Dean Anil Deolalikar
I hope you all had a restful and safe holiday season. As we begin a new year, I have some exciting news to share.
On December 1st we held a Giving Tuesday fundraiser and 75 donors contributed $18,000 to our Emergency Student Support Fund, which we established to provide financial support to public policy students affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. We are so grateful to our Advisory Board members who generously contributed $4,000 after a challenge of 20 gifts from the external community and alumni was unlocked. And similar to last year, I contributed $5,000 as part of a challenge unlocked after 20 gifts from our very own staff and faculty members. In addition, our very own student ambassador Daisy Gonzalez won the UCR throwback photo challenge, scoring another $300 for the SPP Emergency Student Support Fund. Thank you for the overwhelming support for our students.
And despite the COVID-19 crisis, we as a School remain strong. We, like any other school or college on campus, will make budgetary sacrifices but nothing that will affect our core functions or result in layoffs. We see relief from the pandemic in the near future, and we continue to be hopeful and committed to providing quality instruction to our students and quality virtual engagement opportunities to our students and to the community at large.
If you haven’t already, I invite you to check out our podcast series, “Policy Chats.” Hosted by public policy student Maddie Bunting, the podcast has covered Black Lives Matter, COVID-19, and the recent election as part of its second season that started in Fall 2020. You can learn more and listen to the podcasts by going to https://spp.ucr.edu/podcast.
We also invite you to watch our webinars from this fall quarter, including those by Ms. Rose Mayes of the Fair Housing Council of Riverside County, Dr. Derick Brinkerhoff of RTI International, and Councilmember Jan Harnik of Palm Desert. We’ve also hosted several panels such as “The 2020 Election & Its Implications,” “COVID Impacts: Responses & Recommendations,” and “California Poverty During COVID-19.” All webinars are available to view on our YouTube channel.
The UCR School of Public Policy looks forward to bringing you more engaging programming this year, and I hope you will continue to stay connected with us.