Jonathan Young/Daily Bruin Former vice president and visiting
professor Al Gore discusses family-
centered community building at the School of Public Policy and
Social Research.
By Shane M. Nelson
DAILY BRUIN CONTRIBUTOR
[email protected]
Former vice president Al Gore addressed students and faculty on
the emerging discipline of family-centered community building at
the School of Public Policy and Social Research Wednesday.
After apologizing for arriving 30 minutes late ““ his plane
pulled away early while he walked down the concourse, he said
““ Gore participated in a discussion with students and faculty
for the purpose of reflecting on the ideas developed in the new
course “Building Stronger Communities for Los
Angeles.”
Family-centered community building is an interdisciplinary
approach ““ drawing from a variety of fields like education,
business, urban planning, psychology and public policy ““ to
train the next generation of community builders, Gore said.
Gore, together with UCLA faculty, developed curriculum for the
new discipline two and a half years ago when they met at a national
conference, said Neal Halfon, professor of Pediatrics and Community
Health Sciences at the UCLA School of Medicine and Public
Health.
During his speech, Gore said that ever since the United States
was transformed from an agrarian society to a technological one in
the 20th century, government has come in to take roles families
used to have, creating new social problems.
Federal funding mobilizes universities to solve those problems,
but the current university approach doesn’t meet community
needs, he said.
Universities still use a reductionist philosophy in research
that breaks down subjects of interest into their constituent parts
to analyze and understand individual parts, he said.
We learn very much with this approach but by breaking everything
apart to look at individual components, the connections between
them are overlooked although they are just as important, he
said.
“Policy that focuses only on the individual does a lot of
harm by missing out on the whole picture,” Gore said.
The new class arrived at many solutions to community building
throughout the quarter. One focused on a positive way to achieve
solutions without defining the objective by its problem.
Community-building teams need to establish specific goals, set
up performance measures and focus on meeting them, Gore said.
Measuring results should be qualitative instead of quantitative,
added Arleen Leibowitz, SPPSR chair and professor of policy
studies.
For example, it is difficult to evaluate the results of a
proposed solution by looking at the number of people who use a
program. A better picture is presented when one knows how they felt
about it, she said.
Ideas for the future of family-centered community building
classes were also brought up.
“We should get students out of Westwood and move the class
to the street,” said Frank Gilliam, associate vice chancellor
of University Community Partnerships and professor of political
science. “It is closer to where the problems are,” he
added.
Students offered many different insights into the results of the
class.
“For those of us who aspire to be decision makers, either
in the government or the non-profit sector, this class gave us the
opportunity to learn from people who are trying to make a
difference, not just from books like in school,” said Jessica
Hausman, a first-year graduate student in public policy.
As to the future of the class, it will likely be offered next
year for one quarter, although there is no guarantee Gore will be
back, said Leibowitz.