Navigating the IRS Workshop for Public Charities – April 26, 2012

Thousands of public charities lost their 501(c)3 status recently by failing to comply with changes to IRS Form 990 filing requirements instituted in 2008.  The IRS approached SF State’s Nonprofit Management Certificate Program, a partnership between the MPA Program and the College of Extended Learning, to host a unique, day-long workshop led by IRS Exempt Organization specialists.  Workshop participants will learn about the latest IRS regulations and filing requirements for small and medium-sized 501(c)3 public charities. The workshop is open to the public, but registration is required.  For more information and to register, visit:  http://www.cel.sfsu.edu/irs/index.cfm

When?  Thursday, April 26, 2012, 9 am – 4:30 pm

Where?  San Francisco State University, Seven Hills Conference Center (main campus)

How much? $50

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SF State Sets a New Standard in Campus Discourse– With Occupy SF State

Unlike the administrators and police at other campuses (UCs Berkeley and Davis, for instance), SF State’s President Robert Corrigan set the standard for campus discourse with his engaged dialogue with recent Occupy SF State students this month.  Students continue to occupy the campus, with a small group of tents near the Student Center.   Some students commented they were living on in the spirit of the 1968 SF State Strike, the first ever strike by university faculty members.  That strike resulted in the creation of the country’s only College of Ethnic Studies, which still exists today.

MPA Students Building Community Resilience

This semester, several MPA students have been actively engaged in San Francisco’s Resilient Community Initiative, whose ultimate goal is a ResilientSF.  Part of a larger collaborative effort called the Neighborhood Empowerment Network University (NENu) that involves Bay area academic institutions, city agencies, and community groups, the Resilient Community Initiative involves students and faculty from several departments at SF State who work collaboratively to help communities build resilience by mapping assets, identifying collective priorities, and creating strong, inclusive networks with adaptive capacities.

Under the direction of Dr. Jennifer Shea, three MPA students are interning with SF State’s Institute for Civic and Community Engagement (ICCE) and are focused on specific projects that are part of the Resilient Community Initiative.  Two students, Lorelei Penera and Holly Szafarekh, have been working to identify and measure various dimensions of resilience – work which will ultimately be used to create an index of indicators of various dimension of resilience that will be available and accessible to San Francisco residents.  The index will be used to inform efforts focused on identifying and strengthening community resilience and to help assess the effectiveness of resilience-building efforts.  Another student, Ana Guzina, is working to identify the characteristics of active community groups, as well as the relationships among them, and to map the connections of up to five collaborators/community organization.

Several other MPA students have also been actively engaged in work related to NENu and the Resilient Community Initiative.  Charles MacNulty has been interning for the project at ICCE and in that role has served as a key liaison for students who took PA 705 (Research Methods & Data Analysis I) this semester.  PA 705 students interviewed community stakeholders in North Beach, as part of the Engaged Learning Zone initiative there.   Much of this work will extend past the semester and the Resilient Community Initiative will go into next year and beyond, so stay tuned for updates as we progress.

Reorganization at SF State

 The latest 6 college reorganization plan has now been approved by over two-thirds of the faculty in a referendum.     The reorganization is happening mostly due to the need to cut the budget, but there is also a sense that this is the organization that is most appropriate for the future of the University.

In this reorganization, departments within the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences will be split into three different colleges.

The old plan put Public Administration into the College of Business, which we did not think was a good fit.   Working with the President and Provost, we urged a different site for Public Administration.   They worked hard at trying to fit department desires with the need to reduce administrative overhead– a this new plan emerged as a result.

Since the referendum was completed, the reorganization is now official and will take place beginning on July 1, 2011.

Since the new plan emerged, the faculty have been working with the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, the Institute for Civic and Community Engagement and the Gerontology and Environmental Studies Programs to put together a School (names are still uncertain, but we prefer School of Public Affairs and Civic Engagement [SPACE]).

How do these plans affect the Department of Public Administration and the MPA Program?    Well, faculty and staff will be the ones who will feel most of the impact but it is unlikely students will notice a great deal.   We hope there will be some really great synergies between the units in this new school that will add to new energy in our research, service, teaching and fund development.

We will keep you posted on this fast-moving process…