At the top of the website for The Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy (CWPPP), director Dr. Carol Hardy-Fanta declares their mission, “To promote women’s leadership by providing quality education, conducting research that makes a difference in women’s lives, and serving as a resource for the empowerment of women from diverse communities across the Commonwealth, New England, and the nation.”The CWPPP is part of the McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies and plays a number of different roles at UMB and the community at large.
Research is a large part of what the CWPPP does to improve the status of women. Erika Kates, the research director of the Center since 2002, has researched numerous topics including the relationship between welfare and education for low-income women and, most recently a study on incarcerated mothers in Massachusetts and across the nation.This last study found that the policies and rules of Massachusetts prisons regarding women are in need of reform.Kates notes that when they first began collecting data on this topic they found that they didn’t have access to some of the data important to the study.
As a result, a task force was formed by state representative Kay Khan, who has been active in many progressive causes, to expanded the working group for the study.A female offender specialist was brought on board, as well as a policy analyst from the Department of Social Services, who in turn brought other organizations to the group and as a result the study got more data, says Kates. Kates continues, “The more we worked on it the more we realized that we should have some event to present it, and that we should present it in a way that didn’t just focus on corrections but…other things, such as the Department of Welfare, that will help women when they get out of prison.” The project’s findings examined services for incarcerated women and their families and were presented to various state officials including Lt. Governor Kerry Healy and Department of Correction Commissioner Kathleen Dennehy on March 2 in the Chancellor’s Conference Room.Kates says there was a “tremendous amount of energy in that room in response to this report.”
The CWPPP’s mission isn’t singularly to conduct research, they also offer an 18 credit graduate program for students at UMB.Dr. Carol Hardy-Fanta notes that the certificate program offers a cohort of classes, including “seminar classes that focus on contemporary American public policy issues, women in American politics and policymaking, and case-study research methods.”The program also involves a case study research project and an internship. Students enrolled in the program are placed into internships at places like the State House as legislative aids, the Caucus of Women State Legislators, or the offices of Congressman Marty Meehan, among others.
UMB seems to be the ideal place for the CWPPP says Interim Director of Student Life Jain Ruvidich-Higgins.Rudivich-Higgins was affiliated with the CWPPP before its move to UMB from Boston College and is currently a member of the Internal Advisory Board to the Center.
She continues, “UMass Boston is a public institution with an urban mission that directly responds to what are traditionally under-represented populations in the Commonwealth.”Professor Edmund Beard, Dean of the McCormack Graduate School of Public Policy agrees, adding that the Center fits well into the McCormack Graduate School of Public Policy.
Beard feels that the CWPPP plays an important part in their research goals to “conduct applied, practical research on relevant issues of concern to our various communities,” adding that he attends as many events as he can.
The Center will hold a number of events and public forums in the month of March, as it is Women’s History Month. Events include a March 8 celebration of International Women’s Day and the release of the first ever history of women in Boston politics since 1921.A complete listing of events can be found at the CWPPP’s website, www.mccormack.umb.edu/cwppp.