Winter 2023
News from the Institute
Pakistan's Ambassador Visits Amherst
By invitation of the UMass Civic Initiative, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, Masood Khan, touted people-centric ties between the two countries at several events on February 10 in Amherst.
 
Earlier in the day, the ambassador addressed 50 students at Amherst-Pelham Regional High School to discuss the economic relationship between Pakistan and the U.S. He also spoke to a group of five teachers who previously traveled to Pakistan with the Civic Initiative.
At an evening campus event, Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy introduced the ambassador to the 100 attendees while highlighting the dozen years of Pakistan exchange programs run by the Civic Initiative, funded by the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. The ambassador further discussed educational ties between the two countries and took many audience questions. New York Consul General Ayesha Ali was also a member of the visiting delegation. Late last year, Civic Initiative staff had meetings at the Pakistan embassy in Washington DC and the delegation's visit directly stemmed from them.

Learn more about the visit, including media coverage, or see the news link below. Pictures of the ambassador's visit can be found on the Civic Initiative's Instagram, Facebook and Twitter pages.
Predictions for the New England Economy Discussed at the Boston Federal Reserve

How will hybrid work, rising housing costs, and an aging workforce impact New England’s economy? Economists and leaders from the public and private sectors explored this question at a Federal Reserve Bank of Boston conference in January. Mark Melnik, director of Economic & Public Policy Research (EPPR) moderated a discussion and EPPR co-hosted the event along with the Federal Reserve and the New England Economic Partnership.

MassBenchmarks has regularly reported on the Massachusetts economy for over 25 years. Subscribe here to receive the updates.
Institute launches Head Start Equity Academy in New England
The New England Head Start Training & Technical Assistance Network is working with 15 Head Start grant recipients to dig into their program’s practices and policies and analyze how they support equity, diversity, inclusion and belonging among their children, families and staff. 

Using principles of implementation science, the academy will guide programs to develop and implement a plan to strengthen their own systems and services for providing equitable, high-quality services for all the children and families in their program.
Our Equity Journey Continues

As mentioned in a previous issue, the institute has started an internal journey towards an organizational mission more aligned with justice, equity, diversity, inclusion and belonging (JEDIB).
 
The journey started “at home” with our staff who created the “WeBelong@UMDI” workgroup. The group’s nearly 20 members represent all our business units and includes staff from across all levels of the organization. Their work is about how to strategically move towards becoming a more open, diverse, equitable, inclusive and supportive organization. Their most recent accomplishment was the issuance of a Request for Proposals for a DEI consultant to assist us in this journey for the next three years. The RFP window closed on March 3rd and our selection committee will soon begin reviewing the proposals.
 
Finally, with the help of the campus IT staff and the LinkedIn Learning platform, an internal “JEDIB resource hub” was created. This hub provides a central place for resources for institute staff. After testing, the “first of its kind” hub will be made available soon to staff to not only browse the resources but to also add to the hub.
Celebrating 50 Years of Public Service (video)
Institute In The News
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Recent Publications
Census Vintage 2022 State-Level Population Estimates: While the population in the U.S. increased overall due to rebounding immigration and births, Massachusetts was among the five out of nine Northeast states that lost population over the last year and, also, cumulatively since the 2020 Census.

New Employee Survey at Encore Boston Harbor - January 2019 through December 2021: The New Employee Survey was designed to gather information on work-related characteristics of new casino employees that could not be collected from any other source. The survey data can help workforce development providers and policymakers better understand the workforce at the Commonwealth’s three casinos. 

Worker Shortages and the North Central Massachusetts Region: The combination of slow population growth, increasing retirements of older Baby Boomers, and the impacts of COVID-19 on the labor markets, make it imperative for the North Central region to draw potential workers into jobs as well as to attract and retain the future workers businesses will need to thrive and expand.
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