At the event, held in the Westin Copley Hotel, Howling presented her paper, "The Notional Defined Contribution Approach to Public Pension Reform: Implications for Women and Low-wage Workers." Notional Defined Contribution, or NDC, programs are alternatives to typical funded social security programs, she explains. In NDCs, a worker is credited with the total amount he or she contributes to the system while the actual money received from the payroll tax goes to pay for retirement of the current generation.
But NDCs, which have been recently introduced in such countries as Latvia, Italy, Sweden and Poland, are hardly a panacea for women and low-wage workers, Howling warns.
"Besides being non-redistributive, NDCs both raise the minimum retirement age, and by tying benefits to contributions, offer an incentive to the worker to remain in the workforce for an extended period of time. However, as women are increasingly responsible for caring for ailing spouses and parents, retiring at a later age becomes increasingly difficult.
"In addition, low-wage workers, who typically experience more illness and shorter life spans due to hazardous working conditions, are adversely affected by implicit and/or explicit early retirement penalties. And while NDC systems compensate one's retirement for time spent out of the workforce for child-care, sick leave, or job injury, often such remuneration is meager."
Williamson has high praise for his undergraduate researcher. "Stephanie did an excellent job of finding relevant materials, thinking about those materials, and putting together an interesting analysis of this very important emerging old-age security model."
Howling is continuing to assist Williamson this year, with a particular focus on the framing of the generational equity debate surrounding the United States' Social Security policy. The two have authored an article for a forthcoming issue of Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare.
Another BC faculty member's efforts to promote undergraduate research, meanwhile, also have drawn some national attention.
Assoc. Prof. Lisa Feldman Barrett (Psychology) was one of three faculty members profiled in the article "Learning by Doing" appearing in this month's Monitor on Psychology, a publication of the American Psychological Association that circulates to approximately 40,000 psychologists across the country.
The article uses comments from Feldman Barrett and several students who assisted her research on emotional experience to help illustrate four keys to fostering undergrad research.
Under "Offer an experience they can't get anywhere else," for example, the article notes that Feldman Barrett's students have the opportunity to learn how to conduct various types of psychological testing. "Students not only learn the theory and practice behind each experimental procedure, but they also learn how to think about relating different types of measurement when testing a hypothesis," Feldman Barrett explains.
In "Provide a clear path from grunt work to collaboration," the article says that Feldman Barrett's students "are challenged to become part of the lab's intellectual work by reading scientific papers, developing ideas and study designs, and implementing experiments. The result is that by their second year in the lab, she says, many students are leading their own research projects."
The concluding section, which advocates challenging students to think critically and act responsibly, includes a comment by Feldman Barrett on teaching the scientific method.
"Thomas Jefferson said that a liberal education makes for a better citizen, and I think educating students in the scientific method achieves the same end. The basis of the scientific method is the ability to take a deeply held belief and treat it as a hypothesis to be tested. To the extent that you force students to do this in the lab, they can't help but do it in other parts of their lives."
The article is available on-line at www.apa.org/monitor/learning.html.
Could a computer program help to stop the spread of a smallpox epidemic, or to shut down a criminal conspiracy?
Maybe someday, says Assoc. Prof. Stephen Borgatti, a member of the Organization Studies Department who recently received a $107,913 grant from the Office for Naval Research to support his research on social network analysis.
Borgatti's project, known as KeyPlayer, involves devising a set of computer algorithms for identifying which individuals in an organization's social network are critical to its success, and whose removal would therefore be most disruptive. A key part of the project involves developing measures of organizational vulnerability. The fields of finance and accounting use similar approaches to provide insight into the financial health of an organization, he notes.
Theoretically, Borgatti says, KeyPlayer could be implemented through a computer program and applied in a number of highly practical ways. For example, "you could identify which people in a town or organization to immunize or quarantine in the face of a smallpox or other epidemic in order to maximally disrupt the spread of the epidemic.
"You could identify which people in a criminal network to arrest or discredit in order to disrupt its operations. Or, which ones could best be used to spread misinformation."
In management, meanwhile, "you could identify where an organization is vulnerable to turnover or predatory hiring practices."
Borgatti has a working prototype of KeyPlayer but adds that "there is still much to do." The grant will help him work on developing the measure and also to formulate a mathematical theory "that tells you which persons need to be selected to reach the organizational goal."
Adj. Assoc. Prof. Francine Sherman, who directs the Law School's Juvenile Rights Advocacy Project, will provide counsel for an initiative exploring the juvenile court's role in releasing youthful offenders back into the community.
Sherman was recently named to the advisory committee of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, which has launched "The Reentry Initiative," a comprehensive national effort that focuses on preparing serious, high-risk juvenile and adult offenders for a successful return to society. The initiative would provide funding to develop, implement, enhance, and evaluate reentry strategies that ensure the safety of the community and decrease serious, violent crimes.
The advisory committee, which holds its first meeting this weekend, will develop a primer or technical assistance guide on juvenile reentry courts, exploring areas such initiating or continuing assessment of offender risk and need, and inclusion of faith-based programs.
"Around Campus," which will appear on an occasional basis, is a compendium of items submitted by Boston College's undergraduate, graduate and professional schools. Chronicle reserves the right to edit items for clarity, space and style.