Wood Visiting Professor Named
University Communications
University Reporter
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Arts on the Point Moving Ahead |
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by Jeffey Mitchell
Xavier
de Souza Briggs is this year's Robert C. Wood Visiting Professor in Public
and Urban Affairs. During his visit to UMass Boston, planned for September
27 and 28, he was expected to take part in a policy discussion forum and
a variety of meetings, and to give a public lecture titled "Roads Ahead:
Reflections on Urban Politics and Policy Issues Facing the Next President
and Congress."
Briggs is an assistant professor of public policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. In 1998, he took a two-year leave from the Kennedy School and was appointed by President Clinton as assistant secretary for policy development and research at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. He was a senior advisor to the White House and the secretary of his department on a wide range of urban policy topics, and he managed complex political issues, focusing on smart growth and economic development. He has written extensively on housing policy, community development, social capital, access to jobs, and other policy issues of concern to urban communities. His publications include From Neighborhood to Community: Evidence of the Social Effects of Community Development (with Elizabeth Mueller), the first-ever empirical study of the impacts of community-based development organizations on residents' lives.
The Wood Visiting Professorship was established by Robert C. Wood to bring distinguished and thoughtful scholars and public figures to the university to lecture, lead seminars, and engage students and faculty in discussions of public policy and political life. Wood has served as U.S. secretary of housing and urban development, superintendent of Boston schools, president of the University of Massachusetts, professor of political science at MIT, and senior fellow at UMass Boston's McCormack Institute. Xavier de Souza Briggs is the second Wood Visiting Professor; the first was Charles Hamilton of Columbia University.