Founders
Lynn Wu, a former public school teacher in Oakland, left the classroom in June 2005 to pursue degrees in both law and public policy at the University of California, Berkeley. As she worked to reform urban public schools from within while she was teaching, it became increasingly clear to her that, while increasing resources or reorganizing schools and their accountability structure might improve schools, doing those things alone would not lead to long term sustainable solutions to the problems that urban schools face.
A child’s educational success is also contingent upon access to quality health care, a healthy physical environment, adequate housing, a safe home environment, diverse employment options, and a just legal system.
She founded this journal based on her belief that it is exceedingly important to couple optimism and critical thinking to take an honest look at the reasons why urban youth are disproportionately enduring the brunt of failing social policies and how fostering communication between advocates for health care, education, housing, environment, and employment, is the most viable solution to this inequity.
Robyn Gould came on board from the private sector and brings years of business development and technology experience to the journal. She began her career in special education, specializing in serving children with Autism and ADHD. Following this experience, she worked for six years in high tech and financial services.
Robyn left the private sector to pursue a law degree at Boalt Hall, with the goal of bridging the divide between the public and private sector in hopes of finding creative solutions to education inequities.
She shares Lynn’s belief in the critical need to address the issues facing urban youth from a multidisciplinary perspective and jumped at the opportunity to work with Lynn to help fill this void.
IMPACT's goal and purpose is to bring the insights of scholars and practitioners in these fields together in one journal, so that their work may together shape the future of our urban youth by informing legislators and policymakers, as well as the public, about pertinent issues facing our youth.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
IMPACT is affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley Interdiscipinary Graduate Student Committee on Youth Policy, Advocates for Youth Justice (AYJ), and the Goldman School of Public Policy (GSPP).
Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Committee on Youth Policy
The Interdiscipinary Graduate Student Committee on Youth Policy is composed of graduate students from the schools of public policy, social welfare, political science, law and urban planning. The committee’s mission is to encourage collaboration within graduate disciplines, and in the broader community, on issues related to youth.
Advocates for Youth Justice (AYJ)
Advocates for Youth Justice (AYJ) is Berkeley Law's only student organization focused on youth advocacy. AYJ provides opportunities for students to learn more about the juvenile justice system, child welfare (foster care) system, education law, and policy advocacy for youth. AYJ exposes its members to hands on experiences through its three student run clinics, and provides on-going trainings and lectures on new developments in research and legislation in the area.
Goldman School of Public Policy (GSPP)
GSPP, founded at the University of California, Berkeley in 1969, was one of the nation’s first graduate programs of its kind. Today it is ranked among the very top policy programs in the country and is recognized nationally and internationally as a source of incomparably qualified professionals in the field.
As part of GSPP’s multidisciplinary approach, the School’s faculty are drawn from the fields of economics, political science, law, sociology, social psychology, demography, and public policy.