Scientists discover genetic key to hardier plants

Photo: Peter Morenus

Rice plants growing in the greenhouse at the Agriculture Biotechnology Building, part of research by Prof. Roberto Gaxiola.

A team of scientists led by Roberto Gaxiola, UConn assistant professor of plant science, has discovered a genetic key to growing plants that are more productive and more drought-resistant and can live in soils low in nutrients.

The researchers from UConn, Purdue University and Pennsylvania State University are the first to successfully test in cells a 30-year-old hypothesis explaining the movement of a primary growth and development hormone through plants.

The findings were reported in the Oct. 7, 2005, issue of Science.

Gaxiola is a specialist in manipulating plant proton pumps for crop improvement. He determined with his colleagues that one of three proton pumps found within plant cells plays a critical role in growth and development of plant root and shoot systems.

The proton pump controls cell division, expansion, and hormone transport in plants.

Previously it was believed that this one particular proton pump had an extremely limited function, but Gaxiola’s team found that manipulating the single gene that encodes this pump significantly enhances the transportation of the primary plant growth hormone called auxin.

The gene over-expression resulted in plants with stronger, more extensive root systems and as much as 60 percent more foliage.

“This discovery has the potential to revolutionize agriculture worldwide,” says Gaxiola.

“This over-expression regulates the development of one of the most important parts of the plant, the roots. A plant with larger roots is a healthier and more productive plant because, with a larger root system, the plant is able to get water and nutrients from larger soil areas.”

Additional contributing authors are UConn doctoral candidates Jisheng Li, Haibing Yang, Soledad Undurraga and Mariya Khodakovskaya.

Gaxiola says that early experiments to duplicate the results in other crops, such as tomatoes, rice, cotton and poplar trees, indicate that the team’s discovery could have implications for increasing the world’s food production and aiding global reforestation efforts.

He predicts that within the next five years there will be a “boom” of crops genetically engineered using his team’s approach.

Walking state employees toward fitness and health

Photo: Peter Morenus

State employees take a noontime walk in downtown Hartford.

 A group of 128 state public health workers walked from their office in Hartford to the Grand Canyon and back last summer — without ever leaving Connecticut.

The employees were among the first to take part in ConnectiFIT, a worksite health promotion program designed for state agencies by Pouran Faghri, associate professor of health promotion and allied health.

Walking designated city routes in teams of five or six during their lunch hours and breaks for 10 weeks, the employees far exceeded their goal of logging enough miles — more than 2,500 — to reach the Grand Canyon.

When the program ended, they had covered enough ground for the return trip to Hartford and a second excursion back to Arizona.

In a second program, employees used an interactive Web site to plan and track their walking routes.

The health department is the first state agency to implement the program, funded by a grant from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Another four state agencies are expected to try ConnectiFIT soon.

“We’re trying to encourage people to be healthy and active at work rather than just preach to them about being healthy and active after work,” Faghri says.

National surveys have revealed that more than half of Connecticut residents are overweight or obese, and 85 percent of state residents are at risk for health problems such as heart disease and diabetes due to lack of physical activity, says Faghri.

ConnectiFIT also uses a number of resources such as a Web site, a regular newsletter, seminars, screen savers and posters to promote awareness of healthy behavior.

There are 250,000 state employees in Connecticut who could benefit from the program, but Faghri hopes employees will take their new healthy habits home to their families.

“We hope to expand ConnectiFIT to other agencies and employers as part of our efforts to achieve a healthier, happier and more productive state workforce,” says J. Robert Galvin ’96 M.P.H., commissioner of the state department of public health.

Scandals spur accounting curriculum changes

A revised accounting curriculum is being developed at UConn to better prepare students for required changes in financial reporting practices at publicly traded companies resulting from approval of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

The new federal regulations make corporate finances more transparent, strengthen internal controls and hold executives responsible for financial disclosure.

The law was approved following the Enron and WorldCom scandals.

The curriculum redesign is being developed with a three-year, $140,000 grant from PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of the “Big Four” accounting firms trying to cope with a tidal wave of calls for help from clients who must comply with regulations that became effective with fiscal cycles that began after April 15, 2004.

UConn accounting courses will integrate topics for meeting new corporate governance standards, including those introduced by the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation, starting with students in their sophomore year and continuing through their junior and senior years.

“Globalization and information technology have radically changed the way business is conducted and have created new risks,” says Mohamed Hussein, professor and head of the accounting department, who is directing the curriculum redesign.

“While we are always changing the curriculum, big scandals put urgency on reform in several areas all at once.

“The changes put tremendous new responsibilities on auditors. Now accountants are the people who safeguard capital markets and who have a critical social and economic function.”

Companies face looming deadlines for implementing parts of the new law.

As a consequence, the hiring of experienced financial talent is increasing rapidly with firms seeking knowledgeable accounting professionals to sort through the labyrinth of new regulations.

Hussein says UConn has awarded 120 undergraduate degrees and 80 master’s degrees in accounting annually in recent years, with most joining public accounting firms.

“We are hiring more top students to keep pace with the changing marketplace. UConn is a priority school for recruitment in our region,” says Mark Gelinas, manager of campus recruiting for PricewaterhouseCoopers.

“We plan to continue hiring many students from UConn because of the quality of the School of Business.”

New pottery studio expands classes

Photo: Daniel Buttrey

A class at the newly expanded Community School of the Arts pottery studio.

A newly expanded UConn pottery studio has enabled the Community School of the Arts (CSA) to expand its programming, offer more classes, and attract and retain advanced art students.

CSA is a national model for music, performing and visual art instruction for students of all ages, especially youth, that is sponsored by the College of Continuing Studies in cooperation with UConn’s School of Fine Arts.

CSA offers art and music camps during the summer and school vacations and offers instruction at a number of public schools throughout the state to complement existing music education programs.

This past fall, CSA added a preschool family clay class for parents and children ages 3 to 6 and a morning studio class.

Additional classes include a family clay workshop (ages 6 and up); classes for teens and adults, including beginning and advanced wheel throwing classes; and a workshop for raku, a soft, low fired type of pottery.

Classes are limited to eight students for individual attention.

“With the new studio, it’s easier and more efficient to work, and the quality of students’ work has gotten better,” says Heather Bunnell, CSA arts coordinator and pottery instructor.

“Students now have a much more functional layout to work within, more table space to spread out, individual storage for their work, and a community friendly space to work in.”

The expanded studio includes additional lighting and sinks, a new kiln room and expanded storage space.

Each year more than 1,100 residents of eastern Connecticut, ranging in age from 6 months to 90 years old, participate in CSA classes in music, art, theater and dance led by UConn School of Fine Arts faculty, lecturers and graduate students.

Renowned periodontist brings global perspective to dental school

Photo: Peter Morenus

Maurizio Tonetti brings a global perspective to his new position as professor and chair of UConn’s division of periodontology and head of the department of oral health and diagnostic sciences at the School of Dental Medicine.

He previously worked in Italy, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, where he most recently led the department of periodontology at University College London as part of the British National Health Service.

UConn’s ranking as the number one dental school in the United States and the integration of the dental and medical schools drew him to the UConn Health Center.

“The dental school is a critical component of the UConn Health Center, and that is clearly expressed by the leadership. At UConn, it is ‘the School of Dental Medicine,’ not a ‘school of dentistry.’ It is more than just a difference in names — it makes a huge difference in the philosophy of the school. It goes back to European traditions that dentistry is a medical specialty.”

Tonetti says he wants to improve patient care while increasing the emphasis on clinical research programs.

“The two are intertwined,” he says.

“Patient care benefits if you are at the forefront of new technologies and treatments. And there’s a better chance of adopting the newest innovations if you are the ones who are actually developing it.”

Tonetti says his position at UConn incorporates his varied interests and skills in particular: His research helps satisfy his thirst for scientific exploration and being head of the department often calls for his diplomatic talents.

“He has an incredible reputation among his peers in the clinical research area,” says Peter J. Robinson, dean of the dental school.

 Adds Thomas Taylor, chair of the department of oral rehabilitation, biomaterials, and skeletal development: “Maurizio is one of the most famous periodontists in the world. It was an absolute coup that we were able to recruit him. He will make the rest of us better simply by our association with him.”

Reading scholar named to Neag Chair in Special Education

A leading authority on positive behavior support for children with emotional and behavioral disorders has joined the Neag School of Education as holder of the newly established Carole J. Neag Chair in Special Education.

George Sugai will help the Neag School develop its plan for the Center for Behavior Education and Research.

His move to UConn from the University of Oregon establishes a partnership with Oregon’s nationally respected Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) Center, which assists 30 states and 4,000 schools in identifying, adapting and sustaining effective, school-wide disciplinary practices.

Sugai has authored more than 75 peer-reviewed journal articles and two college textbooks, among other publications, and has received more than $25 million in research and training grants during his 20-year career.

 “The Neag endowment offers a wonderful opportunity to continue our research, support the start-up of the new center, build upon our national team of collaborators, work with some of the nation’s brightest graduate students, and expand the reach of the national PBIS center,” Sugai says, who remains as PBIS co-director with Rob Horner of the University of Oregon.

At a time when schools are under mounting pressure to raise test scores, research — including Sugai’s — shows a definitive link between academic achievement and school environment.

 “The tendency is to ‘get tough’ when problem behaviors occur, rather than investing in the prevention of problem behaviors,” he says.

“We fail with these students because their academic potential, creative talents and individual strengths are often overshadowed by their social behavior challenges.”

Richard Schwab, UConn dean of education, says UConn’s planned Center for Behavior Education and Research will expand the mission of the national center and serve as an umbrella for research, outreach, grant writing and doctoral training. Sugai hopes to establish a 15-member research team that will be directly linked to the center.

Revolutionizing electrical systems with novel microchip technology

Photo: Peter Morenus

Prof. Geoffrey W. Taylor is developing microchip technology that could revolutionize electrical systems.

A UConn researcher is developing new microchip technology that could revolutionize electrical systems in everything from computers and cell phones to airplanes.

Nearly all powered equipment operates by using electrical signals to work.

Typically, a semiconductor optical device is limited to using a special purpose photonic circuit without standard circuit functions.

Conventional electronic circuits   operate only with electrical signals because optical devices cannot be incorporated within the same structure. Therefore the advantages of optical signals are not available for use in conventional integrated circuits.

Geoffrey W. Taylor, professor of electrical and computer engineering, is working to integrate both light-generating and light-detecting functions into a single chip of a semiconductor that already contains the electronic circuit functions.

Taylor’s work is considered groundbreaking because so many different systems, such as aircraft and computer towers, rely on both electrical and optical devices to function, requiring masses of wiring connecting the various systems.

Many of these functions could be replaced with optical fibers or wave-guides coupled to a small microchip.

The critica l— and essential — element of Taylor’s work is creating a laser to function within his new chip so that a low-cost integrated circuit can be made.

“The ability to realize the laser together with complementary electronics is essential,” Taylor says. “The optical links require much less power, so much higher speed chips are possible, which translates to higher speed systems.”

He says the interchangeability of electrical and optical signals “will change the way in which circuits and systems are designed.”

Taylor has been working on the research for more than 20 years, first at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey and since 1994 at UConn.

He says a demonstration model should be ready sometime later this year.

Cultural differences affect child behavior

Cultural differences in childrearing practices during infancy appear to affect babies physically as well as emotionally, UConn researchers have found.

The differences may also have implications for the way children behave once they reach the classroom — possibly even their risk for developing conditions such as attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder.

Family Studies Dean Charles M. Super and Professor Sara Harkness are concluding a six-year study of the effects on human development of cultural differences in childrearing in the U.S. and the Netherlands.

The study was funded by a $1.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, and the preliminary findings have spurred replication studies in Spain, Italy and, most recently, Korea.

Super and Harkness began their research while living in the Netherlands. It was during this time that they observed that Dutch culture stresses concepts such as rest, regular routines and cleanliness as the cornerstones of childrearing as opposed to the American emphasis on attention and stimulation.

They tracked 60 sets of infants and their primary caregivers in each country from the third trimester of pregnancy through the children’s second birthdays.

Using a variety of data — including recordings of the infants’ daily activities and measuring babies’ heart rate and levels of the stress response hormone cortisol — the researchers measured how much the infants slept, how much stimulation they received from their caregivers while awake and how quickly the babies reacted to normal daily stresses.

They found that where ample rest and a calming environment throughout the day are emphasized, babies cried less readily when upset and exerted more control over their emotions.

Physically, they also had lower heart rates and levels of cortisol when confronted with stressful situations such as a parent’s temporary lack of attention.

“The Dutch emphasis on calmness does appear to carry into the classroom and affect behavior and children’s attention spans,” Harkness says.

Super says, “Clearly, different sets of cultural beliefs and assumptions in childrearing do have profound effects on human development.”  

Distinguished composer leads music department

Kenneth Fuchs, a distinguished composer and scholar, is the new chair of the UConn department of music.

“UConn is extremely fortunate to attract an arts administrator of the stature of Kenneth Fuchs to our campus,” says David Woods, dean of the School of Fine Arts.

“His rich experience will be valuable to the future of our students and to the future development of the musical arts on this campus.”

Fuchs previously was director of the School of Music at the University of Oklahoma.

He also served as dean of students and academics at the Manhattan School of Music and assistant to the director of performance activities at the Juilliard School in New York City.

His most recent recording features conductor JoAnn Falletta and the London Symphony Orchestra performing three of Fuchs’ original works: An American Place, a 19-minute work for full orchestra in one movement; Eventide, a 21-minute concerto for English horn, harp, percussion and string orchestra; and Out of the Dark, a 15-minute suite for chamber orchestra, inspired by three paintings by abstract expressionist artist Helen Frankenthaler.

The disc received Grammy nominations in the Best Instrumental Soloist Performance with Orchestra category for English hornist Thomas Stacy’s performance of Eventide and the Best Classical Producer category for Michael Fine.

Fuchs says he will use his experience recording his compositions with the London Symphony Orchestra to teach UConn students about “the years of practice and patience it takes to perfect their craft, as well as the ever-changing industry side of music.”

A concert of works by Fuchs, performed by the American String Quartet, opened the 50th season of UConn’s Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts last September.

Fuchs is a member of the Commission on Accreditation of the National Association of Schools of Music; the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers; the American Symphony Orchestra League; and the College Music Society.

Law professor advises prosecutors of Hussein

Photo: Peter Morenus

Prosecutors trying Saddam Hussein in Iraq are receiving expert counsel from UConn law professor Laura Dickinson, who is providing assistance to the Iraq War Crimes Tribunal.

Dickinson is one of three U.S. law school faculty members working with the U.S. Department of Justice Regime Crimes Office in Iraq.

“It’s very important for trials to take place, because accountability and reconciliation for the widespread human rights abuses that occurred during the Hussein regime are essential for Iraq to make a transition to democracy,” she says.

Dickinson teaches classes in international human rights at the School of Law, including one focusing on the trial of Hussein and others accused of having committed atrocities in Iraq.

“As professors, we advise students who are writing research memos on legal issues in war crimes law that are likely to be relevant to the trial of Saddam Hussein and the others who are being tried before the court,” says Dickinson.

She notes that the path to justice in the trials can be a difficult one.

“For the trials to promote account- ability and reconciliation in Iraq, it’s important for Iraqis to feel that they have some ownership of the process,” says Dickinson, noting that the Sunni population in Iraq may question the legitimacy of the trial because most of the judges are Shiite or Kurds.

She initially became interested in the field while still in law school and eventually traveled to the Caribbean with a group of students and lawyers interviewing migrant workers who were being rounded up and deported. Dickinson worked on a petition on their behalf to the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights.

Ultimately, Cuban migrants were sent to the U.S., but Haitians were deported.

Dickinson previously served as a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justices Harry A. Blackmun and Stephen G. Breyer and later as senior policy advisor to Harold Hongju Koh, assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor under President Clinton.

Professor involved with shaping space exploration policies
Perceptions of childhood explored in book on children and law

Professor involved with shaping space exploration policies

Photo: NASA

Professor Amy Donahue serves as part of a NASA aerospace safety advisory panel to keep manned space programs such as the space shuttle safe.

When the shuttle Discovery passed through Earth’s atmosphere into space last July, it marked the first launch of an American space shuttle since the 2002 Columbia disaster.

Few were closer to the situation than Amy Donahue, assistant professor of public policy at UConn.

Three years earlier, Donahue was one of those in the fields of eastern Texas searching through the wreckage of Columbia, which disintegrated during its return flight to Earth, killing all seven astronauts aboard.

Donahue was appointed to serve on the Stafford-Covey Return to Flight Task Group, which was charged with assessing NASA’s response to the Columbia tragedy and readiness for a return flight to space, by then-NASA administrator Sean O’Keefe.

It was not the first time her doctoral program mentor from Syracuse University had asked her to serve the space program.

Following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, O’Keefe asked her to serve at NASA to develop its role in the new mission of homeland security, where Donahue went on to become a technical advisor to the new U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

 Some have suggested that the space program continue only through unmanned robotic flights, removing any danger for astronauts.

Donahue, who serves on a standing NASA aerospace safety advisory panel, is committed to the continuation of the space program with human beings at the helm.

“As a pragmatic matter, the sensitivity of the human mind and fidelity of human hands far surpass the capabilities of the robots we can build now or will be able to develop any time soon,” she says.

“But more than that, human exploration of space is really about fulfilling our thirsty spirits and satisfying our immense curiosity.

 “It’s about extending ourselves and expanding our being,” she says.

“It’s about reaching beyond the confines of our current condition. To achieve, we need to strive.”

Perceptions of childhood explored in book on children and law

Photo: Dollie Harvey

Professor Nancy Steenburg in her office at the Avery Point Campus.

Nancy Steenburg ’02 Ph.D., assistant professor of history at UConn’s campus at Avery Point, has long been interested in how and why the law evolved the way it did, especially as it relates to the legal standing of children.

As a doctoral candidate at UConn, she wrote her dissertation on children and criminal law. Steenburg’s continuing research into Connecticut’s legal history with regard to minors has resulted in a book, Children and the Criminal Law in Connecticut, 1635-1855: Changing Perceptions of Childhood.

“Connecticut was Puritan, and in the 1600s, the thinking was that children were evil — everyone was evil — and totally soaked with original sin,” she says. “By the 1700s, there’s a softening of that. There was a recognition that you couldn’t treat a child the same way you could treat an adult. I theorize in the book that it’s partly the influence of the Enlightenment.”

Steenburg’s book documents a period of history when assumptions about children’s legal understanding resulted in children being held to adult standards of behavior.

She further argues that understanding how a society treats its least powerful members is crucial to understanding that society as a whole.

Steenburg says there is still dissatisfaction today with the way the state handles youth offenders, as the debate about levels of accountability that can be assigned to children of various ages continues.

While other researchers have drawn conclusions from looking at Connecticut statutes, Steenburg brings to light new information by closely analyzing hundreds of court cases involving minors through documents at the Connecticut State Library in Hartford.

She offers a more nuanced interpretation of the legal treatment of children who were accused of theft, arson, murder, and breach of public order and who were victims of physical and sexual abuse.

“I found it absolutely fascinating,” she notes, “especially the voices of the children that came through.”

Moving India’s physicians toward research

Prof. T.V. Rajan, rear center, meets with medical students in India to discuss research projects.

A UConn Health Center physician-researcher has put together a team that may change the way population-based and clinical research is conducted in India.

During the past four years, Thiruchandurai V. “T.V.” Rajan, a professor of immunology, has led a team of faculty members to India to visit medical schools and conduct workshops for students on how to conduct population-based and clinical research.

Traditionally, Indian medical school graduates become clinicians, not researchers. Rajan’s team offers the young doctors an alternative way to improve the health of India’s vast population.

“When I graduated from medical school in India in 1969, I wanted to do research,” Rajan says, “but there was no role model of the physician-researcher. All the investigators at the research institutions held Ph.D.’s rather than M.D.’s.

"When I said I wanted to do basic bench research, they told me I should go to the U.S., so I came to this country and started my career as a basic researcher.”

Thirty-five years later, he is committed to encouraging and mentoring talented Indian physicians who may prefer to investigate medical issues rather than treat patients.

Members of his team from UConn include Scott Wetstone ’79 M.D., associate professor of community medicine and health care and director of health affairs policy planning at the UConn Health Center and Steven Delaronde ’96 M.P.H., ’97 M.S.W., adjunct assistant professor of community medicine and health care.

Research possibilities abound in India, considering that some diseases have been found to behave differently there than in other developed countries.

Further, other rare diseases, such as leprosy, have been identified there as well.

Wetstone says if a disease behaves differently in India and researchers can determine why this occurs, it can have important implications for prevention and early diagnosis both there and in other countries.

The team has visited medical schools in Bombay, Madras, New Delhi and other cities. India’s official response to the initiative has been positive.

The Indian government now offers 500 fellowships for physicians to participate in summer research projects.

Prestigious accreditation awarded

Nursing students learn to use the latest diagnostic technology in class.

The UConn School of Nursing has been re-accredited for a 10-year term by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE), the national accrediting agency for nursing schools.

“This indicates that we’re doing everything we should be doing to educate the nurses of tomorrow, and it says that we’re doing it well,” says Laura Cox Dzurec ’74 (NUR), dean of the school.

“It was especially gratifying to hear Connecticut health care providers telling the accrediting team how impressed they were with the UConn graduates they’ve hired.”

During the accrediting team’s three-day visit early last year, interviews were conducted at hospitals and health care agencies across the state, with alumni of the School of Nursing, employers, faculty and staff in the school, University administrators, students and others.

Kathe Gable, director of community and public relations at the school, says there were more than 700 applications this year for approximately 100 seats in the freshman class.

Overall, there are about 640 undergraduates enrolled in the school, more than 80 master’s degree candidates, and more than 30 students pursuing doctoral degrees — an important number because national agencies are predicting a shortage of 40,000 to 60,000 nurses as America ages in coming decades, and there will be a greatly expanded need for faculty to teach budding health providers.

The accreditation team gave the school’s bachelor’s degree and master’s degree programs solid marks in all four areas of emphasis and in all 39 elements that comprise those areas.

The areas of emphasis include alumni and employer satisfaction, demonstrated effort toward quality improvement, amount and quality of resources committed to the program, faculty qualifications, and resources provided to students; and the school’s fit within the University’s mission.

Doctoral programs are not examined by the CCNE.

Heart treatment drugs shown to reduce diabetes risk

A study by UConn researchers has revealed that two classes of drugs commonly used to treat heart disease and high blood pressure also significantly reduce patients’ risk of developing diabetes, the top cause of blindness, kidney failure and non-trauma-related amputations in the United States.

The study, published last fall in the journal Diabetes Care , combined results of 11 clinical trials involving more than 66,000 patients.

It found that taking an ACE inhibitor or an angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) reduced patients’ risk of developing type 2 diabetes by 22 percent.

The study, a meta-analysis of relevant published clinical trials, found that ACE inhibitors and ARBs are equally effective in preventing diabetes.

“This is the first study to show conclusively that these drugs, commonly used to treat patients with high blood pressure, heart disease, or heart failure, can actually prevent the onset of type 2 diabetes, a rapidly growing health threat in the United States,” says Craig Coleman, assistant professor of pharmacy and one of five investigators involved in this study from UConn’s schools of pharmacy and medicine.

The American Diabetes Association reports 1.3 million new cases of diabetes are diagnosed annually in the United States in people 20 years of age or older.

Previous studies have shown that ACE inhibitors and ARBs slow the progression of kidney disease in those who already have diabetes, but individually those studies did not show the drugs’ ability to prevent diabetes.

Until now, physicians could only recommend diet and exercise or drugs that regulate blood insulin levels to control pre-diabetes, Coleman says.

Often patients at risk of diabetes also have high blood pressure, heart disease or heart failure.

For those patients, their physician’s drug of choice to treat the existing condition should be either an ACE inhibitor or an ARB, based on this study, the researchers concluded.

Coleman says a healthful diet and regular exercise regimen are still the top strategies for preventing diabetes, but this discovery shows there is another effective treatment as well.

Institute encourages political activism

Photo: Peter Morenus

UConn’s Institute for the Advancement of Political Social Work Practice is celebrating its tenth anniversary on the evening of April 21 with a special program that will recognize the naming of the Institute for its founding director, Nancy Humphreys.

Humphreys, a professor of social work and former dean of the UConn School of Social Work, is a pioneer in advocating the growing role of social workers in politics. The Institute is the only one of its kind in the United States.

“The Institute is an outgrowth of the increasing awareness in the profession, as a whole, of the need for social workers to become more active in the political process in order to influence decisions about the funding of programs for services,” Humphreys says.

A watershed moment for social worker involvement in politics came with the signing of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which included provisions for certain public agencies to register those eligible to vote when they apply for services. Private agencies are also encouraged to assist clients in voter registration.

“We have data that shows that if you get people registered, they vote that first time,” Humphreys says.

“Social workers are committed to empowering their clients to become more efficient and functional participants in the social system.”

The Institute has developed an annual two-day Campaign School to educate social workers and other interested social services workers about how political campaigns work and how to get involved with them.

The program has been replicated for groups in Kansas and Nebraska. A Florida session will take place this year as well.

The Institute also developed legislative handbooks for social workers in Connecticut and Massachusetts, with one currently in development for Pennsylvania, Humphreys says.

She notes that three Connecticut state legislators are School of Social Work alumni: State Sen. Edith Prague ’75 M.S.W., assistant president pro tempore; House majority leader Christopher G. Donovan ’80 M.S.W.; and Rep. Kenneth P. Green ’79 M.S.W.