Newton Mayor Setti Warren ’93 (right) with Catherine Wong, the 林奇学校's director of 城市外展活动 (center), 汉娜·海斯16岁, M.A. '18, 城市外展活动 graduate assistant
Newton is widely thought to be one of Massachusetts’s most affluent communities. 事实上, census data show that the median household income in 2014 ($118,639)几乎是全国平均水平的两倍. But nearly one in eight Newton households lives on an income of less than $25,000, according to Northeastern University’s Center for Urban and Regional Policy. And more than 12 percent of Newton public school students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.
10月, 太阳城网赌平台 and the City of Newton announced plans to address economic disparity in the city with the establishment of a research partnership that supports “Economic Growth for All”—a wide-ranging effort launched in 2015 by Newton Mayor Setti Warren ’93 that has been described as a “city-wide blueprint to promote economic mobility in Newton over the long term.”
Newton city officials asked 太阳城网赌平台 faculty to submit proposals in their areas of expertise that would help bolster economic mobility for Newton residents. Areas of focus might include education at every level, 收入自给自足, 健康和幸福, 经济创新, Deborah Youngblood说, Newton’s commissioner of health and human services (pictured right).
第一轮提案, 12月提交, 共收到约15份意见书, 据扬布拉德说. 一个项目, led by 林奇学校 Professor and former dean Maureen Kenny (pictured below), 正在进行中.
Kenny is collaborating with Youngblood and Quinn Etchie, 牛顿市青少年服务中心主任, to assess the mayor’s Summer Youth Internship Program, which aims to offer opportunities to high school students with limited access to academic and career planning resources. 肯尼在咨询中心工作, 发展, and Educational Psychology Professors David Blustein and Belle Liang to incorporate theory and research on youth purpose and the psychology of working into the program. Kenny’s team is also mentoring master’s students who will serve as workshop coordinators, 学生的导师, 太阳城官网助理, 她说.
“This collaboration provides an opportunity to simultaneously enhance and assess an important program of our community partner while also developing and testing an extension of the psychology of a working model for youth,肯尼说。. “What we learn from the Newton research will inform the refinement of our theory and the development of interventions for low-income youth in other schools and communities.”
在12月, faculty and administrators from the 林奇学校, 康奈尔护理学院, and the School of Social Work met with Youngblood and other city officials to explore possible research and practice collaborations and to discuss how faculty interests could align with Newton’s paramount needs—and complement its existing initiatives. 查尔斯·F. 多诺万,年代.J., 院长斯坦顿·沃瑟姆, 太阳城官网副院长吉姆·斯洛塔, Kearns Professor in Urban Education and Innovative Leadership Mary Walsh, Martin Scanlan副教授, and 城市外展活动 Director Catherine Wong represented Lynch.
Lynch faculty also shared their areas of interest with Youngblood, which included topics such as career education, 校本健康教育, 以及校外学习的挑战. Slotta, who said he expects as many as six proposals to emerge from the 林奇学校, hopes the partnership brings greater urgency to issues of economic mobility. “The strong commitment from Newton can really help these projects go,” he said.
Youngblood says that Newton is a particularly dynamic area in which to study economic mobility and possible solutions.
“It’s hard to be poor in a wealthier community,” 她说. “太阳城网赌平台 was a logical partner because there’s so much intellectual capital, and I think it is a way to help shore up [BC’s] 首页 city.”
卡拉巴斯金