IPS to present O'Malley with findings of urban experts

Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley is expected on the Homewood campus today, April 9, to receive a report, called "Baltimore in Transition: How Do We Move from Decline to Transition," prepared by a group of international urban experts from the Institute for Policy Studies.

Sandra Newman, IPS director, and Marsha Schachtel, IPS senior fellow, will present the report, which offers fresh perspectives and recommendations for the city of Baltimore.

"Baltimore in Transition" is the culmination of the 30th annual conference of IPS' International Urban Fellow Program, which involves fellows who had spent one or two semesters of study and research at Hopkins. The findings are based on a five-day visit to Baltimore that included briefings from city, state and federal experts and leaders. The result, said Newman, offers "a high degree of congruence between the fellows' recommendations and the initiatives, policies and practices adopted by Mayor O'Malley in his first year in office."

Developer Bill Struever to give SPSBE talk on Wednesday

Bill Struever, president and CEO of Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse, one of the Baltimore region's largest redevelopment and construction companies, will speak at a SPSBE event on Wednesday, April 11, on the Homewood campus.

Struever, who is the moving force behind a current movement to focus the city's growth in high-tech arenas, will give a talk titled "The Digital Harbor: Linking Business and Education."

The event, in Bloomberg's Schafler Auditorium, begins with a reception from 5:30 to 7 p.m., followed by the presentation and Q&A from 7 to 8 p.m. For reservations, call 410-516-7190.

Data still lacking on effects of welfare reform, report says

Five years after Congress passed legislation to revamp the nation's welfare system, the effects of the reform have been virtually impossible to assess because of shortcomings in the available data needed to conduct such an evaluation, says a new report from the National Research Council of the National Academies.

Robert A. Moffitt, professor of economics in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, chaired the panel that wrote the report.

While the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and private foundations have supported a great deal of high-quality research on reform's impact, the report says, major improvements in data collection still are needed to obtain a clearer picture of how the overhaul has affected the poor and the way that states operate social-service programs for them.

"With passage of the legislation in 1996, the nation launched a major social experiment with its safety net programs," Moffitt says. "But we may never fully understand the consequences of this change without stronger federal and state leadership to develop the necessary research infrastructure." The bulk of the law is up for congressional reauthorization next year.

The report is available on the Web at http://national-academies.org.

APL gets governor's citation for scientific achievement

The target was a large asteroid nearly 200 million miles from Earth, but for guiding a historic space mission from its Laurel, Md., campus and boosting the state's reputation for scientific excellence, APL received a citation from Gov. Paris Glendening.

NEAR project scientist and APL staff member Andrew F. Cheng accepted the citation for the Laboratory during a ceremony at the State House in Annapolis on March 27.

Glendening also presented citations to three Maryland astronauts who recently flew on the space shuttle Atlantis and members of the Maryland-based partnership to map the human genome.

Nonprofits a huge economic force in West Virginia

Nonprofits in the state of West Virginia employ some 55,000 workers, more than manufacturing, mining, construction or state government, a new study by researchers at the Institute for Policy Studies has found.

The report, which was presented April 5 to Gov. Robert E. Wise at a meeting in Charleston, W.Va., gives a detailed portrait of nonprofit employment in that state and is part of a nationwide effort to document nonprofit employment.

Through the Nonprofit Employment Data Project at Johns Hopkins, researchers are working in several states to uncover the true extent of nonprofit employment by comparing tax records, which detail nonprofit status, with data compiled by employment bureaus.

"This shows that nonprofits account for one out of every 12 employees in the state of West Virginia," said Sara Dewees, a Hopkins researcher and co-author of "West Virginia Nonprofit Employment."

Comprising private hospitals, clinics, social service providers, museums, art galleries, theaters, educational institutions and many more, the nonprofit sector is "a significant economic force," Dewees said.

This is the first report on nonprofit employment in the state of West Virginia. It is available online at www.jhu.edu/news_info/news/home01/mar01/pdf/wvreport.pdf.

Violinist Annaliesa Place to play at WNS

Violinist Annaliesa Place, accompanied by pianist Christie Julien, will perform in the Wednesday Noon Series on April 11 in Shriver Hall at Homewood. Place and Julien will perform Fantasia in C for Violin and Piano by Franz Schubert and the Sonata in A Major for Violin and Piano by Cesar Franck. Place was winner of the 2000-2001 Yale Gordon Concerto Competition at Peabody.

This performance is co-sponsored by the Office of Special Events and the Peggy and Yale Gordon Trust. Admission is free.