Fields, the groups can facilitate students getting together to attend a lecture, invite an alum or a faculty member to lunch or meet with representatives from community organizations, says LSSA President Lindsay Read. “These groups can be a great way to explore career options or learn more about an issue at the grass-roots.”

LSSA’s approach to the policy groups is organic: Read, Catherine Hall, Nate Inglis-Steinfeld and Ian Ritz collected the names and e-mail addresses of interested students and distributed the information accordingly. “Each group has people who indicated they would be interested in organizing an event, but it is up to them to  make it happen,” Read says.

The Policy Groups are:

• Policy Analysis
• Public & Nonprofit Management (Finance and Budgeting)
• City Management & Urban Policy
• Health Policy
• Energy, Environmental, Science and Technology
• Social & Poverty Policy
• Education Policy
• Law & Public Policy
• International Business & Trade Policy
• International Development Policy
• International Energy and Environmental Policy

Students interested in joining a group should contact Read, .

— posted October 17, 2008

Student to discuss book on local television

First-year student Bo McCready will be interviewed live today on Madison television station WMTV-15 about his book, Early Whitewater Industry, which recounts the economic history of Whitewater, Wisconsin, McCready’s hometown.

The first-year master of public affairs students wrote the book as his senior thesis while an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The thesis, From Factories to Fields: The Rise and Fall of Whitewater Wisconsin 1837–1900, is an in-depth study of economic change in Whitewater during the 19th century. He worked with numerous individuals and organizations to acquire the images contained in the book, which Arcadia Publishing is to issue on Monday, October 20.

McCready will be Carleen Wild’s guest on the 5 p.m. news, with the interview occurring at about 5:20. He has interned in the office with the university’s men’s hockey team and plans to work in educational or athletic administration.

— posted October 14, 2008

Chinn to speak on global economics

Professor Menzie Chinn will address the impact of the current global economic crisis in a presentation on Thursday, October 30, from noon to 1:15 p.m. in the Capital Conference Room, 5120AB Grainger Hall. His presentation is titled "The Global Financial Crisis: What You Need to Know Now." (The presentation was rescheduled from October 23.)

Chinn is a research associate in the National Bureau of Economic Research's International Finance and Macroeconomics Program, and he has been a visiting scholar at the International Monetary Fund, the Congressional Budget Office and the Federal Reserve Board. He was a senior economist for international financial issues on the White House Council of Economic Advisers from 2000 to 2001. As a senior fellow with the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy from fall 2005-spring 2008, he led the Current Account Sustainability research collaborative.

The October 30 presentation is sponsored by the La Follette School, the Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy, the Center for International Business Education and Research, the Division of International Studies and the Wisconsin Alumni Association, all at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

This is Chinn's second presentation in Madison in two weeks. He spoke to the Madison Committee on Foreign Relations on October 14 at the Edgewater Hotel. The campus Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy was a co-sponsor.

Chinn has been quoted recently in Business Week and Fortune. He tells Business Week that consumers are likely to tighten their spending for five years in response to tight credit and lots of personal debt. However, more government spending on infrastructure is what the economy needs, Chinn says in Fortune:

“But officials will be constrained, he adds, by the huge budget deficits the United States has run in recent years even when times were flush. While the foreign central banks that have been the biggest buyers of U.S. debt are likely to continue purchasing Treasury securities, he says, they'll demand stiffer terms as debt issuance rises with the cost of the bailouts - and that means higher interest rates.

“‘We really need the biggest bang for the buck,’ he wrote, ‘given that we have borrowed so much already.’”

Economics professor to address global financial crisis, October 23, 2008, University of Wisconsin-Madison News

Why it's stimulus time again, October 13, 2008, Fortune

The New Age of Frugality, October 9, 2008, Business Week

— posted October 14, 2008; updated October 16, October 20, OCtober 23, 2008

Autumn outing Taking in the glories of a Wisconsin fall, a group of La Follette School students ran into 2008 alum Dave Stepien, far right, at Blue Mound State Park on October 11. From left: Corina Maxim, Scott Williams, Maggie Lalor, Nate Inglis-Steinfeld. The La Follette School Student Association organized the outing, which included a potluck brunch. Upcoming activities include happy hour on Wednesday, October 15, at The Casbah, 119 E. Main St., from 4:30 to 7 p.m., plus a pumpkin-picking excursion on October 25. For information, contact LSSA social coordinator Catherine Hall, . — posted October 14, 2008

Seminar to look at link between economic interests, policy preferences

The relationships of Americans' economic interests to their policy preferences, especially those related to health-care reform will be the focus of the Tuesday, October 14, La Follette School Seminar.

La Follette School faculty affiliate Katherine Cramer Walsh will discuss her research on this topic at noon in the conference room of the La Follette School of Public Affairs in a talk entitled: “Connecting Economic Interests and Preferences on Health Care: The Role of Attitudes toward Authority.”

Walsh, an associate professor of political science, did her research the old fashioned way: by talking with Wisconsin citizens across the state, making multiple visits with 31 preexisting informal groups meeting in 23 communities. Walsh says her study reveals that attitudes toward government are a central part of the way people structure their policy preferences.

“However, how this works varies by both individual and community economic background and perceptions of these backgrounds,” says Walsh, the Morgridge Center for Public Service Faculty Research Scholar.

She finds that in groups composed of people from more working-class backgrounds, "people commonly express skepticism toward government as part of a general perspective of skepticism toward institutions of authority in general."

These perspectives are commonly intertwined with references to geography that operate as metaphors for resource inequalities, identification with sets of values and social classes, and perceptions of the exercise of authority, she says.

“Recognizing these patterns is key to understanding the connections between economic interests and policy preferences and the possibilities for social policy reform,” says Walsh.

Other La Follette School Seminar speakers, all on Tuesdays at noon at La Follette unless otherwise noted, include:

• October 28: Thomas R. Oliver, associate professor of Population Health Sciences and associate director for health policy, School of Medicine and Public Health.
• November 18: Andrew Leigh associate professor, Economics Program, Research School of Social Sciences,Australian National University.
• November 25: Ariel Kalil, associate professor of public policy and director of the Center for Human Potential and Public Policy, University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy.
• February 3: David L. Weimer, professor of public affairs and political science.
• Thursday, February 19: Francesca Bignami, professor of law, George Washington University. 4 p.m. Law School.
• March 10: Robert W. Fairlie, professor of economics, University of California at Santa Cruz.
• March 31: John Micklewright, professor of social statistics and policy analysis, University of Southampton, United Kingdom.
• April 14: Michael E. Kraft, professor of public and environmental affairs, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.
• April 28: Michael Collins, assistant professor of consumer science, School of Human Ecology.

— posted October 9, 2008

Kenosha development could ease Menominee tribe’s social, economic woes, La Follette School study finds

The Menominee tribe’s proposed Kenosha entertainment center and casino would enable the poverty-stricken Wisconsin tribe to improve living and working conditions on its northern Wisconsin reservation and further remedy the economic and social ravages caused by the U.S. government’s termination of its status as a federally recognized tribe, according to an analysis by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s La Follette School of Public Affairs.

“The Bureau of Indian Affairs has acknowledged that termination was a mistake that deeply hurt the Menominee people. Our analysis shows that nearly four decades after restoration, the tribe still suffers greatly from that mistake,” says professor Dennis Dresang, director of the La Follette School’s Center for Wisconsin, State, Local and Tribal Governance and one of the study’s authors. “The federal government now has the opportunity to make up for that shattering decision by approving the Kenosha casino and helping the Menominee help itself overcome an utterly devastating period in its history.”

To provide for significant health-care, educational, economic and other needs of its members, the Menominee tribe announced plans in January 2004 to build an $808 million entertainment center and casino at Kenosha’s Dairyland Greyhound Park. The Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Midwest regional office has recommended approval of the project, which still requires the consent of the U.S. Secretary of the Interior. The Menominee tribe has entered into agreements with the City of Kenosha and Kenosha County, and Kenosha County voters have endorsed the project in two referendums. The Kenosha casino would create more than 3,000 jobs and pay state and local governments approximately $2 billion during its first 22 years of operation.

According to Dresang, the Menominee was one of the most self-sufficient tribes in the country when the federal government terminated its tribal status in 1954. Although federal recognition of the Menominee was restored in 1973, the La Follette School study finds that the tribe continues to struggle. The tribe’s two businesses — its forestry operation and small, outdated reservation casino — do not generate the income the tribe needs to overcome the harm termination caused, Dresang says.

“Today, Menominee is the fourth poorest tribe in the country. Menominee County and the Menominee Reservation rank at the bottom of Wisconsin counties in employment, income, education, health outcomes, housing, property values and other areas,” Dresang says. “Additionally, termination has caused the Menominee [reservation] to suffer abandonment by its own members in search of jobs and services." Termination led to the closing of a hospital and clinic, the sale of telephone and electric companies, a decrease in funds for colleges and boarding schools, an increase in drug and alcohol abuse, and the sale of land because members couldn’t afford property taxes, Dresang notes.

He says the Kenosha development could help reverse the effects of termination. “Revenue from the Kenosha project would make a significant, measurable difference for the Menominee in their struggle to overcome the shattering economic and cultural after-effects of termination,” Dresang says. “Without new revenue, the ability of the Menominee to care for nearly 8,500 tribal members is severely compromised.”

The La Follette School conducted the analysis, The Unmet Needs of the Menominee Nation: Challenges and Opportunities, 2007-2008, at the request of the Menominee tribe, which paid for the study. The tribe has submitted the report to the Bureau of Indian Affairs with its application to build a casino and entertainment center at Dairyland Greyhound Park in Kenosha.

“Those of us who have lived through termination and its aftermath know firsthand the dreadful toll it has taken on the Menominee tribe," says Menominee tribal chair Lisa Waukau. "The La Follette School confirms the devastation and the need for the federal government to address it. … We appreciate the time, close scrutiny and careful thought Professor Dresang and his team put into their research.”

Dresang says the study shows the need for the Menominee to enhance education and job training and to build needed infrastructure, including a school, jail, dams and housing. Additionally, the tribal health clinic should be expanded and emergency medical services and wellness and prevention programs need improvement. Revenue from the Kenosha casino could help move all of these projects forward, he says.

Dresang says he and researchers from the La Follette School and the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Institute for Research on Poverty were concerned not only with the Menominee’s unmet needs, but also with the tribe’s heavy reliance on federal funding, which is continually vulnerable to severe cuts.

“In fiscal year 2006-07, federal funding was responsible for 56.6 percent of the tribe’s budget and was the primary funding source for such important efforts as the tribal clinic; schools and Head Start; programs addressing alcohol and drug abuse, mental health and domestic violence; and more,” Dresang says. “History has shown that federal funding can disappear very quickly. The Menominee tribe clearly needs to create a new source of income.”

The La Follette School report emphasizes the synergy between developing an off-reservation business like the Kenosha entertainment center with the reservation’s institutional strengths. In particular, an investment of casino revenue would enable the College of the Menominee Nation to offer a health-care curriculum to train employees for the expanded clinic. Additional classes could include forestry and tourism to train people for on-reservation ecotourism and to work in the Kenosha and reservation casinos.

A key goal of the tribe is to improve reservation life, especially by creating jobs, Dresang says. “We estimate that the use of casino revenues to improve reservation facilities would create 265 to 275 temporary jobs, plus another 210 to 300 permanent jobs in fields for programs that casino funds could expand,” he says. “This will have the net effect of improving the quality of life on the reservation and making it a more attractive place for tribal members to live and work.”

Kenosha development could ease tribe's social, economic woes, study finds, October 9, 2008, University of Wisconsin-Madison News

Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin: UW report highlights importance of Kenosha casino as Menominee struggle to rise above termination's lasting effects, October 9, 2008, Wispolitics.com

— posted October 9, 2008

Student helps bike ride raise $20,000 for food program

Logistics got in the way of Jonny Hunter hearing professor David Weimer explain to first-year students how to write a policy memo as part of the Professional Development Workshop. Read more …

Lockheed Martin gift funds two student internships in D.C.

Thanks to a generous donation from Lockheed Martin to the La Follette School, student Nicole Kibble was able to do more than just survive during her summer in Washington, D.C.

The gift meant the La Follette School could provide stipends to Kibble and Corina Maxim to help them cover expenses while they worked unpaid internships. “The funding made a huge difference in a city where just the basic necessities can be quite expensive, including housing and food,” Kibble says. “However, D.C. is also a city where once the basics are taken care of, there are plenty of opportunities for free food, drinks, museum visits, academic lectures, and other cultural experiences. Therefore, the generous funding made it not only possible to survive in D.C., but also to enjoy so much more that I would have otherwise missed had I not been able to afford taking the unpaid internship.”

One experience they might have otherwise missed was taking a spin in a flight simulator at an event Lockheed Martin staff organized for all Washington, D.C., interns from the La Follette School and from the Department of Political Science. Robert Trice, a political science alum who is a vice president with Lockheed Martin, organized the event as part of his role with the advisory Board of Visitors the La Follette School and Department of Political Science share. The students talked with pilots and explored career options with Lockheed Martin. Trice and the company also treated them to a fancy dinner toward the end of the summer, which was a nice way to wind up their internships, Maxim says. “We all appreciated Mr. Trice’s and Lockheed Martin’s hospitality.”

Kibble, a master of public affairs student, interned with the National Academy of Social Insurance, which placed her with AARP, so she had responsibilities to both organizations. For NASI, she attended weekly discussions about issues ranging from Social Security to long-term care. “The seminars provided an open forum to learn, analyze and debate social insurance topics with other interns and the experts leading the discussion,” she says.

For AARP, Kibble researched topics related to economic security topics, including asset tests in means-tested programs, automatic 401(k)s and automatic IRAs, the history of American insurance regulation, redistricting politics and state constitutional amendment politics. “In addition, by attending conferences and then reporting on what I learned, I gained a wide array of knowledge on topics such as health care reform, pensions and poverty reform in a timely and high-impact manner,” she says.

“The internship greatly enhanced my knowledge in my focus field of social policy, further expanding on social insurance topics such as retirement security, Social Security, and Medicare," Kibble says. "As a result, I feel much more well-rounded and more confident in the toolkit that La Follette has provided me.”

As an intern with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Maxim gained an up-close view of how the United States crafts public health policy. She gained this through an intense, one-month review of proposed regulations for Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. “The loads of paperwork for revision and write-up, ardent debates, briefings at various levels, close deadlines, and close hold documents were the best hands-on demonstration of how public health policy is developed in the U.S.,” she says

Maxim served in DHSS’s Office of Assistant Secretary for Resources and Technology, Office of Budget, Division of Health Benefits and Income Support, Program Management and Medicare Branch. The experience exceeded her expectations as she gained exposure to U.S. Senate and House committee hearings, control documents, analytic projects and briefings.

“A large share of the work turned out to be in ad-hoc assignments, a reflection of the diverse work that federal agencies do,” says Maxim, who is pursuing master of international public affairs with a focus on health policy. In addition to the mountains of reading she did for research, briefings and discussions, she participated in brown bag training sessions, plus networking and information-sharing gatherings.

For Maxim, who had an internship offer in Wisconsin, the Lockheed Martin stipend shifted the balance to D.C. “It made the difference between going and not going,” she says.

— posted October 8, 2008; updated Ocober 9, 2008

Professor elected fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration

David L. Weimer, professor of public affairs and political science, has been named a fellow-elect of the National Academy of Public Administration.

Weimer is an expert on cost-benefit analysis, and his current research focuses on health policy issues, including the role of report cards in promoting improved quality of care, the social and fiscal net benefits of screening for Alzheimer’s disease, the organ transplant network as a model for medical governance, and the proper measurement of social costs associated with the regulation of addictive goods like tobacco. His other research addresses issues in energy security, natural resource policy, education, and research methods.

A non-profit coalition of top public management and organizational leaders, the National Academy of Public Administration was chartered by Congress in 1967 to provide objective practical advice based on systematic research and expert analysis to help solve administrative issues confronting federal, state and local public agencies. Government agencies and congressional committees request much of the work that the NAPA does. It also conducts projects funded by foundations.

NAPA fellows include academic researchers and distinguished practitioners. Among the approximately 600 fellows are 18 current or former presidential cabinet members, 48 current or former federal agency commissioners or administrators, 111 current or former chancellors, presidents, or deans of universities and colleges.

Weimer, who served as president of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management in 2006, will be inaugurated as a fellow in Washington, D.C., on November 20.

— posted October 7, 2008

LSSA plans happy hours, plus hiking and pumpkin-picking trips

Several social activities are on tap with the La Follette School Student Association. "We want to get students, faculty and staff together and take advantage of what the season and the Madison area have to offer," says social coordinator Catherine Hall.

Two field trips out of Madison are set. The first, Saturday, October 11, will be a potluck brunch at 11 a.m. at Blue Mound State Park west of Madison, followed by optional hiking or bicycling. Those wanting to carpool should meet at the La Follette School at 10:30 a.m. Park fees are $7 per car, $4 per bike.

Another trip, on Saturday, October 25, will take participants to Treinen Farm, near Lodi north of Madison, at 3:30 p.m. for pumpkin picking and Wisconsin's largest corn maze. "We might try to hold a pumpkin carving party the next day," Hall says, "if people are interested and someone offers to host."

LSSA also plans three happy hours, on October 16, November 13 and December 4, all Thursdays, with the locations and times to be determined. More information will be sent as the dates approach. Otherwise, contact Hall, .

— posted October 7, 2008; updated October 10, 2008

Smeeding receives honorary degree

La Follette School professor Timothy Smeeding received an honorary degree from Sweden’s Stockholm University on September 26. Smeeding, Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of Public Affairs and director of the Institute for Research on Poverty, was being recognized for his contributions to the Luxembourg Income Study, a research center and cross-national data archive located in Luxembourg. Prior to joining the La Follette School of Public Affairs this fall, he was founding director of the Center for Policy Research at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School.

Stockholm University to grant professor honorary degree, August 21, 2008, La Follette School News

— posted October 6, 2008

Offner lecture available online

The 2008 Paul Offner lecture given by Washington Post columnist and political analyst E.J. Dionne on September 23 in Washington, D.C., can be heard online. The annual lecture is sponsored by the La Follette School and the Urban Institute.

School sponsors Offner lecture at Urban Institute, September 23, 2008, La Follette School News
Presidential Politics and Poverty, September 23, 2008, Urban Institute

— posted October 2, 2008

Tuition ‘payback’ web site to aid high school students, families

Parents and high school counselors trying to persuade high schoolers that a college education pays off have a new tool at their disposal: a web site that calculates how much better off an individual expects to be over her or his lifetime with a college degree, compared to just a high school diploma.

Designed by La Follette School professor Robert Haveman, the University of Wisconsin-Madison Payback Calculator gives prospective and current students, along with their families and high school counselors, some answers related to the financial investment in a university education.

Specifically, the site combines information the user supplies with data from Census Bureau research studies to give a tailor-made, personalized answer to this question: How much better off financially are you likely to be if you graduate college, as opposed to just high school? The answers vary by the user's characteristics and account for three elements:

• the cost of a UW-Madison degree
• the approximate amount of financial aid the prospective student would receive
• expected lifetime earnings with and without a UW-Madison degree.

The economic payoff and career gains of securing a college degree are huge, but parents, their children, high school counselors and adults considering college application and enrollment may not understand the overall picture, Haveman says.

A person with a four-year degree can have a payback of $200,000 to more than $700,000 in her or his lifetime relative to someone with just a high school diploma, Haveman says. The amount depends on the student's characteristics and the likely field of study that she or he chooses in college. ”This site helps parents and students understand that obtaining a college degree is a worthwhile investment that yields returns over time that are substantially greater than the costs,” he says.

Students from economically disadvantaged families, first-generation college students and minorities may have less access to information about the actual cost of college attendance, Haveman adds. That lack of information may keep them from realizing that earning a college degree is feasible and within their grasp.

Students and parents may also exaggerate the obstacles to pursuing further schooling, in part because of the difficulty in piercing the complex system of financial and other assistance designed to facilitate enrollment.

“Getting information about college's payoffs to prospective students from low-income families is especially important,” says La Follette School faculty member John Wiley, the former chancellor who helped launch and fund the project. “We know that these families tend to apply to four-year colleges and universities at a much lower rate than students from higher-income families.”

Campus web sites with information about how to pay for college link to the Payback Calculator. For example, students can defray expenses by first attending a two-year campus or a technical college that has an agreement with the UW System to transfer credits, the UW Connections Program. The Office of Student Financial Services and its Parent Program provide prominent links to the payback calculator.

UW's Payback Calculator computes education's worth, October 1, 2008, Capital Times
New Payback Calculator aims to decrease student hesitation about cost of UW degree, October 1, 2008, Daily Cardinal
What's a UW degree worth to you?, September 30, 2008, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (scroll down)
'Payback' Site to Aid Students, Families, September 30, 2008, University of Wisconsin-Madison News

— posted October 1, 2008

One professor lectures in China, another explores N.Y. property taxes

While on a research trip in China, Professor Melanie Manion gave a public lecture entitled ”Enforcement, Education, and Institutional Design: Lessons in Anticorruption Reform” on September 17 at Hunan University. It was sponsored by the Anticorruption Research Institute, School of Politics and Public Administration. She also was appointed an honorary adjunct professor of the university.

Professor Andrew Reschovsky and co-author Joan M. Youngman look at the role of property taxes in New York state in an article in the October 2008 New York State Bar Association Journal. They note property taxes are an important revenue source for local governments. They suggest that the best way to keep property tax burdens acceptable is to ensure local elected officials are accountable to taxpayers; maintain accurate assessments; provide consistent state aid to local governments; and target property tax relief to those who need it most.

— posted October 1, 2008

Woman ambassador publishes autobiography

University of Wisconsin alum Jean M. Wilkowski has published her autobiography, Abroad for her Country, Tales of a Pioneer Woman Ambassador in the U.S. Foreign Service, published by University of Notre Dame Press

Jean M. Wilkowski entered the U.S. Foreign Service in 1944 after graduating from the University of Wisconsin with a master’s degree in journalism. She accepted career assignments to nine countries on three continents before retiring in 1980.

Born in an era when few women sought professional careers, Wilkowski rose through the ranks at the Department of State, from Vice Consul to the first woman U.S. Ambassador to an African country and the first woman acting U.S. Ambassador in Latin America.

Former University of Wisconsin–Madison chancellor Donna E. Shalala, now president of the University of Miami, calls it “a serious and charming autobiography of a pioneer woman diplomat. Madeline and Condi would not have made it to Secretary of State without Ambassador Wilkowski’s courage and skill.”

During her thirty-five-year diplomatic career, Wilkowski was sent first as a vice consul to the Caribbean during World War II. For much of her career, she specialized in protecting and promoting U.S. trade and investment interests in such posts as Paris, Milan, Rome, Santiago, and Geneva. She also served during a revolution in Bogotá, attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa, and the war between El Salvador and Honduras, when she called in U.S. humanitarian aid for 50,000 war-displaced persons. In 1977 she became coordinator of the U.S. preparation for the 1979 United Nations Conference on Science and Technology in Vienna. She collaborated with Notre Dame president Theodore Hesburgh in heading up the U.S. delegation in Vienna and a fact-finding visit to the Peoples’ Republic of China.

— posted October 1, 2008

Seminar to look at why students change colleges

The relationship between socio-economic status and students' decisions to change colleges after their freshman year will be the topic of Tuesday's La Follette School seminar. Sara Goldrick-Rab will explore the issue in "Beyond Access: Explaining Socioeconomic Differences in College Transfer" at noon on September 30 in the La Follette School conference room.

Goldrick-Rab is a La Follette School affiliate and an assistant professor of educational solicy studies and sociology. Her presentation is based on a working paper co-authored with Fabian T. Pfeffer, a research assistant at the Institute for Research on Poverty.

She will explore the relationships between characteristics such as parental education, occupational class and family income and decisions to transfer between four-year colleges and from four-year to two-year campuses. "Our results indicate that reverse transfer—the move from four-year to community college—is more common among students from less-educated families partly because of lower
levels of academic performance during their freshman year," she says.

In contrast, students from advantaged backgrounds in terms of class and income are more likely than others to engage in lateral transfer — from a four-year to another four-year institution. This may reflect individual preferences for changing colleges rather than a reaction to poor academic performance. "This has implications for policy and practice in light of the fact that only reverse transfer is associated with lower rates of degree completion," Goldrick-Rab says.

The next La Follette School seminar will be Tuesday, October 14, at noon in the conference room. Political scientist and La Follette faculty affiliate Katherine Cramer Walsh will discuss "Connecting Economic Interests and Preferences on Health Care: The Role of Attitudes toward Authority."

Beyond Access: Explaining Socioeconomic Differences in College Transfer / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2008-017

— posted September 26, 2008

MIPA grad coordinates services in Sudan

To hear 2005 grad Bill Schmitt talk about his career, ending up in West Darfur, Sudan, was just a matter of good fortune.

The area coordinator for the northern corridor of West Darfur for Catholic Relief Services spent 15 months in Sudan aiding internally displaced persons and host communities by distributing emergency food rations, constructing household shelters and schools, supporting agriculture, connecting farmers and merchants, and improving water, sanitation and nutrition. Catholic Relief Services provides emergency relief and recovery services to more than 160,000 internally displaced persons and residents in the troubled and conflict-ravaged region of West Darfur. 

Schmitt’s good luck came into play when Catholic Relief Services offered him a fellowship a few months after he graduated from the La Follette School with a master of international public affairs degree. “With all the emphasis on networking, getting out and meeting people in D.C., here my application over the Internet, where you click and send your résumé into what sometimes feels like a black hole, was accepted,” Schmitt told a classroom of mostly first-year students enrolled in the one-credit public affairs Professional Development Workshop. He was visiting Wisconsin in September after leaving Sudan and before heading off for at least two months in Afghanistan.

Schmitt first worked in Nicaragua, “as luck would have it,” he says. “As far as working in the developing world goes, it was a really good first posting.” The country is beautiful and relatively safe, he says. A large and active community of non-governmental organizations are doing interesting and innovative development programming there, plus forming friendships and a social life was easy. The location fit with Schmitt’s academic focus on Latin American and economic development, and he spent his assignment helping farming cooperatives develop business plans, achieve international fair trade and organic certification, diversify their crop production and identify new income-generating activities.

Prior to enrolling at La Follette in fall 2003, Schmitt spent two years as a volunteer teacher, one in Milwaukee and another in Ecuador. Between his first and second years in the MIPA program, he took an internship in U.S. Senator Russ Feingold’s office in Washington, D.C. While the position was unpaid, “I looked at it as an investment in my future,” Schmitt says, advising students to take advantage of opportunities that will be interesting and beneficial in the long run, even if they pay nothing in the short term.

After graduating, Schmitt moved to Washington, D.C., without a job or internship so he would be closer to international opportunities and have more networking options. He briefly labored at temp jobs, did some immigration work with an NGO and was about to accept a full-time job with an education consulting firm when the Catholic Relief Services fellowship came through.

In Nicaragua and Sudan, Schmitt found the skills he honed at La Follette helped him in the field: organizing, thinking critically, analyzing, dissecting problems, devising alternatives and figuring out how to overcome obstacles. All his ex-pat co-workers have master’s degrees, he says, and many in technical advisory positions hold doctorates. Any international experience, such as his teaching in Ecuador or a tour in the Peace Corps, is beneficial. “Apply to an entry-level position, get your foot in the door and then prove yourself,” he advised the class.

When asked to go to Sudan, Schmitt was at first unsure about accepting the post. Faced with the insecurity and violence there, he says, “part of me was nervous, anxious and afraid, but I also recognized that it was an unbelievable opportunity to challenge myself and hopefully make a difference.” His time there was often hard, he says, but very worthwhile and rewarding on many levels. “Aid workers are at least a few steps removed from the difficult conditions,” Schmitt says. “I knew that if things ever got really bad that I would get evacuated to a safer location. The people who live there obviously don’t have that luxury.  Nonetheless, they are incredibly resilient, and it was inspiring to see their strength and determination to move forward.”

— posted September 25, 2008

Professors take to the air waves to share expertise

Menzie Chinn commented on the unfolding financial crisis and the government bailout with Minnesota Public Radio listeners. He appeared with Russell Roberts, an economics professor at George Mason University on September 23.

Jonathan Zeitlin will be interviewed Thursday, September 25, at 3:15 central time on BBC Radio 3's Night Waves program on the legacy of Fordism, just ahead of the 100th anniversary of the production of the first mass-produced Ford Model T.

— posted September 23, 2008

School sponsors Offner lecture at Urban Institute

The La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is again sponsoring the annual Paul Offner lecture. Co-sponsored by the Urban Institute, the speech, in Washington, D.C., features Washington Post columnist and political analyst E.J. Dionne.

A live, free audio webcast of the lecture, on Tuesday, Sept. 23, at noon Eastern Daylight Time is available.

The lecture honors the public service of Offner, a scholar, Wisconsin state legislator, congressional adviser and educator who died of cancer in 2004 at the age of 61.

Speaking on presidential politics and poverty, Dionne will explain how this campaign year has renewed attention to the dilemma of poverty and race in America and will forecast what the domestic policy landscape might look like next year with new leadership at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Dionne, through his syndicated column, has illuminated innovative solutions to reducing poverty and healing society’s divisions. In a 2006 column about Reconnecting Disadvantaged Young Men (Urban Institute Press), which Offner co-authored with Harry Holzer and Peter Edelman, Dionne said the book “issues an urgent plea for public action on behalf of our most disadvantaged fellow citizens.”

Last year’s lecture, in Madison, featured the co-authors. Holzer is a professor and former associate dean of public policy at Georgetown University and a visiting fellow at the Urban Institute. Edelman is a professor of law and former associate dean at the Georgetown University Law Center.

The authors, Dionne observed, “provided a bracing reminder that there is an authentic search going on outside of conventional politics for the new ideas to animate a new political era.”

Offner grew up in Italy, earned a doctorate in 1970 from Princeton University and moved to La Crosse, Wisconsin, in 1973. He represented that district in the Wisconsin Senate from 1977 to 1983. He left Wisconsin to serve as deputy director of the Ohio Department of Human Services before becoming a senior legislative advisor to U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.), chief health and welfare counselor for the U.S. Senate Finance Committee and commissioner of the District of Columbia’s Commission on Health Care Finance. He was a research professor with Georgetown University’s Institute for Health Care Research and Policy before joining the Urban Institute in 2002.

A recording of the lecture will be posted on the Urban Institute web site on September 26.

— posted September 22, 2008

Kickoff seminar focuses on health-care governance

A discussion of new health-care governance systems will kick off a series of six faculty public affairs talks this fall.

Louise Trubek, a clinical professor emerita of the Law School, will speak on “Health Care and New Governance: The Quest for Effective Regulation,” on Tuesday, September 23, at noon.

“Major changes are occurring in the governance of health care in response to dramatic developments in medicine and the global economy,” says Trubek, who will discuss the limits of existing administrative models and some of the new regulatory institutions evolving in the United States and the European Union.

Trubek says her talk will focus on two examples. The first is a network and the tools it uses to lead the fight against cancer in the European Union. The second is emergence of quality improvement organizations and their ability to strike the right balance between rules and professional judgment. Trubek says her talk will conclude with comments on the potential for future research.

Other speakers in the fall series, all on Tuesdays at noon at La Follette, include:

• September 30: Faculty affiliate Sara Goldrick-Rab, assistant professor of educational policy studies and sociology, discusses “Beyond College Access: Improving Degree Completion Among Low-Income and First-Generation Students.”
• October 14: Faculty affiliate Katherine Cramer Walsh, associate professor of political science.
• October 28: Thomas R. Oliver, associate professor of Population Health Sciences and associate director for health policy, School of Medicine and Public Health.
• November 18: Andrew Leigh associate professor, Economics Program, Research School of Social Sciences,Australian National University.
• November 25: Ariel Kalil, associate professor of public policy and director of the Center for Human Potential and Public Policy, University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy.

— posted September 17, 2008

Alumni raising money to support Down syndrome society

Three recent graduates are joining 2008 classmate Tora Frank and her family this weekend in the Madison Area Buddy Walk to show support for the more than 350,000 Americans with Down syndrome.

The walking team is supporting Frank's daughter, 6-month-old Asha, who has Down syndrome. The team includes alumni Helena Lefkow, Jennie Mauer and Krista Willing, and La Follette School faculty , staff and other alumni are among the donors.

Frank and her husband, Raj Shukla, encourage others to come to Warner Park on Saturday, Sept. 13. Registration is at 9:30 and the walk begins at 11 a.m. "Asha and our whole family would love to see you there," they say.

Frank reports that "besides being up at all hours of the night with my 6-month-old, I'm consulting for a small firm called Barbara Goldberg and Associates, where I do program evaluations for social programs, mainly education-related programming in the Milwaukee area. Next fall Frank will begin the doctoral program in social welfare at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

— posted September 12, 2008

Public affairs journalist to take up residence

Blake Morrison, deputy enterprise editor at USA TODAY, is on campus September 8-11 as the fall public affairs writer in residence. He will meet with University of Wisconsin-Madison students and faculty, and have dinner with La Follette School students.

Morrison has worked at the nation's largest newspaper since October 1999. After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, he began covering aviation security and broke stories on problems with the air marshal program, airport checkpoints and cargo security. He now reports and helps direct high-profile investigations and projects. In 2007, he was the lead writer and a member of a reporting team that examined why improvised explosive devices continued to kill U.S. troops at alarming rates.

Before joining USA TODAY, Morrison spent six years as a reporter and editor at the St. Paul Pioneer Press. There, he worked as an investigative reporter and was part of the team that covered a cheating scandal involving the University of Minnesota men’s basketball team. Morrison teaches reporting and writing courses at the University of Maryland. He has guest lectured at Louisiana State University, and he co-wrote the memoir How to Cook Your Daughter, which has been optioned for a movie.

— posted September 4, 2008

Milwaukee adopts students’ recommendation on vehicle registration fee

The Milwaukee Common Council overrode a mayoral veto to adopt — in part, anyway — a May 2008 recommendation by La Follette School students to establish a local vehicle registration fee.

The five students made the policy recommendation in their final report as part of their Workshop in Public Affairs. They presented the report, Distributive Impacts of a Local Vehicle Registration Fee, to Mayor Tom Barrett, city department heads and staff members of the Budget and Management Division in May.

The project determines how a $20 municipal vehicle registration fee in addition to the state fee would affect vehicle owners in the City of Milwaukee with and without a property tax offset. The students’ analysis indicates that while a flat fee is regressive, it would comprise such a small percentage of income – even at the lowest income levels – that the impact would be negligible. The analysis considers geographic area, income, property ownership (renters versus owners), and number of cars per household. They recommended the fee without a property tax offset.

While the council did not include a property tax offset, the city plans to use the registration fee, sometimes called a wheel tax, to eliminate special property tax assessments for redoing sides streets and to reduce assessments for sidewalk and alley projects.

One of the report's authors says he was encouraged that Milwaukee will use the fee to pay for transportation infrastructure improvements instead of reducing property taxes. “I would like to see them make this a revenue-generating fee as opposed to one that is revenue neutral, but this is a step towards innovation,” says transportation policy student Michael Rodriguez. “Generally, transportation infrastructure in cities such as Milwaukee is in such disrepair that funding sources like this are needed as we explore policies like per-mile transportation fees and variable tolling.”

Barrett told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the vehicle registration fee benefited absentee landlords who do not register vehicles in the city, plus businesses, organizations and agencies that had to pay special assessments even if they do not pay property taxes. The council overrode the mayor’s veto on an 11-4 vote.

Another author, Jake Miller, wasn’t surprised when the mayor vetoed the registration fee in August. “When we presented our report to Mayor Barrett in May, he mentioned that he'd prefer to modify property taxes and assessments over having the vehicle registration fee installed,” says Miller, who joined Milwaukee’s budget office as an analyst in June. “But we have been working on contingencies to the city's budget in case the Council did override him, and our La Follette report is part of the legislative file that the public can review, so that’s kind of neat to see.”

Council overrides Barrett wheel tax veto, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, September 2, 2008

— posted September 3, 2008

Former Mayor Soglin returns to teaching at La Follette

Paul Soglin is bringing his experience in the public and private sectors to the La Follette School this fall, by teaching the public management course as an adjunct associate professor.

Soglin served as Madison's mayor from 1973-79 and 1989-97. He spent several years with health-care software developer Epic Systems, leading the move of the company's 2,600 employees to its new corporate campus in Verona outside of Madison. He also oversaw the company's $23 million investment program and played a key role in developing its charitable giving program.

"The background Paul brings to the classroom is very valuable to our students," says director Carolyn Heinrich. "Experience in the field is very important in a class like public management, which helps students develop an understanding of leadership in the public sector and build management skills."

Soglin taught public finance, public management and public personnel practices for the La Follette School from 1997-2002. He looks forward to the semester, he says. "I love being in the classroom and working with the students as they tackle the issues they will face as public managers."

— posted September 3, 2008

Student association welcomes new students

Happy hour tonight and a picnic on Friday are two of the ways the La Follette School Student Association is greeting its newest members as part of the school's orientation.

New and continuing students, plus faculty and staff, are invited to Genna’s Lounge, 105 W. Main St., from 4:30 to 6:30 tonight. for happy hour. (map)

Friday at 6 p.m., LSSA is hosting a picnic at Vilas Park, 702 S. Randall Ave. Attendees are asked to bring a dish to share, and LSSA will provide plates, napkins, cups, plastic-ware. Family and significant others are welcome. (map)

“To identify our group, keep an eye out for brightly colored tablecloths, balloons or other cheesy decorations,” says Catherine Hall, LSSA social coordinator. “We hope students, faculty and staff will attend one or both events to meet new students and touch base with friends they've missed this summer.”

LSSA also organized volunteer activities for Thursday afternoon.

LSSA’s first meeting is Wednesday, September 3, from 6-7 p.m. in the school’s conference room. The group is starting the school year with a new constitution that outlines officer and coordinator responsibilities. “Last year’s LSSA board put a lot of energy and thought into creating the new constitution, which we appreciate,” says 2008-09 LSSA President Lindsay Read. “We’re looking forward to a great year.”

A first-year representative to LSSA will be elected by e-mail in the fall, Lindsay says.

The other officers for this year are: Vice President Lauren Benditt, Treasurer Lilly Shields and Secretary Alison Patz. Dan Bush is the program liaison to the faculty. The other coordinators are Jeramia Cibulka, fund-raising; Maggie Carden, community service and outreach coordinator; and Andy McGuire, alumni coordinator. Gail Krumenauer and Tom Robinson are the graduation co-coordinators.

Orientation welcomes new students to La Follette School, La Follette School News, August 19, 2008

— posted August 28, 2008

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