Please join us for our November faculty coffee!

The Institute of Government and Public Affairs invites you to our next faculty coffee on Tuesday, November 7, 2023 from 2:00 – 3:00 PM CT, a hybrid event at our Urbana office and on Zoom.

For this coffee, IGPA will be hosting scholar Jonathan Coppess, who is the Principal-Investigator on the Farm Bill Mapping Initiative, a Research Scholar Initiative funded by IGPA. The Farm Bill Mapping Initiative uses existing public data to visualize agricultural and conservation policies in support of policy design efforts in the 2023 Congressional Farm Bill reauthorization process. The project further combines statutory and regulatory interpretation with data and computation from the Policy Design Lab at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. Eventually, the resulting public-facing mapping effort will demonstrate the statutory and regulatory provisions of the Farm Bill.

Jonathan first presented preliminary findings and plans for the project in October 2022 and we are excited to have him back to give an update.

To learn more about our other funded Research Scholar Initiatives, please visit our webpage here.

To register for the event, please visit the registration link.

Join us for A Conversation with the Honorable Dan Lipinski on Democracy, Polarization, and Bipartisanship at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, IL! This in-person event will delve into the pressing issues of our time, with a focus on the challenges facing democracy, the impact of polarization, and the importance of bipartisanship. Don’t miss this unique opportunity to engage in a thought-provoking discussion with the Honorable Dan Lipinski, as we explore ways to bridge divides and strengthen our democratic foundations. Mark your calendars and join us for an enlightening evening!

Register for the event HERE.

This exciting summit, co-hosted with the University of Illinois Springfield, will bring together scholars, students, observers, and participants in American government to discuss the state of democracy in the present-day United States. Attendees will explore the current state of polarization, including topics such as causes and consequences of polarization; whether the polarization is a top-down or bottom-up phenomenon or both; historical contrasts, and lessons from the past; and how (if) it can be moderated, or, indeed, if the focus on dangers and costs of polarization obscures concomitant benefits.

Speakers for the event and a full agenda can be found at the registration link

Register for the event HERE.  For more information, contact Alyssa Cooper, IGPA Senior Coordinator at acoope7@illinois.edu.

Please join us for our second faculty coffee of the Fall 2023 semester!

The Institute of Government and Public Affairs invites faculty and administrators within the University of Illinois System to our next faculty coffee on Tuesday, October 3, 2023 12:00 – 1:00 PM CT in our Chicago office.

IGPA will be hosting author and businessman Raymond W. Baker.

Please join us for our first faculty coffee of the Fall 2023 semester!

The Institute of Government and Public Affairs invites faculty and administrators within the University of Illinois System to our next faculty coffee on Tuesday, September 5, 2023 from 2:00 – 3:00 PM CT, in Urbana and on Zoom.

IGPA will be hosting Professor Jacinda Dariotis who will speak about her IGPA funded Research Scholar Initiative: COVID-19 Thorns & Silver Linings: A Mixed-Method Study of Role Reversal, Overload, Stress, and Resilience. 

Using innovative qualitative and quantitative research methods, this project explores how the COVID-19 pandemic affected children, families, and childcare providers. The research team will inform public health policy narratives and recommend messaging for mental health and vaccine uptake in the wake of COVID-19.

Jacinda Dariotis is a Research Scholar with IGPA, the Pampered Chef, Ltd., Endowed Chair in Family Resiliency at UIUC, Professor of Human Development and Family Studies, Director of the Family Resiliency Center at the College of ACES, UIUC, and has joint appointments as a Health Innovation Professor in the Carle Illinois College of Medicine and Professor in Kinesiology and Community Health.

This is a hybrid event offered on Zoom and at IGPA’s Urbana Office at 1007 W. Nevada St. Urbana, IL 61801. A calendar invitation will be sent after registration.

To register for the event, please visit the registration link.

Please join us for our final faculty coffee of the Spring 2023 semester!

The Institute of Government and Public Affairs invites faculty and administrators within the University of Illinois System to our next faculty coffee on Tuesday, April 25, 2023 from 2:30 – 3:30 PM CT, in Urbana and on Zoom.

IGPA will be hosting Professor Francisco Pereira Coutinho from the NOVA School of Law in Lisbon, Portugal. April 25 is Freedom Day in Portugal, a national holiday that marks the democratic revolution of 1974. Francisco will talk about the Portuguese constitutional experience within the European Union based on his 2019 publication entitled “Portugal: The Impact of European Integration and the Economic Crisis on the Identity of the Constitution”.

Francisco holds three degrees from NOVA School of Law. He served as Vice-Dean of NOVA School of Law (2018-2021), president of Jurisnova (2015-2022), professor at the High Institute of Social and Political Sciences of the University of Lisbon (2010-2015) and at the Law Department of the Autonomous University of Lisbon (2009-2012), and legal advisor at the Diplomatic Institute of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2005-2011) and at the Secretary of State of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers (2003-2004). He is a guest lecturer at the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences of NOVA University (2010-), and has served as visiting professor across the globe. Read Francisco’s full biography here.

This is a hybrid event offered on Zoom and at IGPA’s Urbana Office at 1007 W. Nevada St. Urbana, IL 61801. A calendar invitation will be sent after registration.

To register for the event, please visit the registration link.

Please Join Us

The Institute of Government and Public Affairs (IGPA) invites you to our next monthly Faculty Coffee on Tuesday, March 7, 2023.

IGPA will be hosting Dean Margarida Lima Rego from NOVA School of Law in Lisbon, Portugal. Margarida will discuss equality and discrimination, in particular gender discrimination. Margarida will explore discrimination bans in insurance, and the use of statistics as a tool for discrimination.

Margarida Lima Rego is Dean of the NOVA School of Law, NOVA University in Lisbon, Portugal and is an active researcher at CEDIS, the School’s R&D Unit, where she founded and coordinates the NOVA Knowledge Centre for Data-Driven Law. Margarida’s main areas of practice are civil and commercial law. She has been a member of the Board of Appeal of the European Supervisory Authorities since December 2021. Previously, she was Of Counsel to Morais Leitão, where she headed the insurance, reinsurance and pension funds cross-practice team.

This is a hybrid event offered on Zoom and at IGPA’s Urbana Office at 1007 W. Nevada St. Urbana, IL 61801. For virtual attendees, the Zoom link will be sent after registration.

To register for the event, please visit the registration link.

Please Join Us

The Institute of Government and Public Affairs in partnership with the European Union Center and the Women and Gender in Global Perspectives Program, invites faculty and administrators within the University of Illinois System to a presentation on international structures on the prevention of violence against women and the promotion of equality for women on Tuesday, February 7, 2023 from 2-3 PM CST, in person and virtually.

This event is held in partnership with the European Union Center and the Women and Gender in Global Perspectives Program. The discussion will be led by two women who are experts in gender discrimination and are working in high-profile roles on these issues at the United Nations.

Melissa Upreti is an internationally recognized human rights lawyer and feminist activist who has spent over two decades advancing gender equality by using national, regional, and international law and mechanisms, and engaging with governments to ensure accountability. She has led mega-research projects and fact-finding missions, undertaken strategic litigation, built the capacity of civil society organizations and provided technical support to governments for legal and policy reform. She frequently lectures on women’s rights and is widely published. Upreti was appointed to the UN Working Group on discrimination against women and girls, a Special Procedure of the Human Rights Council, in 2017 and served as Chair of the Working Group from 2021-2022. She is also a Fellow in the University of Toronto Law Faculty’s International Reproductive and Sexual Health Law Program.

Ruth Halperin-Kaddari is an expert on family law and international women’s rights, and is the Founding Director of the Rackman Center for the Advancement of the Status of Women at Bar-Ilan University Law Faculty in Israel, where she serves as a Professor. In December 2018 she completed three terms (twelve years) on the UN Committee on Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), during which she also served twice as the Vice-Chair of the Committee, and as the first Chair of the Working Group on Inquiries. A graduate of Yale Law School (LL.M.; J.S.D.), she has published extensively in her areas of expertise, including a book on Women in Israel that was published by University of Pennsylvania Press.

This is a hybrid event offered on Zoom and at IGPA’s Chicago Office at 1253 S. Halstead, Chicago, IL 60607. For in person attendees, information will be provided regarding parking and building entry after registration. For virtual attendees, the Zoom link will be sent after registration.

To register for the event, please visit the registration link.

Join us at the Institute for Government and Public Affairs for a celebration of our 75th anniversary

December 7, 2022
Institute for Government and Public Affairs
1007 W. Nevada St., Urbana, Illinois
Noon: Remarks by Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch
2022 Douglas Award Honoree

4:00 PM: Award of The Honorable W. Russell Arrington Professorship in State Politics
5:00 PM: Reception

The Institute of Government and Public Affairs (IGPA) invites faculty and administrators within the University of Illinois System to our Faculty Coffee on our Research Scholars Initiatives. This is a hybrid event offered on Zoom and at IGPA’s Urbana Office at 1007 W. Nevada St. Urbana, IL 61801.

This Faculty Coffee will include a brief discussion on one of our current Research Scholar Initiatives by Professor David Merriman. Professor Merriman is Principal-Investigator on the Effects of COVID-19 and Work From Home on Local Government Revenue Initiative. The work being done on this initiative seeks to answer the question: How have changes in the work-force due to COVID-19 and shifts to work-from-home employment models impacted local government sales, property and other taxes and mass transit agencies’ revenues? This initiative seeks to provide data and methodologies that will help policymakers understand and react to the most significant change in the labor market in decades.

Professor Merriman is a co-leader of IGPA’s Fiscal and Economic Policy Working Group and is the James J. Stukel Presidential Professor of Public Administration at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

To register for the event, please visit the registration link.

8:30 AM – Continental Breakfast

9:00 AM – Welcome & Introductions: Sean Garrick, Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

9:10 AM – Remarks: Roberts J. Jones, Chancellor, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

9:30 AM – 10:00 AM – Research Presentations

10:15 AM – 10:45 AM – Research Presentations      

11:00 AM – 11:30 PM – Research Presentations

11:45 PM – 12:30 PM – Poster Session – (1st, 3rd, and 4th Floors)

12:30 PM – 1:00 PM – Lunch (boxed lunches)

1:15 PM – 1:30 PM – Closing remarks: Sean Garrick, Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Please join Governor Jim Edgar & Mrs. Edgar, distinguished guests,

and Edgar Fellows alumni as we celebrate 10 years of the Edgar Fellows Program.

Cocktail hour at 6 p.m.  Dinner at 7 p.m.

$250 per person / $2500 for a table of 10

Sponsorships available.

RSVP by August 20, 2022.

The Institute of Government and Public Affairs invites faculty and administrators within the University of Illinois System to an information session about the Fulbright Specialist Program on Tuesday, September 6, 2022 from 2-3 PM CST, in person and virtually.

The Fulbright Specialist Program is a program of the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and a part of the larger Fulbright Program that provides U.S. citizens who are established professionals or academics and possess expertise in qualifying disciplines with the opportunity to engage in short-term (2-6 week) project-based exchanges at host institutions around the globe.

This information session will include an in-depth look at the program and an overview of topics such as:

• Eligibility requirements;
• Benefits for participating Specialists;
• Application process; and
• Examples of past Fulbright Specialist projects.

Attendees will hear from alumni of the program, regarding their experiences in the Fulbright programs., including:

• IGPA Director Robin Wilson, College of Law, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign;
• Distinguished Professor of Public Administration Ken Kriz, School of Public Management & Policy, University of Illinois Springfield; and
• Professor Emeritus Daniel Abrams, College of Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Amirah Nelson, Fulbright Specialist Senior Outreach Officer, will also be available to answer attendee questions.

This Fulbright Primer can assist scholars interested in participating in international exchanges. To register, visit the registration link. To learn more about the Fulbright Specialist Program, visit fulbrightspecialist.worldlearning.org.

It adds to the recently developed Oxford-Illinois Research and Impact Exchange partnership with the Oxford University Law Faculty.

Jason Mazzone, Brian Gaines, and Robin Fretwell Wilson have been leading a large-scale research study on changes that courts adopted in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. They have been especially interested in online judicial proceedings. They have been carefully tracking the benefits of virtual court—as well as their possible downsides—and how different groups may experience virtual court in different ways. Given that many courts are enthusiastic about making virtual hearings permanent at least in some contexts, the overall goal is to generate lessons from the pandemic experience to assist courts in structuring virtual hearings in ways that capitalize on efficiencies while also ensuring fairness and reliability. The workshop will be divided into three sessions, each focused on a particular issue involving virtual courts and access to justice. Each session will start with a brief presentation of the research findings from the study. Then the workshop participants will have an opportunity to discuss and critique the findings and offer their own insights.

Schedule

9:00 am – 10:30 am Session 1
Overview: What Did We Learn from the
Pandemic Experience?
10:30 am – 10:45 am Break
10:45 am – 12:15 pm Session 2
A Case Study: Evictions
12:15 pm – 1:15 pm Lunch
1:15 pm – 2:45 pm Session 3
Looking Ahead: The Future of Virtual
Proceedings and New Research Directions
2:45 pm – 3:00 pm Conclusions
3:00 pm Departure

Featured Panelists
Hon. Thomas Bruton, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois
Brian Farrell, University of Iowa College of Law
Brian Gaines, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Political Science
Sally Kolb, Land of Lincoln Legal Aid
Jason Mazzone, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, College of Law
Mavis Maclean, University of Oxford, Department of Social Policy & Intervention
Hon. Amy McFarland, Illinois 11th Judicial Circuit Court
Matthew Mettler, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Political Science
Ali Mirza, United Community Housing Coalition
Hon. Mike Nerheim, Illinois 19th Judicial Circuit Court
Mark Palmer, Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism
Nathanael Player, Utah State Courts Self-Help Center
Hon. Lisa Holder White, Illinois Appellate Court, Fourth District
Robin Fretwell Wilson, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, College of Law & University of Illinois System, Institute of Government and Public Affairs

The University of Illinois System cordially invites you to a convening on digital government. The goal of this convening is to build a shared vision for data sharing and use between the State of Illinois and the University of Illinois System.

The invitees include University faculty and administrators, along with esteemed members of state government. Participants will discuss success stories in data sharing between the University and the State, along with barriers faculty and state officials have experienced and what can be done about them. This is a small convening of about only 20 invitees, so we are hopeful all can come and engage in-person. Lunch will be served.

A new initiative working with 50 community organizations to train 50 Black and Latinx youth to be Community Health Workers & Citizen Scientists.

Guest Speakers include:
University of Illinois Professors, Salaam Community WellnessCenter, Community Healing Network, and others.

University of Illinois-Chicago’s Institute of Government and Public Affairs, American University’s Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies, The Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University, and American Political Science Association present a virtual program on “The Crisis in American Democracy,” A dynamic discussion on the present state and future of American democracy.

The endangered state of American democracy is the dominant theme of Democracy’s Rebirth: The View From Chicago. Political scientist Dick Simpson argues the problems we face are a complex, multi-faceted, and inter-tangled web of political, social, and economic challenges. Panelists will offer their perspective on specific crises and challenges including income and racial inequality, money in politics, polarization, non-participation, corruption, and structural problems, as well as discuss the ways to create a more participatory and deliberative democracy.

Featuring Dick Simpson, University of Illinois at Chicago Political Science Professor & author of Democracy’s Rebirth: The View From Chicago

Moderator: Scott Simon, National Public Radio, Weekend Edition Host

Panelists: Angelique Power, President & CEO, The Skillman Foundation; Elizabeth C. Matto, Dir., Center for Youth Political Participation, the Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University

Brian J. Gaines – Professor, Department of Political Science and Institute of Government and Public Affairs

Professor Gaines will discuss a project analyzing how courts have handled the pandemic with remote proceedings.

Brian J. Gaines is a professor at the University of Illinois, with appointments in the Department of Political Science and at the Institute of Government and Public Affairs.  He received a BA with honors from the University of British Columbia and AM and PhD degrees from Stanford University, where he was also the playing president of the ice hockey club.  Most of his research deals with elections, electoral rules, and public opinion.  He served on the Royal Commission for Electoral Boundaries that re-drew the constituencies of British Columbia prior its 1991 general election. Between 2005 and 2007, he completed marathons on all seven continents.

Shannon Minter is the legal director for the national center for lesbian rights. Shannon, a transgender man, was lead counsel for same-sex couples in the landmark California marriage equality case which held that same-sex couples have the fundamental right to marry and that laws that discriminate based on sexual orientation are inherently discriminatory and subject to the highest level of constitutional scrutiny.

Minter was counsel to other successful challenges to state marriage bans in Alabama, Florida, Idaho, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming. He represented same-sex couples from Tennessee in Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 Supreme Court decision striking down state laws barring same-sex couples from marriage. In 2010, Minter was also NCLR’s lead attorney in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, a U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding student group policies prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and rejecting the argument that such policies violated a student group’s rights to freedom of speech, religion, and association. NCLR represented Hastings Outlaw, an LGBTQ student group who intervened to help defend the nondiscrimination policy.

We hope you can join us for coffee and this inspiring speaker!  Please complete the registration form to join. We also hope you will share this message with other faculty, staff and students who look to the LGBT Resource Center for connection and inspiration.

Featuring Kelly Bidwell, Director of the US Federal Government Office of Evaluation Sciences

Kelly joined the Office of Evaluation Sciences as a Fellow in 2013, and took on the role as OES Director in 2016. Kelly provides the direction and oversight of the team, manages the staff and budget, coordinates with GSA leadership, and ensures scientific protocols and standards are met across the OES portfolio. Kelly leads strategic conversations with government-wide leadership to identify evidence gaps and evidence generation opportunities, feasible evaluation plans which can be implemented in agency operational and budget constraints, government-wide resource and training needs, and aims to ensure OES is responsive to growing and changing agency demands. Kelly has also built a portfolio of global health projects with USAID, led early collaborations with the VA, and supports and oversees all of OES’ ongoing evaluations.

Kelly holds a MA in International Affairs from Columbia University, where she focused on economic development, education and evaluation methods. In her previous roles at Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) and the Jameel Abdul Latif Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), Kelly served in technical and management positions launching, supervising and running numerous randomized control trials across sectors, leading training and dissemination efforts internationally, launching and growing programs and country offices, and supporting the use of impact evaluations and rigorous evidence for informed and effective policy making with numerous governments. Kelly lived and worked abroad, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, for much of her professional career prior to joining GSA.

Population Health Sciences Program

VIRTUAL SEMINAR

Featuring Lynn B. Gerald, PhD, MSPH Distinguished Outreach Professor Professor and Zuckerman Family Endowed Chair Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health Scientist Asthma & Airway Disease Research Center University of Arizona Health Sciences.

For children with asthma, access to quick relief medication is critical to minimizing morbidity and mortality. However, research has shown that may children do not have their quick relief medication with them at school when they experience respiratory symptoms. A simple practical approach to ensure access at school is to maintain a supply of stock albuterol that can be used by any student who experiences respiratory distress. Dr. Gerald will discuss how her research with schools led to advocacy for a state law in Arizona to improve access to quick relief medication at school. She will discuss the process of using her research to craft state legislation and facilitate program implementation. She will also discuss outcomes from the program implementation and current work to disseminate both stock albuterol legislation and implementation across the United States.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created an unprecedented public health crisis—and unleashed waves of economic hardship to vulnerable communities in Illinois and across the nation.

This Poverty and Policy Summit presents diverse perspectives on the scale and dimensions of challenges facing vulnerable communities, families, and individuals, such as food insecurity, educational divides, and the looming specter of homelessness. Convened virtually by the University of Illinois System Institute of Government and Public Affairs and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Center for Social and Behavioral Science, the Summit features experts, including:
Associate Professor Andrew Greenlee, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Professor Craig Gundersen, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Assistant Professor Meghan Kessler, University of Illinois Springfield
Associate Professor Sage Kim, University of Illinois Chicago
Sally Kolb from Land of Lincoln Legal Aid
Assistant Professor Michelle Layser, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Professor Jason Mazzone, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Associate Professor Ruby Mendenhall, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Professor David Merriman, University of Illinois Chicago
Assistant Professor Chelsea Singleton, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Professor Benjamin Superfine, University of Illinois Chicago
Their presentations will give an overview of the economic situation, impact on vulnerable populations and people, and issues surrounding access to justice from food security to housing to education.