This Month at the McCormack Graduate School
April 2020
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Dogged determination, courage, and brilliant collaborative evidence-based policymaking brought us through the darkest chapters in modern history, and it must again.
While he was alive, our namesake and inspiration, John W. McCormack of South Boston, had a role in all of these historic nightmares: He was a soldier in World War I; as a congress member, he helped advance President Roosevelt's New Deal to provide a safety net for those hit by the Great Depression; and after the assassination of President Kennedy, McCormack gave pivotal support to civil rights and voter rights legislation and to President Johnson's Great Society to work toward stepping beyond the nightmare of racial injustice.
Guided by McCormack’s ethos, our job is to limit the damage, to protect the most vulnerable, to create benefits where we can, and to question where we see policy and public administration failing, as I did in a recent op-ed,
The Cost of Abandoning
Norms
.
Over the last month, in response to the COVID crisis, our faculty, staff and students have shined, and we have highlighted some of those beacons in this newsletter.
We have also continued to focus on our varied areas of work, and explored how those areas are influenced by the global pandemic. We celebrated the 50th anniversary of Earth Day with Earth Week 2020 at UMass Boston. It was nothing like what we envisioned when we started planning last fall, but it was still a dynamic and engaging week, and in fact, reached thousands of people online, instead of hundreds in person (with almost no carbon footprint). It featured long-time friend of UMB and architect of the Paris Climate Agreement, Christiana Figueres, in an in-depth discussion with our own Professor Maria Ivanova, about her new book,
The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis
followed by a podcast recording of
Christiana and Living on Earth director and MGS collaborator, Stephen Curwood
. And on Earth Day itself, Rebecca Herst, the Director of the
Sustainable Solutions Lab
at UMass Boston, and I gave a presentation on
COVID-19 and Climate: Policy and Practice
.
As we continue to struggle and innovate and navigate this upheaval, know that we do so with dogged determination.
Warmly,
David W. Cash
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McCormack Making A Difference
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Student Success
Determined PhD students Maria Athayde (left) and Samiya Khalid learn life lessons from COVID-19 -- some of them positive.
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Student Success
Dennis Jjuuko is a doctoral student in the Global Governance and Human Security. This is his passionate and powerfully- argued case against the privatization of health care in African nations, or elsewhere.
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Faculty Accomplishments
The risk is greater for older people, but many have the experience to help younger people suffering with the loneliness that the pandemic compels.
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Faculty Accomplishments
A detailed strategy, step by step, with important lessons for U.S. policy makers.
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Events and Engagement
Containing links to several Earth Day events -- all online, of course, offered by McCormack and other UMB schools. Highlights include an appearance by Christiana Figueres, the architect of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, first as the Robert C. Wood Visiting Professor and then interviewed on Steve Curwood's radio show Living on Earth. Later, Dean Cash and Rebecca Herst, director of the Sustainable Solutions Lab, conducted a conversation comparing the COVID-19 and climate change crises. The programs attracted several thousand "attendees."
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Centers Delivering Impact
Frustrated with the tone of online messages? Does it sound like your friends are ticked off? Here's help, from a student-initiated program.
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Alums Making a Difference
Former master's student in the MGS Dispute Resolution program, Teresa Ralicki, now the ombuds at the University of Colorado, gives hints for mediating disputes online (a 4-part article series).
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Alums Making a Difference
A real-life drama of bigotry and understanding, as experienced by McCormack graduate Saadia Ahmad.
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McCormack Speaks
PhD student Hsin-Ching Wu encourages those discouraged by the pandemic to embrace artistic and other cultural pursuits.
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In the Media (a snapshot of recent McCormack news items)
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Commonwealth Magazine, April 9 2020
David Cash, Dean, McCormack Graduate School
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Training Industry, April 14 2020
Robyn Stone, Co-Director, LeadingAge LTSS Center
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New Security Beat, April 14 2020
Chantal Krcmar, Student, Global Governance and Human Security
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The Boston Globe, April 21 2020
Elizabeth Dugan, Associate Professor, Gerontology
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The Boston Globe, April 21 2020
Maria Ivanova, Associate Professor, Conflict Resolution, Human Security, and Global Governance
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NPR, April 22 2020
Christian Weller, Professor, Department of Public Policy and Public Affairs
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Commonwealth Magazine, April 23 2020
Stephen Crosby, Founding Dean, McCormack Graduate School
Ira Jackson, Former Dean, McCormack Graduate School
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Join us for these upcoming events!
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International Relations Capstone Project Presentations
Date:
Tuesday, May 12 at 5:30PM–8:00PM
Location:
Online
Join us for this student presentation event of major research papers exploring scholarly, policy-relevant themes in the field of international relations.
eUbuntu Award Ceremony 2020: Race, COVID-19, and The African Identity
Date:
Friday, May 15 at 2:00PM
Location:
Online
Africa Scholars Forum and Pan African Graduate Student Association at UMass Boston invites you to celebrate our graduating Africanist students, recognize a distinguished community leader, and award our first Fatima Kyari Mohammed Student Scholarship award.
CR Master’s Project Thesis and Integrative Seminar Presentations 2020
Date:
Monday, May 18 at 5:30PM–7:00PM
Location:
Online
Join us for an enlightening evening: Conflict Resolution Master’s Students will showcase their hard work, presenting the findings of their master's projects or theses, representing a wide variety of topics.
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John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies
University of Massachusetts Boston
617.287.5550
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