Maxwell School News and Commentary

In his two-part essay on the Build Public Renewables Act (BPRA), Professor of Geography and the Environment Matthew Huber examines the labor question and assesses dubious campaign claims that BPRA is a climate victory.

“Among older people there is a reluctance to project negativity into their future,” says Merril Silverstein, professor and chair of sociology. “There’s research that they tend to put on rose-colored glasses about things like their own aging trajectory so it’s keeping up their ego integrity to want to be independent and stay in their home.”

“We are entering contentious electoral cycles on both sides of the border, with voters going to the ballot box in June 2024 in Mexico and November 2024 for the U.S. The scourge of drug trafficking and ineffective government responses to organized crime will figure prominently in stump speeches,” writes Gladys McCormick, Jay and Debe Moskowitz Endowed Chair in Mexico-U.S. Relations.

 “To Know Is To Act? Revisiting the Impact of Government Transparency on Corruption,” authored by Sabina Schnell, assistant professor of public administration and international affairs, was published in Public Administration and Development.

“Training future professors in public budgeting, finance, and financial management: The Inter-University Consortium for PhD courses,” co-authored by Yilin Hou, professor of public administration and international affairs, was published in the Journal of Public Affairs Education.

William Banks, professor emeritus of public administration and international affairs, says that once the attack on the Capitol began, Trump had options he did not use. “He should respond to his constitutional responsibilities to protect the security of the United States when there’s an assault on our democratic process,” Banks says of Trump.

Dennis Rasmussen is the first recipient of a fellowship created with a gift from Stephen Hagerty '93 M.P.A. and his wife, Lisa Altenbernd '93 M.P.A.

"So many of the calls come to them [mothers], even though they're in kind of very demanding jobs [and] they've told the schools to call their children's fathers," says Kristy Buzard, associate professor of economics.

“Social media works a lot like any other type of addictive drug,” says Alexandra Punch, director of the Lerner Center for Public Health Promotion and Population Health. “When you utilize these services, it triggers dopamine responses and serotonin responses in the brain, so it also increases your craving for more of that same thing.”

“As the world prepares for COP28, the onus is on global leaders, corporations and individuals to rise to the occasion and champion the cause of climate justice. Wealthy nations must start putting real funding towards loss and damage, while ramping up their mitigation and adaptation efforts, and reining in the influence of the fossil fuel industry in climate policies,” Farhana Sultana, professor of geography and the environment, writes in The Guardian.