"The young people of our society have given ample evidence of their desire to create a better world." - John W. Gardner
The Gardner Center salutes youth in our near neighbor communities.
New Research: Community Youth Engagement in East Palo Alto
The Youth Arts and Music Center Initiative is a city-wide effort to develop a thriving community arts center in East Palo Alto. The initiative, now in its sixth year and generously supported by the John and Marcia Goldman Foundation, centers on youth leadership and the arts and engages a cross-sector collaborative of partner organizations and community members to address the city’s shortage of existing arts programming. The Gardner Center, an active partner in the collaborative, recently completed a case study analysis of the initiative which will support decision-making as the initiative progresses toward completion, and will also contribute to the existing literature of community youth engagement.
High school students in California’s more than 800 alternative public schools are invisible to many Californians. State officials collect little data on these schools or their students and report even less. Yet, the California Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) recently estimated that almost 210,000 California high school students may enroll in an alternative school at some point during a typical academic school year. This translates to about 11.5 percent, or roughly 1 in 9, of California’s public non-charter high school students.
A new study, led by the GSE’s Mike Kirst and Dick Scott in partnership with the Gardner Center and with funding from the S.D. Bechtel Jr. Foundation, LearningWorks, and the Rosenberg Foundation, examines the changing ecology of higher education. Specifically, the study reveals how the Bay Area’s colleges and universities—including broad-access institutions that accept a majority of the students who apply—balance the twin demands of upholding the academic standards and liberal arts traditions of the past and responding to the demands of a volatile and rapidly changing market economy. Findings from the study will be published in a new book, Ambivalent Allies: Higher Education and Silicon Valley, forthcoming from Johns Hopkins University Press. The Gardner Center’s Manuelito Biag recently answered a few questions about the study.
Executive Director Amy Gerstein received a 2016 Distinguished Service Award from the YMCA of Silicon Valley at the John D. Crummey Red Triangle Dinner on November 10. As a Board of Manager’s member since 2010 and the current board chair, Amy has richly contributed to the Lewis and Joan Platt East Palo Alto Family YMCA. She initiated the first ever Blue Ribbon Nominating Committee Luncheon in an effort to find talented board members to expand the board and develop additional resources critical to continued growth. Amy’s award recognizes her inspirational leadership and her passion to strengthen the East Palo Alto community. Way to go, Amy!
Gardner Center Again Co-Sponsoring SCOPE Seminar Series
The Gardner Center is once again co-sponsoring – with the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity and the Graduate School of Education – the SCOPE Brown Bag Seminar Series. The Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education (SCOPE) has arranged an outstanding schedule of speakers for 2016-17. Free and open to the public, the lectures take place from noon to 1:30pm in the CERAS Learning Hall at Stanford. Next up: on December 13, Professor Jelena Obradović will present Self-Regulation in Children and their Caregivers: Implications for Adaptation and Resilience.
