Search

In 2013, Chancellor DuBois convened a Task Force on Diversity with the aim of making the Virginia Community College System (VCCS) a model for diversity by "increasing the demographic diversity of the VCCS so that teaching faculty and leaders look more like the communities we serve" (Chancellors Diversity Task Force, 2014, p. 3). The hard work of the Task Force members culminated in a report that summarized their findings and recommendations, including a "Call to Action" list of 11 steps, many of which have been implemented or are in progress. Several of these key initiatives have put the VCCS on track to meeting its diversity goals: the adoption of a VCCS policy statement on diversity and inclusion; the hiring of a Chief Diversity Officer and appointment of College Diversity representatives at each of the 23 VCCS colleges; the formation of diversity steering committees at each college; and the creation of an online Diversity Dashboard database which provides "institutional and system-wide longitudinal data on gender and minority status" (p. 12). We commend these efforts and would like to build on the foundation provided by the Task Force. Furthermore, we maintain that the success of the Complete 2021: Educating for a Competitive Commonwealth VCCS Strategic Plan depends upon increasing diversity and inclusion across the colleges, particularly in the hiring and retention of more diverse faculty and administrators. Although increasing diversity on college campuses has many benefits, improving student success and completion arguably being the most significant, we believe that campus diversity is intrinsically valuable, apart from the many benefits it affords institutions. This report offers recommendations from the individual to the system level.

Scholarship concerning American government visibility has focused on the state's growing submergence, yet these accounts contrast with racial and ethnic politics research focusing on the American state's conspicuousness in the lives of people of color. Attending to this disconnect, I ask how government visibility varies across racial groups. Combining interviews and quantitative analysis within a policy feedback framework, I argue that five public policy trends have created a racial split in the American state's visibility. For whites, submerged state policies have grown alongside the rising visibility of racialized poverty policies and taxation. As a result, whites are less aware of how government benefits them and more aware of how government uses tax dollars to fund programs perceived as solely benefitting racial others. For people of color, the decline of civil rights legislation has contrasted with criminal legal policies that have made the criminal legal system a uniquely visible manifestation of government in their lives. To demonstrate the political importance of this racial divide, I uncover a racial heterogeneity in people's political trust attachments, wherein white trust is connected to welfare attitudes, while trust among people of color is associated with feelings about the police. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most Americans benefit from several policies, yet studies connecting policy receipt to political participation generally treat these interactions as isolated from each other. This article grounds itself in this reality by examining how multiple policy experiences interact to alter political participation. Focusing on policies that send conflicting messages to beneficiaries, I provide a political learning framework and set of quantitative findings that nuance conventional understandings of the relationship between the American welfare state and turnout behavior. The results demonstrate that politically mobilizing universal policies and demobilizing means‐tested policies can cancel each other out, such that individuals benefitting from both exhibit no change in their participatory behavior. Thus, the political impact of policies within each tier are shown to be contingent on one's involvement in the other tier. In a counterintuitive finding, this analysis further shows that multiple policy experiences within the means‐tested tier can combine to increase turnout rates due to the political lessons imparted by Head Start's uniquely democratic design. In advancing our understanding of the role public policies play in shaping American democracy, these findings demonstrate the importance of considering how policy feedback effects impact each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Israel's Southern Arava region has experienced a boom in solar infrastructure development since 2011. Public acceptance of renewable energy installations is key to their successful implementation. The objective of this paper is to understand the level of acceptance of solar installations among Southern Arava communities and identify the factors that contributed to the widespread implementation of solar infrastructure in the region. Surveys and semi-structured interviews were distributed to five local kibbutz communities and local solar developers to gauge their attitudes about renewable technology in general and their acceptance of solar installations in their community. The results point to strong acceptance of solar technology in this region. Several factors contributed to this high level of support including kibbutz co-ownership of solar assets, transparent communication between stakeholders, and the kibbutz decision-making structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does political distrust generate a desire to engage in the political process or does it foster demobilization? Utilizing a theoretical framework rooted in government experiences and a mixed-methods research design, this article highlights the racially contingent meaning of political distrust to show that both relationships exist. For Whites, distrust is tied to a perception of tax dollars being poorly spent, leading to increased political involvement as Whites to try to gain control over "their" investment in government. For People of Color, distrust of government is grounded in a fear of the criminal justice system, and thus drives disengagement by motivating a desire for invisibility in relation to the state. Ultimately, this finding highlights a previously unseen racial heterogeneity in the political consequences of distrust. Further, it demonstrates how the state perpetuates racially patterned political inequality in a time when many of the formal laws engendering this dynamic have fallen away. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on "The Uncertain Hour" podcast that demonstrating a paradox within American public opinion on welfare. Topics discussed include information on bureaucratic red tape and the war on drugs; comprehensive welfare reform during Bill Clinton presidency; and narrative of the Riverside Miracle.

Supporters of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) sometimes speculate that public attitudes toward the law will shift if proponents succeed in focusing attention on its more popular components, but the scholarly literature on framing effects provides ample reason to question their assertion. This article contends that engagement, an alternative rhetorical strategy where advocates address the same policy dimensions as their opponents, is a more promising approach. Extending the engagement literature to the elite context in which most ACA-related decisions are made, it argues that elite-level engagement necessitates the additional task of linking policy change to opponents' broader philosophical and policy goals. Current debates surrounding the application of sales taxes to electronic commerce--a policy arena that seems far removed from health care policy but overlaps with the ACA in ways that make it an appropriate source of lesson drawing--illustrate the potential of an engagement strategy. Recently, many conservative lawmakers who previously opposed policy change have instead embraced online sales taxes as a mechanism for additional tax cuts. Analogous connections may facilitate the diffusion of ACA provisions that presently receive hostile receptions in Republican-leaning states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the tension brought by the act of state doctrine application on the art taken by the U.S. government. It traces the history of the doctrine, its usual application, and its exceptions. It summarizes and highlights the application of the doctrine to the ruling of Pierre Konowaloff's case and then explains how the ruling was supported by the doctrine's history. It also takes into account the effect of Konowaloff on Russian immigrant descendants and the significance of setting it aside.