Professor, Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning (UEPP), Virginia Tech; Joann Boughman Innovation Fellow at USG; Acting Director, Center for Future of Work Places and Practices (CFWPP); Head of Outreach and Engagement, Center for European and Transatlantic Studies (CEUTS)
Last week, Dr. Virgil Wood was interviewed by Rebecca Powell-Doherty and Ben Grove on Andy Morikawa’s Trustees Without Borders show. During the conversation, Dr. Wood talked about his life and work with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Louis Kelso, and many other leading American figures. The interview can be accessed by clicking on the image below.
On March 24-25, the School of Public and International Affairs will be holding its Ridenour Faculty Fellowship Conference & High Table Celebration, at the Virginia Tech Inn. The title of the conference is Faith in the System: Rebuilding Trust in Government in a Time a Complex Governing Challenges.
During the conference, I will moderate a panel discussion (at 2:45pm on Friday, March 24) on The Future of Work and Income in an Era of Economic Inequality.
The panelists include Dr. Virgil A. Wood (Pastor Emeritus, Pond Street Baptist Church; Former Dean, Northeastern University; Former ten-year working associate of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.), Dr. Joyce Rothschild (Professor, School of Public and International Affairs, Virginia Tech), and Dr. Christian Matheis (Visiting Assistant Professor, Government and International Affairs, Virginia Tech).
During the panel discussion we will explore how the forces of globalization and rapid technological change, along with an overall decline in pay and wages, have resulted in the perception of a stagnant post-recession economic recovery. Emphasis on economic inequality was persistent in the 2016 presidential election along with promises to bring back jobs and industries that once supported the American Dream. The panel members will examine these major socio-economic and political shifts, and discuss what could be done to reduce economic inequality and reestablish trust in government.
The conference sessions are free, but participants are asked to register.
Congratulations Marc Fialkoff (PGG Doctoral Candidate) for being selected as a 2017 Eno Transportation Fellow. The Eno Center for Transportation is non-profit foundation whose core mission is the study of emerging issues in transportation policy and the cultivation of future leaders in the field.
Marc is the first student in the School of Public and International Affairs at Virginia Tech to be selected as an Eno Fellow. As a Fellow, Marc will travel to Washington D.C. in early June to participate in the Eno Center Future Leaders Development Conference.
As a doctoral candidate and a lawyer, Marc’s research is at the intersection of law, transportation policy, civil engineering, and network science. His research focus on freight transportation resilience was awarded a HERE Dissertation Support Grant by Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 2016, where he carried out his research into the effect of the Jones Act on freight transportation movements after Hurricane Sandy. His research has been published in the Critical Infrastructure Report and the International Journal for Critical Infrastructure Protection.
Marc’s committee represents the interdisciplinary nature of transportation policy, with committee members from Urban Affairs and Planning, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Law, and Network Science. I currently co-chair Marc’s committee with Ralph Buehler, along with committee members Kathleen Hancock, Henning Mortveit, and Jonathan Gutoff.
Our new paper entitled “Pathways to Better Project Delivery: the Link between Capacity Factors and Urban Infrastructure Projects in India,” has been published in World Development. This paper presents part of the research undertaken by Yehyun (Hannah) An as part of her award winning PhD dissertation.
Yehyun’s research explores the concept of capacity development (CD) in the context of a large urban infrastructure program in India – the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). Her research utilized a unique combination of qualitative and quantitative methods and I believe it is the first application of fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) in the field of CD. We believe this papers makes an important contribution to both CD theory and practice.
A new paper by Shyam Ranganathan, Raj GC, and I was recently published in Sustainability. The paper presents a way to advance an interconnected set of SDGs and targets through a multiple-use water services (MUS) approach to rural water delivery.
Abstract: The 2030 agenda presents an integrated set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and targets that will shape development activities for the coming decade. The challenge now facing development organizations and governments is how to operationalize this interconnected set of goals and targets through effective projects and programs. This paper presents a micro-level modeling approach that can quantitatively assess the impacts associated with rural water interventions that are tailored to specific communities. The analysis focuses on how a multiple-use water services (MUS) approach to SDG 6 could reinforce a wide range of other SDGs and targets. The multilevel modeling framework provides a generalizable template that can be used in multiple sectors. In this paper, we apply the methodology to a dataset on rural water services from Mozambique to show that community-specific equivalents of macro-level variables used in the literature such as Cost of Illness (COI) avoided can provide a better indication of the impacts of a specific intervention. The proposed modeling framework presents a new frontier for designing projects in any sector that address the specific needs of communities, while also leveraging the knowledge gained from previous projects in any country. The approach also presents a way for agencies and organizations to design projects or programs that bridge sectors/disciplines (water, irrigation, health, energy, economic development, etc.) to advance an interconnected set of SDGs and targets.
Citation: Hall, R.P.; Ranganathan, S.; G. C., R.K. A General Micro-Level Modeling Approach to Analyzing Interconnected SDGs: Achieving SDG 6 and More through Multiple-Use Water Services (MUS). Sustainability 2017, 9(2), 314.
Today I had the fortune of moderating a session at the 2017 Dennis Dean Undergraduate Research & Creative Scholarship Conference. This conference showcases the creative and scholarly accomplishments of Virginia Tech’s undergraduate students.
During my session, the following students (from five different programs) each provided excellent presentations of their research:
Congratulations to Behshad Ghadimi who successfully defended his PhD in Civil Engineering today. Behshad’s researched focused on the impact of project delivery methods on stakeholder issues and involvement practices in megaprojects. I served on Behshad’s PhD committee with Michael Garvin (Committee Chair, shown on the left below), Sunil Sinha, and John Taylor. The abstract to Behshad’s dissertation is provided below.
Abstract
As the scale and scope of infrastructure projects have increased, so too has the array of stakeholders either involved or impacted. Such projects often take years to come together and evolve with time through the actions of project sponsors and the engagement of various stakeholders. Stakeholders through engagement and input can help legitimize and improve large-scale project initiatives. Stakeholders can also marshal opposition that can delay or block these projects. Consequently, the significance of stakeholder involvement is critical in megaprojects.
Governments have increasingly utilized public-private partnerships (PPPs) for megaproject delivery. This method introduces characteristics that distinguish PPP megaprojects from others such as: private control, profiteering, foreign profits, and long-term concessions. This study investigates whether differences exist between PPP and non-PPP megaprojects with respect to stakeholder involvement strategies and stakeholder issues raised in such projects.
The research employs a longitudinal multiple case study approach that examines four tolled fixed crossing megaprojects; two of them are delivered as PPPs and two are delivered as design-build (i.e., non-PPP). The approach follows the design of prior studies in this area by De Schepper, Dooms, and Haezendonck (2014) and Winn (2001). Pre and post milestone event analysis captures trends and shifts in involvement strategies and stakeholder issues. Subsequently, stakeholder issue tables (organized by issue themes) and stakeholder mechanism tables (organized by mechanism type and information flow) are utilized for across case synthesis and comparison to identify similarities and differences among the cases.
Analysis of stakeholder involvements across cases shows that NEPA establishes a baseline for involvement, but its requirements are not sufficient for megaprojects; a more comprehensive strategy is necessary. Further, although participatory involvements may enhance input and legitimize projects, these mechanisms must be carefully managed in terms of process and criteria for evaluating stakeholder input. Examination of stakeholder issues indicates that issues that are common to non-PPP and PPP projects are more prevalent than PPP specific issues. In particular, issues related to tolling are dominant; moreover, toll affordability is extremely sensitive, and its severity is predictable based on affected area demographics and past toll escalation practices.
The study provides insights about how megaprojects are shaped through actions of project sponsors as well as impacted and interested stakeholders. It also demonstrates how these projects become artifacts of aspiration for politically powerful figures. Lastly, it identifies the main stakeholder issues and suggests a set of guidelines to assist future practitioners in developing better stakeholder involvement strategies, which should both enhance and legitimize megaprojects.
In 2016, I was pleased to welcome Charles Chirwa to Virginia Tech for a period several weeks. During his time at the university, we began to analyze the data he collected on the consistency of sludge in 300 pit latrines in Mzuzu, Malawi. We were joined in this task by my colleagues Leigh-Anne Krometis, Eric Vance, Adam Edwards, and Ting Guan.
At the end of his stay, I posted a tweet in which I stated that “we plan to publish a WASH paper on his research.” After returning to Mzuzu, Charles continued to work on the paper with his primary advisor, Rochelle Holm, and his extended research team in the US. This week his paper was published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.
I wanted to congratulate Charles on this accomplishment, which involved hundreds of hours of diligent and carefully executed fieldwork and months of data cleaning and processing to find the best way to present his data. His research provides important data and insights into strategies that could advance pit latrine emptying in resource poor communities in Africa.
This year I will support two study abroad programs that will take Virginia Tech students to Malawi and to Switzerland, Senegal, and Croatia.
The Experience WASH in Malawi course will take place from July 9 – 29, 2017 (Summer II), and will provide students with an excellent opportunity to undertake WASH-related research with a cohort of students from VT, Denver University, Mzuzu University, and Texas Tech. The presentation below provides an overview of the course and includes a few images from our 2016 offering. Students can apply here.
In the Fall semester, I will be co-leading (with Thomas Archibald) a module in the Dean’s Semester on Global Challenges in Switzerland and Senegal focused on food security. During the three-week module, students will explore the causes and impacts of malnutrition and food insecurity and the various responses of international organizations and NGOs to the global food challenge. From this foundation, students will have the opportunity to engage with international agricultural organizations and NGOs in Geneva, Switzerland, before traveling to Senegal to study two agricultural development programs – the 4-H and PPP program – managed by Virginia Tech’s Office of International Research, Education, and Development (OIRED). We are developing our module around the precepts of “fair trade learning,” that include transparency, community-driven service, commitment and sustainability, deliberate diversity, intercultural contact, community preparation, local sourcing, reciprocity, and reflection.
The video below provides a brief overview of the semester that will run from August 25 – December 13, 2017. Students can apply here.
Thanks to everyone who made this happen.
community | com ∙ mu ∙ ni ∙ ty |
definition: a unified body of individuals
Above, 20+ volunteers gathered at Kentland Farms to pack the books on the trucks. Next stop… Project Hope in Winchester, VA.
What a joyful day of celebration for the Mzuni Library Initiative and the awesome community that has rallied behind these efforts. Perhaps there has never been a more powerful personification of community, and today we were particularly (wonderfully!) overwhelmed by the community that has supported the Mzuni Library Initiative, as over 20 volunteers gathered at Kentland Farms to see the textbooks on their way- the final leg of their journey to Mzuzu University in northern Malawi.
Here’s a quick recap of the Mzuni Library Initiative by the numbers:
And so, today we offer a humble, sincere thank you to the community members and groups that have been the heart and hands of this initiative…
View original post 60 more words
Ralph P Hall 