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Credit: Roy Groething
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Stephanie Bush-Baskette took over as director of the Joseph C. Cornwall Center for Metropolitan Studies in February. Since then, she has hosted a symposium on child welfare, helped community groups obtain grants and scheduled a series of brown bag lunches to hash through the pressing social issues facing the Newark metropolitan and northern New Jersey area. Bush-Baskette recently discussed her background as a lawyer, legislator, gubernatorial cabinet member and researcher with Ashanti M. Alvarez, Focus associate editor, and how it has prepared her for the center’s mission of improving the quality of life of residents through informed decision making.
How did your law practice in East Orange prepare you for this job?
It was a community-based law practice, located in a residential area that met the downtown area in East Orange, where I was born and went through the school system. I knew the issues. I interacted with people in the community – business people, representatives of nonprofits, church groups as well as governmental people. It helped me to sit and listen to people, to be able to define what the issues are.
The practice of law is about working with people, mediating situations, negotiating and understanding. People come with their own focus and agendas. You often need somebody who can translate what one person is saying to another so that the conversations can flow. The law prepared me to talk about the various aspects of quality-of-life issues – I was a business owner and I lived in the area. I represented a national nonprofit housing agency as an attorney and was the attorney for board of adjustment and planning board for East Orange while I was practicing.
What have been the barriers between the public and the policy-making communities?
The community does not realize the input and the role they can have in the legislative process. I became aware of that and had an opportunity to somewhat remedy it when I worked with the National Council on Crime and Delinquency. I developed a course on state legislators, criminal justice and policy-makers, the focus of which was to bridge the gap between citizenry and state legislators. We talked about initiatives being introduced in the legislature. Students had an opportunity to review the legislation and use their research experience in criminal justice. I worked with them on how to present this information to a state legislator and invited legislators into the classroom. The legislators gained information from people who were learning and had expertise in criminal justice, and the students realized they could say substantive things to policy-makers that could have an impact.
What are some of your short-term goals and long-term goals?
I want the center to be viewed as a dynamic place where people are coming to us, or inviting us to come to them, to work on issues that have an impact on the quality of life – housing, social justice, education, health, community and economic development. This could include faculty who want to work with us on projects, people from other campuses at Rutgers as well as other academic institutions. Also, we welcome students interested in working with us as graduate assistants or attending some of the forums we provide. I also want the community to see us as being a natural link to the university and to research-based information. That’s already happening, and it’s happening very quickly.
You moderated a conference on child welfare this summer called “The Role of the Village.” What were the results of the conference?
The conference brought together people from government, academia, nonprofit groups and the community to find local strategies for strengthening the child welfare safety net. We’re planning to convene a smaller forum that will help to connect grandparents who are primary caregivers with people providing the services needed by the grandparents, such as legal aide and health care assistance. Second, we are beginning to assist in the establishment of a community-based coalition for child welfare. The state plan requires more localization and we have a role to play in facilitating communications among local organizations and quite possibly serving as their research partner.
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