Recently Funded FIRP Projects
Choose one of the projects from the list below to learn more (Note: year of award is listed in parentheses).
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The Treatment of Estrogens and Estrogen Mimics in Wastewater
Exposure of organisms to
estrogenic compounds in the environment
has been shown to cause reproductive
and developmental abnormalities,
including intersex features. Effluents
from both the Western Lake Superior
Sanitary District Wastewater Treatment
Plant in Duluth and the Metropolitan Treatment Plant in St. Paul have been shown to be estrogenic.
Paige Novak (Department of Civil
Engineering) will
attempt to determine the fate of estrogens
and estrogen mimics in wastewater
when treated with a variety of
processes. The Western Lake Superior
Sanitary District and the Metropolitan
Council Environmental Services will
provide assistance. The project goal is
to determine how best to treat wastewater
to remove estrogenic compounds.
Once this goal is met, decisions can
be made as to how to optimize treatment for the protection of ecological, and potentially human, health.
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Bidding for MnDOT
Highway Repair Contracts: An
Empirical Analysis
Minnesota spends 9% of its annual budget on highway repair and maintenance. Patrick Bajari (Department of
Economics), in
collaboration with Greg Lewis (Department
of Economics, Harvard University)
and Diwakar Gupta (Department
of Mechanical Engineering, University
of Minnesota), will empirically
study bids that highway contractors
submit for contracts that the Minnesota
Department of Transportation
(MnDOT) awards. Working with
MnDOT and leading general contractors
in Minnesota, they will develop
econometric methods to study unit
prices (an important aspect of the
bidding data that has largely been
ignored by earlier researchers), quantify
potential inefficiencies in the
industry, and propose improvements
in the current bidding systems. This
project is a continuation of earlier empirical research by Bajari on bidding by highway contractors in Minnesota.
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Utilizing
Models of Data-Driven Decision
Making to Secure the Success of All
Minnesota Students in K–12 and
Beyond
Schools lack the capacity and
tools to utilize the volumes of information
available to them regarding the
progress of students and to translate
information into action—particularly to
ensure the success of students of color, English-language learners, and students from high-poverty neighborhoods.
Michael Rodriguez (Department of
Educational Psychology) will partner with the Minnesota
Minority Education Partnership to
develop a set of tools for schools to use
information on multiple student indicators
for school change and improved
decision making. The districts of St. Paul
and Long Prairie will be involved in
pilot testing. The project also will bridge
the identification of student outcome
indicators in K–12 to outcomes in higher
education. The project will involve
interviews with key stakeholders and
will result in two reports of best practices,
stakeholder position statements,
and user’s guides or tools for translating information regarding multiple student indicators into action steps.
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Assessment of the
Pilot Projects of the Emerging
Markets Homeownership Initiative
The Emerging Markets Homeownership
Initiative (EMHI) was launched
as a collaborative effort to increase
the number of homeowners among
households of color. Currently EMHI
is working with the mortgage and real
estate industries, cities, and nonprofit organizations to close the homeownership
gap between white households and households of color.
To complement
EMHI’s numerical tracking of changes in rates of homeownership,
Becky Yust and Marilyn Bruin (Department of Design, Housing,
and Apparel) will conduct a qualitative
evaluation of the EMHI pilot projects
selected to achieve the goal of 40,000
new homeowners by 2012. The pair
will conduct focused interviews with
pilot project staff members and with
heads of household who they serve to
identify strategies employed, barriers
experienced, impacts on the lives and
economic well-being of the households,
and the development of social capital
of the organizations. The outcomes of the research will assist in the development
of future EMHI projects and public policies to facilitate homeownership.
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Job-Housing Mismatch: An Affinity Model of Worker-Job Matching
Traditionally, travel surveys based on 1% of the population are used to understand travel behavior. Recently, much more complete data has become available to researchers and policy makers, allowing them to better understand jobhousing mismatch in a region. The Longitudinal Employer–Household Dynamics dataset, available from the Minnesota Department of Labor, includes residence and employment location information for each employed individual in the Twin Cities metropolitan area (excluding self-employed and selected sales personnel).
Using these data, as well as data from other sources, David M. Levinson (Department of Civil Engineering) will analyze the relationship between people’s choices of residence relative to their employment locations in the Twin Cities region. This project will extend travel behavior research to help understand the characteristics of people’s choices of residence relative to their employment locations. The central research hypothesis is that although travel time and income are important factors in where people live and work, other factors may help shape the commuting patterns observed in metropolitan areas. Certain residential neighborhoods produce more workers for a given employment district and in a given industrial classification than can be explained by travel time and income alone. By better identifying the causal factors in travel location, travel demand modelers, transportation planners, and engineers will be better able to address job-housing mismatches and imbalances between demand skills and worker skill sets.
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Land-Use Policy to Conserve Resources in Southeastern Minnesota
Local, state, federal, and international organizations have made significant progress in recent decades to preserve open space and protect undeveloped land in Minnesota. However, conservation organizations, often working with limited resources, do not always have a plan for managing these properties. One environmentally sensitive area without a comprehensive management plan is the Zumbro River and Weaver Dunes area in the Upper Mississippi River Valley in southeastern Minnesota. Wetlands, tributaries to the Mississippi River, terraces, and upland sand dunes in the area contribute to a complex landscape that provides critical habitat for rare, threatened, and endangered species.
As part of a larger project to help inform planning decisions for long-term restoration and maintenance of this area, Susy S. Ziegler (Department of Geography) will use geographic information systems (GIS) to define, delineate, and catalog the functions of landscape elements in Wabasha County; analyze current land-use policies of selected towns on the Mississippi, Zumbro, and Whitewater Rivers; and propose land-use policy changes that incorporate an understanding of the dynamic nature of the various functions of the landscape. The long-term goal of this research is to help The Nature Conservancy, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and other stakeholders make planning decisions to conserve the environmentally sensitive blufflands in the Upper Mississippi River watershed.
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Assessing the Impact of Microbially Influenced Corrosion on the Accelerated Loss of Port Transportation Infrastructure
Shipping through the Duluth-Superior Harbor, the largest port in the Great Lakes, has a $200 million annual impact on Minnesota’s economy. Steel sheet piling used for docks, bridges, and bulkheads in the port is corroding at an accelerated rate not seen at other ports within the Great Lakes. Replacing a 20-kilometer stretch of these structures may cost more than $100 million if the cause and possible remedies for the corrosion cannot be identified. An expert panel convened in fall of 2004 to examine the corrosion issue recommended further analysis to check for microbially influenced corrosion in the harbor.
Working with the Duluth Seaway Port Authority and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Randall E. Hicks (Department of Biology, University of Minnesota at Duluth) will attempt to confirm or eliminate the involvement of microbial consortia in the accelerated corrosion process taking place in the Duluth-Superior Harbor. The hypothesis that will guide the research is that species of ironoxidizing and sulfate-reducing bacteria are present in greater abundance at accelerated corrosion sites in the harbor than at nearby sites in the St. Louis River and Lake Superior that show little or no corrosion. Information about the structure, composition, and activity of microbial communities in the Duluth- Superior Harbor will not only help identify the cause of accelerated corrosion, but also will be useful for designing, testing, and implementing mitigation efforts to reduce the loss of the harbor’s transportation infrastructure.
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Preparing Minnesota Teachers for Diverse Contexts
Minnesota demographics are changing rapidly, as urban, suburban, and rural areas alike become increasingly diverse. During the past decade, more than half the total population growth in the state has occurred among Asian, African American, Latino, and American Indian populations. As a result, Minnesota schools are more ethnically and culturally diverse than ever. At the same time, the teaching force in Minnesota remains predominantly White, creating a potential mismatch between teachers’ expectations and experiences and students’ cultural backgrounds and learning styles. Minnesota’s teacher preparation programs are becoming more sensitive to the changing needs of diverse school populations and seek to better prepare teachers by heightening awareness of cultural issues and providing for culturally-responsive pedagogy.
As part of a collaborative effort among the University of Minnesota, Minnesota State University at Mankato, and the College of St. Catherine (representatives of the three institutional systems that provide teacher preparation in Minnesota), Patricia Avery, Benjamin Jacobs, and Mistilina Sato (Department of Curriculum and Instruction) will examine the critical teacher preparations experiences that contribute to the standards-based instructional practices of first-year teachers who are graduates of the three institutions. Using surveys, interviews, classroom observations, and document analysis, the project will seek to determine the relationships among teacher preparation program elements, new teacher learning, teacher support structures, and classroom performance in ethnically and culturally diverse school and classroom contexts. Findings of this study will influence teacher preparation program design throughout Minnesota and nationally, suggest recommendations for policy related to new teacher support and retention, and improve learning opportunities for students in Minnesota schools.
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Academic Risk and Resilience among Homeless and Highly Mobile Children
The achievement of homeless and highly mobile children in urban schools has profound significance for regional and national policies and programs aimed at closing achievement gaps among school children and fostering positive development and success for all children. Many of the children at risk for academic and related problems in urban districts are highly mobile. Data recently reported by the Minneapolis Public Schools indicates large gaps between homeless and high-mobility students and other students in the district on attendance and achievement scores. And in the Twin Cities, as elsewhere, homeless and highly mobile children are disproportionately from minority cultural and ethnic groups. Addressing the large achievement gap between low-income and other children in the Minneapolis school district is unlikely until the issue of school success among homeless and high-mobility children is addressed.
Ann S. Masten (Institute of Child Development) will lead a collaborative team of University of Minnesota and Minneapolis Public School researchers who, working with shelter providers, will analyze predictors and patterns of achievement and attendance among homeless and high-mobility students. Using state-of-the-art longitudinal analyses and three years of data across all grades in the district, the team will examine patterns of academic difficulties and resilience over time. Data will show how key factors are related to changes over time in achievement, including attendance. Additionally, the team will collect more detailed data about a group of 5- and 6-year-olds living in a homeless shelter to examine more closely the risks and protective factors for successful school transitions. Findings will inform district initiatives to address achievement gaps and mobility issues, and also broader community efforts to promote success among homeless and high-mobility children.
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Utility Rates for Reverse-Metered Electricity: A Key Obstacle to Renewable Energy Technology Adoption?
With its substantial wind and agricultural resources, Minnesota is well-positioned to develop renewable sources of energy. Advances in the science and engineering of renewable energy technologies continue to increase efficiency ratings and reduce capital costs. However, the transition to a renewable energy economy ultimately depends on well-designed competitive and regulatory structures that allow renewable and nonrenewable energy sources to compete on a level playing field. The 1978 Public Utility Regulatory Policy Act (PURPA) provided an important step in this direction. The act requires utilities to buy back electric power from certain qualifying utilities (primarily nonutility energy generators using renewable energy technologies), providing direct access to the electric grid. It also requires utilities to pay these facilities for “avoided costs”—that is, all costs that the qualifying facilities’ electricity production enabled the utility to avoid. Unfortunately, avoided costs are easy to obfuscate, and a clear inventive exists for utilities to underreport these costs. To the extent that utilities’ offer-rates to buy back electricity are based on calculations that understate the true avoided costs, the renewable energy industry is placed at a decided disadvantage. The forestalled transition to renewable energy sources, therefore, might be traceable to a poorly designed regulatory structure rather than a failure in the economics of renewable energy per se.
Arne Kildegaard (Economics and Management, University of Minnesota at Morris) will analyze how Minnesota utilities calculate avoided costs in practice and how these costs should be calculated as a matter of fair managerial accounting practice (considering capital costs, peak demand costs, congestion, and distribution costs). Based on these analyses, Kildegaard will assess the potential economic viability of renewable energy technologies, and provide recommendations regarding the level of fair pricing in Minnesota. Sources of information will include interviews with community partners from the renewable energy research and advocacy community, regulatory personnel from the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission, and marketing and engineering personnel from Minnesota utility companies. An article concerning this project appeared in the December 2006 CURA Reporter (download article, PDF file).
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Analysis of the Impact of Class Size on Student Achievement in Minnesota’s Elementary Schools
Parents, educators, and public officials in Minnesota have long been concerned about children’s academic achievement in the state’s elementary schools. The issue has become particularly acute as tight budgets at the federal, state, and local levels have forced Minnesota public schools to reduce spending. One possible consequence of the current budget situation is larger class sizes, because keeping class sizes small requires more teachers for a given student population and is therefore quire expensive. Although it is widely believed that small class sizes enhance learning, isolating the impact of class size alone on educational achievement is extremely difficult, and no credible study on this issue has been conducted in Minnesota.
Using a research method recently introduced by Harvard University economics professor Caroline Hoxby, Paul Glewwe (Applied Economics) will examine the impact of class size on academic performance in elementary schools in Minnesota using data provided by the Minnesota Department of Education. The research approach Glewwe will use is based on natural variations in birth rates in a given school district, which allows for more precise estimates of the impact of class size on student academic performance. The research project may also include various community groups in the state that work on education issues. An article concerning this project appeared in the Spring 2007 CURA Reporter (download article, PDF file)
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Impacts of Bus Rapid Transit on West Broadway Neighborhoods in North Minneapolis
Traffic in the Highway 81 corridor northwest of downtown Minneapolis has grown considerably in recent years, and congestion is only likely to worsen given the population increases expected in this area. To help alleviate congestion, a bus rapid transit (BRT) system is being constructed along Highway 81 that will offer transit service from downtown Minneapolis through the communities of Robbinsdale, Crystal, Brooklyn Park, Osseo, Hassan Township, Dayton, Maple Grove, and Rogers. The BRT system will run through the West Broadway area in North Minneapolis. Juxtaposition Arts— a youth-focused, minority-directed, urban visual arts center in North Minneapolis— is developing ideas for the redevelopment of West Broadway to create a more vibrant and people-focused pedestrian district. However, the organization lacks the expertise and resources to evaluate how BRT’s physical qualities relate to local design visions for redevelopment of the West Broadway area.
Kristine F. Miller (Landscape Architecture) will conduct interviews with decision makers and community members on BRT’s potential benefits to the West Broadway community and BRT’s fit with visions for future development; analyze the potential impacts of BRT on pedestrian systems, traffic speeds, and sidewalk widths; evaluate the proposed location and design of BRT stations relative to existing transit infrastructure and commercial nodes; and develop alternative design scenarios for BRT based on community input. The project will result in a report that includes an analysis of how BRT might impact the West Broadway community, and recommendations for revising BRT in light of community concerns. An article concerning this project appeared in the Fall 2007 CURA Reporter (download article, PDF file)
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Analyzing the Effectiveness of the Alternative Urban Areawide Review (AUAR) as an Environmental Review and Planning Tool
Minnesota’s Alternative Urban Areawide Review (AUAR) is a unique and innovative environmental review tool that provides responsible governmental units (RGU) the opportunity to conduct a comprehensive analysis of potential environmental impacts associated with future development. The AUAR allows for the identification of mitigation requirements for a range of possible development scenarios, and facilitates ecosystem-based environmental planning and regional approaches to addressing development impacts and environmental mitigation. Thus, the AUAR represents not only a useful method for environmental review, but also an effective planning tool. Given the increasing use of the AUAR tool, and growing concerns among state agencies and other organizations that the AUAR is being misapplied and inadequately utilized, an analysis of the tool seems warranted.
Carissa Schively (Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs) will analyze the effectiveness of the AUAR as an environmental review tool, assessing the appropriateness of its application and the quality of environmental analysis and mitigation that it produces. Using four to six recent AUAR processes as case studies, Schively will collect data through interviews with AUAR participants, analysis of AUAR documents, and reviews of documentation related to development and policy changes in AUAR areas. The research will inform policy makers about the value of AUAR as an environmental review and planning tool, will provide guidance to relevant agencies as they undertake or participate in AUAR processes, and may point to recommendations for AUAR policy changes. An article concerning this project appeared in the Spring 2007 CURA Reporter (download article, PDF file).
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Assessing the Barriers and Potential for Wetland Restoration in an Agricultural Watershed
During the last 150 years, more than 50% of the historical wetlands in southern Minnesota have been drained to make way for human settlement and agricultural activities. Minnesota derives great economic benefit from the state’s agricultural sector, which depends on a well-drained landscape, but society also has come to place increasing value on wetlands for the ecological benefits they provide. Although many farmers are interested in restoring wetland areas, overlapping—and sometimes conflicting—state and federal programs designed for this purpose make conservation work difficult and seldom practiced.
Gary R. Sands (Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering) will work with a graduate student in Water Resources Science to investigate the barriers and obstacles to wetland restoration in the Seven Mile Creek Watershed in Brown, Nicollet, and Cottonwood Counties in southern Minnesota. Using historical documents dating back to 1854, physiographic data, and interviews with conservation agency staff and cooperating farmers, the researchers will identify potential locations for restored wetlands in the watershed, assess the ecological benefits of these wetlands, and identify the barriers to and potential solutions for achieving increased wetland restoration in the watershed. An article concerning this project appeared in the Winter 2007 CURA Reporter (download article, PDF file).
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The Proliferation of Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria
Although antibiotics are unquestionably one of the most important scientific discoveries of the twentieth century, the proliferation of antibiotic-resistant bacteria now represents one of the great public health issues of the twenty-first century. Many scientists fear the antibiotic era is nearing its end and that currently treatable diseases will once again become lethal. A major contributing factor to the problem is the release of medicinal antibiotics into the environment through human waste. Because municipal wastewater treatment facilities are not specifically designed or operated to eradicate antibiotic resistant bacteria, both effluent discharge from these plants and agricultural applications of insufficiently treated wastewater sludge can release antibiotic-resistant bacteria into the environment. Timothy LaPara, a professor in the Department of Civil Engineering, will work with the Metropolitan Council Environmental Services and the West Lake Superior Sanitary District to determine the extent to which wastewater treatment plants can prevent the spread of antibiotic resistant organisms. The proposed research will build upon previous work by characterizing antibiotic resistant bacteria previously isolated from a wastewater treatment effluent and by enumerating antibiotic resistant bacteria from two different sludge treatment systems. This research will identify how wastewater treatment operations can be modified to prevent the proliferation of antibiotic resistant bacteria and suggest regulations for the use of antibiotics in human medical practice and agriculture. An article concerning this project appeared in the September 2006 CURA Reporter (download article, PDF file). (2004–2005 Faculty Interactive Research Program award)
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Partners in Action for Teen Health
Partners in Action for Teen Health (PATH) is a multicomponent, school-based intervention project involving the University of Minnesota’s Prevention Research Center (PRC) and two North Minneapolis organizations, Village Social Services and Nellie Stone Johnson Community School. The goal of PATH is to reduce sexual risk-taking, violence involvement, substance use, and school failure among middle school students from the economically disadvantaged Hawthorne neighborhood. Significantly, the project employs a youth development framework that repudiates the traditional focus on social “problems” among marginalized and underserved groups and instead emphasizes a solution-oriented approach grounded in the identification of resources and protective factors in the community. Renee Sieving from the School of Nursing will work with other PRC investigators to (1) fully engage the PATH community partners in tailoring PATH interventions to a multiethnic group of students from a resource-poor neighborhood; (2) develop the first PATH School Report from student survey data, and engage professionals and parents representing each study school in dialogues around report findings; and (3) develop a PATH Implementation Manual that codifies strategies used to tailor this intervention to a particular context and describes processes that promote intervention adoption within a complex, real-world system. In addition to showing how students from an urban school can benefit from extending classroom learning to families and the community, PATH will provide a model for collaboration between teachers, school administrators, social service providers, University faculty, and college students in a program of youth development. Findings from this research project will also form a scientific basis for advocating long-term changes in school-based practices and policies that promote healthy youth development among young people from communities characterized by health and economic disparities. (2004–2005 Faculty Interactive Research Program award)
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Assessing and Forecasting Land-Use and Land-Cover Change in the Twin Cities Metropolitan Area
Land-use and land-cover change resulting from human activity have a profound effect on environmental and socioeconomic sustainability along the rural-urban continuum in Minnesota. Land change is responsible for up to one-quarter of all human-generated carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. In addition, land-use and land-cover change in urban areas and at the urban-rural interface influences atmospheric chemistry, water resources and hydrology, regional climate, heat island effects, habitat fragmentation, and biotic diversity and productivity. Leapfrog development of suburbs and exurbs can also lead to socioeconomic fragmentation, spatial mismatch between housing and employment, infrastructure inefficiencies, urban poverty concentration, and adverse effects on public health. Marvin Bauer from the Department of Forest Resources and Steven Manson from the Department of Geography will investigate two key challenges in addressing land-use and land-cover change in Minnesota: (1) the use of remote-sensing imagery to determine land cover in the Twin Cities metropolitan area and (2) development of a model to combine this land-cover data with socioeconomic and biogeophysical data to understand relationships between land use and land cover and to project future land use and land cover for the metropolitan area. Working with staff at the Metropolitan Council, the researchers will identify growth scenarios for the Twin Cities region of interest to stakeholders represented by the Met Council and create land-use and land-cover products useful for understanding the socioeconomic and environmental effects of growth in the region. An article concerning this project appeared in the September 2006 CURA Reporter (download article, PDF file). (2004–2005 Faculty Interactive Research Program award)
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Baby Space Expansion Project
In 1998, a group of community members, service providers, community program directors, and University faculty collaborated to establish BABY’S SPACE, an educare center in Phillips neighborhood that provides full-day infant–toddler care and parent support services. Based on anecdotal evidence of the center’s success in promoting healthy cognitive and emotional development in children, the model is being expanded to four additional community-based childcare centers in Hennepin County that serve high-risk, impoverished, inner-city infants and toddlers. Terrie Rose, a professor in the Institute of Child Development, and Amos Deinard, a professor in the Department of Pediatrics, will evaluate the effectiveness and impact of integrated childcare and family support services on child development, child maltreatment, and family outcomes. With support from Hennepin County and the Bush and McKnight Foundations, the pair will document over time the cognitive and emotional development of children enrolled in the Hennepin County childcare centers in relation to several factors: childcare services, maternal employment, life events, and service level. The study will attempt to determine what prevention and intervention strategies work, with whom, and under what conditions, with the goal of promoting best practices and supporting the creation of policies that provide effective and essential services for very young children and their families. An article concerning this project appeared in the November 2005 CURA Reporter (download article, PDF file). (2003–2004 Faculty Interactive Research Program award)
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Quality Jobs and Full Employment for Minnesotans
Growth & Justice, the Jobs NOW Coalition, and Project for Pride in Living share a concern with how to facilitate economic growth in Minnesota while ensuring economic justice through jobs that pay a living wage. In an effort to address this issue, Ann Markusen, a professor in the Urban and Regional Planning Program at the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, will collaborate with the three organizations to investigate a series of central questions on job creation and job quality. Markusen will synthesize the current academic literature and research by think tanks, states, localities, and community groups around the country related to three issues: (1) how to identify and create good jobs and career paths; (2) which economic and workforce development approaches appear to work; and (3) the effectiveness of alternative economic and workforce development strategies, especially when long-term fiscal consequences are taken into account. The research will focus particularly on potential conflicts among the goals of full employment, quality job creation, and fiscal responsibility. The goal of the project is to suggest effective public policy initiatives for workforce development that have broad appeal. An article concerning this project appeared in the Summer 2004 CURA Reporter download article, pdf file). (2003–2004 Faculty Interactive Research Program award)
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Evaluation Capacity-Building in Minnesota’s Nonprofit Agencies
The increasing demand for program evaluation during the past decade has created a dilemma for nongovernmental organizations, school districts, and other nonprofit agencies. On one hand, targeted evaluation data can provide helpful evidence about what is working in an organization and what is not, and such process information can help the organization better fulfill its mission. On the other hand, funding agencies with strict accountability requirements may place nonprofits in the challenging position of showing that money spent has led to desired outcomes, something that is both difficult and costly to measure. Unfortunately, the two types of evaluation information are rarely the same and staff constraints, funding needs, and demands for accountability mean that outcome evaluations typically dominate in nonprofit organizations. Jean A. King, a professor in the Department of Educational Policy and Administration, will engage in case studies of program evaluation development in several Twin Cities agencies—two social service and two educational—from 1990 to the present, and will use an interactive “democratic deliberative” approach to examine capacity building as a way to address the evaluation dilemma. Through the systematic development of infrastructure and organizational evaluation processes, evaluation capacity-building has the potential to resolve the evaluation dilemma by systematically gathering data for both purposes—process and outcomes—in a timely and cost-effective manner. An article concerning this project appeared in the Summer 2005 CURA Reporter download article, pdf file). (2003–2004 Faculty Interactive Research Program award)
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Subprime Lending and Foreclosure in Minneapolis and St. Paul
Promoting homeownership among low-income, disadvantaged, and underserved groups is a cornerstone of housing policy at national, state, and local levels. However, subprime or “predatory” lending—which includes various types of fraudulent, deceptive, discriminatory, or unfavorable lending practices—can turn homeownership into a financial nightmare, jeopardizing the financial stability of families and entire neighborhoods. Jeff R. Crump—a professor in the Housing Studies Program in the Department of Design, Housing, and Apparel—will examine the causes and consequences of subprime lending in the Twin Cities. Three main questions will be addressed: (1) What is the spatial distribution of subprime loans in the Twin Cities? (2) How do the characteristics of lenders, borrowers, and neighborhoods explain the spatial distribution of subprime lending? (3) What is the relationship between subprime lending and foreclosures in the Twin Cities? Data will be jointly gathered with the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, and the study will include several community partners active on housing issues. The study will suggest public policies that might address subprime lending. Two articles concerning this project appeared in the CURA Reporter, one in Spring 2005 (download article, pdf file) and one in Summer 2007 (download article, PDF file). (2003–2004 Faculty Interactive Research Program award)
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Persistence of Antibiotics in Minnesota Surface Waters
There is growing concern about the release of antibiotic compounds into aquatic environments because of their potential to damage ecosystems and to breed antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Recently antibiotics have been identified as pollutants in Minnesota surface waters. Information regarding the fate of antibiotics in the environment is key to risk assessment and to evaluating the need for improved water treatment processes. Working with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Metropolitan Council Environmental Services, and the United States Geological Survey, William Arnold, a professor in the Department of Civil Engineering, will investigate antibiotic degradation rates and mechanisms in surface waters through a combination of laboratory and field experiments. These community partners are responsible for the introduction and monitoring of antibiotics in Minnesota waters and may play future roles in enforcement of regulations. This research will develop experimental protocols for determining the environmental persistence of antibiotics and provide information valuable to determining the need and extent of potential regulations. An article concerning this project appeared in the Spring 2005 CURA Reporter download article, pdf file). (2003–2004 Faculty Interactive Research Program award)
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Lifestyle Choices and Land-Use Transportation Policy
Traffic congestion and urban sprawl are pressing issues in many metropolitan areas in the United States, including the Twin Cities. In the Twin Cities metro area, the Metropolitan Council has supported smart growth design and other planning initiatives to reduce auto reliance and decrease congestion. However, the ability of using land-use policy to affect travel is largely unknown because existing research has not adequately considered the effect of household lifestyles and preferences on travel decisions. Kevin J. Krizek, a professor in the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, will work with planners from the Met Council and Metro Transit to analyze the 2001 Twin Cities Travel Behavior Inventory dataset. Traditionally these data are used to forecast regional transportation demands. Krizek will attempt to identify different lifestyles of households (combinations of household choices of residential location, work status and location, vehicle ownership, and daily activity and travel scheduling). Careful attention to how lifestyle decisions unfold and the role that attitudinal preferences play may help future transportation planning efforts better design land-use transportation initiatives to achieve their objectives in the Twin Cities. An article concerning this project appeared in the Fall 2005 CURA Reporter download article, pdf file). (2003–2004 Faculty Interactive Research Program award)
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