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Summer Travel Opportunity – Dominican Republic

Solidarity Immersion in Villa Altagracia, Dominican Republic!

Monday August 5th – Sunday August 18th  

Schedule available at www.solidarityignite.org
Email info@solidarityignite.org for more information

Join student organizers from United Students Against Sweatshops and leaders in the movement for social justice across the Dominican Republic for an unforgettable close-up look at how our global economy and fight for change is woven together!

We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly …before you finish eating breakfast in the morning, you’ve depended on more than half the world. This is the way our universe is structured. This is its interrelated quality. We aren’t going to have peace on Earth until we recognize this basic fact of the interrelated structure of all reality.” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 

What we do:

• Listen and learn directly from the personal stories of organizers at the forefront of the fight for social justice on the ground in the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
• Share skills with rad student organizers from around the country who have won campaigns – lots of hands-on workshops, role plays, games, discussions, and campaign planning that will jump-start your organizing into the new semester.
• Have a whole lot of pure, simple, fun, with an amazing community of organizers in one of the most beautiful countries in the world. Enjoy the fantastic music and dance scene, the natural beauty, hike, hang out with local families.

Highlights:
● Meet the inspiring leaders of Alta Gracia, the first ever living-wage union-made factory producing college logo apparel. This article in The Nation and this fun video made by United Students Against Sweatshops share the history, or check out this short documentary film.  Come see for yourself how more than a decade of student worker solidarity continues to transform the Free Trade Zone and community of Villa Altagracia.
● Meet workers from Haiti and the Dominican Republic fighting back for their rights on the frontlines of the campaign to hold adidas accountable – more here.
● Gain a first-hand understanding of the bigger picture of human rights in the global economy through direct testimony from organizers in the factories and fields, from garment-industry to Call Centers to agriculture.
● Meet students from all over, feed your creativity, fine-tune your organizing skills and have time to develop your game plans in an inspiring new setting. Build alliances with a network of amazing students from campuses across the country who are fighting for change, just like you!
● Immerse yourself in the local culture with home-stays and hang-out time with families in Villa Altagracia.
● Beaches! Rainforest Rivers! Hikes in the hills of Villa Altagracia! Learn to appreciate Dominican music and dance – Bachata, Merengue, Dembow – with union leaders! Bilingual Karaoke! Cheesy games! Learn to cook delicious Dominican food! Art! Action!
● Stay connected! Plug in to networks that will drive this movement forward when you get home. Whether sharing ideas and advice to help each other out on calls post-trip or meeting up at regional USAS conferences, we stay involved in the labor justice movement post-trip!

COST: $875 for all in-country necessities. Includes food, housing, transport, interpretation, supplies. Does not include airfare, souvenirs, airport entry fee ($10), mandatory basic travel insurance through ISIC card ($22), vaccinations ($50 – $100) and personal entertainment. 

NO MONEY? NO PROBLEM! FREE FUNDRAISING WORKSHOPS. We pre-game the trips with lots of skillshares via Google hangouts of how you can raise the money to get you there, even if this would normally be beyond your means. The vast majority of students who have attended Solidarity Immersions have raised their program fees without paying a dime of their personal-money,whetherthrough academic department money (sometimes triple-whammying: funding, credit, and trip), donations from unions and local businesses, letter writing to family and friends, benefit parties, work-trades and other fundraising tactics that we’ll share with each other. We’ll help you get there!

NEED-BASED SCHOLARSHIPS ARE AVAILABLE.  Working class perspectives are a huge asset to our trip! We can work together to make this happen. If you’re committed to the cause, where there’s a will there’s a way.  Just apply and we will work together from there.

ALL APPLICANTS MUST PAY A NON-REFUNDABLE $250 deposit by July 4th. If you’re a waffler or a flake, that’s a dealbreaker. But if you’re serious, just learned about this yesterday, and really want to go, talk to us. We’re in the business of movement building – not rule or money making. We know students get our best work done last minute – the deadline to join the trip is somewhat flexible if you mean business, so call us.

For more information email info@solidarityignite.org
And check out www.solidarityignite.org

Watch a short video here.

Mike Touchton and Brian Wampler were selected winners of the LAPIS 2013 Best Paper Award

Mike Touchton and Brian Wampler, professors of political science, were selected winners of the LAPIS 2013 Best Paper Award for their coauthored paper “Improving Social Well-Being through New Democratic Institutions,” which they presented at the LASA 2012 Congress.

“This paper asks important questions about how participatory budgeting affects citizens’ well-being. Using an original and a large N data base of Brazilian municipalities, the authors show that the situation of the poor is improved through an increase in spending on health care and sanitation, which is reflected in a reduction in the rates of child mortality. The effect grows with time and when the political party implementing the participatory budget believes in its principles. Interestingly, the authors claim that in contrast to the theorized bias in representative democracy towards middle and upper class groups, the new institution of participatory budgeting, can help overcome this bias and benefit the poor. Thus, this paper makes an important contribution to our knowledge about the social and political consequences of participatory budgeting, one that will inform normative as well as empirical debates about participatory democracy.”

Wampler also is a featured speaker at the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation’s bi-annual conference on Oct. 12-14 in Seattle, Wash.

 

Original post found at the Boise State UPDATE site.

Dr. Justin Vaughn Interviewed by the Spokane/Pacific Northwest Inlander

Justin Vaughn, assistant professor of political science, was interviewed by the Spokane/Pacific Northwest Inlander for an article about the 1st Congressional District race. Vaughn joined Boise State this fall. His current research projects include examinations of the strategic dimensions of presidential rhetoric and the role popular culture plays in shaping the presidential image. Read the article here.

 

Original Post found at Boise State Update.

Dr. John Freemuth is quoted in a KBOI 2 news story

John Freemuth, professor of political science, was quoted in a KBOI 2 news story about expectations prior to the first presidential debate. Read the story here.

 

Original story credit to Boise State University, Update: your source for campus news.

Ross Burkhart co-authors an article published in the Idaho Law Review

Andy Hyer, Lee Hannah and Sarah Toevs in the Department of Community and Environmental Health and Ross Burkhart in the Department of Political Science co-authored an article published in the Idaho Law Review titled: “Paying for Long-Term Care in the Gem State: A Survey of the Federal and State Laws Influencing How Long-Term Care Services for Idaho’s Growing Aged and Disabled Populations Are — and Will Be — Funded.”

The need for long-term care (LTC) services in Idaho are expected to increase dramatically as the state’s population ages, and the cost of providing such services also is expected to grow at a staggering rate in coming years. This policy survey takes a comprehensive look at the various federal and state laws impacting how such services are paid for in Idaho, whether it be Medicaid, LTC insurance, home equity or other means. In providing such “a foundational overview of the current policy landscape affecting LTC funding in Idaho,” the article serves as a valuable resource for policymakers considering ways to reform LTC funding policies in Idaho and demographically similar states. Such an overview should also prove a helpful resource to individuals, financial planners, attorneys, health care professionals and others seeking to understand the complex LTC financing system.

The faculty involved in this “cross-college” effort came together through the Center for the  Study of Aging and were supported through a grant from the College of Social Sciences and Public Affairs. As the “scholarly voice of the University of Idaho College of Law,” the Idaho Law Review has been “a valuable resource for judges, practitioners, and scholars around the country for more than 40 years.”

Full citation: Andrew M. Hyer et al., Paying for Long-Term Care in the Gem State, 48 Idaho L. Rev. 351 (2012). The article is available on the Law Review’s website at http://www.uidaho.edu/law/law-review/articles.

The original post was found on the BSU UPDATE site. Locate that post here.

Department of Political Science    |    pols@boisestate.edu    |    208-426-1458    |    ERB 5146A, MS1935