Policy Consensus E-News — October 2007

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University of New Mexico’s Consortium for Collaborative Public Policy Collaborates Within the University

The University of New Mexico’s Consortium for Collaborative Public Policy is a newly formed network of University of New Mexico institutes, centers, and individual faculty, staff and students who share a commitment to informed, productive decision-making on issues of public policy. The network presents a model of how university-based programs can collaborate within the university. One of the founding members of the Consortium, Institute of Public Law Director Paul Biderman, says that has been crucial in the group's formation. “We started reaching out to other schools and centers across the University, and the key to our success has been in creating these partnerships,” says Biderman, who along with UNM Political Science Professor Andy Ross is convening the group.  “We needed to have access to experts in all these different policy areas.”

The idea for the UNM group originated from a Southern Consortium of University Public Service Organizations (SCUPSO) conference, where PCI Senior Advisor Chris Carlson gave a presentation on university-based collaborative governance programs, and then in attending PCI’s workshop for university programs in Denver in 2006.

The Consortium held its first workshop on Collaborative Governance this past September. The purpose of the first workshop was to explore which of the university-based program models will work for the group at UNM, explains Biderman.  Among the models that the Consortium has looked at are the William D. Ruckelshaus Center at Washington State University / University of Washington, the Oregon Consensus Program and Oregon Solutions at Portland State University, the Ruckelshaus Institute at the University of Wyoming, and the Center for Public Deliberation at Colorado State University.

Martin Carcasson, Director for the Center for Public Deliberation, presented at the Consortium’s workshop, sharing the year-old Center’s challenges and accomplishments over the course of its formation as well as how it integrates service, research, and teaching in its activities.  Along with Carcasson, PCI’s Carlson presented an overview of the national picture of university programs engaged in collaborative governance, citing the research PCI conducted and published in Finding Better Ways to Solve Public Problems: The emerging role of universities as neutral forums for collaborative policymaking.

This fall, the Consortium will hold two more workshops, one in November focusing on early childhood development and one in December focusing on healthcare.  Both workshops will highlight case studies in these areas to determine what role the university could play, consistent with collaborative governance principals, in doing policy development.  Next spring the Consortium plans to hold a Symposium on collaborative governance for the greater community.

“The University has shown an interest in pursing ideas compatible in what we’re doing, serving the community and interdisciplinary work on campus, both of which are central to our approach,” says Biderman. “We can be a real resource in adding the combination of constructive public dialogue on issues and the expertise from all of these different departments and colleges.”

For more information about UNM's Consortium, contact Paul Biderman.

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Park City Center for Public Policy Holds Inaugural Institute

Leaders in business and government and experts on governance gathered last month in Park City, Utah for the Park City Center for Public Policy’s Inaugural Institute.

The Center engages business leaders, former governors, experts and other individuals to address major challenges in creative forums that consider all points of view.  The Center’s mission is to design and test economically efficient solutions to public policy challenges and create practical models that can be implemented by governments, businesses and communities to improve the quality of life of our citizens.  PCI Board member Jim Souby is president and CEO of the Center.

The Center (formerly the Oquirrh Institute) has traditionally worked in the areas of education, natural resource management, and disaster relief. Since the Center launched its new name and plan in January of 2007, it has increased its focus areas in on three new policy tracks: meeting growing energy demands and climate change, state healthcare reform, and the related topic of early intervention, results-based approaches to improving mental health. 

The Institute brought together healthcare leaders and experts to discuss healthcare challenges and, in particular, mental health. One panel at the Institute discussed the current state of the US Healthcare System and innovative solutions being implemented at the state level to improve healthcare access, particularly for the uninsured.  Other topics of presentations and discussions included addressing mental health and substance abuse and the role of the U.S. legal system in promoting justice, liberty and prosperity in our society, specifically in the areas of education and healthcare.

PCI director Greg Wolf, who attended the Institute, was awarded the Park City Center Senior Fellowship at the Institute by the Center’s Board.

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Dan Kemmis on Democratic Action in "Beyond National Democracy"

Dan Kemmis has been one of PCI’s principle guiding lights as we have assisted states across the country develop the leadership and capacity to achieve more collaborative governance.  The following excerpted article from the Kettering Review describes his most recent thinking about democratic action through the lens of his own community, Missoula, MT, and projects on the ground there.  His eloquent description of both his own as well as the country’s democratic journey makes wonderful reading.

When I left the Montana Legislature back in the 1980s, I had made up my mind to take a kind of sabbatical, giving myself an opportunity to examine my political experience up to that point, to see how a fresh look at political theory might inform whatever political practice might still lie ahead for me. Luck was with me then, because, as it happened, a number of very thoughtful people were examining democratic politics in ways that would deeply influence me and countless other foot soldiers in the coming years.

Of everything I read during those sabbatical months, nothing reshaped my thought and practice more profoundly than Habits of the Heart [by Robert Bellah]. Setting out to reexamine the state of American democracy 150 years after Alexis de Tocqueville’s famous visit, Bellah and his fellow investigators had found the individualism that had worried Tocqueville now very far advanced and generally toxic to democratic self-determination. But they also found, less visibly but unmistakably, that many of the “habits of the heart” that Tocqueville had seen as the sinews of the body politic—the civic virtues of care and compassion, trust, and willingness to bear responsibility—these habits still survived in the lives of many ordinary Americans.

Heartened by Bellah’s findings, and by the fact that my own neighbors seemed to bear out those findings in their daily lives, I decided to try politics again in a setting where the desire and capacity for community would be most present as a political factor. As mayor of Missoula through much of the 1990s, I found myself once again blessed by good timing, since a widespread longing on the part of my constituents for a stronger sense of community coincided with a number of challenges and opportunities that only a vibrant civic culture could possibly address.

Read more of Kemmis's article. . .

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PCI Case Studies Updated

The PCI/NPCC database of public policy case studies has been updated with new energy, community development, and intergovernmental cases. The database highlights the various approaches to collaborative practices in state government, as well as outcomes and lessons learned from each unique case.

PCI has added two topic areas, energy and community development.  In the new section of energy, “Delivering Affordable, Efficient Energy in Arkansas” describes how the Arkansas Community Action Agencies Association (ACAAA) formed a Steering Committee of stakeholders that convened two Forums and identified three priorities to assist low-income residents of Arkansas who cannot afford to pay their utility bills.

The new intergovernmental case study “Washington Adopts Collaborative Governance Structure for Salmon Recovery” describes how Governor Chris Gregoire and the 2007 Legislature worked together to enact legislation and provide funding that will significantly boost efforts to restore and protect Puget Sound. The newly established Puget Sound Partnership will be a new state agency with cabinet-level status.

In the community development section, “Building Consensus in Florida on a Statewide Building Code” describes how the Governor appointed a Building Code Study Commission, which recommended reform of the state building construction system that placed emphasis on uniformity and accountability. The Florida legislature enacted the new Florida Building Code and directed the Commission to continue to build consensus on key topics involved in its implementation, including product approvals and other controversial issues. 

In addition to energy, community development, and intergovernmental cases, the on-line database also includes health care, transportation, human services, environmental, and telecommunications cases.

Some of the case studies are also available in attractive, hard copy format that can be handed to governors, agency leaders, and other decision makers. Contact PCI to receive copies of these. Other cases have been printed in various PCI Publications and are available on this web site.

PCI and NPCC are continually seeking new public policy case studies to include in the database. If you know of a collaborative process that was used to resolve a specific policy issue in your state, please contact PCI. The cases must pertain to policy development or implementation, involve state government, employ a collaborative approach, employ a neutral third party, and result in tangible policy outcomes.

Visit the on-line Case Study Database

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