Institute for Policy and Governance, School of Public and International Affairs

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Browsing Institute for Policy and Governance, School of Public and International Affairs by Author "Dunkenberger, Mary Beth"

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    Re: Reflections and explorations : Essays on politics, public policy, and governance
    Stephenson, Max O. Jr.; Kirakosyan, Lyusyena (Virginia Tech Institute for Policy and Governance, 2015)
    We have organized the essays that follow in this volume into nine themes or broad topical foci based on the subjects our RE: Reflections and Explorations authors selected for their efforts during 2013-2014. A brief overview of our contributors’ organizing issues follows. Part 1 contains six essays that address the role(s) of the academy in society. Part 2 offers six essays that address questions central to the relationships among art, culture and politics. Part 3’s five essays treat issues linked to community building. Part 4 includes five essays that explore the challenges of public leadership at multiple scales and in a variety of contexts. Part 5’s eight essays examine a variety of concerns central to the characteristics and fundamentals of democratic citizenship and ethics. Part 6 consists of six essays that explore different dimensions of international politics. Part 7 of the volume comprises seven essays that directly or indirectly illuminate alternate facets of local and international development dynamics. Part 8 includes six essays that together analyze several manifestations or implications of neoliberalism, the current dominant public imaginary or frame in American and indeed, Western, politics. Part 9’s seven essays each afford readers alternate lenses into the dynamics and vicissitudes of change processes, as conceptualized at alternate analytical levels. The 56 essays together address a variety of concerns central to democratic politics and self-governance. The topics are as varied as our contributor’s substantive interests and perspectives, and that diversity yields a complex array of analytical insights. We hope you enjoy reading this richly textured collection as much as we have enjoyed assembling it.
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    Tapping into community expertise: stakeholder engagement in the design process
    Morshedzadeh, Elham; Dunkenberger, Mary Beth; Nagle, Lara; Ghasemi, Shiva; York, Laura; Horn, Kimberly (Taylor & Francis, 2022-10)
    The Connection to Care (C2C) project, a transdisciplinary work-in-progress, employs community-engaged participatory research and design methods at the nexus of policy adaptation and product innovations. C2C aims to advance practices that identify and leverage the critical junctures at which people with substance use disorder (SUD) seek lifesaving services and treatment, utilizing stakeholder input in all stages of design and development. Beginning in the Fall of 2018, members of our research team engaged with those at the forefront of the addiction crisis, including first responders, harm reduction and peer specialists, treatment providers, and individuals in recovery and in active substance use in a community greatly impacted by SUD. Through this engagement, the concept for programs and products representing a connection to care emerged, including the design of a backpack to meet the needs of individuals with SUD and those experiencing homelessness. From 2020 to 2022, more than 1,200 backpacks with lifesaving and self-care supplies have been distributed in local communities, as one component of the overall C2C initiative. The backpack is a recognized symbol of the program and has served as an impetus for further program and policy explorations, including as a lens to better understand the role of ongoing stigma. Though addiction science has evolved significantly in the wake of the opioid epidemic, artifacts of policies and practices that criminalize and stigmatize SUD remain as key challenges. This paper explains the steps that C2C has taken to address these challenges, and to empower a community that cares.
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    Virginia Star Quality Initiative Family Child Care Home Provider Demonstration Pilot Evaluation Report
    Bradburn, Isabel S.; Dunkenberger, Mary Beth; White, Nancy; Allen, Elizabeth (Virginia Tech Child Development Center for Learning and Research, 2011-08-05)
    The Virginia Star Quality Initiative (VSQI) family child care home demonstration project was a pilot quality rating and improvement program designed to provide intensive professional development services to family child care home providers. The pilot project took place between October 1, 2010, and June 30, 2011, and was funded by federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act monies awarded to the Virginia Department of Social Services. The Virginia Early Childhood Foundation (VECF) piloted the family child care home provider program as an extension of the classroom‐based VSQI, currently in its fifth year of a pilot phase. Through a competitive process, VECF selected six geographically and culturally diverse regions encompassing 35 Virginia localities to participate, with a recruitment target of 75 licensed family child care providers. Regions included nine localities in the Southwest (coordinated by Smart Beginnings Appalachia), Arlington/Alexandria, six localities in Central Virginia (coordinated by Smart Beginnings Central Virginia), Fairfax, seven localities in the Greater Richmond area (coordinated by the Richmond Resource and Referral Agency, ChildSavers) and five localities in South Hampton Roads (coordinated by Smart Beginnings South Hampton Roads and The Planning Council).
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    Virginia Tech Peer Institution Diversity & Inclusion Comparative Study: A Review of Virginia Tech Peer Institutions’ Compositional Dynamics, Organizational Structures, and Assessment, Planning and Evaluation Practices
    Dunkenberger, Mary Beth; Lo, Suzanne (Virginia Tech, 2013)
    A systematic review of Virginia Tech’s peer institutions and the institutions’ organizational contexts for diversity and inclusion programs has been undertaken for the purposes of benchmarking Virginia Tech’s processes for assessment, planning and evaluation. Comparative analysis has increasingly been utilized by institutions of higher education to inform decision-making, resource allocation and organizational change (Trainer, 2008). However, little, if any, comparative research has been focused on the organizational structures, programs and processes for the promotion of diversity and inclusion within our institutions of higher education. This study and its findings seek to begin to fill this informational gap and to assist Virginia Tech leadership in supporting its diversity and inclusion structures.