Tag Archives: students

Happy Week! The best things this blog has done for me

Posted on May 8, 2012 by | 2 Comments

It’s still Happy Week, and I’ve been thinking about the reasons that I started this blog in the first place, and what I hoped to get out of it, and what it–and, more importantly, the practice of writing it–has done for me over the past few years.

My life has changed a lot over the past 3 years; when I started the blog, the twins were still babies, I hadn’t really started consulting, and, of course, I had 3 kids instead of 4, none of whom were in school full-time.

But, in other ways, it hasn’t changed that much, really. My biggest challenge, then and now, is trying to balance my role as a mom and my passions as an advocate. I still feel pulled into direct advocacy, and then struggle with how family-unfriendly a life that revolves around media work and legislators’ needs is. I still get a huge thrill on the first day of a new semester (and feel like a graduating senior on the last day of class!). I still wish that I had more time to read blogs by really smart people, to get through the ever-growing list of titles to read in my calendar, and to eat a meal uninterrupted.

But, this week, I’m reflecting not just on how I have changed in the time since I started this blog, but also how it has changed me…or, in some cases, kept me from changing. The 6 (2 a year, no?) awesomest things, then, that this blog has done for me, in no particular order.

And, please, because it’s Happy Week: has it done anything even somewhat awesome for you? Would you be willing to share?

  • Kept me in touch with former students: It is truly a delight to get a comment from a student I had a few years ago, or to see a former student and hear that he/she has been impacted in some way by our ongoing relationship through the blog.
  • Expanded the walls of my classroom: While former students are much more engaged than current ones–likely because they no longer have so much reading to do for class!–it is a real asset to my teaching to be able to use the blog as an extension of a conversation we’re having in the classroom, or as a way to connect my students with other thinkers in and outside of the profession.
  • Introduced me to some insightful, passionate people: Some of my favorite people I have never met in ‘real-life’, yet I feel so blessed by the generous way they share their reflections, and even their guidance, online, in their own spaces and here.
  • Kept me engaged with scholarship: While I’d never pretend that my writing here is of peer-reviewed caliber, it is such good discipline for me to have to write, and read, regularly, in order to produce content for the blog. Especially with the demands of my family, teaching, and my consulting work, it would be so easy to let those practices slip by, and I believe that I would suffer, personally and professionally, for it.
  • Connected me to the social media sphere: I don’t think that I would have embraced social spaces online as thoroughly as I have without the blog; it was definitely my motivation to try Twitter, for example, and it complements my personal Facebook engagement, too. I can’t really imagine my life without those outlets, and those relationships, now, and so I’m grateful.
  • Given me an outlet: There’s no denying it; I’m happier now that my husband isn’t the only entity to whom I can vent about policies that are maddening, or rave about organizing campaigns that are inspiring. When I finish a book, I have something to DO, actually, with the sticky notes that I’ve littered it with. And that’s really therapeutic.

    Thank you, those who read and, in so doing, both enrich my thinking and justify my pursuit. YOU are, without a doubt, the awesomest of the awesome things that this blog has brought to me.

    Happy Happy Week, to you!

→ 2 Comments

Posted in My New Favorite Thing

Tagged ,

Taxes Matter. For Real.

Posted on April 16, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Source, The New York Times

I love those moments in class when you can almost see the lightbulbs going off for my students, when something clicks in a way that you know means that they not only know more, but really understand more, and that that understanding will influence the way that they practice social work.

It’s a beautiful thing.

It’s tax time.

Or, here at Classroom to Capitol, the time each year when we celebrate all that a robust public infrastructure and strong social contract can do for us.

They’re basically the same thing.

And so this year’s reminder that taxes matter come from my students, and from one of those lightbulb moments, when a woman in the back of the room raised her hand and asked, “Why do all of these charts about income inequality start in 1979? What changed in the 1980s that made such a difference?”

And we talked about Reagan.

And about taxes.

And the class grew animated as, together, they realized that we make intentional choices about how we want to redistribute income, or not, and that those choices have lasting repercussions.

And that, if we’re not careful, we can forget how we got here, and start thinking that, for example, a rising income gap is “inevitable”, when we know that it’s anything but.

Here in Kansas, there has been a lot of talk this year about taxes–what kinds we have, how many of them, how much they should raise, and, of course, what we should do with them. It’s a discussion that is unfamiliar for many social work advocates, but it’s one that sorely demands our input, because the past 30 years don’t lie: not all taxes are created equal.

On this tax day, when you’re done celebrating how wonderful it is to live in a place where most people pay their taxes because we mostly still believe that having government services is important, take a minute to think about how the charts might look different if we’d made a different set of choices. And about how we could bend those curves still today.

And about the fact that, for real, taxes matter.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Analysis and Commentary

Tagged , ,

Grown-ups need villages, too

Posted on February 27, 2012 by | 2 Comments

"Happy Villages" quilt

By far, my absolute favorite part of teaching is when my students come up with insights that make me think about social work, or social justice, in a different way. In those moments, it goes beyond the “I’m learning just as much as you are” (which always sounds a little false to me, honestly, even though I certainly do learn every semester) to produce these real “lightbulbs” of understanding, for which I am always truly grateful.

One of those moments happened in a discussion board interaction with a student in my community and organizational theory class. She was reacting to a post about the social work profession as somewhat uniquely, among the helping profession, focused on the person-in-environment, and relating this to the axiom that “it takes a village to raise a child.” She made the point that it is truly a bit bizarre that we can see (although we certainly don’t always live it out in policy!) how children are affected by their environments, and how crafting healthy institutions that surround kids with supports is an essential element in raising strong youth, but yet, somehow, when these young people grow up, we reflexively attribute their challenges to personal failings, and look for their internal pathologies, as though, well, grown-ups don’t need villages too.

I’ve certainly been thinking a lot about the supports on which I depend to raise my children these past few months: the grandparents whose presence in their lives is constant and nurturing, the neighbors whose friendship and presence sustain us during our days, the public spaces that provide us with a greater quality of life, the schools that are shaping their minds.

But my student’s post prompted my thinking about how our need for these kinds of supports–both formal and informal–certainly don’t end when we magically become adults, or restart only when we ourselves become parents. In truth, our entire lives are bracketed by a mutual interdependence on the environments in which we either thrive or struggle to survive. And social workers (and policymakers) misunderstand this at our collective peril.

Certainly, children’s futures are shaped by the context in which they grow up. And I think there’s a growing acceptance of that idea.

But adults’ todays and tomorrows are just as influenced by these environmental factors, and not just in a carryover sense from their own childhoods, but in a very real way as “grown-ups”: the availability of jobs, their access to health care and transportation, resources for mental health care, supportive social networks, physically strong community infrastructure.

We obviously have a long way to go in order to build “villages” that will surround our children with the opportunities they need to succeed…and the nets they need to catch them when they fall. And adults will carry the legacies of these disparities and inadequacies until we can get that right.

But then, as my student to wisely realizes, we need to apply that same understanding of shared responsibility and linked fates to how we work with other populations.

Including the grown-ups we hope those kids will become.

→ 2 Comments

Posted in Analysis and Commentary

Tagged , ,

Reserving a seat on the justice bus

Posted on February 7, 2012 by | Leave a comment

When I’m registering voters or talking with my students about the importance of their civic participation, I fairly frequently hear this lament:

Why would I want to get involved in the political process, when all that politicians care about is their own reelection, not the issues that really matter to me, or to my country?

That’s a paraphrase, but the sentiment is there, and it’s real.

Why would we sully ourselves by venturing into an environment laden, so the story goes, with greed and arrogance and raw ambition?

I used to try to counter this with my normal blend of righteous indignation, cheery optimism, and Protestant guilt.

We should vote, and pay attention, and agitate, because someone needs to have our collective best interests at heart, because there are always ways to make things better, and because, well, because it’s our duty.

And, perhaps not surprisingly, that never worked too well.

So awhile ago, in the midst of one of these same lopsided arguments with one of my friends, a social worker who used to be pretty politically involved but has now largely retreated, I tried a different tack.

I just told a story.

I told a story about my friend David Adkins, a now-unfortunately-retired-from-elected-office former Kansas state senator, who, while as imperfect as all the rest of us, is, I think, one of the more compelling examples in recent history of an elected official who put policy above politics and virtue above ambition.

And he did it on behalf of arguably the most marginalized of populations in today’s political debate: gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered individuals seeking the protection of their core human and constitutional rights, in a system bent on denying them.

He stood up, essentially alone, against the proposed constitutional amendment barring gay marriage in our state, and he did so by constructing a passionate and procedurally solid debate that, ultimately, allowed his colleagues to avoid a recorded vote on this most contentious issue. In the process, he made compelling arguments about the wisdom of equality and about the inevitable march of justice. And he also, when asked, looked right into the TV cameras and answered another senator’s question (“Does the Senator support ‘homosexual marriage’?”) with a firm “yes”.

His vote, and his statements, attracted threats and effectively ended his elected career. But his actions also provided hope and inspiration to GLBT individuals in the state, who saw someone use his power to stand up for them, and to be willing to stand beside them.

And, when I contacted him recently to tell him how what he did that day, and on this issue, continue to provide a counterpoint to the perception that individual participation doesn’t matter in the scope of the political process, and that there is no longer any room to stand on principle, he responded in a way that, for me, provides new motivation in a landscape where, even I’ll admit, it can be hard to find spots of hope.

He said that what he said that day was true–you can’t stop the march of justice. “It wasn’t all that courageous to hop on the bus before all the good seats were taken.”

That’s modest, of course.

But it’s also true.

I’m in the state where Brown v. Board of Education originated. In 1953, there were a lot of seats left on the school desegregation bus. But time shifts opinions, and justice marches on.

Today, we see a lot of empty seats around us, and it can especially feel lonely to jump into the electoral process, wrapped in our social work values, when we don’t see many others who share our commitments.

But we are not totally alone, as this story shows.

And, if we want a good seat, we must mark our stance today, taking comfort in the fact that, eventually, right wins, and others will join us.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Background Reading

Tagged , ,

“You Don’t Speak for Me”

Posted on February 2, 2012 by | 2 Comments

There’s a lot that I really love about teaching–the constant opportunity to challenge my own thinking about critical issues, the incentive to read and stay abreast of developments in social policy, the relationships with students who later become colleagues.

But my favorite part?

When students totally blow me away with their commitment to social change, creativity in pursuit of justice, and all-around awesomeness.

In all fairness, this post is not about my students. But I feel like I can claim them just a little bit, because I worked with them in my capacity as an advocate, advising them on their project and connecting them to policymakers and allies.

And because, if I’m really, really lucky, they might end up in one of my classes one day.

I’m thrilled that this group received the national Influencing State Policy award. They completely deserve it. They absolutely did influence state policy, defusing the anti-immigrant argument that, somehow, attacking immigrant kids helps other college students. Their advocacy, including this video and the petition drive that garnered support from college students around the state, shored up Senate supporters of Kansas’ current instate tuition policy and injected a new theme into the media coverage of the repeal debate, both critical to the ultimate defeat of the attempted repeal.

What I love most, though, is that these students not only made an impact on state policy (in a truly beautiful way). They also demonstrated, for other students and would-be activists, that such influence is within reach and that it can be really fun, too.

I always cry at the end of the video, when this powerful collection of students says, essentially, “Hey, when you’re hating on hard-working immigrant students, you don’t speak for me.”

I am so glad that they found their voice.

And I can’t wait to hear what they say next.

→ 2 Comments

Posted in My New Favorite Thing

Tagged , ,

Macro Social Work and Maximum Career Success in 2012

Posted on December 12, 2011 by | Leave a comment

My students and I just finished our fall semester. For them, that means a few weeks without practicum or policy studies. I’m sure they’ll be glad to get online without seeing frequent posts from me about new policy developments or insightful new articles that I’m just SURE they’ll love (can you ever listen to too many Robert Greenstein podcasts? I think not.).

For me, the break between semesters means decorating Christmas cookies with the kids, trying to come up with gifts for the dozens of people who help us raise them throughout the year, and catching up on the stack of reading that has grown on my nightstand throughout the fall.

But I’ve also had several conversations with students in the past couple of weeks about their futures, and what the next year may hold, especially given that my Advanced Policy students will receive their MSWs in the spring, in a job market that honestly doesn’t look much better, at least in some sectors, than it has for the past three years or so (which is to say, not too good). Increasingly, my students are getting started early in researching organizations that might provide some career opportunities for them, which just might mean that they’re taking my career advice about seeking a good fit between you and the organizational culture, rather than searching for the perfect job description.

But I’ve been doing some investigation into other resources for young nonprofit professionals, most of which are good fits for social workers, too, especially those who see nonprofit administration as a promising career path. These macro social workers will need to understand how organizations work, and how they should work, what the context of social service delivery will look like, and how to chart a career progression for themselves that will position them for long-term success in an often volatile market.

In this thinking, I’ve benefitted greatly from the wisdom of former students, especially from the recent past, whose own job experiences provide inspiration and comfort to today’s graduates. I’d love to hear from more of my own former students as well as other new social work professionals, regarding these resources, others that you’d recommend, or the advice that you wish someone had shared with you at the inception of your macro social work career. I’m particularly interested in how to help students bridge the direct practice jobs that are somewhat more plentiful to the macro work they seek. It requires finding opportunities to build skills and relationships in one service context that you can leverage in another, and demonstrating leadership in direct service that can lead to opportunities to lead on a larger scale. I don’t mean the assumed “work your way up to management” role, but, rather, intentionally complementing one’s macro social work education with strategic direct practice experiences, in pursuit of an overall portfolio designed to deliver a chance to shape our field.

  • I’ve shared Rosetta Thurman’s blog on my blog roll before; I find her writing topics and style thought-provoking, refreshing, and genuinely additive to the conversation about young people in the nonprofit world. There’s a lot here to prompt all of our thinking (regardless of age) about the future of nonprofits and how to build impactful organizations by investing in people, but, especially for newer professionals, there’s also tangible advice about how to network, which conferences are worth your time and money, and how to build your personal brand. You should also check out her book, How to Become a Nonprofit Rockstar. Sometimes we think that someone has to be speaking directly to social workers to have anything to say to us, but I never fail to find something in Rosetta’s thinking that resonates with me.
  • Another blogger with relevant advice for new nonprofit workers is Alison Jones, who blogs at Entry-Level Living. She comments on the state of the nonprofit world, too, but also has advice about how to jumpstart your nonprofit career with formal service programs, how to integrate into nonprofit culture as a new employee, and how to tell the story of your college education in order to win a nonprofit job. Especially in this job market, it’s also critically important not to feel alone, and the community that arises on these two sites can complement the “real-world” support network that job-seekers so need.
  • Some new online forums, mostly completely self-moderated, have popped up for those seeking social work jobs. While there may not be too many actionable tips for social work graduates looking for a specific setting or geography on these pretty broad sites, there is an opportunity for solidarity and a chance to gain a sort of high-level overview of the landscape of the social work job market. One is the Social Worker Jobs Forum and another is the Social Work Job Bank (this last one is affiliated with The New Social Worker Online, and does have a stronger community moderation component).

    Here’s to a very bright new year, indeed, for social work graduates.

    • → Leave a comment

    Posted in Background Reading

    Tagged , , ,

    Futurecasting, My Students, and Our Sector

    Posted on December 6, 2011 by | Leave a comment

    In this second post during “Future Week”, here at Classroom to Capitol, I’m sharing an assignment that I created for my two policy classes this semester and how it fits with our critical challenge, as a nonprofit sector, to move beyond strategic plans that assume the world will stay mostly as it is (because it won’t), to instead prepare ourselves (and our future colleagues) to prepare to thrive in a nearly unimaginable (right now) future.

    In both my first-year MSW and Advanced Policy courses, students are required to investigate, analyze, and then comment on at least one macro trend expected to influence their current and future organizations, the realm of public policy in which they work, and their own practices. It’s not a research project, as such, in that no one can definitively predict these impacts, and students’ interpretations of the likely meaning of these trends are taken as valid and worthy of consideration, provided that the are based on sound reasoning and a firm grasp of the current state of their respective fields. They have some leeway to identify the trend(s) they want to study, but some that are suggested include:

  • Increasing representation of people of color in the population and among social work clients
  • Rise of mobile technologies and its impact on the digital divide
  • Declining federal financial aid for higher education and accompanying increasing tuition prices
  • Growth of nonprofit administration degrees outside of social work
  • Climate change (disaggregated in the developing and more developed economies)
  • Growth in the older adult population in the U.S., especially as compared to the working-age population
  • Demographic shifts towards the Southeast and Southwest, and away from traditional population centers in the Northeast

    The Future of Nonprofits stresses the importance of “futuring” for nonprofit organizations, as a way to outline some of the potential scenarios in which the organizations may operate, to identify opportunities and challenges embedded within them. As someone whose feelings about more traditional strategic planning are well-known (!), I really appreciated how the authors distinguish between those rather static exercises and this more freeform thinking about what could be, and what that could mean.

    For my students, once they are freed from the anxiety associated with fearing that they need to have some sort of crystal ball, the opportunity to talk with their peers and brainstorm about what could be coming (and how it might affect them) is pretty rewarding. I’m consistently impressed (and pleased!) with how often they identify the potential in these trends, not just the threats–I don’t know if it’s their youth or their innate optimism or what, but they tend to gravitate, even, towards the hidden good, while retaining a focus on vulnerable populations that could be adversely impacted in various future environments.

    I hope that, as part of our work together, my students develop and maintain a true curiosity about what the world holds, how it got this way, and where it might be headed.

    Knowing where to go, with whom to talk, what to read, and what questions to ask in order to figure out what’s going on with the people we serve, the organizations where we work, and the field in which we operate is integral to questioning the world as it is, and to imagining the world as it could be. It requires approaching life a bit more like my oldest son does–absolutely everything is questioned with a “why?” and a “why not?”–and casting a net wide enough to bring in diverse perspectives that can help us answer those most important questions.

    I think it’s more valuable, for them as professionals and for our profession as a whole, than the concrete knowledge (which will soon be outdated) or even the discrete skills I hope to pass along.

    Because, ultimately, I want my students to not just think about what the future might look like.

    I want them to help shape it, for the better. For all of us.

    • → Leave a comment

    Posted in Background Reading

    Tagged , , ,

    Thankful, Thankful, Thankful

    Posted on November 23, 2011 by | Leave a comment

    This is one of my favorite annual posts to write.

    I have so much, really, for which to be thankful, and it’s an important exercise, this thinking through the abundance of good things in my life.

    This year, especially with the relatively homeward-focus of the last several months, my list of those to whom thanks are owed is perhaps a little more personal than last. But there are great joys in the wider world, too, even though, certainly, there are more problems and pains there as well.

    I’d love to hear what you’re thankful for this year, too!

  • My kids, of course, but not just in a “they’re my kids” kind of way. Truly, these particular little ones are such a delight: the way that Sam’s mind works (even when he can’t sleep because there are “too many thoughts!”), the love and joy that spills out of my oldest daughter (even to people at the grocery store), the support role that my youngest son plays so kindly, and so well, the tremendous gift that is a baby sister. Every single day, they teach me something about living, and parenting, and I’m so glad that we have so much time, still, to learn together.
  • The Sunflower Foundation: I’m thankful not just because it’s a wonderful group with which to work (even though I pinch myself regularly that I get paid to think and talk about advocacy with these folks), but also because I really believe in the investments that they’re making in nonprofits in our state, and in the difference that their work will leverage on behalf of vulnerable Kansans. They are courageous and smart and fun, and I’m so glad that they’re on our side.
  • My flower garden: So, right now, it’s not much to look at, but I know that it’s there, tucked away in the ground, and that, come spring, I’ll have bulbs popping up and perennials to tend. At one point, a garden was my strategy place; I remember coming up with the idea of a prayer vigil to put pressure on the Kansas Speaker while training the hyacinth beans to climb the gate. Now, it’s a place where the kids and I can work together, or I can be alone in the early mornings or late evenings. It’s something to look at while I wash dishes at the sink or sit with the kids on the patio. And it’s a visible reminder that my dear husband loves me very much, laid out with his hands, watered regularly according to his timers, and carefully mowed around every week in the summer.
  • Some good court decisions (meaning, of course, that I agree with them!). Thanks, in particular, SCOTUS, for not humoring Kris Kobach’s ongoing attacks against immigrant students. And thanks to the federal court ruling that being gay doesn’t mean that you can’t rule fairly on issues involving gays. We’ve got a lot of strains in our relationship, especially you 9 and I, but there were a few bright spots so far this year, and they have not gone unnoticed.
  • My students: Do they have any idea how much it warms my heart to get an action alert from one of them? How I pick up the phone to call Congress in glee, uber-delighted that they are already making an impact on advocacy? Or how I’d really rather have a conversation about one of their optional readings (That they read! Seriously!) than win the lottery? Or how truly kind it is that they don’t call me on the fact that I start every week of policy class saying that this is my favorite topic of the semester? So thankful.
  • Cold-brew iced tea: Who has time to boil water? No one wants to see me on coffee-strength caffeine, but a little iced tea in the morning makes preparing 8 pancakes every day a bit easier. This stuff is genius, and I am truly grateful that scientific minds lent their mental energy to this particular endeavor. Now, let’s get on the malaria-resistant mosquitoes. And a cure for cancer.
  • The public library, ours in particular. I love Miss Beth, who knows my kids’ names and always has a reading selection. I love the fact that I’m not made to feel guilty for incurring late fines–they appreciate the money. I love how excited my kids are to go somewhere that’s free, and public, and how they’ve learned about the importance of the commons. And I love having new books to entertain the kids on cold and rainy afternoons. Hurray for taxes at work!
  • Our neighborhood: I’m thankful for a neighbor who drove us to the doctor in his 4-wheel drive during last winter’s blizzard, for the built-in babysitters across the street, for the communal kid-vehicle storage in our garage, for the fact that, when I can’t find my husband, he’s almost always in our neighbor’s backyard. I’m thankful that my kids’ best friends live within sight of my front porch, and that they don’t have to knock when they run down the street. I’m thankful that we’re building a community, together.
  • Moderates in the Kansas Senate: I’m hesitant to even put this one down, even though I am so, so, so thankful for those Republicans and Democrats in the Kansas Senate who resisted the worst of the policy proposals in 2011, because I’m afraid that they won’t hold in 2012, and that they may be gone by 2013. But I am thankful for them, enough to put aside money for their reelection campaigns, and I’m committed to showing my gratitude in public, so that their voices of reason and compassion are not overlooked, and then silenced.

    What blessings are you counting this year? What do you hope can be on your “thankful” list in 2012? How will you show your gratitude during this thankful season?

    • → Leave a comment

    Posted in Background Reading

    Tagged , , , ,

    Why we need rules, and why rules need you

    Posted on November 14, 2011 by | Leave a comment

    Rules are a pretty big deal around our house.

    We don’t really have that many, truly, in part because of my parenting philosophy about letting the kids learn from natural consequences, and part, in truth, because I don’t know that I could be that vigilant in enforcing them all the time (things tend to slide a bit with the 4 kids competing for Mommy’s attention).

    But the rules that we have are important, not just to Mom and Dad (because they are things like “no hitting” and “we only throw balls and beanbags”, without which things would get even wilder around here), but also to our kids. In fact, they are the first ones to invoke a broken rule (by their siblings), and they cling to those rules in comfort to provide some boundaries around their world. One of their most sacred is that they do NOT have to share their “nighttime stuff” (special blankets and animals), even if a sibling asks really nicely, even if it’s not being used right now. They’re just off-limits from the normal sharing framework, and they take that very, very seriously.

    And so our rules around here have me thinking about rules in a policy context, too, and about just how important they are. I found a quote the other day (I’m sure the origin is appropriately cited on a sticky note somewhere around our house, but I know not where), something like “rules define our civilization.”

    And, if you think about it, that’s very true. I mean, our policies are really more about setting our goals, charting our general direction, and expressing our preferences.

    The rules, where everything from definitions to allocations to staffing qualifications to eligibility constraints (and on and on) are decided…that’s really where we set out how we intend to go about living together, and working towards those common (or not so common) purposes.

    It’s how we make society work, within our families, or in our nation, or in the global community.

    Rules are a big deal.

    But they’re so hidden, and so opaque, and so seemingly complex, that we often throw up our hands, even as the most committed advocates, and abdicate this whole arena. It’s almost like at my house; I know that if we had many more rules, I’d have to relax on their enforcement, because there’s just only so much mental energy.

    And, yet, in the realm of advocacy, just as in parenting, we can’t afford to let rules go unpoliced, or to allow rules to distort the intentions over which we so vigorously battled. We can’t ignore the trees, so to speak, if we want to keep the forest from burning down around us. The details matter.

    This month in my Advanced Policy class, then, we focus on administrative advocacy, so that my students (I hope!) are prepared, first, to think about rule-making as an extension of their policy activities, and to bring their considerable skills and talents to this work. We go through the Federal Register and weigh in on rule changes. We identify the state and federal agencies charged with rulemaking and begin to build relationships with those bureaucrats. We explore whether the policy changes they seek alongside those they serve can be accomplished through regulations, and we brainstorm effective ways to engage clients as constituents in the rulemaking process.

    Because that last piece is, I admit, more difficult in the administrative advocacy realm even than in legislative work. And yet it’s critical. Just like with my kids, where we have played a critical role in shaping the rules that govern our lives, we are more invested in upholding them (some might say zealous, if they saw my 3 oldest marking their territory).

    So, as my students integrate this part of their advocacy repertoire into their work, what are your administrative advocacy tips to share? What lessons have you learned? What victories have you won? What has worked to make these efforts resonate with your organization and your constituency? What are your goals for rulemaking in your core issue areas in the months and years to come?

    Because the answer to those questions, really, is the answer to “how do you seek to define our civilization?”

    And I’m certain you have some ideas about that.

    → Leave a comment

    Posted in Background Reading

    Tagged , , ,