Category: Archive Page 4 of 9

Editor’s note: The following letter was sent Thursday February 2 to President Trump by 48 U.S. university leaders.

Dear President Trump:

We write as presidents of leading American colleges and universities to urge you to rectify or rescind the recent executive order closing our country’s borders to immigrants and others from seven majority-Muslim countries and to refugees from throughout the world. If left in place, the order threatens both American higher education and the defining principles of our country.

The order specifically prevents talented, law-abiding students and scholars from the affected regions from reaching our campuses. American higher education has benefited tremendously from this country’s long history of embracing immigrants from around the world. Their innovations and scholarship have enhanced American learning, added to our prosperity, and enriched our culture. Many who have returned to their own countries have taken with them the values that are the lifeblood of our democracy. America’s educational, scientific, economic, and artistic leadership depends upon our continued ability to attract the extraordinary people who for many generations have come to this country in search of freedom and a better life.

This action unfairly targets seven predominantly Muslim countries in a manner inconsistent with America’s best principles and greatest traditions. We welcome outstanding Muslim students and scholars from the United States and abroad, including the many who come from the seven affected countries. Their vibrant contributions to our institutions and our country exemplify the value of the religious diversity that has been a hallmark of American freedom since this country’s founding. The American dream depends on continued fidelity to that value.

We recognize and respect the need to protect America’s security. The vetting procedures already in place are rigorous. Improvements to them should be based on evidence, calibrated to real risks, and consistent with constitutional principle.

Throughout its history America has been a land of opportunity and a beacon of freedom in the world. It has attracted talented people to our shores and inspired people around the globe. This executive order is dimming the lamp of liberty and staining the country’s reputation. We respectfully urge you to rectify the damage done by this order.

Sincerely,

Richard H. Brodhead
President
Duke University

As a new Congress hits the ground running, we are keeping track of activity that will impact the Duke community. Cordialities did not last long after the 115^th Congress was sworn in on January 3rd. Between debates over the future of the Affordable Care Act, the closing of Guantanamo Bay, Russian hacking, and preparations for the Inauguration, DC is buzzing with speculation. But instead of fretting over so many unknowns, we decided to take a break and detail what we can actually expect in 2017. This past year taught us that we cannot fully predict what may happen at every turn, but we do have an idea of some important dates for when major shifts may come. The following is a collection of policy issues and dates that may impact the Duke community in 2017.

January 3^rd

Senate began consideration of a new FY17 budget resolution.  The Senate voted to proceed to consideration of the FY17 budget resolution introduced January 3^rd by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Mike Enzi (R-WY). The measure (S. Con. Res. 3 ) sets up a fast-track process for repealing the Affordable Care Act. It maintains the $1.07 trillion discretionary spending cap for FY17 approved in the Budget Control Act, without additional funding for defense or cuts to nondefense.

January 17^th

Originally scheduled for January 11^th, Betsy DeVos will face her confirmation hearing for Secretary of Education. DeVos has spent two decades advocating for charter schools and taxpayer-funded school vouchers.  Some Republicans are hopeful that DeVos will oversee a shrinking of the federal footprint in education.  Very little is known of her positions on higher education.

It is for this reason that the confirmation hearing headed by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), ranking member of the education committee, will be insightful for the Duke community.  Senator Murray has said that she will ask DeVos to explain her plans to address college affordability and student debt as well as DeVos’s views of campus sexual violence.

Other confirmation hearings started January 9^th.  We particularly like the following link with schedules and top issues:

Trump’s Cabinet Picks: A Rundown of Upcoming Hearings

January 11^th is also the first day of classes for the Sanford School’s Duke in DC and UNC’s Public Policy study abroad students. Internships range from Capitol Hill and think tanks to government departments and major consulting firms.  Although technically in separately-run programs, studying in a shared office space offers students the chance to overcome Triangle rivalries in the name of productive policy discourse.

January 20^th  

President-elect Trump becomes the 45^th president of the United States.  We expect a flurry of executive orders and bill signings during the immediate hours after President-elect Trump is sworn in. Transition team spokesperson and incoming Press Secretary Sean Spicer has signaled that “a lot” of Obama’s actions will be repealed, with a focus on reducing regulation and promoting job growth.

Of primary concern is what the upcoming administration might do to Obama’s Executive Order Deferring Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).  DACA allows the children of undocumented immigrants to attend school in the US without consequence.

January 31^st

The open enrollment period ends for coverage through Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplaces for 2017.  Questions remain as to whether the talk about “repealing Obamacare” will damage enrollment numbers.  Further questions remain as to the impact defunding ACA provisions will have on the healthcare industry.  At the moment, it appears unlikely that students who stay on their parent’s medical plans until 26 years of age will be largely affected.

February

Duke in DC moves to new offices!  From our current home on 12^th and New York Ave., we head down the street to 12^th and Pennsylvania.  This new space will bring us closer to the action and combines our offices with the Duke Margolis Center for Health Policy. A major expansion, the new office allows us to host events, small conferences, and 25 new colleagues. Look forward to updates and photos to come.

March 16^th  

The debt limit ends at 12:01am.  At this point, the Treasury Department can begin using “extraordinary measures” for an unknown length of time until the “true” limit is reached.  However, if Congress does nothing by then, the US will begin defaulting on its national debt.

April 28^th  

The current Continuing Resolution (CR) funds the government through this date.  If Congress does not pass another budget or CR, there will be a shutdown.  If there is a shutdown, many government contracts may cease funding and federal contract recipients may be in limbo while the budget is discussed.  This is especially important for researchers and institutes receiving contracts from the NIH, NSF, and any Defense-related entities that are awarded over a period of time.

April 29^th  

President Trump completes his 100^th day in office. Expect a rush of stories deciding the importance, both historical and political, of the last one hundred days.

Mid-May 

Trump plans to submit FY18 Budget. Senior House appropriator Tom Cole (R-OK) told CQ.com that President-elect Trump plans to submit an FY18 budget to Congress, although that might not happen until May. Rep. Cole said appropriators would welcome the guidance.

Mid-June

The Supreme Court’s term ends.  The current 4-4 split will remain through the next few months but there may be a large decision or two before then.  Democrats have vowed to drag out any confirmation process for Trump’s nominee and so much remains uncertain about when the Court will be back at full-strength with 9 Justices.

Opportunities and Updates

The Office of Government Relations will continue to closely monitor events on the ground and to update the Duke community as concerns and opportunities arise. Follow the Office of Government Relations on Facebook or Twitter and subscribe to our digests to stay better informed on the year ahead and its policy implications.
 

Last month, Jim Luther, Associate Vice President of finance at Duke University, appeared before a US House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology subcommittee to reaffirm the research university communities’ commitment to working with federal partners to effectively regulate federal research. 

His testimony, which can be read here, focused on the — sometimes unintended — impact of federal regulations on researchers and administrators on university campuses, but also outlined important steps institutions and the federal government can take moving forward to increase understanding and collaboration.

OGR: What was the topic of your testimony? What experience did you draw upon when preparing your remarks?

Luther: My testimony focused on the need for and potential to reduce regulatory burden, specifically for faculty in their conduct of research.  Our Nation invests $63 billion of taxpayer funds for research & development and universities fund another ~$16 billion; and we, the University community, need to work with federal partners to ensure we use these funds in a responsible AND efficient manner.

I have worked at Duke for more than 25 years in varying capacities and have, for the past decade, routinely interacted with our federal partners at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).  In my interactions with departmental administrators and faculty, it’s clear that everyone who’s involved desires to have an environment that allows our faculty to conduct the great research for which Duke is known. This can only happen if we reduce regulatory burden and let faculty focus on their research, a point I tried to illustrate with my testimony.

OGR: How do federal regulations impact research at universities in general, and Duke specifically?

Regulations are critical and they protect human subjects, animals, the integrity of the science, the environment, and researchers themselves. But without appropriate oversight, complying with federal regulations can adversely impact universities in two primary ways. First, the administrative investments required for personnel, training, and technology systems divert funds away from programmatic support, whether that be academic or research programs. More importantly, however, more and more faculty are pulled into the regulatory quagmire themselves.  Per a recent study, 42% of a faculty member’s sponsor funded time is spent on administrative and compliance activities, which, when you think about it, is a staggeringly high opportunity cost for the time and focus of these researchers. Every minute spent on unnecessary regulations is time away from the research lab.

OGR: What message or messages do you hope Members of Congress and their staff took away from today’s hearing?

Luther: I hope the Members of Congress and their staff heard the passion and commitment of universities to work with federal partners to ensure effective oversight and efficient use of taxpayer funds. It’s one of the reasons the university community is supporting H.R. 5583, the University Regulatory Streamlining and Harmonization Act of 2016, which proposes a Research Policy Board, composed of federal and university officials charged with reviewing existing and proposed regulations with the goal of reducing regulatory burden.

It’s clear that the burden is becoming overwhelming and is not sustainable. A report by the National Academies found that on an annual basis, there are 5.8 new or substantially changed regulations. These new regulations and policies will cost universities anywhere from several hundred thousand to several million dollars and result in a significant increase in administrative and faculty workload.

OGR: Conversely, what is important for Duke faculty to know about complying with federal regulations and guidelines?

Luther: Again, I think there are two things: the first is that the regulatory environment at the federal level is quite complex with many regulations that address important programmatic and safety aspects of research, and others regulations that create a tension by focusing on reducing fraud, waste and abuse.  And while it’s complicated, if a faculty member either unintentionally or willfully ignores these regulations, it can have a very significant impact on both the individuals as well as Duke’s standing with the federal government and ability to accept federal funds in the future.

Second, and most importantly, the Duke University leadership and administration is extremely supportive of faculty and want to minimize the regulatory burden that faculty bear, both Duke and federally induced.  Duke, through, for example, Research Administration Continuous Improvement (RACI), has made a significant investment in personnel resources, systems support, and training and education, to provide support to our faculty and I, along with my colleagues, stand ready to marshal these resources so that we can support our researchers to do what they do best – focus on groundbreaking research.

OGR: Any final thoughts?

In closing, there is a real commitment both on the part of universities and our federal partners to address these issues. Given the amount of critical issues the Congress must resolve before they adjourn – and the short timeframe in which they have to work — there may not be enough time to complete work on these issues right away, but follow-up conversations have already occurred with Congressional Committee staffers in Washington and we expect these to continue.

As classes resume on campus, the election looms, and the federal government funding remains uncertain, questions inevitably arise regarding the state of politics and its impact on the Duke community. Congress, when it returns to Washington, D.C. on September 6, aims to pass a measure to keep the federal government open past Sept. 30. Two months after Congress returns, the candidates will be preparing their closing arguments and potential administrations.
The Office of Government Relations (OGR) is closely monitoring both situations and will continue to provide updates to the Duke community on developments relevant to University activities.

CONGRESSIONAL ACTION

Before adjourning for the annual August recess, the House and Senate Appropriations Committees passed all twelve individual spending bills out of committee, but only a handful had been debated or passed on the floor of either chamber. None have been signed into law. As of now, Congressional leaders have yet to indicate a realistic path to a legislative solution, but are widely expected to move forward with either an Omnibus, Continuing Resolution, or a combination of both.

An omnibus would combine several or all of the twelve spending bills in one legislative package. Through an omnibus, Congress would have the ability and flexibility to allocate funding levels which may have been already determined in various committees, but not yet agreed to by the Senate and/or House. A Continuing Resolution (CR) would maintain the current funding levels for a specified amount of time, such as through the election or into 2017.

In conversations with members of the North Carolina delegation and staff, there is a high level of uncertainty over which path leadership will choose. OGR staff will continue to closely watch the appropriations process and provide updates as new information becomes available and decisions are made.

For an overview of the Congressional appropriations process, visit the OGR blog entitled “Where the Rubber Meets the Road.”

PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS

As the Presidential campaign enters its final two months, the candidates are continuing to release policy statements and position papers on a wide variety of issues affecting higher education. Meanwhile, they are continuing to expand their staffing organizations, while simultaneously preparing for potential transitions to the White House.

In early August, Duke University joined with members of the academic, research, and business communities in sending a letter to both the Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump campaigns, urging the candidates to support policies and positions that would promote research funding, immigration reform, and other policies affecting higher education.

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have both highlighted a number of issues that would impact the university community including investments in research, student aid and immigration. OGR staff is closely monitoring positions by the candidates as they evolve and are actively participating in dialogue with the campaigns to best represent Duke’s interests.

Likewise, as the campaigns continue to expand their staffing operations, OGR staff are watching who is advising the candidates on various issues. Of course, OGR staff are keeping an eye on those advisors with Duke connections and who would likely become officials in the White House or key agencies.

On Aug. 24, Monmouth University released polling figures for the President, Senatorial and gubernatorial races in North Carolina.]]>

As the Republicans head to Cleveland and the Democrats to Philadelphia for their party conventions, many could be forgiven for assuming the general election has already begun. After all, the parties have had their presumptive nominees for months and the political ads have been flooding the airwaves for even longer.

But until the delegate votes are cast and counted on the convention floor, the nominees are still just presumptive and the primary season continues.

In North Carolina, a state many pundits are calling a toss-up when it comes to the presidential race, there are also competitive senatorial and gubernatorial races. In other words, prepare yourself — it will be a very active fall on campus and throughout our home state.

So find some extra patience for the numerous political ads, candidate visits and phone calls to come — but also, take a look at Duke University’s guidance regarding campus political activity and engagement with government officials. The information, which is located on our office website, provides general guidance to members of the Duke community as they consider their engagement with various political actors.

This information is based on guidance from the Office of University Counsel, but it does not address every situation nor does it constitute legal advice. If questions arise, please do not hesitate to contact the Office of Government Relations.

Please take the time to familiarize yourself with the situations the guidance does address — including employees speaking out on political issues, their involvement in political campaigns, candidates appearances on campus, and speaking invitations to candidates from faculty and student groups.

But here’s the big thing to know: as a non-profit, tax-exempt entity, Duke University must abide by Federal and state laws prohibiting the use of its facilities, funds, services, personnel or other resources to support or oppose individuals or organizations campaigning for public office.
So when considering an action, ask these questions:

• When speaking on behalf of a candidate, am I making sure to note that my views are not those of the University?
• If distributing campaign materials, am I using my personal email and computer?
• If inviting a candidate to speak on campus, am I working with the Office of Government Relations to make sure all of the rules are being followed?
• If advising a campaign, are you doing so on personal time and using personal resources?

As mentioned earlier, the Office of Government Relations stands ready to answer further questions and offer guidance in specific situations.

Each summer, dozens of Duke undergraduate and graduate students head to Washington, D.C. for a chance to complement their academic classes with real-world experience through internships with government agencies, non-profits or D.C. firms. The students also have the opportunity to experience the Duke community first-hand, with networking events like a recent panel on how to make the most of their internships taking place throughout the summer.

Name: Himanshi Jain
Year: Second Year, Masters of Public Policy
Internship:  World Bank, Social and Labor Division

What have you learned through your internship?

At the World Bank, I am researching on disability insurance across Europe. While working on this project I realized that one can learn country specific information only through building relationships with the stakeholders in these countries. It is important to remember that policy is always connected to people. Analyzing policy would first entail understanding what is written in the law and then evaluating it’s implementation on the ground. The people who best understand the gap between the law and the implementation are those who work with the policies day-to-day, the stakeholders.

Name: Hunter Buckworth
Year: Second Year, Masters of Public Policy
Internship: Office of Budget and Management

How did your classes prepare you for your internship experience?

The networking and relationship building skills that Sanford helps us build have helped me get to know and work easily with those in my office and throughout the agency. When my supervisor gives me a task to manage, the writing and speaking skills I’ve developed at Sanford help me to jump in with confidence to contact the staff members I need to to complete the task. That’s been really helpful, especially as the OMB has been a flatter organization than I expected. Everyone is open to hearing opinions, which is a great opportunity as an intern.

James Hwang
Year: Sophomore, Trinity College of Arts and Sciences
Internship: Broad Institute

What’s surprised you during your internship experience?

At the internship panel, I met an alumnus who worked on passing the law I’m now analyzing for my internship. It wasn’t a conversation I was expecting to have, but it took the work I was doing — trying to find ways to improve the law as implemented — from being theoretical to being a real-life experience. He let me know that he was open to further conversations about the policy if I had questions. So the conversation was a reminder of what type of Duke alum’s are in the area, one’s that have great experience, but are also willing to to be a resource to current students.

Name: Jazmin Harper
Year: Second Year, Masters of Public Policy
Internship: Federal Reserve, Community and Consumer Affairs Division

How will this internship influence your approach to your second year at Sanford?

At my job, I’ve been taking initiative and being proactive in looking for projects and jobs through which I can help the office. It makes excited to return to Durham and take a look at local non-profits, see what kind of projects they’re working on and how I can help. Sanford is great at connecting students to the community and I’m looking forward to taking even better advantage of that in my second year.

In a previous post, we broke down the Obama Administration’s Fiscal Year 2017 (FY17) budget request. This, the second in a series discussing how the federal government funding process works in theory and practice, and why it matters to Duke, we’ll take a closer look at another critical step in the funding process: Congressional appropriations.

Each spring Congress begins the process of fulfilling their most basic duty: funding the federal government. This is appropriations season, when Congress takes the Administration’s budget request and turns that into law, setting the funding amounts for each department and agency that depend upon discretionary funding for the upcoming fiscal year.

For a quick review, the discretionary budget accounts for 30 percent of the federal budget and covers most of the federal programs from which Duke receives money. These include research and student aid, along with most military, workforce training, and other education programs.

To understand what is going on this year and how that will impact funding to Duke, it is important to first know how the appropriations process should work. But first, some context: the first appropriations act, passed by the First Congress in 1789, was 13 lines long and provided $639,000 to fund the government. This years appropriators are working to provide $1.07 trillion for FY17 operations.

At their most basic level, appropriations bills move through the same legislative process as other bills: introduction in subcommittee, amended in committee, debated on the floor and passed by the full chamber.

There are some unique requirements for appropriations bills: first, that the bills must only allocate as much funds as that year’s Budget Resolution authorizes; and second, appropriations bills are strictly funding measures, meaning these bills can’t change existing law or create new programs.

For appropriations bills, of which there are 12, the House and Senate Appropriations Committees are where most of the action takes place. To start the process, the Chairman of each Appropriations Committee provides a top-line number for each bill to the chairman of the subcommittee responsible for that piece of the federal budget.

The twelve subcommittees are then tasked with drafting a bill that includes line-by-line funding numbers for a collection of federal departments or agencies. These numbers are guided by the Administration’s proposals and the previous years funding levels, but subcommittee members also take expert advice, from groups like Duke, and collect input from other members of Congress.

Once the full House and Senate have passed their respective appropriations bills, leadership forms a conference committee with representatives from both chambers that are charged with reconciling the bills — in other words making sure the two bills passed by the chambers are the same.

So that’s it, right? Pretty straight forward. Except it isn’t. Or it hasn’t been since 1996, which was the last year Congress passed all twelve appropriations bills before the start of the new fiscal year (Oct. 1). Since then, figuring out whether or not a program has been funded, and at what level, has gotten more complicated.

Say you have a research grant, funded by the National Science Foundation, which in turn is funded by the Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill (don’t ask why these three go together). And this year, Congress hasn’t managed to pass CJS appropriations and it’s getting toward the end of September.

A couple of things can happen: Congress can pass a short-term funding bill, called a continuing resolution (CR), for all departments, including the NSF, they haven’t funded through appropriations bills. These CR’s often continue the funding levels of the previous year (or a percentage thereof), meaning proposed funding increases do not take place.

Or, Congress could decide to pass a bill called an omnibus, which includes several appropriations bills and the kitchen sink, again relying upon previous year’s funding levels to ease negotiations and passage.

Or Congress could fail to pass any appropriations bills by a set deadline, leading to a government shutdown. In that case, the federal government operates only essential services, which typically does not include activities related to the research enterprise.

The dependence on CRs and omnibuses for year-to-year funding has resulted in increased uncertainty in the both timing and availability of federal funding, which can have wide ranging impacts at Duke. Agencies may be forced to delay funding decisions for several months until a final appropriations deal has been signed into law, which can lead to a gap in funding for researchers and labs. During final negotiations, a proposed increase for research program that had been approved earlier in the process could be diverted to another program to help ease passage of the final bill.

For this year, Congress has an even shorter window to pass appropriations bills. The House failed to pass a Budget Resolution, which meant the Appropriations Committee had to wait for the May 15 deadline established in the 1974 Budget Act, to introduce bills on the House floor. And between the Presidential nominating conventions and annual August recess, the House has less than 40 days of votes scheduled between June 1 and Oct. 1 and eleven bills left to pass.

Suffice it to say, it will be an interesting process to watch and the Office of Government Relations will continue to update as the moves forward through the DC Digest.

The Duke Margolis Center for Health Policy was established in October 2015 with a $16.5 million gift from Duke medical school alumnus Robert J. Margolis and his wife Lisa, through the Robert and Lisa Margolis Family Foundation. We sat down with DC-based Deputy Director Gregory Daniel, PhD, MPH, to learn more about how the center will connect cutting-edge research with policymakers and policy analysts in DC and beyond.

Duke in DC: What are the primary areas of focus for the Duke-Margolis Center?
Daniel: The center, under the direction of Mark McClellan, MD, focuses on policy that influences healthcare cost, quality, innovation and delivery where desirable outcomes are poorly aligned with healthcare payments and the goals of reform. Everyone agrees that we want measureable higher quality and higher value in healthcare. This requires understanding the incentives embedded in the system, a deep knowledge of how healthcare is delivered across a number of settings, the data systems needed to support high value care, and ensuring that reimbursement supports the policy decisions that will help achieve this larger goal.
Some areas where we think we can provide high-impact policy research include:

• Biomedical innovation and evidence development policies that support the development, regulation, access, and high value uses of drugs, biologics, and medical devices;
• Finance and payment reforms that promote the adoption of value-based payment models, including accountable care organizations (ACOs), bundled payments, performance-based incentives, and shared savings;
• Delivery system reforms that encourage the widespread adoption of practical, evidence-based strategies that improve population health and reduce health care costs;
• International health and payment reform that accelerate the uptake of successful disruptive accountable care payment and delivery reforms.

Influencing policy across these dimensions requires understanding the incentives embedded in the current healthcare system and how they interact with healthcare delivery.

Duke in DC: Given our current political climate, what do you see as the pressing issues in health policy?
Daniel: The immediate challenge is contributing to some of the work that people want to get done before the next election. Timelines right now are changing from aggressive but feasible to impossible.  There is always uncertainty at the end of an administration that’s been in place for two terms.  Healthcare reform has been such a prominent feature of the Obama administration that health policy issues and payment reform (our main disciplines) are in sharp focus.

Duke in DC: Over the next two years, how do you expect to integrate the work that you did at the Brookings Institution with Duke University’s academic and clinical communities?
Daniel: The Margolis Center offers us an important and timely opportunity to transcend customary disciplinary boundaries and connect clinicians, specialists, economists, policy scholars, legal scholars – truly any field that touches how healthcare is delivered and paid for — around the problems facing patients, providers, systems and populations.
This means that the ways we can approach problems is changing dramatically. The work our group did at Brookings demanded solid health policy skills, relationships, and processes to probe and frame questions that were brought to us from stakeholders in government, industry, and healthcare.  We are now part of a continuum that includes computational and social sciences, a world-class academic research organization, a global health institute, one of the nation’s top academic health systems, and schools of medicine, engineering, nursing, business, law, and public policy, and patients. We’re just beginning to explore ways the Duke-Margolis Center can contribute to goals of the Duke community on campus and beyond.
 
Duke in DC: How are you hoping to engage with various scholars, schools, departments and programs at Duke?
Daniel:We have been overwhelmed by the enthusiasm of the Duke community. Across the entire landscape we’ve encountered people who want to be part of the Duke-Margolis Center, and are prepared to pitch in.
We are at the very beginning of a strategic planning process.  It’s hard to say where we’ll end up – because we’re seriously committed to discovering and optimizing connectivity between Duke and Washington, DC.  Suffice it to say we are thinking out-of-the-box to identify real ways to generate new value for the Margolis Center, Duke, and the national and international communities we hope to serve.  We’re small and trying to be intentional about collaboration, growth and deployment of resources.
It is important that we maintain connectivity from between the Durham campus and Washington, DC – with a significant part of our team located in at the Duke in DC office, we can capitalize on proximity to the FDA, to Capitol Hill, and the community of think tanks and consulting organizations that co-exist with policy makers. The Duke-Margolis Center will be a major contributor to Duke’s visibility and engagement here in the future!]]>

While the Washington, D.C., science community was focused Wednesday on the White House Science Fair, another scene was playing out down the road on Capitol Hill. The event was lower-profile than at the White House, but arguably more significant.

Inside a Senate office building, the Coalition to Promote Research hosted approximately a dozen university faculty members with some unusual sounding research projects. These projects were so unusual, in fact, that they had garnered the attention of members of Congress and the media by being pejoratively featured in “wastebooks.”

Among those presenting their work was Sheila Patek, associate professor of biology at Duke. This past December, Senator Jeff Flake’s (R-AZ) Wastebook, which attempts to highlight “wasteful federal spending,” singled out Patek’s research on mantis shrimp.

At the time, she released a statement defending her work. Her research investigates how a tiny shrimp is also one of nature’s most powerful punchers, capable of using its small appendage to smash with lightning speed a clamshell – something humans need tools to do.
As a result of her willingness to publically support her research, she was invited to present her work at Wednesday’s event, during which she interacted with association members, Hill staffers, and Sen. Flake himself.

Patek discussed the usefulness of her research to the military and other national defense organizations. She also took the opportunity to clarify a portion of her Wastebook entry, which overstated the actual cost of her research.

All of this was well-documented by The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein in his article about the event which features extensive quotes from Patek.

A Look at the Past, Present, and Future of Women’s Political Movements and Groups
 

Gun control, philanthropy, and women’s political movements may seem unrelated. However, for Kristin Goss, associate professor of public policy, a historical perspective reveals the truly interconnectedness and current political relevance of these issues.

For Goss, the path to becoming a leading scholar in her research is a personal and professional journey nearly as winding as the reform movements she studies. It started in the 1990s, when as a beat reporter for KUSA, the local CBS affiliate in Denver, CO, she covered Columbine, one of the worst mass shooting in America’s history. “As I was covering these tragedies, I began to wonder if it was possible to have real, meaningful gun reform in America,” Goss wondered. “But that begged the question: if we are going to have this movement, who will lead?'”

For her answer, Goss looked to the history of reform movements and came to the conclusion that women were the ones that tended to lead them. From there, Goss investigated the impact of women’s collective engagement in the political process and the history of the women’s movement. So in honor of Women’s History Month, Duke in DC took a moment to ask Goss her views on the current state of women and politics.

Duke in DC: Can you briefly describe the state of the women’s movement in today’s political culture?

Goss: The women’s movement of today doesn’t have the same capacity for mass organization and turn-out that it did in the 1960s and ’70s. Right now, we’re at a time when the policy legacies that needed to be changed have changed. The policy agenda’s largely been taken care of, and some of the things that are left to deal with — like childcare for heterosexual couples — can’t be taken care of through legislative battles. So you don’t need the same mobilization abilities. The work to be done is in the culture and those issues must be negotiated privately.

Duke in DC: What does research tell us about millennial generation’s relationship to the women’s movement?

Goss: Younger women are feminists, and they’re not afraid of that term. In fact, research shows that these women strongly identify with other women, but that they don’t know what the movement is or how to plug into it. When you ask younger generations to name “women’s groups,” they name some of the legacy groups, like League of Women’s Voters, or Planned Parenthood. But Planned Parenthood isn’t a mass membership organization; it’s a service provider.

Duke in DC: So what changed?

Goss: Mobilization efforts have changed. We now have elite groups with professional staff that work on targeted outreach. We have social media, which I’ve been surprised to see how much it can be used to motivate each to get out, and given groups a chance to communicate with each other. For example, mothers of victims of gun violence have used social media as a platform to connect and to tell their story. But for younger women, it’s become the default way to “get involved” in a movement — to like something on Facebook.

Related Content:
Listen to Professor Goss discuss women in politics on the Ways & Means Podcast from the Sanford School of Public Policy.