Lincoln Avenue

The Value of a Good Argument

2012-02-03T11:15:00.000-05:00

What I appreciate most about Deborah Mower's perspective on civility in politics and education is her emphasis on the idea that being civil does not mean suppressing disagreements. Instead, it's all about pursuing them in thoughtful, serious ways. As we discussed in the interview, people too often think that challenging someone else's ideas is inherently rude, and so we shy away from argument. The key is, rather, to learn how to argue well, to construct an argument and defend a position on the basis of evidence and ideas, rather than on personal attacks, insinuations, and gut responses.

The difficulty, I think, is navigating between the ideal of a society in which people disagree in thoughtful, productive ways, and the reality of a culture that has come to rely heavily on exaggeration, character assassination, and digging in our heels. The book she edited with Wade L. Robison, Civility in Politics and Education, presents a number of philosophical views on this, though as Mower acknowledges, philosophers often examine ideals of how people should think and behave. In a culture of political attack ads and clearly divided news media, we often don't live up to those ideals. Too many of us don't take our own responsibilities -- not only participants in arguments but also as audiences for political and civic debates -- seriously.

Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics

2012-01-25T17:10:00.000-05:00

Actually, as Tom Finnerty explains in this week's Lincoln Avenue, the truth about all those statistical reports on Youngstown's economy is not as bad as that famous old Mark Twain line. It's not that they're lying. It's that when an organization like the Brookings Institution reports a finding, the details about the statistics get buried. The Vindicator had a story about this on their front page this week, about how the unemployment rate is down but that the size of the local labor force has shrunk. To make sense of that, you have to understand how the unemployment rate is calculated. And as Finnerty points out, you have to pay attention to what is being measures, and where. does poverty mean the total number of poor people, or the level of concentration of poverty in poor neighborhoods (that was an issue with the Brookings report from this past fall). Does "Youngstown" mean the city, or the Youngstown metro area? As citizens and readers, we have to pay attention, or we can be easily misled.

Finnerty is Associate Director of YSU's Center for Urban and Regional Studies, and it's a great resource for information on the local and regional economy. The CURS website has links to dozens of reports and maps, on everything from crime rates to the needs of the elderly, dating back to the 1980s and up to 2011. You could learn a lot by digging into their archives -- just remember to pay attention to the basis for the data.

On the Agenda

2012-01-18T21:12:00.000-05:00

Given all the battles in the 2011 Ohio legislature, and the way fights like the one over SB 5 spilled over to engage citizens almost all year, it's hard to understand how Senate Minority Leader Capri Cafaro can be so calm and even upbeat about her job. But she is. She speaks with conviction about the value of politics and the possibility of collaboration between Democrats and Republicans, which these days seems rare.

Cafaro should have some interesting opportunities to represent our area's interests this term. The legislature will almost certainly have to address the oil and gas industry, as she notes in our interview, but earthquakes and ongoing hearings make that complex territory. Education funding, abortion, and other issues will also surface. You can keep an eye on what's going on by following the Senate calendar, and you can use the Senate website to stay in touch with your Senator. As we learned last year, our voices matter.

Imagining Community Downtown

2012-01-13T08:26:00.001-05:00

If you're looking for something to do next Saturday night, I have a suggestion: begin the evening at the McDonough Museum of Art on the YSU campus and help preserve, and maybe even help make, some Youngstown history. On January 21, from 6-8 pm, the McDonough will host a public reception for the Paramount Project. Anita Lin explains the project in this week's Lincoln Avenue, including the development of the exhibit that opened this week at the museum, featuring photos, artifacts, and interviews reflecting the history of the Paramount theater and ideas about how the renovated facade and open air multi-use space behind it that Lin and her colleagues are imagining will change downtown.

Much of that is about community. Over the past five years, downtown Youngstown has attracted a number of large festivals and smaller-scale public programs, like the farmer's market and Friday concerts. Restaurants and bars have become meeting places, too. Lin argues that a covered open-air, non-commercial space could serve many functions, most importantly expanding the opportunities for people to gather downtown. It's an intriguing model for how to preserve and repurpose a significant structure, but turning that imagined community space into reality will take time and money. If you're interested in helping make that happen, next Saturday's reception is a good place to begin.

The Persistence of Racism

2011-12-15T09:15:00.000-05:00

Michelle Alexander's book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness explains how the war on drugs has not only targeted young black men, putting more African-Americans in jail today than were enslaved in the 1850s, and demonstrates how going to prison is just the first step in what then becomes a lifelong pattern of absolutely legal discrimination. Her arguments and evidence are compelling and thorough, and I hope her analysis will contribute to the development of exactly the kind of mass social movement against inequities in the criminal justice system and our obsession with an inaccurate understanding of drug-related crime.

But what I find most compelling about the book is its clear portrait of the persistence of racism despite decades of efforts to educate and persuade Americans to reject their deeply-held prejudices. As Alexander suggests, we've all learned that we're not supposed to be racist, and few of us would acknowledge that we treat others differently if they look different from us. She cites studies that show clear patterns of racial bias, even in people who are sure they're colorblind. (You can try the tests for yourself online.) As Alexander rightly points out, no one is really colorblind, nor should we aim to be. Difference matters, and overcoming our habit of making assumptions based on race is incredibly difficult. Doing so on the level of a whole culture is even more challenging.

As someone who's been teaching college courses on multicultural literature for more than 20 years, and who has long believed that doing so would make some kind of difference, I found this book at once validating (yes, discrimination is real and significant) and depressing (if racism has simply gone into hiding behind seemingly neutral concepts like the war on drugs). More than anything, I think it's important. At a time when many Americans are entering discussions about inequality, the ideas Alexander lays out need to be part of the conversation.

Why Stories Matter

2011-12-09T07:19:00.000-05:00

I believe in stories. That's hardly surprising -- I'm an English professor, after all. But my faith in stories, and in the act of storytelling, isn't just about Literature with a capital L. Whether in research, spiritual life, relationships, or simply sorting out my own experiences, stories are rich, complex material. We use stories to give meaning to what happens to us. By translating experience into story, we connect individual lives with context and ideas.

So I was interested in the work Lee and Johanna Slivinske have done with stories as a tool in therapy with children. In a way, the value of stories in therapy (with anyone, not just kids) seems obvious. What's most interesting about the Slivinske's book, Storytelling and Other Activities for Children in Therapy (Wiley, 2011) is the variety of techniques and examples it offers. They provide an explanation for why stories are useful and how they can be incorporated into therapy, but then they have pages and pages of examples, geared to a wide range of issues.

Even for those of us who don't work as therapists, this concept seems useful. Storytelling happens more or less naturally in most of our lives, but I wonder how often we use it deliberately, as a tool? I tell stories in the classroom all the time, though I can't say that I've been especially thoughtful or intentional about it. How does storytelling fit into your work? Into your life?

Religion: The Ties that Bind?

2011-12-01T09:48:00.000-05:00

The argument that David Campbell and his co-author Robert Putnam make in American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us seems contradictory. On the one hand, they tell us, we see a sharp split between those for whom religion is a central and often politicized issue and those who have abandoned organized religion entirely, largely because they see it as too closely tied to conservative politics. That part of the argument fits what seems to be a broader pattern of strong and in many ways uncrossable divides in American culture today. We see a similar attitude toward politics, I think, as many younger people reject electoral politics because they see it as dysfunctional. On the other hand, they argue that religion unites us -- not because we agree about it. Rather, they say, even those who remain committed to organized religion interact regularly, often intimately, with people from other religious backgrounds.

In this sense, religion may parallel what has happened with race. Racial divisions remain strong, and racism remains deeply embedded in American law and other social institutions (for more on that, come hear Michelle Alexander speak about "the new Jim Crow" on Tuesday evening). Yet interracial marriage has become widely accepted, increasing numbers of Americans define themselves as mixed race, and many of us live and work in racially integrated communities. As with race, the continuing significance and diversity of religion has become -- some would say it has always been -- a defining element of American culture.

I'm not as optimistic as they are about what our interpersonal relationships will mean for religious tolerance in America. For too many, the certainty that their beliefs are the only right and true way -- and that their views should determine American law and public policy -- remains far too powerful.

Rethinking Art and Architecture

2011-11-17T09:38:00.000-05:00

Vito Acconci is -- at least for the moment -- an architect. Over time, he's been a writer, a visual artist, a conceptual artist, and a designer, as well. What I found most interesting about talking with him is the sense that he is always challenging himself and his colleagues to think in new ways about their work. Part of what has inspired his changing artistic identity is his desire to crate work that engages with audiences and communities. One example would be the project he described in our interview. He talked in some depth about the process and strategy involved in imagining the Mur Island project in Graz, Austria. You can tour the site in this video and get a sense of how he works with space and structures. And sort of like talking with him, the video takes you to a new and different landscape.

Human AND Economic Development

2011-11-09T14:19:00.000-05:00

I've been reading about Jim Sutman's work for a long time. As his company, Iron and String Life Enhancement (ISLE)keeps growing, I've been intrigued by the way he is combining a business model with a social services model. After talking with him on Lincoln Avenue, I'm even more impressed -- not just that he's found a way to provide an array of services for adults with disabilities, but also with the way he's based most of his efforts in downtown Youngstown. Sutman has thought carefully about what people with disabilities need: engaging activities, opportunities for work, support for their families. He's also found creative ways to provide those things. How many programs for disables adults include the opportunity to work at a radio station? Sutman has also rooted his work in what he's learned from the adults served by his programs. As you can hear in the interview, he sees them as partners in this enterprise, not just clients.

He's also doing much of this work downtown. You may have seen the recent Vindy piece about his plan to buy the Kress Building. He already owns one building downtown, which houses the ISLE offices and the Touch the Moon Candy Saloon. While others define downtown redevelopment in terms of attracting "the creative class," as Richard Florida has termed it, Sutman sees downtown as a place for everyone.

Perhaps the most impressive thing in all this is the way Sutman puts the focus on the people he works with, not on himself. He's accomplished so much with ISLE, but somehow, the story never seems to be about him.

Inside and Beyond Autism

2011-11-05T12:04:00.000-04:00

Autism can be mysterious to anyone who hasn't experienced it. In a recent 60 Minutes report about how children with autism were learning to communicate using iPad apps, several parents commented with wonder about how these tools were letting them understand some of what was going on inside the minds and perceptions of their autistic children. Without such tools for communication, we simply don't know what it's like to experience autism from the inside.

That's part of what makes Sean Barron's unusual work so important. After experiencing autism as a child and working hard in his early adulthood to train himself to move beyond the disorder's limits, Barron co-authored two books that give us a glimpse inside. Together with his mother, he wrote There's a Boy in Here: Emerging from the Bonds of Autism, a book that gives readers insight into what autism meant for both Sean and his family. More recently, he collaborated with Temple Grandin on Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships, a guide to 10 key elements of interpersonal communication. As Barron explains, the rules reflect things he had to learn in order to move beyond his autism to function well in interactions with others. He puts those lessons to use every day in his work as a journalist, and in the process, he's walking proof that at least some of those with autism can recover.

While it's subtitled Understanding and Managing Social Challenges for Those with Asperger's or Autism,and while most people probably abide by these unwritten rules without thinking about it, the book would probably be useful to anyone who wants to be mindful and intentional about how they interact with others. Who wouldn't benefit from being reminded that "everyone makes mistakes" and their errors "don't have to ruin your day"? And I bet we can all think of people who need to be reminded of the value of being polite or that we are responsible for our own behavior?

Tosca in Youngstown

2011-10-27T15:40:00.000-04:00

I wish listeners could see David Vosburgh as he talks about Opera Western Reserve. He describes the incredible amount of work involved in putting on each fall's opera, but instead of looking like he's stressed or anxious, he looks at once determined and like he's having an incredibly good time. As our interview makes clear, David is responsible for so many aspects of each production, from working with Music Director Susan Davenny Wyner and the Board to select which operas to stage to recruiting singers to designing sets and costumes. He's all too conscious that he can't keep doing it all forever, but for now, he does an impressive job. The performances seem to get better each year, and the audiences keep growing. That reflects many things, but at the heart of it all is David Vosburgh's creativity and passion.

This fall's production, Tosca, is coming up in just a couple of weeks. You can read a synopsis of the opera online, but that doesn't do justice to what it's like to be there. Opera is excessive --intentionally so. That's part of the pleasure of it. Get your tickets now and support one of the most ambitious creative enterprises in Youngstown.

Caring for Those Who Can't Pay

2011-10-19T10:38:00.000-04:00

We all know that access to health care is far from guaranteed in this country. While emergency rooms won't usually turn away an uninsured person with an immediate need, our health care systems could save a lot of money AND people would be healthier if they didn't have to wait for an emergency to get medical care. At the same time, the number of Americans who have health insurance continues to fall, in part because so many employers are choosing not to offer health insurance as part of employee benefits. Even those who have insurance often struggle to meet deductibles and put off getting medical attention for fear of racking up significant out-of-pocket costs.

Meanwhile, the economics of providing medical care become increasingly complex, and doctors are having to make tough choices about what kind of care to provide to which patients. Programs that fund care for the poor and elderly are placing tighter limits and controls on what they reimburse, and requirements for malpractice insurance and new technologies create new expenses for medical practices. It sometimes seems like the only ones benefiting from the system are the insurance companies.

Despite all that, a number of local doctors are doing something remarkable here in Youngstown: they're providing free care to people who need it. Through the Midlothian Free Health Clinic, Dr. Thomas Albani and his colleagues are providing both basic and specialized care, much of it made possible entirely because medical professionals donate their time. You can hear all about in this week's interview, and you can help ensure that the clinic continues to operate. Call the clinic at 330.788.3330 to find out about how to donate and how to participate in their next fundraiser.

Making Sense of Food Policy

2011-10-12T14:23:00.000-04:00

"Food policy" was a new phrase to me when I joined the Grow Youngstown board a couple of years ago, and I have to admit that I'm still not entirely clear on the full range of what it might cover. As MVOC organizer Tammy Thomas and Grow Youngstown director Elsa Higby explain on this week's show, the idea behind the new Mahoning Valley Food Policy Council is to identify existing regulations that get in the way of the production and distribution of locally-grown and healthy food and advocate for new policies that will make it easier for growers, distributors, and consumers to improve the quality of food available in our area. That might involve everything from zoning to allow urban farms or backyard chicken coops to regulations governing the sales of small-scale locally-produced packaged foods.

You can find out more about this model by visiting the website of the North American Food Policy Council. Along with explaining how such councils work, it has a list of the more than 100 that exist around the US. You can also read the charter of the Ohio Food Policy Advisory Council, created by Governor Ted Strickland in 2007.

Want to get involved? Check out the MVOC's Health Equity campaign information or visit the Grow Youngstown website.

Art Beyond the Museum, the Museum Beyond Art

2011-10-06T16:05:00.000-04:00

One of the things I appreciate about this week's guest, Leslie Brothers, director of YSU's McDonough Museum of Art, is that her vision of art itself -- not just the role of a campus art museum, but of the very idea/act/artifact of art -- is so deeply connected with social change and community engagement. This fall's Dreaming Awake: The Town Hall Project is a good example. It involves some elements that seem to fit neatly into what most people think of as art -- most notably the project animations from the Vito Acconci Studio. But it also redefines the museum itself, the place we think of as the location for art, as a place for community gatherings of all kinds, and that, in turn, invites us to think about how such gatherings might be not merely enhanced by art but could be, in themselves, forms of art. To my mind, thinking in these terms transforms both how I think about art and how I think about community.

Links within the McDonough's website will take you to a description of the Town Hall project and to a schedule of events. One of the highlights of this fall's schedule is the Skeggs Lecture by Vito Acconci.

In our conversation, Leslie mentioned the inspiration of a statement on art and social change by Laurie Anderson. Here's a link to that piece, definitely worth a look.

More than a Free Meal

2011-09-28T08:57:00.002-04:00

I had two expectations when I sat down to talk with Jim Echement about the Rescue Mission of the Mahoning Valley, and both turned out to be wrong. First, I thought I’d hear that the economic crisis of the last three years has caused a significant increase in poverty and homelessness. While that may be true in terms of national statistics, and while the Rescue Mission has seen some increase in traffic, Echement doesn’t see economics as the primary problem. Rather, he suggests that for most people, homelessness and persistent economic struggle are not matters of economic conditions so much as of personal trauma. That may reflect his organization’s mission to help people overcome significant personal obstacles, to in effect change themselves, in order to move toward a more economically stable life.

But that leads to my second misconception. I had assumed that the Rescue Mission would have a goal of providing life-changing assistance to anyone who is homeless and in need. In some ways, that’s true. They provide meals to anyone who walks in the door, every day. But when it comes to helping people get off the streets permanently, Echement suggests, they focus on those who are ready to make a change. To qualify for their “Second Chance” program, which provides long-term housing, training, and support, participants must agree to abide by some clear and rather strict rules. That helps to instill discipline, and that, in turn, helps people discover that they have more control over their own circumstances than they might have thought.

From my perspective, both parts of the Rescue Mission’s work matter – providing food and shelter for those in immediate need, regardless of their circumstances, and helping people transform their lives. Those are challenging goals at any time, and all the more so these days.

Challenging the Myth of a Divided City

2011-09-21T09:20:00.002-04:00

There’s an old, too-often told myth about Youngstown’s history: that we haven’t been able to solve the community’s problems because we’ve been too divided. When I call this a myth, I mean that it’s necessarily false. Rather, I’m thinking of this as a myth in the sense that this story at once influences and explains the way things are. We do squabble among municipalities, between the cities and the suburbs, between whites and blacks, and between multiple organizations all trying to make a difference, and some of those divisions do hamper our efforts. But the myth itself also encourages us to believe that we can’t achieve anything as long as we’re divided, and that, in turn, leads us to blame each other for local problems. If only that other group would stop trying to do what my group is doing, we say, everything would be fine.

It’s useful to keep this myth in mind when we talk about the work of the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation. On the one hand, the YNDC is an example of creating a new organization to take on work that some others were already doing, albeit in different and sometimes smaller ways. When YNDC began, the Mahoning Valley Organizing Collaborative and ACTION had both been working to address the needs of urban neighborhoods. Commonwealth, Catholic Charities, Habitat for Humanity, and some others had long been involved in renovating old housing and developing new properties to help lower-income families become homeowners or stable renters. Jubilee Gardens, Goodness Grows, Villa Maria, and Grow Youngstown were all involved in various ways in creating urban gardens and promoting local agriculture.

Despite that, YNDC is a welcome addition to the community development landscape, for two key reasons. One is a matter of scale, which is made possible in part by significant funding – more than most of those other projects. That has allowed YNDC to hire strong staff members and invest in meaningful ways in a few targeted areas. Funding also allows YNDC to do something that the myth about Youngstown tells us never happens: to foster collaboration with other organizations. As YNDC Executive Director Presley Gillespie explained when we talked, YNDC doesn’t want to compete with or eliminate those other groups, nor is it in anyone’s interest for every project or person to be part of a single organization. Rather, YNDC can fulfill one of the visions of the Wean Foundation (one of its sponsors): to increase the community’s capacity for development by increasing our ability to work together – not by making everyone part of one big operation but by fostering productive partnerships.

Opera for the Family

2011-04-29T11:48:00.000-04:00

As this week's interview makes clear, Joseph Rubin loves comic opera. As he describes it, comic opera is sort of the generation in between traditional opera and musical theater. While everyone may not find the operettas performed by the Canton Comic Opera Company as hilarious as he does, this form of musical theater can be great fun -- especially if you're into the history of popular culture, as I am. Just look at the images Rubin's group uses to promote their shows -- old sheet music covers.

Like the album covers from my childhood, these images promoted popular music, offering not only a chance to hear the songs (before recorded music, if you wanted to enjoy a popular song at home, you played it on your own piano while your sister sang) but also to see the performers and get a sense of the feel of the show and the early decades of twentieth-century history when it was first produced.

That kind of enjoyable, even silly way of looking at history is probably worth a drive to Canton. This year's season begins June 9, with Little Johnny Jones.

Experienced Advice for Small Business Owners

2011-04-21T14:40:00.000-04:00

Terry Diederick is enthusiastic about small business and its potential here in the Mahoning Valley. He works as a mentor with SCORE, an organization that connects small business people with experienced advisors, many of whom are themselves former small business people. Not only does he enjoy the work and appreciate his colleagues, he believes that this community offers many opportunities for small businesses to thrive.

While I'm less sure than Terry is that transportation and warehousing are going to grow here, I do share his view that small businesses may hold the key to this area's economic stability. On the same day we recorded our interview, I spoke with a first-year class at YSU, who asked me one of the questions I get asked most often: what will it take for Youngstown to once again become the thriving community it once was? I always start by saying that it will never again be what it was. That is, we will never have a single industry that creates not only prosperity but also community cohesion. We still make and form metals, and we still make cars, but neither industry will ever again be as large as it once was, nor does any contemporary industry work that way. Youngstown's future relies on smaller-scale business, and to make that work, we need to tap into the expertise of people like Terry and his colleagues at SCORE.

Tax Breaks and Economic Development: Where Are the Good Jobs?

2011-03-31T08:18:00.000-04:00

I’m still puzzling over what I heard from Greg LeRoy, Executive Director of Good Jobs First. The bottom line: all those tax breaks we’re giving to corporations aren’t really creating that many jobs, nor are they making a big difference in the success of American businesses. As he points out, even though tax savings may sound big in dollars, taxes make up a very small share of a company’s finances. Even worse, many of those tax deals, which significantly reduce state and local budgets, undermine the other elements that contribute to a good business environment. Ohio has a revenue crisis these days, in part because we’ve cut taxes and deals to attract new businesses, but that in turn reduces funding for education. And a well-educated workforce is one of the most important keys to attracting new business.

So if it doesn’t really, work, why do states and localities keep doing it? Two reasons, as far as I can figure out. First, businesses have the leverage to cut these deals, because they can make large contributions to politicians and parties and because they control the most precious commodity in today’s economy: jobs. State and local governments are thus easily persuaded to do whatever it takes, including bankrupting themselves, in pursuit of that one-two punch – contributions and jobs.

Second, making deals to attract new businesses sounds so good, and it’s a quick fix, or at least it’s a quick action that looks like a fix. In order to be re-elected, politicians need to show that they are taking action. Bringing a new company to town is a great-looking action – it creates nice photo ops and it sounds so promising. And as LeRoy points out in our interview, the politicians may be long gone, often on to higher positions, by the time anyone can figure out whether the deal yielded solid results. Investing in education and infrastructure just aren’t as sexy, and such moves take even longer to show results than tax abatements for new businesses do.

So our leaders aren’t likely to fully embrace the more economically-just, progressive strategies LeRoy advocates (flip through the powerpoint on the Center for Working-Class Studies website for a list of these). LeRoy offers two primary solutions to this problem. One is education. Good Jobs First provides information and tools to help you track the results of subsidies to businesses across America. If citizens demand accountability, we might be able to persuade our leaders to use public money to attract good jobs. The other solution is organizing. When citizens band together, we gain power. One way to begin is to join the Mahoning Valley Organizing Collaborative and community groups from across the state next week in Columbus, for the April 5 Day of Action “to show they do not support balancing the budget through cuts, but instead through serious, long-term solutions including reforming Ohio's tax structure and generating revenue by balancing corporate and personal tax contributions.”

Sustainable Agriculture is Good Business

2011-03-25T11:37:00.000-04:00

Several of the people I’ve interviewed on Lincoln Avenue over the last couple of years have talked about the value of locally-produced sustainable agriculture. They’ve discussed how it can not only help us eat better but also improve the environment, contribute to economic justice, and even help us fight back against the corporate take-over of American politics. All of that is coming from people like Eric Schlosser and Chris Hedges, who study social problems, and from folks who work on issues of hunger and urban development.

This week, I finally talked with someone working on, or better yet with, the ground of sustainable agriculture, Floyd Davis of Red Basket Farm. While the political and social aspects of this movement can get us thinking, Floyd’s discussion of his work makes a few other points clear. One is that small-scale agriculture can be good business. For Floyd, this work is at once satisfying and, if not hugely profitable then at least economically sustainable. It also demands a very different way of thinking about the work of farming and about the value of a business degree. So much of what makes Red Basket work well is not about how Floyd treats the soil and the plants but about how he handles marketing. His operation seems to be a terrific example of what it takes to run a small business these days: creative outreach and business models that adapt to the needs of diverse customers. And when small-scale farmers understand that part of the business, they can make sustainable agriculture into sustainable business.

Second, this movement is present, right here in the Mahoning Valley, and, in fact, the many relatively small farms in our area make this a good place to do this kind of farming. While many small farms in our area don’t focus on sustainable practices, I’ve always appreciated the availability of so much locally-grown produce and the opportunity to buy from these small operations.

Third, Floyd reminds us that we play a part in sustainable agriculture. In fact, you can buy a share of Red Basket Farm this summer, through the Grow Youngstown Community Supported Agriculture project. You could also visit the Red Basket website and find out how to go visit the farm.

Fighting for Workers' Rights

2011-03-19T13:56:00.000-04:00

Joe Schiavoni has been in the Ohio Senate for a little more than two years, but SB 5 has been his first major battle, and he’s gained statewide and national visibility for leading the first to protect collective bargaining rights for public sector workers. His passion for the rights of working people is clear, as is his desire to develop into an effective political leader. He’s still learning, and the SB 5 battle has provided some frustrating lessons in what it means to be a member of the minority party.

While we can probably expect more anti-worker bills, such as one to limit overtime, the fight over SB 5 isn’t over, and it probably won’t be for a while. The Ohio House held hearings last week, and it’s put the discussion on hold for the week ahead. If the bill passes by April 6, opponents could pursue one or more ballot initiatives to overturn or limit its effects for the fall, 2011, election. A petition would also stop the bill from being enacted until an election. No one seems to know yet exactly what petitions will be put forth or whether they will be proposed for the 2011 or 2012 elections. But as Schiavoni explains, this battle isn’t over.

Persuasion through Information

2011-03-10T11:07:00.000-05:00

To be honest, the ideas Eric Schlosser shares in our interview are not – or should not – be news to anyone. Because of his work – the book Fast Food Nation and the film Food, Inc. -- and efforts of folks like Will Allen, Michael Pollan, and local heroes like Elsa Higby, we should all know by now that there are problems in our food system. But Schlosser brings two unique things to that discussion.

First, he recognizes that working conditions and pay are part of the problem. Too often, when we talk about the food industry, we focus entirely on the (equally compelling) concerns of food safety, health, and the environment, forgetting that there are people involved. Given my own involvement in working-class studies, I especially appreciate Schlosser’s attention to how the pursuit of corporate profits by the fast food industry and discount chains like WalMart are undermining the quality of workers’ lives.

Second, he’s deliberate and compassionate in his choice not to preach. He doesn’t want to tell us what to eat, and he doesn’t even have a plan to solve the problem. He doesn’t demonize anyone (ok, except McDonald’s) or offer his own superior way of eating and shopping as the ideal. Instead, he believes that information is the solution. He trusts people to make better decisions when they have better information. That may be idealistic, but it may also prove more effective than more self-righteous approaches.

They've Got Our Back

2011-03-03T09:34:00.000-05:00

The battle over public sector unions has been going on for a while, and the bills going through the Ohio and Wisconsin legislatures are the latest, albeit the most aggressive (so far) attacks. Part of what gives me hope amidst this war on the working class is people like Amy Hanauer and the incredible work she and her colleagues do at Policy Matters Ohio. While some of us stand on protest lines and write letters to our representatives, the folks at Policy Matters are doing research, gathering the data that makes for compelling arguments and – if only legislators would listen – effective solutions to economic and social problems.

Without getting involved in electoral politics, and indeed, in part because they don’t work on politics directly, Policy Matters is clearly watching out for the interests of Ohio’s workers and those with less access to power, whose voices are often drowned out by well-funded corporate interests. Here are a few examples of their work:

· * Testifying against Ohio SB 5, offering data about the educational levels and income of public sector workers compared with those in the private sector

· * Keeping an eye on charter schools

· * Drawing attention to the strategies employers use to avoid paying workers – also known as wage theft

· * Tracking foreclosure rates in Ohio

And that’s just part of what they’ve done in the past month.

People like Amy Hanauer and her staff can’t replace labor unions in representing the working class, but I feel a little less embattled, a little less vulnerable knowing that I can count on them to ask tough questions, gather the evidence, and make persuasive arguments about policies that affect the majority of Ohioans.

Helping Young People Succeed, One at a Time

2011-02-24T09:09:00.001-05:00

Jimmy Pugh talks about helping young people find their passion, and as he speaks, it’s clear that he found his – in them. He directs Project Gridiron, a mentoring program that encourages young people to pursue postsecondary education by helping them connect their interests and abilities with realistic dreams and the people who can help those dreams come true. At the core of this work are relationships – the partnership between Jimmy and his wife, who run the project together, the connections they make with the kids and their families, and their links with staff at colleges around the country. As Jimmy explains, the key to success for these students lies in building supportive relationships with adults who can serve as role models.

The challenge of that, sadly, is that, as Jimmy explains, what many of the young people he works with need most is an African-American male role model. While I’m skeptical of his claim that only male mentors can get students to think in terms of their accountability for their decisions, he’s not alone in suggesting that male role models play a special role, especially for young people growing up in families headed by single mothers. The problem is that so many young adults need that kind of mentoring and there are not enough hours in the day for men like Jimmy Pugh – or women like his wife, for that matter -- to provide serious guidance. Project Gridiron is a small-scale model. It has to be. So the question is this: how do we get more people doing this kind of work?

Want to get involved? Contact Jimmy Pugh.

A Different Story about Israel

2011-02-18T10:49:00.000-05:00

Nearly everything we ever hear about Israel has to do with its relationship with the Palestinians. No doubt, that’s a complex, contested, frustratingly difficult topic. Yet it’s not the only story to be told about Israel. Nor is it the only complex, difficult issue facing the country. As Dr. Galia Sabar explains in our interview, Israel is facing a challenge that is more familiar: how to deal with immigrants who enter illegally in search of economic opportunity. Like the US, Israel is a country of immigrants, with a strong commitment to providing a safe haven not only for Jews from around the world but also for other refugees. And much like here, migrant laborers in Israel, including many Africans whose experiences and conditions are the subject of Galia’s research and activism, do difficult types of work for low wages, thereby contributing to the economy, while also facing discrimination and fear from the mainstream society.

What’s most refreshing about Galia Sabar’s discussion of these issues, for me, anyway, is her willingness to acknowledge the contradictions inherent in the problem. On the one hand, she acknowledges the presence of racial prejudice in a country that was built as a response to the Holocaust, one of the most notorious cases of racial prejudice taken to the extreme in the history of the world. She sees the paradox her country faces over granting citizenship to non-Jews: how can Israel continue to be a Jewish state, as is its mission, while also being a democratic state, especially if non-Jewish immigrants become a large proportion if not the majority of voters? There are no easy solutions for Israel. At the same time, the story of African immigration provides an interesting opportunity to expand our understanding of the issues Israel faces and how that country is changing.

Smart about the Arts

2011-02-10T10:29:00.002-05:00

Like many others, I spent hours as a kid playing piano or guitar, going to dance classes, acting in children’s theater productions, and drawing. I was a complete klutz, and I didn’t like sports. I think I may actually have been kicked out of gymnastics in first grade. But the arts? That was home. So whenever I hear that schools are cutting back on the arts, or when I think about how many families can’t afford to provide the kinds of opportunities I had, I get frustrated. I know from experience how much difference music, dance, theater, and visual arts can make in a child’s life.

But that’s only one reason I’m blown away by SMARTS, YSU’s Students Motivated by the Arts project. Yeah, they provide free – yes, free – arts classes for kids (click here for an application). And students from kindergarten through high school have opportunities to sing and perform together. But consider this: much of that is possible by a whole other set of opportunities SMARTS offers: chances for YSU students studying arts education (and other fields) to develop their own teaching skills. That means that students who are being motivated here are not just kids but also soon-to-be-teachers.

And consider this: Becky Keck, who runs SMARTS, leads the program with a clear vision that always takes in two levels. On one level, she’s sharply focused on providing high-quality arts programming for local children. But she’s also always thinking about the place of the arts, and the place of non-profit organizations, in the community. In other words, she’s a true believer in the full, complex value of what she does. The more human assets we have like Becky, the better off this community will be.

Want to help support SMARTS? Come to Mad About the Arts, February 25, at the McDonough Museum of Art on the YSU campus. The event will raise money for both SMARTS and the McDonough. For details or to reserve tickets, call the SMARTS office at 330-941-2787.

Making Heart Surgery Simpler -- and Making Medicine More Complex

2011-02-03T12:35:00.000-05:00

Heart surgery turns out to be one of those things that’s hard to describe without images. Dr. Timothy Hunter from Humility of Mary Health Partners made a good effort, and better yet, he explained well how this benefits patients and changes the nature of surgery for doctors. If you want to find out more about how it works, you can watch an online video, aimed at patients, that explains the procedure. You can also read more about what Dr. Hunter is doing in this piece from the Youngstown Business Journal.

What I found most thought-provoking about our conversation was the idea that changes in medical practice are so closely connected with industry. That shouldn’t surprise us, but Dr. Hunter’s comment about the role of industry draws our attention to a part of the medical landscape that we usually don’t talk about. We pay attention to doctors, hospitals, patients, insurance policies, and to national health care policies, but we rarely talk about how new ways of doing things are supported and promoted by companies that develop, manufacture, and sell very expensive equipment. We like to imagine that medicine is not market-driven, that it’s not a business in the same way as other fields. And in many ways, it isn’t. But every new technique comes from somewhere, and good ideas are often transformed into profitable ventures via industry. The question is, as I discussed with Dr. Hunter, how do we balance the costs of technology with the benefits of good health care? That’s not always easy.

How Technology Is Transforming Learning

2011-01-27T09:39:00.000-05:00

One of the things I appreciate about Gardner Campbell’s approach to technology in education is that he doesn’t focus on a specific cool new thing. He wants us – teachers, students, administrators, as well as everyone else – to be thinking about the bigger picture, about how technologies of all kinds shape the way we think and the ways we teach and learn. And he wants us to imagine the changes that technology makes possible not as a set of prescriptions about what we must do but about a set of possibilities. That’s why instead of teaching faculty how to use online discussion boards or blogs, he begins by inviting teachers to learn about how new media is changing culture and all the myriad things it can make possible.

But as he knows, as we all know, thinking about all of that can be overwhelming. Change, and especially change that takes us in directions we can’t yet imagine, is scary, and for all the ways education can be a place of innovation it can be equally resistant to change. The basic structures of education, at all levels, have not changed significantly over the last century, even though knowledge, what we know about learning, and the array of resources available for learning are constantly changing. Because most education happens within institutions, thinking about large-scale restructuring can seem like a waste of time – no matter how important we think it is. On the other hand, because teaching has long been a fairly private activity – teachers control their own classrooms, and we don’t talk all that much about what we do inside those rooms – we have the flexibility and power to make change from the classroom up. A look at Gardner’s work on the EDUCAUSE website, and some exploration through the rest of that site’s Learning Initiative materials, can give you a glimpse of what’s possible.

Telling Youngstown's Stories on Stage

2011-01-20T11:30:00.000-05:00

One of the pleasures of talking with Rob Zellers, beyond the fact that he’s such a great storyteller, is hearing the story of his own reinventions. As he notes in our interview, he came to playwrighting late in life, and it’s really his third career – teacher, non-profit staffer (though still with a focus on education), and now writer. Perhaps it’s because playwrighting is still a relatively new endeavor for him, but his passion for his work is palpable, and he seems almost surprised to have had so much success.

The two plays he’s had produced so far, The Chief, a one-person play about the life of Pittsburgh Steelers owner Art Rooney, and Harry’s Friendly Service, set in Youngstown in the late 70s, should both appeal to local audiences. Many of us missed the Pittsburgh Public Theater’s staging of Harry’s Friendly Service last year, but you can still get a look at The Chief. It’s been made into a film, and you can read about it and order a copy online.

Zellers has written a third play with local connections, The Happiness They Seek, set in Youngstown in the 90s. Wouldn’t it be great to see one of our local theater companies do a play about Youngstown?

Optimistic Realism: Hoping for Change in the Valley

2011-01-12T13:10:00.000-05:00

Earlier this week, I had a conversation with a couple of energetic, committed young professionals who have recently moved to this area, people who seem to want to get involved in the community but are also looking for reasons to feel good about being here. They asked me some rather blunt questions: Why am I committed to this place? Do I think things are really getting better?

Part of my response is rooted in the things I discussed with Bill Mullane in this week’s interview – a general sense that there’s been a shift in how people are working to improve the economy, neighborhoods, and quality of life the Mahoning Valley. Like Bill, I’m not blind to the real problems we face, including those that we create ourselves, nor am I the cheerleader type. I can’t pretend that everything is fine, or even that we’re clearly on the path to fine.

At the same time, the work that Bill and his colleagues at the Raymond John Wean Foundation are doing is one of the reasons why I feel more optimistic than I did a decade ago. Wean’s approach to creating change has been significant. Not only did the Foundation change its way of operating, offering hyperlocal models that are strengthening neighborhoods and developing new leaders, it has also played a leading role in helping local non-profits to do their work better. Wean’s projects aim to foster grassroots work while also facilitating the efforts of long-standing organizations. The Foundation has been realistic about the need for grassroots efforts to be connected to larger structures and processes.

We are making progress, slowly. Wean’s work has not led to sweeping changes, at least not yet, but the atmosphere for community organizations in the Valley has improved, I think, as Wean has brought people together, offered practical support as well as a different vision, and pushed for new ways of doing things.

After three years of very active work, Bill suggests, Wean is ready to move into a “maintenance phase,” to let things settle a bit. They’re hiring a new director, and that, too, will bring some change. I look forward to watching what Wean and its related enterprises do over the next few years.

New Leadership for Youngstown's Schools

2011-01-06T10:34:00.000-05:00

The Youngstown City Schools needs the new leadership and vision that Dr. Connie Hathorn bring, and I was excited to get to talk with him about his plans. His focus on communicating better with teachers and parents, professional development, and tracking students’ learning long before they take the annual state exams all makes sense. And having someone with no history with this community, and thus no associated baggage, should be helpful.

Yet I have to admit that I had hoped our conversation would be more concrete and specific. Perhaps it’s just that he’s still finding his way, exploring the conditions in the community and the schools, and developing strategies. Maybe he’s just not ready to make public statements about his plans. Still, I want to hear more. I want to know how the professional development he wants to offer will differ from what’s been done before. I want to know what it will take to implement his plans for constant assessment. I want to know how he plans to create change in how teachers, principals, and school staff members interact with parents and the community. Call me impatient, but the problems in Youngstown’s schools are serious, and we need to make real change.

Improving Our Neighborhoods, One Apartment at a Time

2010-12-09T08:39:00.000-05:00

When we met up by the front door to the WYSU studio, Maureen O’Neill commented that she thought that the two of us had a similar philosophy. I wasn’t quite sure what she meant, though, of course, one of the reasons I’d invited her in is that I think the project she works on – registering and inspecting rental properties in the City of Youngstown – makes a positive difference. As we talked, though, I think I started to see what she meant. Maureen believes that Youngstown has potential, despite all its problems. She believes that improving living conditions in our neighborhoods is an important element in helping us achieve that potential. She understands that information, such as a database listing rental properties and their owners, can be a useful tool for organizing for change and addressing problems. And she sees that no one part of the urban puzzle can solve all of the city’s problems; improving the conditions of rental properties is just one part of a larger set of efforts. You can check out maps related to the program at YSU’s Center for Urban Studies website.

Perhaps most important, Maureen brings to her work an attitude that I admire and wish I could enact more often: she believes that she can make a difference by talking with those who disagree with what she’s doing. She brings humor to that task, but she also makes a real effort to understand and address the concerns of property owners and renters.

As Maureen said in our interview, she needs your help. If you own rental property, let her know and join the program. Doing so can help you keep your tenants safe and contribute to the stability of the community, which will help you in the long run. And Maureen truly is committed to working with you. If you’re a tenant whose property has not yet been inspected, let her know. Your property might not be in the database. And if you know of rental properties that ought to be registered, call her. You can reach Maureen O’Neill by email or phone, (330) 742-8833.

Wrestling with the Economy

2010-12-02T07:30:00.000-05:00

I’m surprised to find myself saying this, but I think I could have spent another hour or two talking with economist Ken Beauchemin. Part of that is about his attitude – imagine an economist answering questions about today’s tough economy with a big smile on his face. OK. That’s a little disconcerting. What can anyone looking at the economy find to be happy about? But that positive attitude does make asking basic questions less intimidating. More than that, I appreciate Ken’s willingness to try to explain some key points of the “dismal science” to the rest of us.

But while Beauchemin is a nice and patient guy, I’m still troubled by much of what I hear from economists. For example, having studied Youngstown’s economic struggles for the last decade, I’m much less optimistic that the increases in productivity that have contributed to the slow recovery will generate significant growth in employment. So like the jobless recovery of the early part of this decade, indeed, in part because that recovery benefited business and finance but not workers, we are again facing a situation where the rich get richer and workers fall further behind. I’m troubled, too, by the things Beauchemin said with which I agree, like the point that a new manufacturing economy can only thrive here if we have a better-educated workforce. I think that’s probably right. And it’s far from easy to accomplish, especially with major cuts to state funding for education and our national struggle to provide good quality education to everyone. We have a long way to go.

The economic picture is dismal indeed, so I suppose we need all the good humor and positive attitudes we can get – as long as they don’t keep us from wrestling with the real problems we face.

Someone's Hungry Tonight

2010-11-24T08:39:00.001-05:00

I’ve always been a little skeptical of charity as a model for solving social problems, because donations to community organizations, even those that do incredibly good, important work, treat the effects of social problems but not the causes.

But I think about hunger a little differently. True, hunger is the effect of a more difficult and more significant social problem: poverty. And I do sometimes worry that if we treat hunger but ignore the poverty that causes it, we won’t make a long-term difference. And yet, hunger is such an immediate, basic issue that I can’t turn away from it. I’ve been volunteering at food banks like Second Harvest on and off for more than 20 years, and I donate every year to programs that feed the hungry. I hope you’ll join me in that. You can donate food to any of the dozens of food drives going on in the Mahoning Valley this winter, or donate money by visiting the Second Harvest website. You can also volunteer to help at the warehouse.

Donations matter, but I was also struck by Michael Iberis’s answer to my question about how we might address the causes of hunger. As he suggested, one of the reasons why working people have difficulty feeding their families is that so many of us have not learned how to select and prepare food efficiently. In an age of processed convenience foods, we’ve forgotten the “stone soup” strategies of our grandmothers. Better use of the food we have won’t erase hunger, but I like the idea of a practical, hands-on approach that can at least help. I’m looking forward to seeing what Mike cooks up.

Alternative Transportation: It's All About Your Wallet

2010-11-18T08:23:00.000-05:00

Perhaps, like me, you expected a conversation about alternative transportation to focus on why we should all reduce our carbon footprints and improve our health by walking and biking more? While Paul Kobulnicky, chair of YSU’s Alternative Transportation Advisory Committee acknowledges that there are environmental and health concerns, he’s a practical guy. As he makes clear in our conversation, the number one reason to consider alternative transportation is cost. Convenience also matters, but it’s the wallet that provides the real motivation.

And when people are ready to change their habits, what they need most is information. If you want to cut your costs, or if looking for a parking space is taking up too much of your time, check out the committee’s website. You’ll find a bike map suggesting the best routes for two-wheel transportation around town, as well as ideas about how YSU could make it easier for people to choose alternatives.

Defending Teacher's Unions

2010-11-12T11:10:00.000-05:00

I should admit my bias on teachers’ unions and education from the beginning. I’m a member of the National Education Association, and – as you can tell from my conversation with Will Bagnola, president of the Youngstown Education Association (representing Youngstown City Schools teachers) – I generally respect teachers and unions alike. Yes, I know that in enacting their responsibility to protect members, unions (of all kinds) can sometimes find themselves in the position of defending bad behavior. And there’s no doubt that, as in any workplace, those who manage the operation always want to control how workers do their jobs and more labor for less reward. Those problems are in the nature of the workplace; they are not caused by unions.

Beyond my understanding of the nature of unions, I believe – as a teacher – that teachers understand education and should play more central roles in planning and implementing educational reforms. Over the last few decades, with the growing influence of standardized tests as a measure of performance (of both students and teachers) and the increasing tendency to standardize both what is taught and how it is taught, we have fundamentally changed the nature of teaching. K-12 teachers are no longer seen as responsible professionals worthy of public respect, and that shift occurred long before the latest wave of public policies and documentaries blaming teachers for America’s educational problems. Indeed, I think many of the problems we’re facing now exist in part because we have deprofessionalized teaching, making it a less interesting, less rewarding, less creative job.

I’ve heard good things about Dr. Connie Hathorn, the incoming superintendent of the local schools, including that he believes in treating teachers with respect. With Will Bagnola, I hope that will help us create a more learning-centered atmosphere in the local schools.

Think, Choose, Vote

2010-10-28T21:27:00.002-04:00

Comparing this week’s two guests, Mahoning County Republican Party chair Mark Munroe, to last week’s, his Democratic counterpart David Betras, may not be completely fair. You might focus on the contrast between Betras’s passion and Munroe’s calm reserve, but that might well reflect the differences between their professions. Lawyers do well by speaking righteously and passionately on behalf of their clients, while media producers have to speak more moderately.

They agree on a few things, like the need to end corruption in local politics, though it’s not surprising that they offer very different solutions for that scourge of Mahoning Valley public life. And both do the job of a party leader: endorsing their candidates and positions, predicting success for their parties, and promising a better future for the nation.

The more important differences come out in how the parties they represent approach the problems facing our country and our community. Democrats believe that society, in the form of government, has a responsibility to look after those who have the least power and resources. While they recognize that the theory doesn’t always translate into practice, they believe that government can provide services more effectively than private organizations because it’s less driven by profit. They don’t trust business or the wealthy to operate in the best interests of the society at large, and they view the recent economic crisis as evidence of how business is more likely to pursue their own profits than the good of communities or the country. They value the idea of America as a whole rather than America as a bunch of separate interests. Republicans take the opposite view: they believe that the free market will do a better job of generating good for all, because they think that people behave best when they act out of self-interest. They see government as inept and inherently corrupt, and therefore not to be trusted to pursue the common good. They place their trust in business, the wealthy, and local government. And they view America as a loose collection of localities rather than as a unified society.

As Betras suggests, as voters we need to make our choices based on these underlying values and ideas, not on personalities, not on old habits, not even on frustration with the current economy. Munroe would probably agree on that.

History Face to Face

2010-10-28T21:25:00.000-04:00

I was a fan of Jeff Steinberg’s long before I met him. I appreciate the interactive, experiential way he approaches working with high school students. His program, Sojourn to the Past, makes clear that we need to understand history just because things that happened in the past are important but also because we can take lessons from them as we try to make good decisions about how to respond to the contemporary world. As he explains in this week’s interview, Sojourn is transformative, in part because it facilitates conversations between young people and those who lived through and helped shape an important part of our history.

The best measure of Steinberg’s work might not lie in what he says about the program, but in what students say. You can read testimonials on the website, but I also had the change a few weeks ago to hear from students who had been on the journey in previous years. Their sense of commitment and confidence was impressive, and – as Jeff notes in our conversation – they’ve done some impressive things here in the local community.

The amazing Penny Wells is organizing another group of students from Youngstown City Schools to participate this April. If you know someone who wants to attend, she can tell you more about it. And if you want to help make this journey possible for a local student, Penny is also raising funds. It’s a cause worth supporting – engaging education that makes a difference for students, their peers, and our community. You can contact Penny by e-mail or phone, 330-207-4467.

We're doomed. Now what?

2010-10-13T08:54:00.000-04:00

Talking with Chris Hedges can be at once inspiring and very, very depressing. In his latest book, and one he has coming out later this year, he’s analyzed the underlying problems with contemporary American culture and identified the manifestations of those problems in everyday life and, even more important, in public life. In Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle, he explains how corporate interests contribute to the decline in our ability and willingness to think critically about our society and our selves. Television and the internet have taught us to be more interested in shallow, immediate thrills than in thoughtful analysis or complex narratives. Our educational institutions, which we expect to train citizens to solve problems and make intelligent decisions about voting, policies, and everyday choices, focus more on preparing students for the workplace and handing out credentials than on real learning. And the equal opportunity, social equality, and democracy that we believe are the foundations of American society are myths with little basis in reality.

We shouldn’t expect much help in responding to these problems from our political process. In his forthcoming book, The Death of the Liberal Class, Hedges explains that liberal leaders have essentially been bought off by corporations. You can get a good taste of that argument in our conversation.

So you can see why all of this is depressing. Where’s the inspiration? That lies in hearing someone intelligently connect much of what we see on the surface, so to speak – bad reality TV and what seems to be a persistently, even insistently inept Democractic party – with structural forces and putting all of that into a historical context. At its best, journalism can be an accessible form of scholarship, often focused on the present moment – something we academics sometimes have difficulty doing well. Hedges models that kind of journalism, and while I’ve been having nightmares ever since his visit, I nonetheless appreciate both the quality of his work and the uncomfortable insights he wants us all to recognize.

That said, I wish I felt more inspiration toward a course of action. Having the veil removed, so to speak, is just a first step. I hope that in future projects, Hedges might look at examples of effective activism and offer some more practical inspiration.

Design for All

2010-10-07T07:26:00.002-04:00

If I were ever to build a new home (which I have to admit isn’t likely), I’d want Patrick Manley to design it. He speaks clearly and eloquently about the importance of listening to clients, and his work with universal and sustainable design gives him a perspective that is at once practical and idealistic. You can hear all of that as he talks about a demonstration home he designed in Columbus.

Universal design aims to create structures, tools, and processes that can be used easily by anyone, regardless of their age, physical abilities, or size. Its core principles focus not only on accessibility but also on ease of use and flexibility – qualities that appeal to any user. For example, one of the principles is “simple and intuitive use,” and a handout prepared for Manley’s presentation for the Youngstown Foundation last month cited the iPhone as an example – not exactly something widely seen as created for “special needs.” And that’s exactly the point: recognizing that the design qualities that make spaces and objects accessible often make them work well for everyone, and that in turn destigmatizes difference. When we think about it that way, universal design is not just good physical design. It’s also good social design.

Is Amazon My Friend? Making Sense of Online Marketing

2010-09-30T07:47:00.001-04:00

Tyler Clark is optimistic about the benefits of social media and all those (largely) invisible tracking tools that companies use to analyze our interests and buying habits online. Part of his business is helping companies figure out how to use such tools well, so I suppose his attitude isn’t surprising, and he does think critically about all this means. And he approaches his work thoughtfully, attentive to both the technology and the issues facing organizations and their audiences. He reminds us that what works for the corporations can also work for neighborhood associations and non-profits, so online marketing isn't just about getting us to buy things.

I remain skeptical. I tend to ignore all of the suggestions Amazon and iTunes make about books and music I “might” like. Whenever I can, I skip the “create an account” option when buying products online. The only updates and newsletters I subscribe to come from cooking magazines, though I still get plenty from organizations and companies I never contacted. It’s not that I think all of this online marketing is going to harm me. Yes, I suppose there are security and privacy issues, but I don’t worry too much about that. It’s not malware or viruses I’m concern about, either.

What bothers me is the clutter and intrusion of online marketing. I don’t appreciate friend requests from local businesses or e-mail messages announcing what’s on sale at Giant Eagle this week. I wish all those progressive political groups would leave me alone already, not because I don’t support the cause but because I don’t want to read about it in my email every day. And if someone can figure out how to get Portside to accept my repeated requests to be taken off their daily distribution list, I’d be most grateful. The online world takes up enough of my time every day that I resent intrusions of things I didn’t request. I am quite capable of locating information when I want it, thank you very much.

But, Tyler would tell me, that’s exactly the point. I have the option to filter out most of the things I don’t want. Sometimes, I have to take a few minutes to unsubscribe from something I never asked to join in the first place. At other times, I simply have to look for the box to click to ask not to be sent updates. I only check Facebook about once a week, when I’m really bored. We’re far from having complete control over the information coming at us, but neither are we completely at the mercy of online marketers. Yet.

Working Hard to Help Children

2010-09-22T12:32:00.000-04:00

For the past 15 years, YSU's Rich Center for Autism has been providing education and support services for children with autism and their families. As I talked with Georgia Backus, Director of the Rich Center, I was struck by two things. First, autism seems to be a growing, changing phenomenon. That may be due primarily to better diagnosis, and as Georgia acknowledges, even some tendency to over-diagnosis, but it also reflects continuing research and better understanding of the various ways autism might manifest itself. Second, because children with autism have such a range of needs, and because the Center aims not only to provide services for those affected by autism but also support research, work with area educators and counselors, and improve public understanding of autism, managing this Center is a huge, complex task. How do you organize individualized education for dozens of children, manage a staff, work with YSU students coming to observe or tutor, consult with scholars on their research, and serve as the public voice for autism in the community? It's a good thing Georgia has a lot of energy.

And I forgot one more thing: raising money. The Rich Center is funded primarily by grants and donations. If you want to help, visit their website to find out about fundraising events or just make a donation online.

The Art(s) of Economic Revitalization

2010-09-15T10:02:00.000-04:00

I've always liked Lynn Cardwell's work. Her pottery is at once useful and beautiful, as you can see if you visit her page on Etsy.com. I've also taken claywork classes from her, and I enjoy her laid-back, supportive teaching style. This fall she'll be teaching at the Davis Center at Fellows Riverside Gardens and at the Davis branch of the YMCA.

But I have to admit that what I appreciate most about Lynn is the creative work she does helping to build and promote the local arts community. Together with Marcie Applegate, she founded the Artists of the Mahoning Commons, which will hold its next open house and art show November 20, 21, and 27. That organization, built around the artists who have studios in the Ward Bakery Building, supports the artists by helping them find audiences -- and customers. That might sound crass, but if artists don't sell their work, they can't support themselves.

That said, this group and other local arts organizations do more than support artists. They contribute to the quality of life of our community. They help us think creatively about who we are and what this place means. We need them every bit as much as we need new businesses or jobs.

Serving More than Coffee

2010-09-10T09:33:00.000-04:00

Over the past few weeks, I've been spending a lot of time in committee meetings discussing what "student success" might mean for YSU. Part of the committee's definition of "student success" is the unlovely phrase, "productive post-collegiate performance." For many of those we've talked with in focus groups, that has a simple meaning: a job.

Jacob Harver offers a different model. He doesn't just have a job. He's an entrepreneur, founder of the Lemon Grove Cafe downtown. But in my book he counts as a good example of "productive post-collegiate performance" because he's doing business in a way that reflects the things he learned in History, Sociology, and other courses -- lessons that have less to do with how to run a business and more to do with how society works. He's a great reminder of the productive value of a liberal arts degree and of why it matters that so many YSU faculty make understanding Youngstown part of the curriculum.

Talking with Jacob Harver is always fun, in part just because he's so enthusiastic about almost everything he does. He believes in downtown, but even more important, he believes in the power of people, the arts, and organizing. What I admire most about his work in creating The Lemon Grove isn't just that it's a good addition to the downtown entertainment district, but that Jake has such a strong sense of using it as a venue for what we might think of as purposeful entertainment. Lemon Grove events support local artists, both visual and musical, but the cafe also sponsors film screenings, discussions, and meetings. And that happens not only formally, at scheduled events, but also informally. It's become my favorite place for small meetings, and every time I'm there I see other tables where people are not just sharing a meal but also figuring out how to solve a problem.

Jake offers a great answer to the perennial question facing students who major in history or English: what are you going to do with that?

Youngstown Goes International

2010-09-01T08:57:00.001-04:00

Eric Planey believes in Youngstown. Like many young professionals who've left the area and returned -- some call them boomerangs -- he's studied and worked in other cities and around the world, and he's come back to Youngstown with the specific goal of helping revitalize this community. As Vice President for International Business Attraction at the Youngstown-Warren Regional Chamber, he combines that positive attitude with knowledge of international business and a fair amount of patience as he works to attract international companies to set up shop in the Mahoning Valley and help local companies find global opportunities.

It's Eric's job to focus on the positive, but I appreciate that he was also honest in talking about the gap between potential and accomplishments. He's been on the job just over a year, and economic development is always a slow process. We want fast, concrete, dramatic results, but I think most people understand that creating new jobs involves exploring multiple possibilities, building relationships, and navigating financial and legal mazes. None of that happens quickly. But instead of simply touting how great things are, Eric acknowledges the limited concrete results of his efforts so far. He clearly doesn't feel discouraged; he's just realistic. In a community that has sometimes tended to be either overly negative about the possibility of local growth or idealistic about the latest turn-around, that moderation is refreshing.

Towards the Future at YSU

2010-08-26T09:57:00.002-04:00

Two key things stand out when talking with Dr. Cynthia Anderson about what’s happening at YSU. The first is that for her, students really are the center of everything. Research and community connections matter, but students are, for her, the University’s most important element, its very reason for being. No doubt, that’s a carryover from her years as Vice President for Student Affairs, but I find it a refreshing change. For too long, students mattered primarily as enrollment figures. For Cindy – and yes, she insists on being called that, not Dr. Anderson or any other formal title – students matter as people, as learners, as members of the University community.

The second thing that stands out is her ability to be at once incredibly enthusiastic and relatively practical. That is, she doesn’t pretend that we don’t face real problems, or that addressing those problems will be difficult. At least so far, though, she addresses the issues with confidence and optimism.

Take, for example, her insistence that the current Strategic Planning process will generate concrete plans that will guide YSU over the next decade – rather than being the usual type of feel-good (or feel only sort of good) process that gives the illusion of widespread participation and investment. I’ll admit that I’m skeptical, even though I’m a member of the Strategic Planning committee. I’ve spent enough time at universities to have seen plenty of fake planning, often well-intentioned but only rarely leading to real change.

What does it take to make Strategic Planning work? First, I believe that strategic plans work best when they not only set goals but also identify concrete, appropriate steps toward those goals. We need not only to identify “indicators,” as the leaders of this process have requested, but also tactics. Setting priorities and measuring progress don’t yield change. It’s what you do in pursuit of those priorities that generates measurable progress.

Second, those who have the power to make decisions have to be committed to pursue the plan – not the plan they think ought to be generated but the one that actually emerges from the process. That means that those with power must truly listen to what others have to say. It also means developing a plan that makes clear the rationale for key decisions, including how they will benefit the institution. Put differently, the plan has to be persuasive both to those with power and those who will be affected.

Finally, that kind of plan can only emerge if people speak up. Many individuals on campus and in the community will be invited to meetings to discuss one or more of its four “cornerstones.” I hope most will respond. As I see it, if I refuse to participate in the process, I give up my right to complain about the outcome. But you don’t have to be invited to participate. The Strategic Planning website lists e-mail addresses for committee members, and soon the site will have tools to allow you to offer your thoughts. It sometimes seems that everyone in the Mahoning Valley has an opinion about what YSU ought to do. Now’s the chance to speak up.

Standing with the People

2010-04-29T08:44:00.000-04:00

As Lucienne Siers explains in our conversation this week, the Partnership for Global Justice believes in not only advocating on behalf of those who don't run governments or corporations but also helping make it possible for them to speak for themselves. "Standing with," she explains, means listening to, offering moral support, helping organize additional supporters -- being present. This is the role of NGOs -- non-governmental organizations. So while she is clearly proud of the work of the United Nations, where her work is based, she also recognizes the importance of representing those who are not usually invited to the tables of power.

As I spoke with her, I kept thinking about a recent column by New York Times commentator Nicholas D. Kristof, reminding readers, in the midst of the latest discussions about how churches handled cases of abuse by priests, that there is another Catholic Church: "the grass-roots Catholic Church that does far more good in the world than it ever gets credit for. This is the church that supports extraordinary aid organizations like Catholic Relief Services and Caritas, saving lives every day, and that operates superb schools that provide needy children an escalator out of poverty." The Partnership for Global Justice clearly represents this version of the church.

I'm not Catholic, but unlike many of my politically-progressive friends I not only value the progressive work that many religious groups do but also participate actively in a religious community. I do so without ignoring the limitations and contradictions that are inherent in all institutions and with the intention of pushing my religious community toward more engagement with the world and less concern about rules, boundaries, and control. So I may be more inclined than some to respect the kind of work Sr. Lucienne Siers and her sister Catholics are doing. Projects like this remind me that faith can -- as it should -- inspire us to act justly.

By the way, Lucienne mentioned the UN's "Millennium Development Goals" a couple of times in the interview. You can find them here, and learn more about how they're being pursued.

Dial 211

2010-04-15T13:12:00.000-04:00

It's as simple as that. If you need help with anything from paying bills to domestic abuse to your sister's depression, dial 211 and you'll be connected with Help Hotline. As Cathy Grisinski explained in our conversation this week, if they can't offer help, they can probably direct you to someone who can.

Of course, nothing is that easy. What struck me most in talking with Cathy is that the problems that lead people to call Help Hotline are so rarely simple. Someone who's struggling to pay a mortgage bill might well be unemployed or underemployed, perhaps because of health problems or just the state of the economy, but unemploymentcontributes to emotional struggles -- self-doubt, depression, thoughts of suicide -- and behaviors that create more problems. Help Hotline staffers know how to respond when the rest of us can't even identify the cause of a problem.

But Help Hotline is much more than, well, a hotline. They run a community center, organize support groups, and provide education to community groups, school children, and anyone who wants to understand mental health issues. May is Mental Health Awareness Month, so it's a good time to learn more about one of the most important resources in our community. Visit the Help Hotline website to learn more -- including about how you can get involved.

Solving the Urban Education Puzzle

2010-04-12T12:59:00.000-04:00

I've done several interviews over the last few years about education, including conversations with Wendy Webb and Randy Hoover and this week's chat with Anthony Catale. I keep hoping that someone will provide some hope -- not just good intentions or even a strong critique, though I've heard plenty of that. And I know that districts all over the country are wrestling with the same problems we have, so what I'm looking for is, to put it mildly, elusive.

I'm impressed with Anthony Catale's determination, and he seems to have a good grasp of what's happening in the local district. But while he can identify a great set of goals, I'm not hearing from him or from anyone a clear sense of how to achieve them. Catale touts the benefits of "data-driven decision making," which might be the most popular buzz phrase of contemporary education. The right goals and a ton of data don't necessarily add up to effective strategies.

I hope the folks on the school board, on the state commission addressing the district's "academic emergency" rating, and in the city schools administration are paying attention to a couple of things:

What's going right at Youngstown Early College? Like some charter schools, YEC may benefit from self-selecting admissions and smaller size, but I can't help but wonder if the rest of the district couldn't borrow some strategies from the only building in the district to earn an excellent rating.
What's happening in DC? Michelle Rhee is creating plenty of tension and attracting lots of attention, and I'm not sure whether her efforts are yielding much. But they do give us a very visible model of what top-down, data-driven educational management looks like. Is it a good idea? Education journalist John Merrow has been following the story for over a year.

Diane Ravitch's rethinking of the current line of performance-based educational practice. After years of promoting testing as the basis for educational planning, Ravitch now offers a different view: "Today there is empirical evidence, and it shows clearly that choice, competition and accountability as education reform levers are not working." Of course, the local district can't change national education policy. But they can rethink the idea that tests tell us everything.

As my short list suggests, I have no real answers to offer. I share the frustration that everyone I talk with expresses about this. But that frustration also makes me skeptical that a new strategic plan is going to solve our problems. It's not a bad idea, but we need more.

Justifying Ourselves

2010-04-01T10:57:00.000-04:00

According to Carol Tavris, we all do it: justify our own behavior and beliefs, even when they don't quite add up. As she explains, and as her book, Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me), co-authored with Elliot Aronson, shows, we all feel cognitive dissonance when our beliefs, especially things we believe about ourselves, don't quite fit with clear realities. She cites examples ranging from how some people justify continuing to smoke despite significant evidence that it's unhealthy to the responses of cult members to the failure of the world to end according to their predictions to the way hazing increases members' commitment to their fraternities and sororities. We can see these phenomena, and no doubt notice our own experiences with it, every day.

I appreciate two things about Tavris's work. The first is that she talks about the findings of psychological research in very accessible, down-to-earth ways. Translating scientific research and theory into plain language isn't always easy, much less making the ideas seem both compelling and useful. Second, I like how research like this invites us to connect our own experiences with psychological patterns that are common to many people and to link science with ethics. So often, we think of these varied aspects of life as being entirely separate, and this work reminds us that everything is intertwined.

Can the labor movement be saved?

2010-03-25T10:55:00.000-04:00

As my conversation with Bill Padisak, Director of the Mahoning-Trumbull Central Labor Council, makes clear, the labor movement has lost ground over the last few decades. Membership is down, to a great extent because the industries that once created so many union jobs have shrunk. We still have United Steelworkers, United Auto Workers, and International Brotherhood of Electrical Worker locals in our community, but a growing proportion of unionized workers these days come from public entities like schools and police forces or from health care.

That's a national trend, not just a local one. John Russo writes this week in Working-Class Perspectives about how that's changing the role of organized labor in American politics, and Padisak's comments on why the Employee Free Choice Act hasn't yet been approved by Congress (and why it will likely be watered down when it finally does pass) illustrate Russo's point. Locally, the labor movement remains active in politics, endorsing candidates and encouraging workers to vote, but the status of unions in the area has clearly declined, not just in terms of political clout but also in how people view them.

You may be wondering why you should care, especially if you don't belong to a union and don't have the opportunity to join one. You'll find some answers in an Australian video, "What have the unions ever done for us?" Some of the terminology might not make sense, but the basic idea is clear: the labor movement has improved the working conditions, pay, and benefits of workers across the board.

Making Science Fun

2010-03-18T11:26:00.000-04:00

This week, I'm talking with Suzanne Barbati, director of the Roger and Gloria Jones Children's Center for Science and Technology in downtown Youngstown. The Center goes by the name "Oh Wow," which Suzanne explains is meant to reflect the way children and their families will respond to the new exhibits and programs they plan to offer.

Oh Wow is a new vision for the children's museum, which operated for several years as a more general site. The new version reflects the efforts of a number of local leaders to redefine the community around science and technology, all built on the belief that the Valley's economy can be rebuilt by emphasizing these areas. It also reflects a national anxiety about how well we are preparing children in the "STEM" fields, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

I love the idea of a science and technology-oriented children's museum. My favorite museum as a child was the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. You could walk through a super-size replica of a human heart, look at fetuses of various stages in development, and learn about how the telephone system worked by using a phone system that let you have "conversations" with Disney characters.

Much as I loved that, I grew up to be an English professor, and as a humanist, I'm naturally skeptical of the claim that science and technology are the key to all future success. Yes, we need to improve the quality of education in these fields, just as we do in reading and social studies, and yes, there are real and troublesome achievement gaps in STEM training, with relatively few African-Americans or Hispanics excelling in these fields. On the other hand, as studies by the Sloan Foundation and the Rand Corporation suggest, the much-touted shortage in these fields may be an illusion.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't support Oh Wow (though the name isn't working for me). It will make an important contribution to our community's kids. And speaking of contributions, fundraising is one of the Center's primary concerns these days. You can help by visiting their "donor blog."

A nontraditional route to success

2010-03-15T10:54:00.000-04:00

Talking with Jeff Magada about Flying High, Inc. made me think about the limitations of traditional forms of education and the value of offering alternatives. Magada's program fills in for young adults for whom traditional schooling just doesn't work. Flying High offers more personalized attention, a stronger focus on job preparation, and more specific training in both job skills and what some term "employability" skills.

This program, and other non-profit private efforts to help at-risk young people prepare for successful adult lives, seem to be growing in our community, no doubt in response -- at least in part and perhaps indirectly -- to problems with the local schools, as well as persistent unemployment and poverty in the area. All of that creates conditions that make preparing for employment difficult for young people, in part because they see so few opportunities. Programs that build leadership skills can help improve participants' economic situations, of course, but they can also build our community. As Flying High says on its website, their goal is to build "self-sufficiency" and to "mobilize young people to be part of neighborhood revitaization efforts." In other words, theirs is an alternative path not only in terms of education and job preparation but also in terms of serving others.

Diverse Voices

2010-03-04T08:58:00.000-05:00

On Lincoln Avenue this week, I'm talking with literary scholar Michele Fazio, who studies multiethnic America literature, much of it also reflecting working-class perspectives. The interview explains, I think, why such work matters, and I hope Michele will inspire you to get reading. Here are some of the books Michele mentioned:

Pietro Di Donato, Christ in Concrete
John Fante, Wait Until Spring, Bandini
Carol Maso, Ghost Dance
Louise Erdrich, Love Medicine
Sherman Alexie, Indian Killer

For longer lists of good working-class literature, visit the Working-Class Literature page at YSU's Center for Working-Class Studies. Wikipedia (of all things) has lists of writers from 9 different ethnic and racial groups on its page for the organization, Multiethnic Literature of the United States. Voices from the Gaps, a web project at the University of Minnesota, provides information on a variety of women writers and artists of color.

Happy reading!

Accountability or Responsibility?

2010-02-25T09:22:00.000-05:00

Education policy makers keep telling us that the quality of higher education has declined. Enrollments are up, but those who oversee and fund higher ed tell us that we should be worried about whether colleges are doing their job. That anxiety translates into calls for accountability. YSU, like all public institutions in Ohio, has to publish statistics about things like retention and graduation rates as part of a "college portrait" created through the "Voluntary System of Accountability" (which in Ohio isn't voluntary at all). In order to gain accreditation, we have to demonstrate (among other things) that the University is assessing students' learning.

These efforts raise two questions in my mind. First, why the push for accountability? And second, what kinds of information would best communicate the quality of education offered at a university? My guest on Lincoln Avenue this week, Linda Adler-Kassner, has been examining these questions for several years. She has worked with the Higher Learning Commission, the organization that provides accreditation to YSU, and as President of the Council of Writing Program Administrators, she has been working with colleagues who direct first-year writing programs on campuses around the country on how they should respond to the claim that colleges aren't doing their jobs.

As she suggests, calls for accountability are nothing new, and they generally reflect both genuine concern and a belief that college faculty are not doing our jobs well enough because we don't really understand what students need. As a professor, I work with students every day -- much more than anyone in the Department of Education or the Ohio Board of Regents or at the Educational Testing Service. I know both my students and my field well, and that should earn me your trust. Policy makers disagree, and to be honest, I can understand why. Too many faculty define their work solely in terms of research, and too many blame any difficulties students encounter on the students themselves. That's where Adler-Kassner's focus on responsibility comes in. If I don't want someone else telling me what I should teach and what counts as appropriate learning, then I have to take responsibility for my work as a teacher. My colleagues at YSU do that, in part, through assessment.

That said, I'm troubled by the idea that a bunch of statistics about the University as a whole can possibly reflect the complexity of what happens in our classrooms, and I wonder how useful the information is to prospective students and their parents. The YSU College Portrait provides data on things like the ACT scores of entering students, and it uses some data from a survey on students' experiences, but if I were going to show you the quality of students' learning here, I'd invite you to QUEST, where students present their research every spring, or have you visit a few classes and listen to students discussing problems and issues and ideas. I'd show you faculty research on student learning and have you listen in to my colleagues as they advise students on registration and MA thesis work and what to do after graduation. Most important, I'd sit you down to talk with my students. Of course, none of that can be captured easily.

Real education is a messy business. It can't be reduced to a 5-page report. That's why it works.

Small Press, Big Vision

2010-02-18T11:30:00.000-05:00

Talking with Phil Brady about Etruscan Press was a special treat for me, because long, long ago, when I was still an undergraduate, I did some work with small presses. Our conversation reminded me of the incredibly hopeful, committed vision that inspires this kind of work.

Small presses like Etruscan make new writing available without regard to sales and markets. In that sense, they provide the practical side of art for its own sake. As Brady says in our interview, because their support comes from donors and institutions, not sales, they can choose books based on artistic value, not their potential popularity. With small press books, writers create, editors and publishers provide space for, and readers pay attention to fresh voices and perspectives. The work itself, not the size of the audience, is what matters most.

While big press books that sell millions of copies may have more immediate, obvious influence, small presses matter for different reasons. They make it possible for artists to do their work without having to fit their vision into the often narrow confines of existing models. Put simply, they make true creativity possible. They protect us -- not just writers but also readers -- from sliding into cultural conformity.

Happily, such work is sometimes rewarded. Several Etruscan books have been nominated for major awards, and the press's book of writers' responses to 9/11 drew considerable attention. As Brady suggests, that kind of recognition validates the work of the press. But that's not why he does this work. It's all about the writing itself, about supporting writers and providing readers with the best quality books.

Doing this can be joyful work. You can hear that in the way Brady talks about Etruscan. It's also stubbornly optimistic work. Small press publishers and authors know that their work will reach small audiences, but they persist, because they believe that what matters is not the size of the audience but the audacity of the creative vision.

The Future of Manufacturing, Part II

2010-02-10T13:23:00.000-05:00

Scott Paul runs an unusual organization. The Alliance for American Manufacturing is a joint effort of US steel companies and the United Steelworkers of America. Such a labor-management partnership may seem like a contradiction in terms, but as he explains in our conversation, both workers and companies have a stake in preserving, or better yet restoring, manufacturing as a cornerstone of the US economy.

It's not just that workers need jobs, though of course they do -- as anyone in the Mahoning Valley can attest. It's also that companies need consumers, and in order to afford to buy products, people need jobs. More than that, they need jobs that pay well. Too many Americans have accepted a sad and problematic story line about how the demise of American manufacturing is the fault of workers and especially unions. No doubt, organized labor is far from perfect, and yes, labor costs are higher when companies pay decent wages and provide good benefits. But jobs like that have a ripple effect in a community, creating additional jobs and spreading prosperity through a community.

We've seen that locally. Local leaders as well as unions worked hard to persuade GM to assign the Cruze to the Lordstown plant. Why? Because 1500 jobs matter, and not just to the 1500 workers who have them. 1500 jobs means thousands of purchases at local businesses, requiring hundreds of hours of labor by clerks and other store personnel. 1500 jobs means thousands of doctor's visits by people with good insurance, requiring hundreds of hours of labor by clerical workers, nurses, accountants, janitors, and others who help keep clinics and hospitals running smoothly. And 1500 jobs bring thousands of dollars into city, county, and state budgets, providing not just jobs but also increased safety and quality of life for everyone.

It might not be pretty, and no doubt many local leaders want us to "get over" our history as an industrial community. But as Scott Paul reminds us, the future of manufacturing is really the future of our economy. Maybe you're a lawyer, a technical writer, or an elementary school teacher, doing work that seems far removed from steel mills and auto plants. Doesn't matter. Manufacturing matters to you.

The Future of Manufacturing

2010-02-04T13:44:00.000-05:00

Richard McCormack, editor and publisher of Manufacturing and Technology News, offers a grim view of the state of manufacturing in America, but nothing he says will come as a surprise to listeners in Youngstown. We know all too well not only that both the amount of stuff that America makes and the number of jobs involved have shrunk over the last 30 years. And we know, too, how little federal policies are doing to change the trend.

Equally important, we understand why manufacturing jobs matter. The economic story of the Mahoning Valley illustrates this all too well. Even beyond the high levels of unemployment locally, we can see how the shift from manufacturing to service jobs affects families and the community. Service jobs pay less, often allow people to work fewer hours, and often fewer benefits than manufacturing jobs, and all of that matters not just to those who hold these jobs but to their families and the community at large. After all, if people earn more, they also spend more, and a single manufacturing job can help support several more jobs in other sectors. Some economics have suggested that the U.S. can thrive by sending manufacturing jobs out of the country and focusing on research and design, management, and various forms of creative work. As McCormick explains, that just doesn't work. We need manufacturing, not just here in the Mahoning Valley but across the country.

You can hear more of Richard McCormack's analysis by checking out some of the videos from his visit, available now on the Center for Working-Class Studies website.

Help Wanted: Thousands of Jobs for the Valley

2010-01-29T08:59:00.000-05:00

This week on Lincoln Avenue, I'm talking with Chris Litton, head of the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber Foundation. The Foundation's job is to help bring new businesses to the Mahoning Valley and to help existing businesses grow. They do that by working with local government, the business community, and individual business owners to create the conditions that will entice companies to locate and expand here.

As I was talking with Chris, I kept thinking about two things. First, while I think most local leaders understand that the best answer to our community's economic woes is to support the development of many, many small businesses, the idea that a knight-in-shining-armor company will swoop in and rescue us still has power. The challenge for those like Chris who work on the ground in economic development is to embrace the significance of every job, but without losing sight of the area's persistently-high unemployment and poverty rates. So, yes, we should celebrate when a new company comes into the Business Incubator and hires 20 people with college degrees, we should keep scouring for companies that might open a small factory that would hire 200 high school graduates.

That gets us to the second issue: systemic barriers to economic growth. The Chamber, the YBI, local government, and the University can only do so much to address the economic problems of the area, because creating jobs is only half of the issue. We also need to address problems of education, transportation, and racism -- issues that create obstacles for many who need jobs the most. We need people working on both sides of the economic equation.

Faith vs. Knowledge

2010-01-20T09:40:00.000-05:00

Stephen Prothero offers an entertaining and troubling analysis of Americans' lack of religious knowledge. He suggests that contemporary political culture demonstrates a troubling contradiction: while politicians, policy makers, and pundits regularly use religious references in presenting their positions, most Americans don't know religious texts well enough to determine whether these references make sense. Worse, he says, our lack of religious knowledge undermines our foreign policy and complicates the current "war on terror," because military, intelligence, and policy leaders don't understand the Islamic ideas and divisions involved.

I find the second point more persuasive than the first, because Prothero's claim about American religious illiteracy is based in part on survey data that reveals people's inability to do things like name the four gospels in the New Testament or the five Old Testament books that make up the Torah. I'm always skeptical about evaluating people's knowledge on the basis of our ability to name things. As I tell my literature students, I'm not all that concerned about whether they remember a character's name or the year in which something was published; the key is their ability to analyze the character's function in a play or to discuss the historical context in which something was written and read. The same is true for religion.

No doubt, for many Americans, any reference to the Bible serves as evidence that the speaker is "good," regardless of whether the citation works, and I think we should be troubled by any form of knee-jerk religious response. On the other hand, it's quite possible to understand the underlying ideas in a Biblical story without being able to remember whether it appears in the Old or New Testament.

Prothero's second concern seems, to me, much greater. We know almost nothing about other religions -- even, in many cases, about other religions that are practiced by many of our neighbors. This reflects Americans' general lack of knowledge about the rest of the world as well as our fears about teaching religion. As Prothero suggests, we need to create space in the curriculum, ideally on the secondary level, to teach about world religions.

As a member of a minority religion, I understand both why this matters and why it can seem scary. On the one hand, I want more people to understand my religion, and I wish I knew more about other non-dominant religions. On the other hand, I worry about how such courses would be taught in a society where many are promoting "intelligent design."

Clearly, religion is at once a driving force in American culture and an ongoing challenge. In what seems to be an increasingly divided, conflicted, partisan society, how do we pursue the goal of more and better religious understanding? It may not be easy.

A Ground-up Perspective -- at the Washington Post and in Youngstown

2010-01-13T13:54:00.000-05:00

Predictably, some folks were unhappy with Anne Hull's recent Washington Post article on how the recession is affecting Youngstown. They complained that the article never mentioned all the great things going on, all those jobs being created at the Business Incubator or the area's potential for green technology jobs. They're understandably tired of Youngstown's story being a tale of economic struggle. And they're right, that it's an old story.

It's also a true story. And while some reporters write versions of that story without visiting Youngstown, Anne does the real work, journalism from the ground up. That kind of reporting comes from asking a lot of questions not just of people in official positions but of people on the street, in the parking lot, at the grocery store. It comes from careful observation, and it comes from understanding how to look at a situation through the perspective of the unofficial -- of the ordinary people whose lives are so often affected by social and economic forces over which they have little control.

That's the kind of reporting that led Hull to a Pulitzer Prize, for her reporting with Dana Priest, on the conditions at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. In our interview, Anne talks about how she and Priest pursued that story and about her reporting since on the experiences of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

That's also the kind of reporting we need to listen to here in Youngstown. I'm all for drawing attention to our assets and achievements. There's more to Youngstown's story than our continuing economic struggles. So, too, is there more to our story than Youngstown 2010, the YBI, and YSU. If 10,000 people in our community lose their jobs over the course of two years, we need to pay attention. We need to understand what that's like and how people are surviving. We may not like what we read in stories like Anne's, but we need to listen to them nonetheless.

Mayor Jay Williams: Looking Backward, Looking Forward

2010-01-06T10:03:00.000-05:00

Lincoln Avenue is back, starting the new year with a conversation with Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams as he begins his second term. Along with identifying some important accomplishments, like helping to improve the city's image and solid efforts on economic development, Williams acknowledges the city's continuing struggles.

The economy, both the challenges of the current recession and our long-term struggles to create more jobs, remains an important problem. And that issue intertwines with two other challenges: education and crime. Tight city budgets and increased economic need in the community make fighting crime harder than ever. So far, the city hasn't had to lay anyone off, though several officers have accepted early retirement buyouts. And crime rates are improving in some areas, such as murder. On the other hand, crimes that might be influenced by the bad economy, such and robbery and burglary, have increased. And the city's reputation as a high-crime area creates continuing challenges for economic development. Figuring out how to keep enough officers on the streets will be difficult as tax revenues continue to decline, and while the growth of local block watches may help fill the gap, alert neighbors can't do as much as an effective police force.

Mayor Williams also notes that education is a major challenge for the city. Better education would help us attract more businesses, but it's also true that a better economy and the promise of decent jobs would provide incentives for students to succeed in school, so economics and education reinforce each other. Of course, the mayor doesn't control the local schools, but Williams says he hopes to get more involved in addressing the issues facing the city school district.

Of course, I couldn't talk with Jay Williams at the start of 2010 without talking about 2010 -- the plan. As he acknowledges, the plan has succeeded in several unexpected ways, by bringing positive media attention to the city and by inspiring organizing efforts by non-governmental groups like the Mahoning Valley Organizing Collaborative. Indeed, the greatest measure of the success of 2010 might be the grants and significant donations that are helping to fund the new Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation -- a new non-profit that promotes local development and citizen engagement, reflecting the neighborhood-centered community organizing approach that started here with 2010. On the other hand, as Williams notes, some of the original plan's strategies have proven difficult. The idea that the city could move residents out of struggling blocks and stop providing services there has proven untenable. After all, a block that looks "not viable" to an urban planner because it only has 2 occupied structures looks like home to the people who own those houses and have lived there for 30 years or more. On the other hand, organizations like the MVOC, Grow Youngstown, and Lien Forward are working on strategies to turn vacant properties into productive land, so the green we see in the vacant properties survey map might not be quite as bad as it looks on first glance.

Talking with Williams reminded me of the first interview I did for Lincoln Avenue, with John Slanina, who commented that for people of his generation, Youngstown now is the best it's ever been. We're far from trouble-free, and Williams is right that education, crime, and economic development are not just continuing challenges but the problems for which we must, in the long run, find solutions. Still, my experience is much like John's: after 20 years here, and despite a lot of time studying and talking about the problems, I feel more optimistic about Youngstown that ever before.

Reading the Recession through the lens of the Depression

2009-11-18T14:26:00.000-05:00

On this week's Lincoln Avenue, I'm talking with Daniel Roth and James Ledbetter about the book they just published together. The Great Depression: A Diary was written by Daniel's father, Benjamin Roth, a Youngstown lawyer who had the foresight to understand, back in the early 1930s, that he was living through an important historical period. He started taking notes on what was happening locally as well as nationally, with a strong focus on the economic and especially the investment lessons to be learned from the Depression.

Roth's focus on economic issues and investing is part of what caught James Ledbetter's eye. He edits an online economic magazine, The Big Money, published by Slate. He published excerpts from the diary on his website, noting that the diary's "perceptions and experiences have a chilling similarity to our own era, and The Big Money believes that Roth's words—though they are 75 years old—have much to teach us today." Roth made note, for example, of how people were buying stocks at one point in 1931, believing they had hit bottom, only to find that stock prices dropped even further.

As Ledbetter notes in our interview, the Depression was different in some important ways from the recession we're experiencing now, Benjamin Roth's ideas about investing -- especially about making cautious choices -- are useful reminders for us today. Perhaps even more, his diary reminds us of the value of observation. Roth followed stock prices and investment strategies closely, even though he was not an investor himself.

Beyond the book itself, what I hope you can hear in this interview is the camaraderie between the two editors. For Daniel Roth, this project was a way of honoring his father. For Jim Ledbetter, it represented an engaging way of getting a fresh perspective on the current economic crisis. But the process itself -- editing the book and now doing interviews and presentations to promote it -- has created a terrific partnership.

Urban Education: What Now?

2009-11-12T09:30:00.001-05:00

Because I supported Barack Obama in last year’s election, I was hopeful that his administration would take a more progressive approach to public education than we saw under “No Child Left Behind.” I haven’t found Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s approach especially inspiring. Indeed, I’m concerned about his emphasis on using standardized test scores to measure the effectiveness of teachers and his enthusiasm for charter schools. No doubt, some charter schools work well, but in our area they haven’t done much better – and some have done worse – than public schools.

So I invited Professor Randy Hoover in to talk about these issues. In our interview, he argues that the primary thing measured by standardized exams is the students’ socioeconomic status, noting his own research on the topic over the past decade. He describes the charter school movement as an effort to privatize public education, since most of the nation’s charter schools are organized by for-profit companies. His ideas are provocative, and his passion for the subject is clear.

I’m left still wondering about how best to address the challenge of improving the education we offer to all students, especially those coming from low-income neighborhoods. Examples from around the country show that these students can succeed, but most of the models involve a significant investment of resources and a firm commitment from parents. I’m not sure that can help us solve the problems facing the Youngstown City Schools and similar districts around the U.S.

Growing Soil, Growing Community, Growing Power

2009-11-04T14:42:00.000-05:00

The Gray to Green Festival back in September succeeded on many levels, but for me the most exciting part was first listening to and then getting to interview keynote speaker Will Allen. Allen defines charisma, a tall, enthusiastic, dedicated man who clearly has a passion for his work. And his work is amazing: developing urban agriculture in areas where most people have limited access to good food. His organization, Growing Power Inc, runs a large compost operation, a greenhouse that raises both produce and fish, a variety of programs that provide jobs for local teenagers, and a market selling the produce, eggs, meat, and even worms they grow. It's an impressive operation, not only for its complexity but also for its vision: "Inspiring communities to build sustainable food systems that are equitable and ecologically sound, creating a just world, one food-secure community at a time."

As Allen suggests in our conversation, pursuing this vision requires that we think about the environment, the science of food production, the business of managing a complex organization, and the social and political patterns that create hunger, crime, low expectations, and social divisions. As he notes, inequality, especially racism, fosters social problems, and truly grassroots efforts that don't just talk about problems but take concrete actions -- as Growing Power does -- can begin to create change, not just for those who work with the organization but for the community at large.

There's a local version of this: Grow Youngstown. That effort is fairly new, but Allen's model provides important inspiration and guidance. Someday, we may see urban farms in Youngstown helping to reduce hunger, improve the local economy, and build a stronger community right here.

Unusual Music with a Local Twist

2009-10-28T15:43:00.001-04:00

This week’s Lincoln Avenue takes us back to last June, for a conversation with electroacoustic musician Lars Brondum. Lars has local connections, with family in town and two degrees from YSU’s Dana School of Music, but he lives and works in Sweden.

Lars performed at the Universal Café at the Unitarian church, and when he came to talk with me, he brought in some samples of his work. Electroacoustic music combines traditional instruments with unusual sounds, some coming from specialized musical instruments like the theremin as well as ordinary objects. You can hear him talk about how and why he composes and performs, and you can hear examples of his work, on this week’s show. This was one of few shows I’ve done with music, and I liked having the chance to move back and forth between conversation and sound.

Doing the Right Thing

2009-10-21T10:12:00.000-04:00

Martha Hennessey’s “claim to fame” is that she’s the granddaughter of Dorothy Day, one of the founders of the Catholic Worker Movement. Much as I admire Day’s work, it’s a shame that Hennessey doesn’t get more recognition in her own right. As we discuss in this week’s interview, she’s taken the activist model of the Catholic Worker Movement – the concept of nonviolent resistance – to protest and observation sites around the world. From the steps of the Supreme Court to the Rafah border crossing in the Gaza Strip, she has stood up for peace and justice. While many people can’t imagine attending a protest, much less doing so in an uncomfortable and dangerous area or taking the risk of being arrested, Martha sees these as ordinary acts, things that she must do because they are the right thing to do. Her interview will inspire you.

Speaking of doing the right thing, if you’re listening to Lincoln Avenue or just reading the blog (the show is better!), I hope you’ll do the right thing and help support WYSU. It’s pledge week, and we need your help to continue offering thoughtful perspectives on local, national, and global events. Go to wysu.org now and make your pledge.

Feeding People First

2009-10-08T18:34:00.000-04:00

This week on Lincoln Avenue, I talked with Joel Berg about hunger, poverty, and – the crux of the matter – wages. As someone who studies working-class life, culture, and politics, I was especially pleased to hear him focus on wages. If more people earned a livable wage, fewer people would go hungry. It’s as simple as that. Unfortunately, even though the minimum wage was raised not long ago, we’re seeing many more people moving into low-wage jobs. Those are some of the fastest-growing job categories in the country.

Meanwhile, growing more and better food for urban, low-income communities is a hot topic, and Berg’s comments help us connect the dots between programs like food banks, living wage campaigns, and urban farms and farmer’s markets. We’re seeing many of these efforts here in the Youngstown area, though other cities are, in many cases, far ahead of us. But I’m encouraged to see people organizing around issues of poverty and access, along with all the efforts to attract new high-tech jobs and strengthen the arts community. We need it all here, of course, but feeding people is probably the right place to begin. And along with growing good food and donating to food banks, one of the best ways to feed people is to ensure that they can afford to feed themselves.

Rebuilding Youngstown, Block by Block

2009-09-30T08:20:00.000-04:00

Last week, I talked with Kevin DeOliviera about his new film, Steel Valley: Meltdown. If you saw the film on Friday night, you know that it focused on how young professionals and new leaders are trying to create a new Youngstown built primarily around high-tech and green energy jobs. Much as I support the efforts of those who are trying to bring new businesses to the area, I was troubled that the film ignored the very real, concrete problems in the community. It alluded to but did not fully explore the efforts of a number of local organizations who are doing the hard work of organizing – bringing people together around key issues – to create change here.

At the heart of these organizing efforts is the Mahoning Valley Organizing Collaborative. MVOC uses old-fashioned strategies of canvassing, building neighborhood coalitions, and seeking financial support for concrete projects that will improve the quality of life for the majority of the citizens of Youngstown. Their efforts remind us that building a better Youngstown involves not just creating jobs for highly educated young professionals but also empowering long-time poor and working-class residents to work together to rebuild their crumbling neighborhoods. They remind us that Youngstown is not a white, middle-class city that just needs a few green technology jobs to make everything ok.

We are a community scarred by old wounds of racism and economic struggle. Our history gave us a strong work ethic, the determination to survive, and a commitment to this place, but it also left us with strong divisions between city and suburbs, white and black, middle-class and working-class and with persistent poverty, low rates of education, and underemployment. If we want to rebuild Youngstown, we have to bring people together across those divides, and we have to address our most persistent problems.

Perhaps the most concrete scar left by deindustrialization is vacant property. Ian Beniston, my guest on Lincoln Avenue this week, is spearheading MVOC’s efforts to address the problem. Working with dozens of local volunteers, MVOC assessed every plot of land in the city, identifying where we have empty lots and abandoned buildings. Armed with a map that shows a dramatic pattern of vacant properties on the east and south sides, Ian and his partners, including the residents of some of the most affected neighborhoods, are campaigning for state and federal funds, supporting efforts to create new urban green spaces and farms, and working with Congress to develop new policies to help cities like ours.

What I appreciate most about the efforts of Ian and his colleagues is that they are focusing on the concrete, day-to-day realities of Youngstown’s poor and working-class residents as well as their middle-class neighbors, and they are approaching the problem from the streets, not just the offices.

From Scrap to What?

2009-09-23T09:07:00.000-04:00

On Friday night, a new locally-made film about Youngstown,Steel Valley: Meltdown, will have its premiere downtown at the DeYor Center. The film is the brainchild of director Kevin DeOliveira, my guest on Lincoln Avenue this week, in part as an effort to offer a fresh view of the Mahoning Valley. The film's title, Kevin says, refers to the process of melting down scrap metal so that it can be reformed into something new, a process that he sees happening in the Mahohing Valley.

No doubt, our community is being transformed, and I'm pleased to see that we are approaching that process without completely dismissing our history but also without feeling the need to define precisely what we will become. We've identified some key problems to solve, like having too many vacant properties, and some potential tools for remaking the region, like developing the arts, technology, and green energy manufacturing. We don't yet know how all of this will play out. Meanwhile, I sense a building pressure from within and outside. Our efforts have drawn international attention, and even though everyone knows that these processes take time, both local residents and outside observers are anxious to declare either victory or defeat.

DeOliveira hopes that his film will contribute to changing the image of Youngstown, both locally and nationally. It will join a growing series of newspaper articles, broadcast and web media stories, and academic studies all focused on how Youngstown, three decades after its defining industry began to fall apart, will finally be remade.

The premiere is open to the public, free. 7:30, Friday, September 25, in the Ford Recital Hall at the DeYor.

Beyond Traficant: New Politics in the Mahoning Valley

2009-09-16T07:22:00.000-04:00

Jim Traficant’s return to the Mahoning Valley has been getting a lot of attention in the last couple of weeks. While his story matters, in all the hoopla, we seem to be forgetting that he’s just one of dozens of local officials who were convicted of some form of political corruption in the late 1990s. So invited political scientist and commentator Bill Binning in to talk about how the local political landscape has changed in the last decade.

Did the FBI sweep and efforts by local groups such as the Citizen’s League and ACTION work? Binning says yes, for the most part. Local politics these days rely less on pay-offs and promises. Some of that is about all of the attention we paid in the 90s, and some of it, Binning suggests, can be credited to the growth of state-sponsored gambling, which took away some of the funding that drove organized crime in the area. The mob just doesn’t have the money to control much anymore.

We also have a lot of new personnel. While a few local politicians have been in one office or another for a couple of decades, many new faces are occupying seats in city, county, and state government, as well as representing us in Washington. Binning applauds the efforts of Congressman Tim Ryan to bring federal money to the Valley as well as simply representing us well. And he says he’s interested to see how recently-elected Mahoning County Democratic Chair David Betras will handle endorsements and other issues.

As always, talking about politics with Bill is entertaining and thought-provoking. And it’s encouraging to hear someone who’s been following local politics for years confirm that, yes, things are really different now.

Development Disabilities: Your Vote Makes a Difference

2009-09-02T09:39:00.002-04:00

As I’ve been listening to all the debates about health care over the last six weeks, I’ve been frustrated to hear so much selfishness from so many Americans. Many people say they support universal health care, but they’re screaming and yelling about any change that might cost them an extra dollar or decrease their care the slightest bit. I know the issues go far beyond that, but this aspect of it has troubled me deeply. So talking with Larry Duck and Frank Santisi about the programs offered by the Mahoning County Board of Developmental Disabiities was especially inspiring.

You know this group as MRDD – mental retardation and development disabilities. If you live in Mahoning County, you’ve seen and hopefully voted in support of levies to fund their services on ballots over the years. This fall, the name is changing, dropping the phrase “mental retardation” in part to eliminate language that has overly negative connotations. But the purpose and strategy remains the same: support developmentally disabled individuals and their families through education and services. You can hear all about what they do in our interview.

The Board has also developed a new resource, a guidebook for parents. The booklet offers advice on legal matters, working with local agencies and schools, and long-term planning. To get a copy, contact Paul Iden by e-mail or call the office at 330-797-2825.

Here’s why this gives me hope: not only is it encouraging to talk with a professional like Larry Duck who is devoting his intelligence and skill to addressing the needs of some of the most vulnerable members of our society, and not only is it moving to hear Frank Santisi describe the challenges and accomplishments of his son Frankie, but it’s inspiring to recognize that part of what makes all of this possible is that people who are not directly affected by development disabilities vote for a levy to fund the Board’s work. In a community that has been struggling economically for decades, in a culture that is increasingly anti-tax, Mahoning County voters almost always support MRDD levies.

Dracula Calling

2009-08-26T08:57:00.000-04:00

This week on Lincoln Avenue, I’m talking with Pat Fagan about the history and the future of the Youngstown Playhouse. I think of the Playhouse, together with the Butler and the Youngstown Symphony, as one of the “foundation stones” of the local arts and culture scene. It’s been around for more than eight decades, and despite some recent struggles, its leaders and volunteers are still committed and excited about its work.

You can hear that excitement when Pat talks about her own experiences there. We often talk about the arts in terms of the entertainment and enrichment they bring to audiences. When we think about the value of helping to make art, we too often focus on children, as in discussions of the importance of arts education. But Pat reminds us that participating in the arts – acting in a play, helping to build sets, singing in a choir, taking photographs – improves adults’ quality of life, too. It isn’t just a matter of high-minded things like expanding one’s cultural perspectives. It’s just plain fun.

I moved to Youngstown 20 years ago, and I’ve always been amazed at the quantity and quality of arts programs in our area. We have at least half a dozen community theaters in the Mahoning Valley, plus multiple museums, and a vivid array of music, visual arts, and creative writing offerings. All of that can be a great asset, helping to draw newcomers to the area and develop strong community networks for those who are already here.

But there’s a challenge, too. As the Valley’s population shrinks, our unemployment rate rises, and the economy struggles, the competition for both audiences and funding gets tighter. From what Pat tells me, we seem to have plenty of talent and interest to keep all of these projects going. What we may not have is the money they need to thrive.

For now, though, the Playhouse is starting a new season. Auditions are going on this week for Dracula, and there’s more to come. Perhaps a production of Dracula is a kind of statement: local theater as the forever undead?

In Solidarity with the Poor

2009-08-19T07:44:00.001-04:00

Many commentators have suggested parallels between the current economic crisis and the Depression of the 1930s. While the economic situation is different in many ways, for all the challenges of this crisis, there are (as I have written elsewhere) some potentially productive parallels. Along with a wave of creative work reflecting the economic and social struggles of the working class, the 1930s generated a number of private and public programs to support those who were most vulnerable. The Catholic Worker Movement was one of these.

The Movement began as a newspaper, created by journalist Dorothy Day, but it soon developed Catholic Worker Houses that provided direct relief and spiritual support for those who were struggling to survive.

Seventyfive years later, the Catholic Worker Movement continues its work with the poor, and now it’s coming to Youngstown. On this week’s Lincoln Avenue – the first of a new season – I’m talking with Sister Ann McMenamin, from the Sisters of the Humility of Mary. Together with colleagues from the Ursuline Sisters and other groups in the community, she is helping to organize a two-day retreat to explore the idea of establishing a Catholic Worker House in our community.

The retreat will be held at the Villa Maria Center, starting at 9 am on Friday, September 4. The program will include presentations by Martha Hennessy, Dorothy Day’s granddaughter and an activism in her own right, organizers from existing Catholic Worker houses, a play about the life of Dorothy Day, and conversations about how a local group can adopt this model here. While the lead organizers are Catholic, the program is open to anyone who is interested, and anyone can become involved in the project. For more information or to register for the retreat, call the Villa Maria Center, 724-964-8920.

Grass Roots: Preserving Community through Art

2009-06-29T08:25:00.001-04:00

If you haven’t been to Fellows Riverside Gardens lately, and even if you have, a visiting exhibit there should provide a great reason to make a special trip. Grass Roots: African Origins of an American Art tells the history and showcases the artistic beauty of the sweetgrass baskets of the Carolina low country. The exhibit links the artistry of today’s basketmakers with their African origins and the continuing tradition of basketmaking in Africa.

Beyond the aesthetic beauty of the baskets themselves, what I found most intriguing in my conversations with basketmaker Nakia Wigfall and exhibit curator Dale Rosengarten was the way the local community of Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, took control of what might once have been seen as a symbol of enslavement and transformed it into a tool for economic and cultural independence and pride. As Nakia mentions in our interview, her great-grandparents were among the enslaved people who once labored on rice plantations in the area, and for the, the flat, wide fanner baskets they made each year were necessary tools. But as Dale explains, by the early 20^th century, the basketmakers of Mt. Pleasant began to sell their work along the roadside near Charleston, ensuring that they could preserve their artistic freedom and protect their economic interests.

At the same time, as Nakia makes clear, basketmaking weaves not only practical, beautiful objects. It also weaves together the family and community. She learned to sew these baskets from her mother, and she has taught her own children. Basketmaking allows families like Nakia’s to strengthen their ties through shared art, but because they can earn a living through this work, it also allows them to remain in their home community – a community with roots dating back to before the Civil War.

Grass Roots also has something to offer our community. The exhibit is part of an effort by Mill Creek Park to expand its outreach, especially to the African-American community. As John Russo and I noted in Steeltown USA, the park has long served as a dividing line between the mostly white West Side and the mostly African-American neighborhoods that border the park along Glenwood Avenue. Decades ago, black people were only allowed into Idora Park one day a week, and the amusement park was later a site of some fights between white and black youth. Racial divisions remain strong in this community, but Mill Creek MetroParks is trying to help change that. I hope this exhibit will draw African-American visitors to Fellows, but I also hope it will give white visitors a different perspective on African-American culture.

Art in Difficult Times

2009-05-13T09:26:00.002-04:00

One of Youngstown’s gems, the Butler Institute of American Art, turns 90 this year. This week on Lincoln Avenue, I’m talking with museum director Lou Zona about what’s happening at the museum this summer. On the top of the list is the anniversary gala. The May 28^th event with feature actress Jessica Lange. An exhibit of her photographs will also open that evening.

Late in the summer, the Butler will host its annual Midyear Exhibition, a nationally-recognized, juried show. As Lou explains in our interview, this show is not only exciting to put on, it is viewed by artists and galleries around the country as an important exhibit for emerging artists. The Butler is also extending the Andrew Wyeth exhibit, and it has a new exhibit of small-scale collages from the National Collage Society. With so much high-quality activity, it’s not surprising that the Butler was recently re-accredited. In our interview, Lou explains what that means and why it matters.

But we also talk about the challenges facing museums and other arts organizations in this time of economic crisis. I’ve written elsewhere about how the current situation might connect with the 1930s, but so far I’m not seeing any signs of what I think is one of the most culturally significant aspects of the New Deal – the arts programs sponsored by the Works Progress Administration. Roosevelt’s stimulus plan, unlike Obama’s, funded arts projects as a way of getting artists back to work. In the process, those artists also created some significant new works and reached out to new audiences. In the current recession, we have to take on that responsibility as members of the community. By supporting the arts, we not only help provide jobs for those who make, exhibit, and distribute art. We also support the availability of art that can help us understand the events and issues of the moment and find inspiration to persevere in difficult times.

Growing More Than Good Food

2009-05-07T12:41:00.001-04:00

May is garden time. While you’re beginning to plant tomatoes and pansies, this is also a good time to think about the larger social value of growing your own food, supporting local agriculture, and contributing to the greening of our community. On Lincoln Avenue this week, I’m talking with Elsa Higby, director of Grow Youngstown, who’s organizing several projects focused on these issues.

Along with supporting and encouraging urban gardening, Elsa is not only advocating but also helping make it easy for local residents to buy most of their summer produce from local farms. Through community-supported agriculture – also known as CSA – you can buy a share of what’s being grown on one of three area farms. Every week this summer, you can pick up a box of fresh veggies, fruit, and herbs at a convenient site in the city. Grow Youngstown is also offering shares in two local meat producers. Participating gives you lower-cost, higher-quality food as well as the pleasure of knowing that you’re helping support local agriculture and build our community.

As Elsa explains in our interview, all of this is not only about improving the quality of our food, our environment, and our community. It’s part of a global vision about improving the world through social change and organizing. Who knew that what you eat could matter so much?

Grow Youngstown is not the only greening project in the Mahoning Valley these days. As we discuss in the interview, it’s part of an expanding network of projects aimed at planting more trees, building more urban gardens, and helping people who’ve never planted a garden learn how to make things grow. Interested in getting involved? Contact any of the folks below:

Fairgreen Neighborhood Garden
(North Side of Youngstown - plots available)
Contact: Elsa Higby or Hannah Woodroofe
citygardens@growyoungstown.org

Good Natured Gardening Partners (ages 5 and over)
Competitive/Educational program
Contact: Dave Georig OSU Extension
(330) 533-5538

Jubilee Gardens
(Brier Hill, Youngstown - plots available)
May 21st luncheon and garden kickoff
Contact: Mary
(330) 651-3054

St. Patrick’s Church and 4-H Oakhill Clovers
(South Side of Youngstown - plots available)
Contact: Carla Hlavac
(330) 743-1109

The Urban Community Victory Garden
A project of Concerned Citizens II, OSU Trumbull County Master Gardeners and Horace Mann School
(Warren - 15 x 30 plots available)
Contact: Steve Hudkins
(330) 637-3530

Treez Please
Planting trees and creating urban gardens in Youngstown

They’re hosting a Perennial Plant Exchange on May 16 at 1 pm
Contact: Susie Beiersdorfer
(330) 881-1050

Pornography and Public Policy

2009-04-29T13:50:00.002-04:00

Most of the interviews on Lincoln Avenue explore current issues, with a strong focus on the Mahoning Valley. This week, we’re talking about the past, with historian Whitney Strub. But the history he studies is very much part of contemporary life, since debates about pornography, obscenity, and sexuality never seem to die.

As Whitney explains, we can to a great extent track the pendulum swing of that debate according to which political party is in power. When Republicans dominate, concerns about morality shape policy. For Democrats, the concerns are more about balancing free speech with censorship. Across the political spectrum and through much of the past century, however, the primary issue shaping public policy about obscenity has been how it influences children. That encompasses crack-downs on child pornography, worries about children’s viewing of internet porn, and fears about pedophilia. Other key issues have to do with the exploitation of women, negative representations of sexuality, and concerns about how the porn industry operated.

Strub also examines how what gets defined as “obscene” reflects changing social and political mores. In the middle of the 20^th century, images of interracial couples could be deemed obscene, even if they were merely holding hands. Similarly, images of homosexuality have often been judged as unacceptable.

Running through all of the history, though, is a sense of futility. Despite various laws and public debates, pornography continues to thrive, and the industry keeps adapting to new technologies and social trends.

Celebrating Mexican Heritage

2009-04-22T15:37:00.000-04:00

If you listen to Lincoln Avenue regularly, you may have noticed my ongoing interest in the local Mexican community. As I’ve written before, some of that is because of my own history, growing up in a city with a large Mexican population. But it also comes from my interest in immigration and ethnicity in the Mahoning Valley. You can’t miss the prevalence of Italians or Irish people in this area, but even though Mexicans have been here for about 90 years, they are a smaller and less visible part of the community.

But, as Rachel Flasco explains in this week’s interview, that doesn’t mean that Mexicans aren’t proud of their heritage, or that they don’t enjoy an opportunity to celebrate and share it. Rachel is President of the Sociedad Mutalista Mexicana, the Youngstown Mexican Club. In our conversation, she explains some of the ways the local Mexican community has changed over the years, shares some of her own family’s history, and talks about the activities of the Mexican Club.

You can join in one of those activities, the upcoming “Pre Cinco de Mayo Fiesta,” on Friday, May 1, at the Mastropietro Winery in Berlin Center. The event will feature Mexican food, music, and dancing.

The Business of Diversity

2009-04-15T14:23:00.001-04:00

When you read the phrase “managing diversity,” you might imagine the kind of sensitivity training workshop that was – rightly – a common object of ridicule in the 1980s and 90s, the kind where everyone is encouraged to appreciate each other’s differences and avoid making racist or sexist comments. In our conversation on Lincoln Avenue, Luke Visconti, one of the founders of DiversityInc, made clear that his approach to creating more diverse workplaces isn’t like that.

DiversityInc publishes a magazine and manages a website that profiles businesses that have succeeded in hiring, keeping, and promoting women, people of color, and gays and lesbians. He told me, as well as the audience at YSU’s annual Diversity Leadership dinner, that the key to creating productively diverse workplaces isn’t about eliminating overt discrimination but about addressing the obstacles that too often keep talented workers from being promoted. Yes, those barriers can be a matter of attitudes, though Visconti insists that he doesn’t think that most employers or colleagues are racists or sexist (though he acknowledges the persistence of homophobia). They simply aren’t aware of how their own habits and assumptions might exclude others. As he explains in tonight’s interview, companies often benefit from recognizing patterns of exclusion and from some basic, often common-sense advice, such as don’t penalize women for taking maternity leave, or simply making your company’s commitment to diversity a strong theme in how you present your business.

Visconti’s positive approach makes sense. We can’t promote real equal opportunity on the basis of guilt; we have to make clear how discrimination harms not only those who are its objects but also those who enact it. And I’m always happy to see discussions of diversity being led by straight, white men – those who, it would seem, have the least to gain from it. In his blog, Ask the White Guy, Visconti encourages people to ask questions that they might not be comfortable either asking within their own companies or to someone who is different from themselves.

All of this seems like a move in a good direction. My diversity skepticism kicked in, though, when Visconti explained his business model, which uses statistical analysis to show companies how well (or poorly) they’re doing and offers consulting services and information to help them do better. That feels a little like a gotcha game. No doubt, companies and organizations need help. Maybe I’m too idealistic, but I’m a little uncomfortable with the idea that promoting diversity has itself become a way to make money. I hope that DiversityInc and other companies like it, with the help of all of my colleagues who teach about diversity in schools and colleges and who organize community-based efforts to fight inequality, will succeed enough that they create their own obsolescence.

Economic Development on the Individual Level

2009-03-25T08:26:00.000-04:00

One of the recurring themes of Lincoln Avenue has been economic development. Usually, that has me talking with someone who is developing some kind of local or regional project to create new businesses. This week, I talk with Kelly Elko about a different kind of economic development: preparing women who are living in poverty to join the workforce and improve their families’ economic position.

Kelly directs Potter’s Wheel, which is just one of the programs run by Beatitude House to help women and children escape poverty. Along with providing housing, educational programs, and support for personal growth, Beatitude House helps women who have not been successful in finding and keeping jobs develop the skills they need to achieve economic stability. For some women, getting out of poverty is a matter of changing their attitude – gaining confidence and determination. For some, it means learning that showing up day after day can help you keep a job. For still others, it means learning specific skills that will help them land a job or figuring out how to dress for an interview or simply finding out about job opportunities.

All of which is fine in theory, but what if Beatitude House could provide hands-on work experience for the women it serves? That’s exactly what Kelly and her colleagues are working on as they design a new “green cleaning” business. They’re working with other local non-profits to learn about the concept of “social enterprises,” the idea that non-profits can create for-profit businesses that not only support their efforts financially but also provide important opportunities for their clients. The training program is sponsored by Community Wealth Ventures. By this coming fall, Beatitude House hopes to open a business that will give the women in its programs experience working and, for some, experience managing others.

To succeed in its work, Beatitude House needs your help. You can make a financial donation, but they also need stuff – work clothing, household goods, and more. You’ll find a list of needed items and information about how to donate them in the Beatitude House newsletter.

In a community with high rates of poverty, we not only need new businesses and jobs. We also need to support the development of individuals. That’s what Beatitude House is all about.

Helping Us Age Wisely

2009-03-18T10:11:00.001-04:00

The combination of my own creaky joints, spending spring break with my parents, and planning a trip to Memphis to be with my grandmother for her 104^th birthday, I’ve been thinking a lot about aging lately. Talking with Daniel Van Dussen, director of the new Gerontology program at YSU, reminded me that I am far from alone.

Aging is something that affects all of us, if we’re lucky, but as Daniel points out, this is not just a personal issue. As the national population gets older – a trend that is even more pronounced here in the Mahoning Valley – we’re seeing changes in social and economic patterns that affect us individually and collectively. People are living longer and remaining active later in their lives, which creates a need for more programs for older adults. That creates demand for more senior housing projects, but it also generates growth in adult education and exercise programs, as well as in health care targeted to issues of aging. At the same time, more middle-aged people find themselves providing some kind of elder care.

The demographic shift is also affecting the economy, in several ways. For the healthiest older adults, worklife is extending far past 65. For some, that’s a matter of economic necessity, but for others it’s a social choice, a way of remaining active and engaged. That shift might tighten the job market for younger adults, though. On the other hand, the needs of an aging population create new jobs in health care and social services. That job growth is part of what the new Gerontology program aims to address.

Beyond all of this, I think one of the values of this growing field is its potential to help all of us learn how to deal more effectively with aging. No one enjoys the physical changes that come with aging, and dealing with aging parents and grandparents can create strains within families. The more we understand the physical, psychological, and social issues related to aging, the better prepared we can be to respond positively. For the Board of Regents, Gerontology might seem like a valuable field because it prepares students for jobs. For the rest of us, it matters because it can help us live better.

Worth Listening To

2009-03-15T09:33:00.001-04:00

A few years ago, Brent Cunningham, Managing Editor of the Columbia Journalism Review, suggested that the reason why the media have such difficulty covering stories about working-class people well is that so few journalists come from the working class themselves. As he suggests, most journalists don’t know many working-class people and don’t understand them. Connie Schultz shows us what a difference understanding where people come from can make. Her weekly columns in the Cleveland Plain Dealer often focus on working people, and she helps her readers understand people who are and are not like themselves.

This week on Lincoln Avenue, I talked with Connie about her work, especially about the challenges of writing about real people’s lives. Good writing – and hers is so good that she won a Pulitzer Prize for her columns -- requires honesty. She shows us the struggle and pain of ordinary people, and she does so in ways that emphasize their dignity and strength. In our interview, I asked her to read from a column that I found especially moving, about a man who committed suicide after the plant where he’d worked for 40 years shut down. Stories like that invite empathy, but that’s not the only reason why Connie wants us to hear them. She’s an advocate as well as a storyteller. In a way, she uses other people’s stories to show us injustice but also to point toward change. That’s why she has to write with such care, to be sure that her interests and the interests of her readers don’t trump the concerns of the people she writes about.

She may do this so well in part because she does write about her own life, including her marriage to Senator Sherrod Brown. She has an especially public life; being a politician’s wife opens a woman to more than the usual scrutiny. She’s been on the receiving end of indiscriminate attacks on her character, the way she talks, even seemingly simple and personal things like keeping her own name.

Whatever the subject, whether writing about herself or challenging an audience of local residents to stand up for their own community, as she did when she visited YSU last month, Connie Schultz speaks clearly, humanly, and humanely. She’s worth listening to.

Check Out the Library

2009-03-04T13:48:00.000-05:00

Full disclosure: I love libraries. Always have. When I was about 8, the public library was one of the first places I was allowed to go alone, by bicycle. I was one of those kids whose mom had to write a note to the librarian to grant me permission to check out books from the adult section (as in Jane Eyre, not pornography). In college, I spent most evenings at the library, dividing my time between studying and wandering the literature aisles and picking out random books of poetry. I’m a library geek.

So I’m partial to the work that this week’s guest, Anne Liller, is doing. As Director of Urban Libraries for the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County, her job is not just to oversee the urban branches in Youngstown, Struthers, and Campbell, but also to promote these urban libraries as community centers. As Anne explains in our conversation, libraries offer much more than books and magazines. Indeed, even in today’s internet age, libraries do more than provide information. They are meeting places, social service agencies, educational outlets, and much more. They provide tools for developing literacy, and Anne hopes that they will become sites for art exhibits, medical information kiosks, and more. Heck, they even sell coffee these days.

The most exciting part of Anne’s job these days is opening new libraries. A new East Branch opened a few weeks ago, and the Newport Library, built in the shell of an old grocery store on Midlothian and Market, are worth a visit just for the pleasure of walking around these airy, bright, welcoming spaces. As someone who is not just a library fan but a fan of old libraries, I was skeptical. But these are cool places. Check them out.

What Really Smart Reporting Looks Like

2009-02-25T12:22:00.001-05:00

Between January and November last year, John Russo and I were interviewed about the presidential election by more than 40 journalists from around the world. Most wanted to know how white working-class people would vote. Would traditional values keep them from supporting a white woman? Could they set aside their racism to vote for Obama? Would they be lured by Sarah Palin’s small town patriotism and her hunting photos? The questions were predictable, and most reflected reporters’ assumptions that working-class voters are a homogeneous and old-fashioned group.

Jonathan Kaufman, political editor for the Wall Street Journal, was different. While other reporters asked us to help them get in touch with one or two workers or direct us to the local union hall, Jonathan asked us to set up focus groups and invited us to come along for the conversation. While other reporters assumed that the working class today is pretty much the same as it’s always been, Jonathan asked thoughtful questions about how people’s experiences in the workplace might influence their ideas about race, gender, and class in politics. I was impressed from the beginning.

It wasn’t until Kaufman came back to Youngstown last week and we had time to talk about his life and work that I fully understood why he took a different tack. First, he’s just an incredibly smart and well-informed guy. He doesn’t rely on stereotypes or common wisdom for his stories. He analyzes trends, based on his own critical understanding that how people think -- and how they vote -- is shaped by complex social factors. You can hear the complexity and sensitivity of his thinking in our conversation; he takes time to develop an answer, coherently and engagingly, revealing the multiple layers and angles of a topic.

Second, he has a long track record of reporting on issues of race, class, and gender, so he knows the terrain well. Not only does he understand the issues, he also understands what it takes to get people to talk honestly about it. In our interview, he describes his approach – the value of focus groups, the advantages and limitations of his own persona, the importance of having a good editor and colleagues to check his thinking.

Kaufman also understands why some people in Youngstown didn’t like his story, and why he heard comments from so many friends and colleagues from other places who told him that his story gave them a whole new, and much more complex, image of this community.

If you missed the panel discussion where Jonathan Kaufman, Marilyn Geewax, and Connie Schultz discussed how the media has reported about Youngstown, you can view the video on the Vindicator’s website.

Volunteering for a Stronger Community

2009-02-19T08:51:00.001-05:00

My mother was a volunteer extraordinaire. She was president of a series of community organizations in Washington, DC and then in Denver. She organized summer camps that brought urban and suburban kids together, across class and race divides, to play games, put on skits, and so on. She led adult education programs, girl scout troups, fundraising drives, and more. She believed in getting involved. My mother would have loved the conversation I had this week with Maureen Drummond about the Hands-On Volunteer Network.

As Maureen explains, volunteering is not just about serving others, though that matters. It’s also about a sense of belonging, of making a difference. And the time we spend working at a food bank, tutoring children, cleaning up the neighborhood, or simply stuffing envelopes helps us develop relationships and skills even as it contributes to improving our neighborhood and the broader community. When people get involved, they gain insight into the problems and assets of their communities, and the relationships and skills they develop create “civic infrastructure.” That’s what the Points of Light institute, the national organization with which the Hands-On Volunteer Network is connected, calls the development of human resources that make stronger communities and social change possible.

I hope that listening to Maureen will inspire you to want to get involved. The Hands-On Volunteer Network’s website can help you get started.

Economic News from the Inside Out

2009-02-11T10:43:00.000-05:00

On this week’s Lincoln Avenue, I’m talking with Marilyn Geewax, the senior business editor for National Public Radio news. But just as important, a local girl. Marilyn grew up in Campbell, and she was finishing college when the mills started to close down. Coming home from an internship in Dayton to write about the mill closings started her on a career of covering business and industry, and she brings to her work, and to our conversation, both a Youngstown perspective and the experience of years working as a journalist, including reporting on Youngstown.

Equally important, she is both covering and experiencing the struggles of the current economic crisis. As a business editor, she’s working with NPR reporters to identify important stories and examine them thoughtfully, to help the rest of us understand a confusing and frightening time. As an individual, she’s also beginning a new job, in a new part of her industry. She moved from print journalism to radio when she was laid off from the company for which she’d worked for many years – not because she wasn’t doing her job well, but because the company was adjusting to changes in the industry and to the economic situation.

Add to that experience an MA in international economic affairs, and we’re talking about someone who is in a unique and valuable position to understand and comment on the current economy – an issue with which I think many of us are struggling. How should we understand the economic shifts that are creating such havoc? As Geewax suggests in our conversation, we have to see the big picture – past and present, local, national, and international.

The topic is sobering, but her perspective is refreshing. She brings realism and optimism to the conversation, personal experience and an analytical view. It’s too bad that we don’t hear editors’ voices on the radio more often, because what Marilyn Geewax has to say is worth listening to.

Political Reality in Ohio

2009-02-04T07:58:00.000-05:00

Last week, Ohio Governor Ted Strickland laid out his plans for balancing the state budget and developing new programs in his 2009 State of the State address. On this week’s Lincoln Avenue, local Representative Bob Hagan weighs in. As Hagan reminds us, while this kind of speech presents the Governor’s plans with great certainty, the reality will be messier.

What I liked best in Strickland’s speech is the idea that K-12 education needs significant change, not minor reforms. While I don’t support all of the strategies he laid out, I do think that extending the school year, more interdisciplinary teaching, project-based learning, and improved training for teachers are all good ideas. But, as educator Bill Mullane explained on Lincoln Avenue last year, making dramatic changes in education is incredibly difficult. From Mullane’s perspective, that’s because of the power of the familiar. Most of us had similar school experiences, and it’s hard for us to imagine organizing education in a different way.

But as Hagan explains, the challenge isn’t just about resistance to change from parents or teachers. It’s about the political process. Strickland presented his ideas as actions that the state will take, but in truth he can’t do much on his own. The state legislature has to approve policies and budgets. The Ohio House and Senate will develop their own plans, which may or may not reflect Strickland’s ideas. The final product will result from negotiation and compromise. In principle, compromise sounds like a great idea. In theory, that would generate policies that take into consideration the needs of different constituencies. In practice, compromise – especially political compromise -- rarely generates true innovation.

We see this with the on-going debates about health care, on both the state and federal levels. Real innovation would involve some sort of single-payer system – a completely different way of approaching health coverage. Compromise leads us to plans that seek to extend the current system to cover more people.

In a tight economy, I think we’re more likely than ever to lean toward compromise. We take the conservative route because we don’t want to risk wasting our limited resources. That’s the challenge that the Ohio legislature now faces: how to design policies for change in an environment of worry.

Why Talking about Race Matters

2009-01-28T14:06:00.000-05:00

If you listen to Lincoln Avenue regularly, you know that one of my key concerns about our community is racial division. The Youngstown metropolitan area is among the most segregated in the US, and while we’ve made progress in reducing racial barriers we still have a long way to go. This week on the show, I’m talking with two local ministers who are challenging those divisions by creating conversations about race and the effects of racism in our community. Rob Johnson is the pastor at two local Lutheran churches, Bethlehem and Christ. Lew Macklin leads Holy Trinity Missionary Baptist Church. They have worked together, as members of the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance, on a project called Jacob’s Well, which brings black and white Christians together to talk honestly about race.

I’ve attended the two Jacob’s Well events (and played a very small role in planning them), and even as a non-Christian and therefore an outsider in many ways, I’ve seen the powerful potential for something as simple as conversation. But I also understand, as I discuss with Johnson and Macklin in our interview, how difficult such conversations can be. People need to feel some common ground – in this case a shared religious perspective – and to feel that their experiences and views will be heard and respected. Given the history of contentious debate, shame, anger, guilt, and resentment related to race in this country, creating the conditions for people to come together is not easy. Realistically, only people who already care about fighting racism are likely to participate, which can create a sense of preaching to the proverbial choir. On the other hand, as Johnson and Macklin can attest, even among people who come to the table with goodwill and a shared intention, making personal connections can create change.

Perhaps the best evidence of that is in the local Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance itself. In most cities around the country, that group consists only of African-American ministers, and the group’s primary focus is on addressing the needs of the black community, mostly in urban settings. Given the history of racial divisions in Youngstown, it’s striking that our local IMA is one of very few that has both white and black members. Why? If I understand the history correctly, it’s because white ministers recognized their responsibility to work against racism, and they saw working closely with their African-American counterparts as a way to pursue that goal. At the same time, African-American ministers had to learn to trust people who might otherwise be seen as outsiders, or even as having distinctly different interests. For everyone involved, the key to collaboration is understanding that relationships are the foundation on which social change is built.

In other words, in our highly segregated, divided community, the men and women of the IMA offer a model – not for moving past race but for instead addressing the economic and social inequities associated with racial difference by building interracial relationships. Imagine what might happen if more white people took the position that ministers like Rob Johnson do, that fighting racism is our ethical and moral responsibility and that the first step is to reach out and make personal connections with African-Americans. Imagine what might happen if more black people were willing to follow Lew Macklin’s lead and take the risk of talking honestly with whites and creating relationships from which to work for change.

Economic Crisis: The Local View

2009-01-21T09:30:00.003-05:00

We’ve all been hearing daily about the economic crisis in the US. But how is that playing out here in the Mahoning Valley? To help us get a clearer picture of the local situation, I spoke with Larry Ringler, the Business Editor for the Warren Tribune Chronicle. Because he covers stories about all aspects of business and labor in our area, Larry knows what’s going on and has a clear sense of the challenges and prospects.

The Mahoning Valley has been in economic crisis for so long that we almost can’t call it a crisis anymore. High unemployment rates, low home prices, and economic uncertainty are almost normal conditions here. While that gives area residents and the community itself some resilience, we’re also in some ways more vulnerable than others. We have fewer reserve resources to draw upon, not only as individuals but also as a community. It may well be that, as John Russo wrote in the Working-Class Perspectives blog, the rest of the country is learning what Youngstown has learned over the last 30 years, but 30 years of struggle can make you both tough and tired.

Yet, as Larry suggests, we have some reasons to hope, as new technologies develop. The economic stimulus package may also help us develop some of the infrastructure we need – not just nicer roads but also new technological capabilities – to develop new industries.

I was interested in a poll released this past weekend suggesting that Americans are at once deeply pessimistic about the economy and very optimistic about what President Obama can accomplish. For the nation, it seems, this might be a moment of change. Perhaps it can also become a period of change for the Mahoning Valley.

Teaching, Learning, and Connections

2009-01-14T08:22:00.001-05:00

Welcome back to Lincoln Avenue. We’re just beginning “spring” semester here at YSU, and so it seems fitting that the first interview of the year focuses on teaching and learning. Chris Bache, a professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies, has a new book out, The Living Classroom, which explores the connections between teachers and students.

Chris comes to this work from three decades of research on transpersonal studies and many years in classrooms here at YSU, teaching courses on eastern religion, the psychology of religion, and comparative spirituality. While some of what he discusses might sound strange to listeners who aren’t familiar with scholarly and philosophical ideas about collective consciousness, reincarnation, and spirituality, as Chris explains in the book and in our conversation, these ideas have a strong basis in scientific as well as humanistic research.

But part of what I find inspiring about Chris’s work is that he so clearly brings not only scholarly expertise but personal presence – his own spirituality but also his complete self – to this work. He attributes the intuitive and powerful connections he makes with students in part to his own spiritual practice. The combination of a worldview that embraces the idea that everything is connected and the practice of meditation creates a frame of mind that facilitates what Chris refers to as the “learning field” – the collective consciousness that develops around a particular course. As Parker Palmer, one of my favorite educational philosophers, suggests, we teach from our complete selves, and good teaching draws not only our knowledge of our discipline but also on self-awareness. Chris Bache’s work illustrates this idea.

The other powerful aspect of Chris’s work, and this book, is that it so clearly honors students. While the first half of the book describes Chris’s experiences and positions his analysis and strategies in the context of research in transpersonal studies, the second half consists almost entirely of stories told by YSU students. Some of these stories document the influence of learning new ways of seeing the world, while others show students bringing their own experiences into the classroom, making connections between their lives and the theories and concepts emerging in a course.

Chris provides a detailed and specific explanation for something many teachers have experienced: the sense that when a course is going well, there’s something more happening than just good communication or effective pedagogy. In the best moments of teaching and learning, teachers and students alike are present and connected. When this happens, learning becomes deeply personal, even spiritual, as well as intellectual.

Faith vs. Science

2008-12-17T07:24:00.002-05:00

What role should religion have in government and policy? What about science? For Toni Van Pelt and her colleagues at the Center for Inquiry, the answer is simple: public policies should be based on scientific evidence, not on faith. As we discuss on this week’s Lincoln Avenue, one of the primary goals of the Center for Inquiry’s Office of Public Policy – and Van Pelt’s primary role there – is to encourage Congress to base laws on objective evidence and to ensure that religion remains truly separate from the state.

In our conversation, Van Pelt mentions a variety of issues, from legislation that allows religious organizations to receive federal funding to provide social services to whether creationism should be part of the school curriculum. Underlying all of this are two core assumptions. One is that faith is suspect. Neither the Center for Inquiry nor Van Pelt herself overtly emphasizes atheism. Instead, they use terms like “naturalism” and “rational ethics.” Yet, as their website suggests, they don’t believe that spirituality and science can fully co-exist. One must either base one’s life on “reason and experience,” or rely on “occult explanations.” To my mind, this creates a false dichotomy. While bringing both faith and reason to the table can be challenging, I see reasonable people doing it every day. I come from a religious tradition that emphasizes critical thinking, argument, and the intention to act in Godly ways. My faith is based on reason and experience, not superstition. In addition, my religious tradition generally refrains from trying to impose our views on others. We don’t think it’s our business to help others see the errors of their ways or to guide them to find the “one true light.” Perhaps because of that, my hackles are always raised when someone tries to tell me that my beliefs are wrong or that theirs is the only truth. And that applies to both believers and skeptics.

That said, the second core assumption of the Center for Inquiry strikes me as essential in a diverse democracy: that public policy should be based on the best evidence and analysis of problems, not on religious faith. Further, I believe that it’s possible and reasonable to advocate for the separation of church and state without denigrating or even excluding religion. The constitution is not anti-religion. Instead, it supports religious choice and diversity, including the choice to reject religion, and the right not to have religion forced upon us. We cannot, I expect, keep people from proposing policies or lobbying on the basis of their beliefs, nor can we keep lawmakers from being influenced by theirs. We can ask that decisions about how our government acts be based on full critical debate about what will work best, and we can insist that such debate consider all of the available evidence. So while I may not fully agree with the Center for Inquiry’s views about the dichotomy between science and faith, I like knowing that Toni Van Pelt is working for public policies based on critical analysis rather than assumptions.