Research on Community Leadership
Community Leadership, Community Development, Community Collaboration and Partnerships, Nonprofit Organizations — Professor Boyd Rossing
Boyd Rossing continued to direct of the Family Voices project in South Madison. The builds supportive relationships with African American families, leading to family-to-family networking, a greater community voice, university-community partnerships, and other benefits. The project now focuses on family-school relationships promoting enhanced academic achievement. Family Voices was featured in the Wisconsin Alumni Magazine (Winter 2005). Professor Rossing co-chairs a statewide Family Living team in Cooperative Extension and served as lead author for a draft monograph on family-centered community connections programming. The publication synthesizes strategies of projects representing several facets of this work, including neighbor-to-neighbor connections, parent involvement in early care and education, and family-school-community connections.
Family Centered Community Development, Parent-Childcare Provider Relationships, Bi-cultural Parenting, Immigrant Parenting Education and Research, Community-Based Research — Professor Lynet Uttal
Lynet Uttal is an active member of Women’s Studies, Chicana and Latina Studies Program, and Asian American Studies Program, as well as a member of the Department of Human Development and Family Studies. Lynet Uttal wrote several successful proposals to fund the continuation of community workshops for Latino immigrant parents to develop strategies to biculturally parent and to establish a community co-director position. The project was renamed Formando Lazos Bicultural Parenting Project to reflect the links that are developed between immigrant parents and childcare providers, between parents from different Latino countries, and between the university and Latino community in Madison. Two papers were published based on data from the early years of this project: “Community Caregiving and Community Consciousness: Immigrant Latinas Developing Communities Through Social Service Programs,” Journal of Community Development, and “Organizational Cultural Competency: Shifting Programs for Latino Immigrants from a Client-Centered to a Community-Based Orientation.” Grants were received from the Oscar and Elsa Mayer Foundation ($62,000), the Evjue Foundation ($15,000), the Meta Schroeder Beckner Homemaker Endowment ($15,000), and U.S. Cellular Community grant (three cellular phones for one year). Lynet Uttal organized a group of graduate students and community partners to present a symposium, “Latino Immigrant Families and Childcare Providers in the Midwest: A Research and Education Project,” on their project, Formando Lazos, at the National Association of Chicana and Chicano Scholars 2006 International Conference. Formando Lazos has expanded to include a component of children’s programming to help immigrant children have pride in their cultures of origin.
Feasibility Assessment for a Center on Nonprofits at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.— Professor Shep Zeldin
Shepherd Zeldin completed studies on how communities and organizations adopt the innovative practice of youth-adult partnership for community change, funded by the Surdna and W.T. Grant Foundations. Also led a graduate seminar in the analysis and synthesis of research related to a feasibility study for a Center on Nonprofits at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
