CORNELL JEB E. BROOKS SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY
Cover Story: “Scalia/Ginsburg” Opera: A Freedom of Expression Theme Year Event
Dear Friends of the Brooks School, azine includes a letter The Fall 2023 edition of the Brooks School mag Cornell’s Freedom of from me discussing our ongoing initiatives and between writing this Expression Theme Year. In the time that elapsed dle East has reverberated letter and printing our magazine, war in the Mid concerns about within our own campus community with rising hate, prompting me antisemitism, Islamophobia, and other forms of to share some additional thoughts. expression among our core My letter highlights free and open inquiry and ore both the essential values at Cornell. Recent campus events undersc entally dedicated to role of academic freedom for a university fundam usive community where discovery and the importance of nurturing an incl events are felt deeply on all feel heard, respected, and valued. As global r for us to create spaces Cornell’s campus, it is more important than eve s and foster thoughtful inside and outside our classrooms to calm tension es. discussions among those with differing perspectiv the right to speak, but Freedom of expression is not just about having . The Brooks School has also about understanding the impact of speech g environment where the opportunity to create and cultivate a learnin cy expertise while students with different views develop strong poli communication, active simultaneously honing skills in compassionate rmed dialogue. On Cornell’s listening and learning, civil discourse, and info to train policy leaders campus, the Brooks School is uniquely positioned gly intractable fissures in with the knowledge and wisdom to bridge seemin lic policy. As Dean, the last society to advance positive change through pub g this work at the Brooks few weeks have redoubled my commitment doin join me. School, and I welcome all in our community to Colleen L. Barry, PhD, MPP Dean
| Magazine Features |
2
Making An Impact - Opera featured in Freedom of Expression Theme Year - Castro, Davis named Brooks School Distinguished Policy Fellows - Young African leaders find inspiration, confidence at Cornell - NextGenPop aims to broaden the people studying populations - Sloan Master of Health Administration rises in rankings
10
Advancing Knowledge - Generative AI holds promise, peril for democracies - White House report cites four Brooks School researchers - New York’s fertility rate drops, average age of mothers rises - First JFI-Brooks Fellowships fund studies of government anti-poverty programs and AI policy - Peace Games explore alternatives to war - Service-learning helps students help communities - Maureen Waller will study driver’s license suspensions as an Access to Justice Scholar - Vaccine campaign research highlights the power of individual self-interest - Brooks School new faculty
22
Students Making a Difference - Students advocate for state policy solutions - From rescuing rural hospitals to opening blood donor centers - Student-authors take on Ukraine culture, cybersecurity and more - Brooks MPA student Yeona Choi named 2023 Presidential Management Fellow
Brooks School Magazine Published by the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy Publication date: November 1, 2023 Editor: Natalie Kimbrough; Designer: Rachel Philipson Contributing editors and writers: James Dean, James Hanchett, Caitlin Hayes, David Nutt, Sarah Louise Schupp, and Amanda Soule Shaw
Jeb E. Brooks, MBA ’70, his wife, Cherie Wendelken, and the Brooks Family Foundation provided the generous support to name the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy. Jeb was an early advocate for socially responsible investment whose late father taught at Cornell and whose Cornell roots span three generations. Cherie holds a PhD in architectural history from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was a Harvard University professor. In 1999, Jeb and Cherie established the Brooks Family Foundation, which focuses on health care, underserved children, and the environment.
Free Expression and Public Policy As I write, we are celebrating the 2nd anniversary of the Brooks School of Public Policy and welcoming our 3rd cohort of students. Like our school and students, I am celebrating the completion of my 2nd year as a Cornellian and jumping into my 3rd year as Brooks School Dean. Time flies when you are having fun – and I am. I say often that I have the best job at Cornell and, so far, no one has challenged me on this. My job as Dean is wonderful because I spend my time thinking creatively about how to make the most of these early years and position our school to thrive in the decades ahead. Our newness means that every day at the Brooks School is a bit of an adventure, including for me as Dean. Since our founding in September 2021, I am proud to say that the Brooks School is growing across every dimension. Applications to our degree programs have jumped across the board. We are hiring stellar new faculty and staff, enabling us to deepen our policy expertise in critical areas, including health, education, and criminology. Alongside our degree programs, we are engaging in pipeline initiatives such as NextGenPop to increase diversity in population science and public policy, and we hosted a six-week leadership institute for the 2023 Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders to train an impressive cohort of emerging public management leaders. We are also joining our campus community to embark on a Freedom of Expression Theme Year. In initiating “The Indispensable Condition: Freedom of Expression at Cornell,” President Martha Pollack noted that it was former Supreme Court Associate Justice Benjamin Cardozo who declared that freedom of expression is “the matrix, the indispensable condition of nearly every other form of freedom.” President Pollack has encouraged our campus to take Cardozo’s words not only as the title of our theme year, but as the inspiration for what we can achieve together over the course of this academic year. At the Brooks School, we are aiming to do just that.
Actively grappling with free expression is uniquely important in a public policy school setting because, in our world today, the policy issues we engage with can often be lightning rods for highly polemic, partisan discourse. A critical dimension of our mission involves developing the capacity for civil discourse across differing viewpoints among our students and ourselves. As we aim to rapidly become a preeminent, world class policy school, we will inevitably engage in divisive policy debates on big issues that matter and must develop our capacity to be thoughtful, purposedriven leaders. You might expect we would begin the freedom expression theme year with a policy debate. Nope – we decided instead to begin with opera. On September 23rd, the Brooks School hosted a sold-out performance of “Scalia/Ginsburg” an opera about the unlikely friendship between U.S. Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg ’54 and Antonin Scalia, in the Memorial Room of Willard Straight Hall. We chose the “Scalia/Ginsburg” opera to highlight the justices’ mutual respect for each other even though they often differed in their views. By hosting this opera in partnership with Opera Ithaca, we aimed to underscore the Brooks School’s commitment to civil discourse and civic engagement – which are critical to developing solutions for the pressing public policy challenges we face today. While these can be hard, uncomfortable conversations, they are essential to our campus commitment to free and open inquiry and expression and to strengthening democracy. Along with our entire Brooks School community, I look forward to listening and learning throughout the theme year. Colleen L. Barry PhD, MPP Dean
The Indispensable Condition: Freedom of Expression at Cornell. Learn more at cornell.edu/expression.
FALL 2023 FALL 2023
1
1
2
CORNELL JEB E. BROOKS SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY
| Making An Impact |
Opera celebrates friendship of Scalia and Ginsburg ’54
T
he Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy presented “Scalia/Ginsburg,” a one-act comedic opera about the unlikely friendship between U.S. Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg ’54 and Antonin Scalia, on Sept. 23 in the Memorial Room of Willard Straight Hall. “Scalia/Ginsburg,” presented in partnership with Opera Ithaca, is one of numerous universitywide events this year that will explore freedom of expression and academic freedom under the theme “The Indispensable Condition: Freedom of Expression at Cornell.” “The deep and remarkable friendship of Justices Ginsburg and Scalia endured across decades of what Justice Ginsburg herself called ‘frequently dueling opinions,’” President Martha E. Pollack said. “That friendship is at the core of ‘Scalia/Ginsburg’: an important, timely, and delightful demonstration of the kind of civil discourse, commitment to shared values, and respect for difference that we hope to strengthen this year at Cornell.” In addition to President Pollack, Colleen L. Barry, dean of the Brooks School, and Ginsburg’s granddaughter, Clara Spera, a lecturer at Harvard Law School, delivered remarks before the performance. Spera said, “This performance of Scalia/Ginsburg, marries two of my grandmother’s great loves - opera and Cornell.” “...“Bubbe” as I called her, often said that if she could choose a talent, she would most like to have, it would be to have a glorious voice. She wanted to be a great diva, in her own words. I often told her she was a diva — just of a different sort.”
Scalia/Ginsburg opera in Willard Straight Hall. Photo credit: Rachel Philipson
FALL 2023
The opera was the first event of a new biennial program from the Brooks School honoring the legacy of Ginsburg and her husband, Martin Ginsburg ’53, who met at Cornell as undergraduates on a blind date in 1950. The program will highlight the policy issues that were important to Justice Ginsburg and will feature opera, music, and other forms of bridge-building artistic expression that were her passion. The program is supported by Christie and Jeff Weiss ’79.
3
“I am grateful to Christie and Jeff for their gift to the Brooks School,” Barry said. “Their vision for dynamic programs which bring to life policy issues important to the late Justice Ginsburg, while honoring her love of the arts, will benefit generations of Cornellians. ‘Scalia/Ginsburg’ is about having real differences and views about issues in public life that matter. But it’s also about friendship, love of opera, and what it means to have a multifaceted relationship with another person.”
“...“Bubbe” as I called her, often said that if she could choose a talent, she would most like to have, it would be to have a glorious voice. She wanted to be a great diva, in her own words. I often told her she was a diva — just of a different sort.” — CLARA SPERA
4
“Scalia/Ginsburg,” which premiered in 2015, was written by Derrick Wang, who described the work as “what happens when Supreme Court justices go before a Higher Power? … Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia face a series of trials as they grapple with their opposing views, legal legacies, and unlikely friendship. Opinions will be offered. Dissents will be delivered. And justice will be sung.” In addition to being close friends who vacationed and often celebrated holidays together, despite their very different ideologies, Justices Ginsburg and Scalia were both great fans of opera. The production was directed by Ben Robinson and conducted by Danielle Jagelski, and featured Rachel Schutz as Ginsburg, Chad Kranak as Scalia, and Jesús Vicente Murillo as the commentator. “We feel privileged and delighted to honor the memory of our dear friends Marty and Ruth Ginsburg through this gift to Cornell’s Brooks School,” Christie and Jeff Weiss said. “Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Cornell legacy will live on through these programs, which unite her remarkable legal career, generosity, and immense love for the arts and humanities.”
CORNELL JEB E. BROOKS SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY
Christie Weiss, Dean Colleen Barry, Clara Spera, and Jeff Weiss ’79
FALL 2023
5
| Making An Impact |
Castro, Davis named Brooks School Distinguished Policy Fellows JULIÁN CASTRO
TOM DAVIS
Julián Castro, former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and former Congressman Tom Davis (R-Virginia) will serve as the inaugural John W. Nixon ’53 Distinguished Policy Fellows at the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy.
evidence-based discussion about the issues confronting our world,” Castro said. “I am proudly progressive, but I know Tom Davis. We’ll find common ground, or we will respectfully disagree if we can’t.”
Davis, a Republican and Castro, a Democrat, will teach, share their expertise, and exchange ideas with Cornell students, staff, and faculty beginning in the fall 2023 semester.
Davis is a partner in the Washington, D.C. law firm Holland & Knight. He focuses his practice on congressional and regulatory affairs, including investigations, land use, and legislative strategy.
“We are thrilled that Representative Davis and Secretary Castro will be our first Nixon Policy Fellows,” said Brooks School Dean Colleen Barry. “They will contribute varied viewpoints to campus conversations about pressing policy issues we face, as in the U.S. and globally. Their perspectives will enrich our new Brooks School Learning and Leading Through Difference Initiative.”
Davis served 14 years in the U.S. House of Representatives, representing a northern Virginia district. He led high-profile investigations as chairman the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, from 2003 to 2007. Davis was a chief author of more than 100 pieces of legislation that became law. He presided over 150 hearings and investigations culminating in reports about issues including Hurricane Katrina, steroid use in professional baseball, and private contractors in Iraq.
The Brooks School of Public Policy’s Learning and Leading Through Difference Initiative is aimed at advancing civil discourse, strengthening democracy and developing students’ capacity to be thoughtful, purpose-driven leaders. This effort complements Cornell University President Martha E. Pollack’s announcement of a themed year of emphasis on free expression and academic freedom. Castro served as mayor of his native San Antonio, Texas – the youngest mayor of a top 50 American city at the time. In 2012, he made headlines with his keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention, during which he described the American Dream as a relay to be passed from generation to generation. He then went on to serve as housing secretary under President Barack Obama from 2014 to 2017. Castro ran for president in 2020. He is currently a political commentator for MSNCB, and serves on the boards of the Center for American Progress, the LBJ Foundation and the Marguerite Casey Foundation.
“I’ve always believed that government works best when each side feels heard,” Davis said. “That was the approach I took in Congress and that will be my approach at Cornell and the Brooks School. When I disagree with Secretary Castro, who I respect greatly, we will listen to each other, rather than talking over each other. With what’s going on in Washington and the 2024 elections coming up, there’s plenty for us to talk about at Cornell and much we can learn from each other.” In addition to his law practice, Davis offers print and broadcast political commentary. Brooks School Nixon Policy Fellows will visit the Cornell campus in Ithaca multiple times over the course of the academic year to guest lecture, participate in symposia, host student office hours to talk about careers in public policy and contemporary policy issues, and connect with faculty on research aligned with their expertise.
“I eagerly look forward to joining the Cornell Brooks School in what is an absolutely essential effort to foster reasoned, 6
CORNELL JEB E. BROOKS SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY
Young African leaders find inspiration, confidence at Cornell
Mandela Washington Fellows during their 6-week visit to Cornell and Ithaca. Photo credit: Jason Koski
W
hen Alice Igisaro began practicing as a dental surgeon in her native Rwanda in 2020, she was immediately frustrated by the number of patients with advanced disease – they hadn’t sought help in time or had gone first to traditional healers, or they had not been properly referred by their community health centers. Igisaro saw solutions – educating rural communities and health workers – and began pursuing changes that would have systemic impact. But as a clinician, she felt isolated and stymied by expectations that, especially as a young woman, she accept the status quo. After spending six weeks at Cornell as a Mandela Washington Fellow, Igisaro said she’s found new confidence in herself and hope for her country and the continent. The Mandela Washington Fellowship for young African leaders is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State; this past summer a cohort of 25 Fellows were hosted by the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy and the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies. “When you see other young people who are hopeful, who are working toward something, it gives me so much hope,” FALL 2023
Igisaro said. “Now I know I’m not the only one, and now I have networks – in the U.S. and in Africa. I really believe in our future collaboration and the strength of how people think in our cohort. I believe in us as young leaders of Africa.”
in the future. The Mandela Washington Fellows program is built upon that ethos, and the fellows are truly inspirational in their commitments and contributions. Our Cornell community and Ithaca community benefit from the bright light they shine.”
The 25 Mandela Fellows represent countries from all over sub-Saharan Africa. They have experience and concentrations in three broad disciplines: climate and sustainability, government, and public health.
Cornell was one of 28 U.S. institutions – and the only Ivy League school – to host this year’s Mandela Washington Fellowship, the flagship program of the State Department’s Young African Leaders Initiative, with a total of 700 African leaders between the ages of 25 and 35 participating this past summer. The State Department has supported nearly 5,800 fellows since 2014. This was the first year Cornell received the award and hosted a group of fellows.
“This institute represents the best of what the Brooks School can bring to bear, in terms of expertise around public management, vulnerability and resilience planning, infrastructure policy, and citizen engagement,” said Colleen Barry, dean of the Brooks School. “It also furthers our mission of bringing about positive change in the world by developing partnerships that will expand our global research, teaching, and engagement profiles.” “Our core mission is education for a global world,” said Rachel Beatty Riedl, director of the Einaudi Center and the center’s John S. Knight Professor of International Studies, as well as professor in the Brooks School and the College of Arts and Sciences. “We seek to equip our students with the skills, knowledge base, and critical thinking to address the challenges we face today and
Cornell’s fellows had a packed schedule of intense academic coursework, leadership training, networking, and volunteering, as well as meetings with faculty, alumni, and graduate student mentors, elected officials, university administration, and community leaders. “These fellows are changemakers,” said Tom O’Toole, executive director of Brooks School public affairs programming. “They walk the walk in a very real and impactful way, which is very much aligned with Cornell’s tradition of ‘doing the greatest good.’” 7
| Making An Impact |
NextGenPop student fellows during a professional development session with Dean Barry. Photo Credit: Jason Koski
NextGenPop aims to broaden the people studying populations
A
s a first-generation college student from rural West Virginia, Emily Johnson has questioned whether to pursue her interest in graduate school and career in social sciences research. But she found reassurance at NextGenPop, an intensive twoweek summer training program aimed at increasing diversity in the field of population science, hosted June 4-18 by the Cornell Population Center in the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy. “It’s not an opportunity that I take for granted to get to do a program like this, and the fact that I’m even thinking about PhD programs is crazy,” said Johnson, a rising senior studying sociology at Ohio State University. “It’s been really affirming that this is what I want to do.” Supported by the Population Association of America and a consortium of population research centers across the United States, the program is funded by a five-year National Institutes of Health grant for which Kelly Musick, professor of public policy and sociology and senior associate dean of research in the Brooks School, is co-principal investigator. “Population scientists study changes in the composition and structure of populations that shape inequalities in health and well-being, with important implications for policy,” Musick said. “The population field, like a lot of academic fields, doesn’t fully reflect our population. Increasing its diversity brings in different questions and approaches – opening new lines of inquiry and new insights that matter for how we understand our social world.” 8
Over two weeks, 20 student fellows thinking about graduate school or careers in the social sciences – selected from more than 100 applicants – participated in seminars on population and policy issues including family change, fertility, immigration, health inequality, criminal justice and residential segregation. The way people and even statutes or codes are counted is crucial to addressing systemic problems like the consequences of mass incarceration, which impacts everything from education and employment to fertility and voter turnout, said Bryan Sykes, a demographer and sociologist who joined Cornell’s faculty this fall. For example, he said, statistics touted a decade ago as evidence of progress in employment and graduation rates among young Black men looked significantly worse when adjusted to include people in prison or jail – a population excluded from conventional statistics that are based on household surveys. “We’re talking about huge gaps here,” said Sykes. “These differences illustrate just how profoundly ignoring our criminal legal system in America is affecting how we measure and understand social progress.” NextGenPop fellows received training in research and data analysis and delivered research presentations, on topics ranging from maternal health to homelessness to environmental inequality. And they participated in professional development sessions with graduate students and faculty including Colleen Barry, dean of the Brooks School, who encouraged the students to draw from personal experience to drive and communicate their research programs. CORNELL JEB E. BROOKS SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY
Kelly Musick, Brooks School Senior Associate Dean of Research, works with NextGenPop fellow
Sloan Master of Health Administration rises in rankings The Sloan Master of Health Administration (MHA) in the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy has risen in U.S. News rankings. The Sloan MHA Program has moved up to the No. 8 program out of 90 U.S. universities ranked in the category of Best Grad Schools in Health Care Management. It was ranked No. 9 in the previous assessment, published in 2019. “This ranking reflects the enormous skill and care of the faculty and staff in our Sloan MHA Program, as well as the accomplishments of our students and alumni,” said Brooks School Dean Colleen Barry. “The ranking also serves as motivation to continue the crucial work of improving the management and administration of health care in the U.S. and globally.”
Esther Colón Bermúdez, a recent graduate of the University of Puerto Rico, said her experience growing up with housing insecurity motivated her to work on housing policy. “Not only the affordability but the quality of housing in Puerto Rico now needs to be addressed,” Colón Bermúdez said. “This program gives students the tools to be involved in this type of research to have a social impact, so it’s a really great opportunity.” Cameron White ’24, of Atlanta, said disparities he saw in medical access and treatment following a car accident led him to study health care policy at Cornell. Learning from NextGenPop classmates and faculty with diverse backgrounds and perspectives has been empowering, he said. “There’s been a lot of social capital being built, but also just a lot of encouragement and advocacy and validation from the mentors and students here,” White said. “It’s helped me see that there are many ways I can use this passion to make the change that I want to see.” Johnson, who is interested in researching poverty and education inequality in Appalachia, a region she said is understudied, said NextGenPop had eased some of her concerns about graduate school and belonging in academia. “As much as I’ve learned about a ton of different sociological and policy topics here,” she said, “it’s been awesome to meet everyone else and learn from them and their experiences.”
FALL 2023
The rankings are based on surveys of directors of and faculty at health care management or administration programs accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education (CAHME). Thanking those academic leaders, Sloan Director Sean Nicholson said the program is considered one of the nation’s best because its management curriculum allows students to tailor their education, and because it has both an alumni network that supports students and employers who seek out Sloan graduates. “Because of the steadfast support of Dean Barry, our students, alumni and employers, we can carry out our mission within a culture that is engaging, innovative, astute, and supportive,” Nicholson said. “We are happy to see the way they make us shine resonated with the programs who rank us. We are grateful for the improved ranking and the recognition that comes with it.” The first of its kind in the U.S., the Sloan MHA Program prepares graduates with strong management skills and a deep understanding of the health care industry. It offers both a two-year residential master’s in health administration degree and an executive master’s through a hybrid learning approach. Sloan MHA students pursue leadership positions in hospitals, consulting firms, primary care and ambulatory surgery centers, health care tech, and pharmaceutical firms. Graduates enter the job market equipped with advanced expertise in finance, accounting and marketing, a comprehensive understanding of the health care industry, and connections to the vast Sloan alumni network.
9
| Advancing Knowledge |
10
CORNELL JEB E. BROOKS SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY
Generative AI holds promise, peril for democracies
G
enerative artificial intelligence – popularized in 2022 by Open AI’s ChatGPT application – threatens to undermine trust in democracies when misused, but may also be harnessed for public good, Sarah Kreps told the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) during a public meeting May 19. Kreps, a faculty member in the Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy and the John L. Wetherill Professor in the Department of Government in the College of Arts and Sciences, directs the Cornell Brooks School Tech Policy Institute. Kreps was one of three researchers invited to discuss AI’s impact on society with the group of scientists and engineers appointed by President Joe Biden to provide advice and recommendations. The council recently launched a working group to help assess opportunities and risks regarding generative AI, which refers to systems that can generate text, images, and videos from a prompt after being trained on large datasets. Presenting on “The Perils and Prospects of Generative AI in Democratic Representation,” Kreps said that even five years ago, when the technology was far less capable and user-friendly, her research found that people can’t discern between news stories written by AI and by mainstream media outlets such as the New York Times. “The threat might not be that people can’t tell the difference – we know that – but that if as this content proliferates, they might just not believe anything,” said Kreps, participating virtually in the meeting held in San Diego. “If people stop believing anything, then it’s eroding a core tenet of a democratic system, which is trust.” Kreps, a former Air Force officer, became an early academic collaborator with Open AI following the 2016 presidential election, which a Senate Intelligence Committee report found was the target of widespread
FALL 2023
misinformation and foreign interference. Then, she said, Russian-led misinformation campaigns often included errors obvious to native English speakers – for example, a social media post with the headline, “In America you have right to bear arms,” over a picture of a bear. But more advanced and user-friendly tools based on increasingly powerful large language models could help overcome those deficiencies, enabling faster dissemination of political content that appears more authentic, even if it is false. “This seemed potentially problematic from a national security perspective,” Kreps said. In subsequent research, Kreps investigated whether AI could be used to manipulate elected leaders through “astroturfing,” or using a high volume of messages to create a sense of broad public support for an issue. For example, in 2017, the Federal Communications Commission found that only 6% of public comments it received about net neutrality were unique. Kreps and colleagues emailed AI-generated advocacy letters to more than 7,000 state legislators. The results were concerning, she said, with response rates that were low overall, but identical on the key issues of guns, health care, and schools. Safeguards against AI manipulation are insufficient so far, Kreps said, but beginning to be implemented. When she prompted ChatGPT to write an op-ed supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the program said it could not. “Guardrails are emerging,” Kreps said, “but the technology is so new and dynamic, it’s a real challenge.” Phone calls and town halls, she said, are two low-tech avenues for more direct communication between constituents and elected representatives that could reduce mistrust.
Kreps concluded with a more hopeful perspective on how the technology could be used to enhance democracy. Lawmakers, she said, are inundated with emails. Her research shows that the same AI tools that generate messages could be used to detect them, and to provide summaries of their content by issue. AI could potentially be used to generate responses (with appropriate disclosures) that constituents deem more effective than the boilerplate language commonly used today. “A democracy really is about these connections between the government and people,” Kreps said. “There are ways to think about how generative AI can be used in the public interest.” In response to questions from PCAST members, Kreps said digital literacy education is needed well before college to help students understand and navigate technologies including generative AI, rather than trying to prohibit them. And she said modest government investments could help create incentives for research and applications by “public-minded innovators.” PCAST co-chair Maria Zuber, vice president for research and E. A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, thanked Kreps and co-panelists Sendhil Mullainathan, the Roman Family University Professor of Computation and Behavioral Science at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and Daron Acemoglu, the Elizabeth and James Killian Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics at MIT, for their contributions. “While we’re talking about AI, all of you emphasize the criticality of placing humans at the center of the discussion,” Zuber said. “You’ve certainly given us some very powerful examples and insight into where this needs to go to really help people.”
11
| Advancing Knowledge |
White House report cites four Brooks School researchers
T
he 2023 Economic Report of the President compiled by the White House Council of Economic Advisers cited research by four Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy faculty members. The 513-page report focused on long-run challenges to the U.S. economy. It analyzed childcare and explored the financial dangers created by climate change. The report also looked at the benefits of global partnerships, reforms to make college more accessible, and the value of increasing immigration to add workers to the U.S. economy. “It is exciting to see the research of Brooks School faculty being used at this level to advance our understanding of economic challenges and opportunities,” said Senior Associate Dean of Research Kelly Musick. “We hope those who read the report will benefit from the insights and draw on them as a basis for policy solutions that improve lives.” The faculty members cited in the report include Maria Fitzpatrick, Michael Lovenheim, Ariel Ortiz-Bobea, and Nicholas Sanders. Their research covers a range of topics:
Early Childhood Education – Fitzpatrick has studied the impact of public preschool and kindergarten programs on mothers’ employment, as well as broader aspects of the access to care and quality of care in early childhood education settings. Based on her findings and others, the report concluded, “the care economy faces fundamental challenges in terms of both supply and demand, and thus there is an important opportunity for effective policies to improve the functioning of this market.” Fitzpatrick is Senior Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, and a professor in the Brooks School and in the Department of Economics.
Higher Education – Lovenheim studied the economics of attending college, especially the factors that influence graduation rates and labor market earnings. The report cited five of Lovenheim’s research articles as President Biden’s economic advisers weighed the benefits of government support of higher education and the provision of portable financial aid to students. Lovenheim is a professor in the Brooks School, the ILR School, and in the Department of Economics.
Climate Change – Ortiz-Bobea studied the historical impact of climate change, especially increased temperatures, on agricultural productivity. The report highlighted his research because of how it sheds light on understanding how ongoing climate change is affecting the macro-economy. Ortiz-Bobea is an associate professor in the Brooks School and in the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management.
Climate Change – Sanders studied climate change from a different perspective – how outdated infrastructure, combined with rising temperatures, can lead to more violence. The report cited his research showing intensely hot days resulted in spikes in incidents of extreme violence in Mississippi prisons, which historically lack air conditioning to help offset the heat. “Unprecedented extreme (weather) events are exposing the weaknesses of aging U.S. infrastructure, which was designed to operate in different climate conditions,” the report concluded. Sanders is an assistant professor in the Brooks School and in the Department of Economics.
“We hope those who read the report will benefit from the insights and draw on them as a basis for policy solutions that improve lives.”— KELLY MUSICK
12
CORNELL JEB E. BROOKS SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY
New York’s fertility rate drops, average age of mothers rises
A
decline in New York’s childbirth rate is showing no sign of reversing and many women are waiting longer to have children, according to newly compiled data from the Program in Applied Demographics in the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy. In 2021, about 211,000 babies were born in New York. In 2011, that number was 241,000. New York state’s total fertility rate (TFR) – the average number of births a woman would have in her lifetime if current patterns continue – has dropped from 1.85 in 2009 to 1.55 in 2021. (This type of fertility rate is most useful for comparing trends across time because its calculation considers fertility patterns by age.) The 2021 TFR for New York is below the U.S. average of 1.71, and far below the 2.1 “replacement” rate – the point at which a developed country’s population rate would neither rise nor decline. Replacement level varies by area and can be higher or lower than the theoretical 2.1, depending on mortality and migration. Women who do have babies are waiting until later in life. The average age of first birth for New York women was 28.9 in 2021, more than a year older than the average age in 2011 (27.2). The fertility rate has increased significantly for women 35-44 but not enough to offset the decline in childbirths by younger women. “Other states in the Northeast are also facing declining fertility and an aging population, which has many implications for policy and infrastructure,” said Program in Applied Demographics researcher Leslie Reynolds. “But since New York has an especially unique and diverse state geography, also paying attention to local and county trends and using them to inform policies is vital.”
LESLIE REYNOLDS
In addition to the declining birth rate, other findings include: • The TFR is highest for women who live in Rockland, Jefferson, and Orange counties and lowest for women in Otsego, New York City (Manhattan), and Tompkins counties. • 65% of the households with babies were led by opposite sex, married couples. 17% were single mothers, 13% were cohabiting couples of any sex, and 5% were single fathers. As the children grew to toddler stage and beyond, the number of married couples fell and the percentage of single moms increased. • There were about 4,270 more boys than girls born in 2021. • Liam, Noah, and Olivia were the most popular baby names in 2020. The Program in Applied Demographics assembled the fertility statistics from several sources, including some that have not been previously reported, such as changes in fertility rates by age over the past two decades. They were compiled in the Program in Applied Demographics’ most recent Tidbit: Topics in Demography, a series of briefs on New York population dynamics. The Program in Applied Demographics works closely with the New York State Department of Labor, the U.S. Census Bureau, and other organizations, informing decision-making, evaluation, and policy across New York state. The Program in Applied Demographics is housed in the Cornell Population Center, part of the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy.
241,312
babies born in 2011
-13%
210,742
babies born in 2021 Source: 2011 and 2021 NCHS Natality File
FALL 2023
13
| Advancing Knowledge |
First JFI-Brooks Fellowships fund studies of government anti-poverty programs and AI policy
SARAH KREPS
PAULINE LEUNG
ZHUAN PEI
“These fellowships are supporting research that can improve people’s lives and give our students opportunities to work directly with faculty on policy problems to improve their research skills.” — COLLEEN L. BARRY As recipients of the first JFI-Brooks Fellowships, Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy scholars will research regulatory frameworks for artificial intelligence and the long-term impact of welfare reform-era policy changes on recipients and their children. The fellowships are made possible by support from a unique collaboration with the Jain Family Institute (JFI), founded by Bobby ’92 and Carola Jain. “JFI is a perfect partner for the Brooks School as JFI is literally an applied research organization, and we are thrilled to create opportunities for Brooks students and faculty to help apply their work,” said Bobby Jain. The JFI-Brooks Fellowships provide two-year funding for Brooks School faculty-student teams to advance research and public engagement on policy questions related to climate change, education, social policy, and digital ethics. “We are deeply grateful for JFI’s support of this important research,” said Brooks School Dean Colleen Barry. “These fellowships are supporting research that can improve people’s lives and give our students opportunities to work directly with faculty on policy problems to improve their research skills.” The brisk search for solutions is a hallmark of both Brooks School and JFI, a nonprofit research organization dedicated to addressing pressing social issues with what it describes as “high impact interventions.”
14
“JFI began its work nine years ago with the commitment not only to research innovative ideas in public policy, but also to help accelerate the speed with which they impact daily life,” said JFI Chief Operating Officer Alex Jacobs. “We’re delighted to be partnering with a like-minded institution in the Brooks School, and even more so to be supporting these innovative groups of scholars.” The first awards go to two research teams: • Sarah Kreps and Adi Rao will study existing and proposed regulatory schemes governing artificial intelligence in order to develop a new theoretical roadmap for U.S. policymakers as they grapple with the promises and potential perils of generative AI. Kreps is a faculty member in the Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy, the John L. Wetherill Professor in the Department of Government in the College of Arts and Sciences, and directs the Cornell Brooks School Tech Policy Institute. Rao is a doctoral student in the Department of Government and an adjunct at the RAND Corporation. • Pauline Leung, Zhuan Pei, and Lexin Cai are part of a team that studies the impact of the welfare-to-work policies from the early 1990s on U.S. welfare program participants and their children. Though many of these policies were eventually adopted as part of the 1996 welfare reform, little is known about their long-term impacts. The team will explore how these policies affected a wide range of long-term outcomes
CORNELL JEB E. BROOKS SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY
Peace Games explore alternatives to war
Peace Games at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C.
A unique Cornell University-sponsored event in Washington, D.C. brought together congressional staff to search for nonviolent solutions to a simulated clash between superpowers. ADI RAO
LEXIN CAI
The Peace Games were organized by the Cornell Institute of Politics and Global Affairs (IOPGA) in the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy and the United States Institute of Peace, with support from the Carnegie Corporation. The Games are an annual event for members of Congress, but this year the organizers offered a version limited to about two dozen congressional staff.
including children’s future earnings and employment, residential location, and mortality. The study seeks to identify the most effective policy levers for improving the wellbeing of disadvantaged families and children. Leung is an assistant professor in the Brooks School and the Department of Economics. Pei is an associate professor in the Brooks School and the Department of Economics. Cai is a Department of Economics graduate student. The JFI-Brooks partnership extends beyond funding the fellowships. The research teams will have access to JFI resources including data, connections with JFI researchers, collaboration on JFI projects, and opportunities to work in JFI’s offices in New York City. About the Jain Family Institute: The Jain Family Institution was founded in 2014 with the goal of catalyzing real-world implementation of promising new policy ideas. Its major past projects have been in the areas of higher education finance, guaranteed income, and AI ethics. Today, JFI works at all levels – and with a variety of public and private sector partners – to realize solutions to social problems, including pilot and policy design, modeling and analytics, empirical research evaluations, custom software, and incubation and operationalization of like-minded social-impact organizations.
FALL 2023
IOPGA director Steve Israel, a former member of Congress and a professor of practice in the Brooks School of Public Policy, moderated the Feb. 23 event, noting the critical role that staff members play in advising lawmakers. With U.S. adversaries growing stronger and more belligerent, Israel said staff members need to understand the full range of peacemaking tools: “Soft power, deterrence, diplomacy. That soft power is the best investment we have because it’s much more expensive when you must resort to hard power to protect your interests.” While the details of the simulated conflict are kept confidential, the basic plot sounds entirely plausible: a tense dispute between two world powers rooted in a humanitarian crisis. Seated facing each other at a horseshoe-shaped table, the participants talked through peaceful solutions. The conversation was guided by U.S. Army Lt. Commander Paul Lushenko PhD ’23. The event will be repeated later this year exclusively for members of Congress. Each Peace Games is decidedly nonpartisan and Israel said that is crucial to their effectiveness. “It’s more important than ever that the United States lead, and lead based on bipartisanship. Democrats and Republicans must stand together and stand for the promotion of democracy, peace, security and stability,” he said.
15
| Advancing Knowledge |
Service-learning helps students help communities REBECCA MORGENSTERN BRENNER
C
ollege students – who have the time and energy to serve as well as the desire to learn – are uniquely positioned to advance their education while helping communities prepare for potential disasters, according to a new book co-edited by a Brooks School faculty member, Rebecca Morgenstern Brenner. The challenge is how to establish partnerships between university instructors and government and nonprofit leaders. “Service-Learning for Disaster Resilience, Partnerships for Social Good,” co-edited by Brenner, is believed to be the first to discuss an approach to utilizing service-learning to specifically address the growing need of building disaster resilience in vulnerable communities. The takeaway: This requires building community capacity and strengthening social networks while enhancing student learning. Brenner, also a fellow at the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability, authored or co-authored five of the book’s chapters. At Cornell, she has directed several service-learning partnerships that saw Brooks School MPA students contribute to building community resilience. For example, students assisted New Lebanon, New York, as it sought to expand its economy with green technology jobs. Brenner is also a faculty fellow in the David M. Einhorn Center for Community Engagement, and a Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies faculty associate. She co-leads the Federal Emergency Management Institute (FEMA) Special Interest Group that focuses specifically on service-learning and leadership. Brenner spoke to the Cornell Chronicle about the potential of service-learning to assist communities before disaster strikes.
16
Question: What are service-learning partnerships? Answer: Service-learning partnerships are an opportunity for students to engage in meaningful and mutually beneficial projects that are an investment in the community. For these partnerships to be successful, the projects need to provide information, policy or outcomes driven by community need and students need to have opportunity to reflect on their experience. Q: How could they make our communities more disaster-resilient? A: One thing we know is that with a changing climate, disasters will be increasing, and the impact of these disasters will likely harm the most vulnerable in the community. We also know that in many communities worldwide the most vulnerable residents, communities, and governments may not have the capacity or expertise to invest in mitigation or adaptation planning. Here is where instead of theoretical assignments, students work with communities based on what those localities need and apply tools they learn in the classroom for real projects. That then builds the capacity of communities to have this knowledge, experience or toolkits to be better prepared to respond or adapt to changing environmental conditions or natural disasters. Q: Could you offer an example of a partnership that has really made a difference to both students and a community? A: Here are three projects out of many: The Nature Conservancy: Assessing Progress and Barriers to Ecological Restoration of State Property Buyout Programs This project was built through a grant with the Atkinson Center, where I was a co-PI on the project with an interdisciplinary team that included Linda Shi, an assistant professor in the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning, Jamie Vanucchi, an associate CORNELL JEB E. BROOKS SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY
Rebecca Morgenstern Brenner leads classroom discussion on disaster resilience.
professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and Amelia Greiner Safi, a professor of practice in the College of Veterinary Medicine. This project concerned government programs to buy homes and businesses that are in floodplains or will be chronically inundated due to climate change. It started with focus groups to identify barriers to making buyback programs more equitable, gather action steps, and enable discussion among different geographies about how to bring equity and ecology into the programs. It produced an article published in a major academic journal. Jewish Family Services of Buffalo and Erie County, Disaster Management Plan for Refugees. In Buffalo, there are more than 100 different languages in the refugee community, and residents need to be alerted in a language they can understand when there are emergencies and disasters. This project looked at strategy to build emergency notification and asks whether refugees know where to go to get the information and whether they understand the messaging. Three teams studied what the refugee community needed to know to build their adaptative capacity, this included understanding voice translation apps to community hubs where refugees gather and what knowledge was needed to understand how to respond to and cope with environmental threats. Ministry of Environment and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Peru. This multi-year collaboration is to provide background research for the ministries on environmental policy issues. For example, one team looked at microplastics and the impact on public health policy in Peru; another looked how gender contributes to disaster vulnerability and how policies can empower community capacity.
FALL 2023
17
| Advancing Knowledge |
MAUREEN WALLER
Maureen Waller will study driver’s license suspensions as an Access to Justice Scholar
M
aureen Waller, a professor in the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy and the Department of Sociology, will study racial and economic disparities in driver’s license suspensions through her selection as Access to Justice Scholar by the American Bar Foundation (ABF), in partnership with the JPB Foundation. The six U.S. faculty members selected for the program are charged with generating impactful research on access to civil justice and translating this research into practice. “The six scholars’ projects will produce both discoveries to inform social scientific understandings of access to civil justice and knowledge to inform real-world policy and reduce poverty and inequality in the United States and beyond,” ABF said in the announcement of Waller’s selection. Waller will examine people’s lived experiences with having a suspended license as well as recent and potential reforms in New York to end “debt-based” suspensions. “Although a driver’s license suspension is often triggered by a minor issue, such as an unpaid traffic ticket, it can have serious consequences and lead to criminal legal system involvement for people who are financially unable to pay a fine or comply with other regulations,” Waller said. “This raises important access to justice concerns if groups with limited resources are not only more likely to have their licenses suspended but also less able to regain their driving privileges.” License suspensions are common, with one estimate suggesting 7% of drivers have a suspended license, and approximately 11 million U.S. drivers are under suspension due to unpaid fines alone. As part of the project, Waller will interview drivers in New York to understand how having a suspended license affects their lives and the barriers to clearing a suspension without legal assistance. She will work with Peter Rich and Nathan Robbins to examine geo-coded DMV records on all driver’s license suspensions in
18
New York to determine which communities are most impacted by suspensions and whether recent state reforms have been effective. Rich is an assistant professor of the Brooks School and the Department of Sociology. Robbins is a Brooks School PhD student. Preliminary research for this study was supported by the Einhorn Center Engaged Scholar Prize and the Cornell Center for Social Sciences.
“We hope this study will inform federal and state policy efforts during a window of time where there is strong momentum for reform and provide actionable evidence to address this important access to justice concern which contributes to racial and economic inequality.” — MAUREEN WALLER Waller also plans to collaborate with Michaela Rossettie Azemi, Esq., Director of Pro-Bono Services and Externships at Cornell Law School, to develop legal resources for suspended drivers because their cases often fall outside the scope of indigent public defense and free civil legal aid. “We hope this study will inform federal and state policy efforts during a window of time where there is strong momentum for reform and provide actionable evidence to address this important access to justice concern which contributes to racial and economic inequality,” Waller said. Waller’s research has drawn on hundreds of qualitative interviews, national surveys, and policy data to examine several cross-cutting issues related to poverty and inequality, family and U.S. social policy. A central strand of this research documents the experiences of economically and racially marginalized groups at the intersection of the welfare, child support, family court, and criminal-legal systems. Waller’s work also prioritizes policy and community engagement, and she has presented her work to many community groups, state and federal governmental agencies, and other policy audiences.
CORNELL JEB E. BROOKS SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY
DOUGLAS KRINER
SARAH KREPS
Vaccine campaign research highlights the power of individual self-interest
P
eople who refused to get vaccinated against COVID-19 had low levels of social trust, weak attachments to the rule of law, and were less willing to honor collective commitments to the greater good, according to Brooks School faculty members, Sarah Kreps and Douglas Kriner. Kreps and Kriner survyed reisents of Italy who went unvaccinated, despite strong government policies and penalties. Previous research on vaccine holdouts had touched on fears about side effects and other health issues and concluded the best strategy to change minds would have been to emphasize the benefit to community and society. Based on the survey results, Kreps and Kriner reached a different conclusion. Skepticism of government and collective commitments motivated many vaccination holdouts. “We found strong evidence the unvaccinated may respond more to self-interest arguments about the personal benefits that come from vaccination,” Kreps said. “They are less likely to support any collective commitments, even in areas unrelated to COVID. For example, they didn’t see any moral imperative to aid Ukraine even though we administered our survey right after the invasion and they were much less likely to say Italy should aid a NATO ally if attacked by Russia.”
“Consensus among leaders in a health crisis or any other crisis matters, and we saw in the U.S. and in Italy what happens without it.” — DOUGLAS KRINER Kreps is a professor in the Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy, the John L. Wetherill Professor in the Department of Government in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S), and director of the Cornell Brooks School Tech Policy Institute. Kriner is a professor in the Brooks School, and the Clinton
FALL 2023
Rossiter Professor in American Institutions in the Department of Government (A&S). An article about the research was published in the peer-reviewed “Nature Partner Journals-Vaccines.” Their research focused on Italy because, in early 2021, it had some of the most stringent policies to incentivize vaccination in the world. Without a vaccine card, you couldn’t go to work, ride a bus, or sip coffee in a café. Despite those rules, about 10% of Italians didn’t get vaccinated. Kreps and Kriner surveyed them to develop insight that could help authorities respond to the next pandemic or another emergency requiring collective action. One key finding is that the cues sent by political leaders make a big difference in a crisis. There are three primary conservative political parties in Italy. “So, if conservatives are just more likely to resist vaccination, then all three parties should have high rates of unvaccinated, but that’s not what we found,” Kriner said. Two of the parties had leaders who openly criticized policies to incentivize and mandate vaccination (Lega and Fratelli d’Italia); one had leaders who supported these policies (Forza Italia). Forza Italia supporters are almost all vaccinated, with rates virtually the same as parties favored by liberals. While Lega and Fratelli d’Italia supporters are much more likely to be unvaccinated. “This strongly suggests that party leaders and other elites can have a major influence on followers who prioritize self-interest and get them to comply with policies that benefit all of society,” Kriner said. “Consensus among leaders in a health crisis or any other crisis matters, and we saw in the U.S. and in Italy what happens without it.” The research was funded by a grant from the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies.
19
Brooks School new faculty
Divya Deepthi Senior Lecturer
Divya Deepthi’s broad research interests include the economics of education, labor economics, development economics, policy evaluation, and applied microeconometrics. She is also particularly interested in evaluating education and health reforms in developing countries, with a focus on identifying policies that improve school participation, student learning, health, and labor market outcomes. This fall, Deepthi is teaching “Statistics for Public Policy” and “Research Design, Practice, and Policy”, a course examining systematic approaches for addressing questions about poverty, family life, racial inequality, and a range of other issues central to public policy. Additionally, she is teaching the “Brooks Honors Seminar”, where she helps students formulate relevant research questions and conduct independent research for their thesis project. Divya received her PhD in Economics from the University of Warwick and an MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics.
Michael Richards
Professor; Incoming Director of the Sloan Program in Health Administration Michael Richards’s primary research involves health care provider responses to public policies and evolving market environments. He also has considerable interests in the structure and delivery of public insurance programs (i.e., Medicare and Medicaid) as well as health care workforce issues. His active and broad research portfolio allows him to collaborate with investigators with diverse backgrounds and areas of expertise at a variety of institutions all across the US. Professor Richards is the Incoming Director of the Sloan Program in Health Administration at the Brooks School and has a secondary appointment at Weill Cornell Medical College in the Division of Health Policy & Economics. His research has been featured in the New England Journal of Medicine, Health Affairs, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, American Journal of Health Economics, Journal of Health Economics, Journal of Public Economics, the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, as well as other academic venues. Professor Richards received his PhD in Health Policy from Yale University. His BS, MD, and MPH from the University of Illinois College of Medicine and UIC School of Public Health.
20
CORNELL JEB E. BROOKS SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY
James Patton Rogers
Senior Lecturer; Incoming Executive Director of the Cornell Brooks School Tech Policy Institute James Patton Rogers is an expert on drone warfare, disruptive and emerging technologies, and the history of weaponry and war. He is currently the NATO Country Director of the Full Spectrum Drone Warfare project supported by NATO SPS and he provides overall strategic and operational leadership of the Cornell Brooks School Tech Policy Institute. An experienced policy adviser, James has addressed the United Nations Security Council and currently works with the UNOCT, UNCTC, and the UK Parliament as an expert adviser. Patton Rogers prioritizes policy impact and public dissemination from his academic research. He regularly writes for the Washington Post and the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, and he hosts the Warfare podcast with over 550,000 monthly listens in 180+ countries. His research has been featured by press avenues such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Economist, CNN, Reuters, Rolling Stone Magazine, ABC News, NPR, Forbes, China Daily, and the BBC (amongst others). Patton Rogers was previously a fellow of the University of Oxford, Yale University, and Stanford University. He was an Associate Professor in War Studies at SDU in Denmark and received his BA and PhD in Politics from the University of Hull.
FALL 2023
Bryan L. Sykes Associate Professor
Bryan L. Sykes’s research focuses on demography and criminology, broadly defined, with particular interests in population processes (e.g., fertility, mortality, enumeration), mass incarceration, global population health, social inequality, law & society, and research methodology. His research applies and develops demographic, statistical, and mixed methodologies to understand changing patterns of inequality — nationally and abroad and has appeared in general and multidisciplinary science, social science, and medical journals. He is a Research Affiliate at the Center for Demography and Ecology (CDE) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an External Affiliate at the Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology (CSDE) at the University of Washington. He is also a member of the Scholars Strategy Network (SSN) and the Racial Democracy, Crime and Justice Network (RDCJN) at the University of Maryland. He serves as an Associate Editor for Science Advances (the open-access version of Science), the former Academic Editor of Public Library of Science (PLoS) One, and former Co-Editor-in-Chief of Sociological Perspectives. Professor Sykes received his PhD in Sociology and Demography from the University of California-Berkeley and a Bachelor of Science in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
21
| Students Making a Difference |
Refugee advocate Edafe Okporo speaks to State Policy Advocacy Clinic students about policies governing immigration detention.
22
CORNELL JEB E. BROOKS SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY
Students advocate for state policy solutions
S
tudents in the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy’s new State Policy Advocacy Clinic developed relationships with legislators, executive branch officials, nonprofit leaders, community members and researchers across the university to help advance policy goals. “The clinic not only deepened my understanding of the intricacies of New York politics but also provided me with the opportunity to envision myself in positions of power to drive meaningful change,” said master of public administration student Bianca Bennett-Scott. The clinic prioritizes projects that advance rural equity and human rights, particularly for populations that have been traditionally underrepresented in the political process. Several of the 17 students met with lawmakers in the New York State Capitol in Albany to advance the Dignity Not Detention Act, which would limit immigration detention in the state. Other proposals include: Protection of farmworker rights in conjunction with the Cornell Farmworker Program and several nonprofits; Naloxone-Narcan training so educators can prepare students to help prevent opioid overdose deaths; Protections for pregnant and parenting people in prison, in conjunction with New Hour for Women and Children; Hybrid public meetings to promote greater access for high school students, veterans, parents of young children, people in rural areas, and people living with disabilities, including the elderly; Protections for unaccompanied minors by guiding advocates in other states on how to pass legislation like New York’s; and E-bike rebates so people with low incomes or disabilities can access economical and environmentally friendly transportation. Hunter Maskin ’24, who worked on the e-bike project, found a way to influence legislators through the media. “One highlight of my experience was publishing an op-ed in the Albany Times Union on a proposed statewide e-bike rebate,” Maskin said. “As someone with career interests related to public policy, I am fortunate to have gained an understanding of the state-level policymaking process.” Op-eds are just one way the students learn to push for policy change. State Policy Advocacy Clinic Director Alexandra Dufresne said the class drafted three bills, two memorandums of support for legislation and a legislative toolkit for community groups in other states. They also wrote numerous policy briefs, letters
FALL 2023
and research memos for lawmakers and for state and local commissions and school districts. The focus may be on state issues, but the students said they benefited from seeing how those policies impact local communities.
“Human rights, economic development, sustainability, and equity are global issues, but often the most effective, concrete way to make progress on them in the United States is by advocating for well-designed, evidence-based policies at the state level.” — ALEXANDRA DUFRESNE “I have loved being able to contribute toward the development of policies that have a direct impact on Ithaca and the surrounding areas,” said Anna Doñate ’24. “It has been inspiring to meet advocates and legislators who are so authentic and passionate about their work.” Dufresne brought some of those advocates and legislators to meet with the clinic participants. Speakers included Cornell Associate Zoë Nelson, Cornell’s associate director for government relations, and New York State Assemblymembers Anna Kelles (D-125th District) and Steven Raga, MBA ’22, MS ’22 (D-30th District) and Sen. Lea Webb (D-52nd District). Dufresne also offers insight as a lawyer who worked on behalf of children and refugees at the Center for Children’s Advocacy, Connecticut Voices for Children and CLINIC/Boston College Immigration and Asylum Project. She has led successful advocacy campaigns in Connecticut and before the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. Prior to coming to Cornell, she led a human rights clinic at the Zurich College of Applied Sciences in Switzerland. “Human rights, economic development, sustainability, and equity are global issues, but often the most effective, concrete way to make progress on them in the United States is by advocating for well-designed, evidence-based policies at the state level,” Dufresne said. Even in its first year, those goals are being achieved. Said Veronica Zellers ’24: “I feel I have come away from the clinic not only a more effective policy student and policymaker, but a more informed member of the civic community.”
23
| Students Making a Difference |
From rescuing rural hospitals to opening blood donor centers, Sloan Executive Master of Health Administration students put knowledge to work Kyle Kopec is reopening rural hospitals in Tennessee. Adrienne Mendoza is pioneering a new way to recruit Texans to donate blood. Ali Hamdani is bringing new light to the U.S. invasion of Iraq by reliving painful memories.
Kyle Kopec EMHA ’23 (center left) escorts Tennessee Governor Bill Lee on a visit to a newly reopened rural hospital.
Kyle Kopec is Chief Medical Compliance Officer and Vice President of Government Affairs for Braden Health, a Florida firm that is reviving small hospitals in rural Tennessee. He works with government officials so abandoned or teetering public facilities can thrive or at least survive under private ownership.
They are among the students pursuing an Executive Master in Health Administration (EMHA) through the Sloan Master of Health Administration Program in the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy. EMHA students complete the degree in 18 months online and through two in-person sessions on Cornell’s Ithaca campus and an innovation trek to Boston.
NPR reported on a media tour of a hospital Braden acquired and reopened in Erin, Tennessee: “As Kopec bounced through the Erin hospital’s halls, he greeted nurses and clerical staff by name with a confidence that belies his age and experience. He tells anyone who will listen that rural hospitals require specialized knowledge.
The EMHA welcomes health care professionals who have at least five years of professional experience, and each cohort average is 12-14 years.
‘They’re not the most complicated things in the world,’ he explained. ‘But if you don’t know exactly how to run them, you’re just going to run them straight into the ground.’”
“They bring impressive accomplishments, experiences, and goals to their studies,” said Sloan Director Sean Nicholson. “In this year’s class, the breadth of those experiences is remarkable, enriching classroom activities and creating bonds that will last long after graduation.”
As part of his EMHA studies, Kopec is advancing policy changes and government relations strategies that would revive distressed or closed hospitals. The effort is worthwhile, as Kopec explained in an interview with Nashville’s WTVF: “We know we can make a difference. All of us are from rural areas, we’ve experienced what it’s like without access to health care services, we’ve lost friends, we’ve lost family members, and we know how to fix it.”
Here are three such stories from this past year’s class:
24
CORNELL JEB E. BROOKS SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY
Adrienne Mendoza EMHA ’23 (center) cuts the ribbon on the new South Texas Blood and Tissue Center next to an H-E-B Plus.
Adrienne Mendoza is Chief Operating Officer of South Texas Blood & Tissue in San Antonio, Texas, a subsidiary of BioBridge Global. She leads a team responsible for securing and transporting donated blood and then making sure it is available in sufficient supply at a community’s worst moments. One of those was the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. Mayah Zamora, 10, was injured and received a lifesaving transfusion. Mendoza arranged an event to celebrate Mayah’s recovery and the donors who made it possible. “You would not know meeting her that she is the survivor of unthinkable violence perpetrated on the most innocent,” Mendoza said in a television interview. “It was the blood given by generous donors in the days ahead of Uvalde that was ready for Mayah that tragic day.” The challenge is that there aren’t enough generous donors. As part of her EMHA studies, Mendoza is learning the steps behind pioneering a new way to secure donations. Rather than asking people to go to a traditional blood donation center in a dull and distant stand-alone building, Mendoza and her team envisioned opening blood donor rooms right next to booming Texas businesses such as Buc-ee’s Travel Centers, Whataburger restaurants, and H-E-B supermarkets. The first donor room opened in late March at the H-E-B Plus in Victoria. It is brightly lit, offers a fun atmosphere, meets donors where they are and will put her EMHA coursework to an immediate test. As she told her staff on the day she took over as COO: “You can’t progress and grow and forge your capabilities without accepting a challenge and be willing to struggle a bit.”
FALL 2023
Dr. Ali Hamdani EMHA ’23 arranges the evacuation of his NPR crew after their armored vehicle is destroyed by a bomb in Iraq.
Dr. Ali Hamdani directs international patient services for Duke University Hospital in Durham, North Carolina. The name may be familiar if you listen to NPR or closely followed the U.S. invasion of Iraq 20 years ago. Hamdani was a medical student in Baghdad when the conflict began. With cruise missiles landing nearby, he piled his mother and sister and all their belongings into a small car and drove more than 100 miles to a new home. There was no room for two Great Dane dogs that he cared for although they belonged to his brother. Despite the danger, Hamdani drove back into Baghdad every other day to feed and water the dogs. “I don’t like to let people down,” he said, recalling his wartime memories in a recent New York Times First Person podcast with journalist Lulu Garcia-Navarro. Hamdani was a guide, translator, and producer for Garcia-Navarro as the war raged. He narrowly escaped death when NPR’s armored car was targeted with a socalled sticky bomb. In 2010, he fled Iraq and settled in Raleigh as a refugee. It was hard. He didn’t know how to apply for a job. Eventually, Hamdani landed a position as an emergency services interpreter. In time, that led to the position at Duke Hospital where he facilitates care for international patients and their array of ethnic, religious, and cultural customs, including dietary and religious observances. As part of his EMHA studies, Hamdani is learning the fine points of a U.S. health care system different from what he knew in Baghdad. He wants to grow in a career focused on not letting people down: “Since I am the one who had the chance to get this, I have to do it so well, and make everyone who knows me proud of me and to be proud of myself at the end,” he said in an NPR interview. Hamdani, Mendoza, and Kopec have every reason to be proud. With their EMHA classmates, they study side-by-side, in Zoom sessions and on campus – intent on bringing knowledge and heart to the provision of health care in the future, even as they do precisely that right now. 25
| Students Making a Difference |
Cornell Policy Review students Annika McGraw MPA ’24, Yiming Zhong MPA ’24, and Norie Wright MPA ’24 discuss policy review topics.
Cornell Policy Review student-authors take on Ukraine culture, cybersecurity and more 26
T
he Cornell Policy Review is marking its 27th anniversary and publishing articles on a range of topics including the war in Ukraine, cybersecurity in a federal agency and the future of energy peaker plants. Launched in 1996, the Cornell Policy Review is an independent publication managed and edited by students in the MPA Program in the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy. The Cornell Policy Review publishes content every week on domestic politics, international affairs and development, environmental and energy policy, human rights and social justice, and finance and economic policy.
CORNELL JEB E. BROOKS SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY
Brooks MPA student
Yeona Choi “The Review offers students, faculty, alumni, and community members the opportunity to publish phenomenal work in a respected, student-run journal and read by a wider audience. It’s a great way to practice skills in policy writing, editing, and leadership,” said Editor-in-Chief Julia Selby MPA ’23.
named 2023 Presidential Management Fellow
Recent articles demonstrate the Cornell Policy Review’s breadth: “Trouble Behind Frontlines: How Russia’s Occupation is Re-Molding Ukraine’s Socio-Cultural Landscape” by Sergiy Sydorenko MPA ’23 laid out damage caused by the war that extends beyond the loss of lives and the destruction of buildings. Sydorenko describes the impact of war on Ukraine’s culture: “From the first days of occupation, the Kremlin sent its media outlets to occupied territories to promote Russian troops as saviors, justifying their war in Ukraine as liberation from Nazis. The occupiers also raised billboards depicting famous Russian military figures, spreading pro-Russian sentiment, and promoting the narrative of Russo-Ukrainian fraternity.” “Cybersecurity and the Energy Transition: The U.S. DOE’s Critical Role” by Courtney Schneider MPA ’23 detailed the risks faced by the U.S. Department of Energy in a cyber-attack. “Government agencies are aware that cybersecurity is a pressing and escalating issue across numerous fields, including finance and intelligence,” Schneider writes. “In the energy sector, however, this topic is not broadly discussed. With energy and utility companies among the most at-risk for these attacks, action must be taken to secure the electrical grid at every step of its reimagining.” “The Challenges of Replacing Natural Gas Peaker Plants with Short-Term Battery Storage” by Tiffany Vu MPA ’23 described the environmental toll caused by energy-generating facilities that are only utilized during periods of peak demand. The plants are often older and adjoin disadvantaged communities. Battery storage of energy is an attractive alternative to peaker plants but Vu lists drawbacks including safety issues, tangled regulatory policies, and costly raw materials. “To help decarbonize peak demand, short-term energy storage is a solution that is expected to grow substantially in the near future, but there do need to be more updates in regulations and policies to ensure that this growth is sustainable and does effectively help decarbonize the U.S. energy system,” Vu concludes. In addition to the research articles, the Review produces evidence-based, nonpartisan blogs, podcasts, interviews, and case studies. All of the material is freely available online on the Cornell Policy Review’s website.
FALL 2023
Yeona Choi MPA ’23 has been named a 2023 Presidential Management Fellow. The Presidential Management Fellows Program (PMF) is a highly selective and prestigious two-year training and leadership development program administered by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. It was established in 1977 by President Jimmy Carter to attract outstanding citizen-scholars from a variety of academic disciplines and career paths who have an interest in and commitment to, excellence in the leadership and management of public policies and programs. Fellows are selected based on their commitment to civic engagement and leadership potential. This year, over 10,000 applicants applied for the PMF Program. “I am incredibly grateful to be recognized as a 2023 Presidential Management Fellow. I am excited about joining a community of passionate leaders dedicated to advancing the public interest. I look forward to connecting with other fellows and alumni and seeing where this opportunity takes me. I look forward to this next chapter in my professional journey,” said Choi. This fall, Choi began her fellowship at the U.S. Department of Commerce, working as a program analyst at the Commerce Implementation Coordination Office within the Office of the Secretary.
27
Photo finish
Brooks School 2nd Year Anniversary Celebration
John Siliciano Student Leadership Award recipients and Brooks School Leadership
Women+ in Health Care Leadership Symposium
Professor Doug Kriner greets first-year students
Cathy Bartell, Associate Director of Career Management
28
State Policy Advocacy Clinic students during their Albany visit
Sloan MHA students at orientation
CORNELL JEB E. BROOKS SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY
Cornell in Washington students on Capitol Building tour led by Steve Israel
Brooks School student services team members
Sammie Lambourne ’25, Colin Powell State Department Intern
Brooks School 2nd Year Anniversary Celebration
2023 Mandela Fellow cohort and Brooks School Leadership
FALL 2023
President Pollack speaking with Brooks School graduates
Brooks School Giving Day
29
NON PROFIT ORG. US POSTAGE PAID CORNELL UNIVERSITY
2301 Martha Van Rensselaer Hall Ithaca, New York 14853
VISIT OUR NEW WEBSITE AT PUBLICPOLICY.CORNELL.EDU
Established in September of 2021, the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy is positioned to quickly become one of the nation’s leading schools of public policy. Through its teaching, research, and global engagement, the Brooks School will improve the lives of people worldwide by advancing knowledge and informing policy solutions.
“Scalia/Ginsburg,” an opera written by Derrick Wang.