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A Buffalo Case Study: Can Architecture Bring a City Back?

Welcome back to Critical Eye, Alexandra Lange 's incisive, observant, curious, human- and street-friendly architecture column for Curbed. In this edition of her monthly column, Lange hits the streets of Buffalo, New York, to analyze how urban and architectural renewal can bring a city back from the brink. And ICYMI, catch up on her past columns about architectural gamer paradise Monument Valley , the new Whitney Museum , and the sidewalk-level impact of waterfront development around the Brooklyn Bridge.

CAN ARCHITECTURE BRING A CITY BACK?

I don't mean the Bilbao effect, where a single extraordinary building designed by an out-of-town architect suddenly makes a city present to the wider world. Imagine the opposite of that, where a city's existing landmarks and infrastructure, built over preceding decades (sometimes by the Frank Gehrys of their day) are maintained, upgraded, restored, and repurposed for the 21st century. Where the grain elevators captured in their grace and precision by Charles Sheeler, once thought of locally as eyesores , become havens for extreme sports and small-batch beer. Where a psychiatric hospital, once an experiment in humane treatment, reopens as a hotel, a farm-to-table restaurant situated on the ruins of the hospital's therapeutic conservatory. Where renewal can be visualized by asking What Would Olmsted Do? It's too soon to declare the recovery complete, but all of these things are currently happening in Buffalo, New York.

Architecture serves as both a safety net and growth engine in Buffalo, which, thanks to a booming turn-of-the-last-century economy has one of the best collections of late-19th and 20th century architecture and urban fabric in the country. Louis Sullivan, Daniel Burnham, Frank Lloyd Wright, H.H. Richardson, and the Saarinens (both father and son) all did superlative work here before the second World War, as did native son Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in the midcentury. In the terrazzo hallways at Bunshaft's wing of the Albright-Knox Museum , you can see paintings smaller than those seen at the new Whitney—a Kline, a Ruscha, a Rothko—though of equal quality. As the woman at the front desk tells visitors, museum benefactor Seymour Knox liked to buy work "while the paint was still wet."

Buffalo city parks are by Frederick Law Olmsted , Calvert Vaux, and Olmsted's sons—and not just a marquee park or two, but a comprehensive parks system that stretches from what was, in 1868, a rural zone to the north of Buffalo's civic center to the south. Olmsted managed to upsell Buffalo leaders on a network of parkways, landscaped roads, and traffic circles that later spurred the development of Buffalo's most picturesque neighborhoods, with deep tree lawns and canopies of green (at least in summer, when I visited). Buffalo has great bones, both as an urban experience and at the level of individual houses (I fell in love with some of the gingerbread beauties in Allentown's Arlington Park, just north of downtown). Buffalo's quotidian design encounters set it apart from other American cities, large and small, that might claim a better collection of discrete buildings. The quality of architectural experience is threaded through your drive to work, your office environment, and your weekend recreation, all for free or for the cost of a reasonably-priced ticket. For instance, Frank Lloyd Wright's Darwin Martin House hosts $15 yoga classes in Toshiko Mori's minimalist Greatbatch Pavilion . If you happen to be in Buffalo on the day the complex is closed, you can still wander the garden and admire the dramatic rooflines contributed by both Wright and Mori.

There's a term, used mostly by planners, for cities like Buffalo, Detroit, St. Louis, and Cleveland: legacy cities . The textbook definition of a legacy city is an "older, industrial urban area that has experienced significant population and job loss, resulting in high residential vacancy and diminished service capacity and resources." Aesthetics are not incidental to why people stay in, and move to, shrinking cities. The quality of housing and building stock is the legacy of former prosperity—appealing to artists and ordinary people alike. In Buffalo, politicians, local developers, even the Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy have realized this. Person after person on my recent trip mentioned New York State's 20% tax credit for rehabilitation of properties on the National Register for Historic Places—on top of a 20% federal tax credit for such rehabs—as having the most decisive effect on the rebirth of Buffalo's downtown, now thick with early-20th-century buildings converted into offices and rentals. So many projects have been completed downtown that, according to local urbanist and preservationist Chris Hawley, developers are running out of central business district properties to rehab. (The upper floors of the grandiose Statler Hotel currently stand empty; only its ground floor is in use.) So what's next? Hawley points to the industrial buildings on the New York Central Belt Line, still in use by freight rail and Amtrak, a loop which includes the Central Terminal and the former Pierce Arrow Factory designed by Albert Kahn , architect of Detroit's famous Packard and Ford plants.

LET'S TAKE A TOUR

Downtown Buffalo has a concentration of distinguished buildings radiating out from the Art Deco too-muchness of City Hall . (I recommend a walking tour with Explore Buffalo , an 18-month-old organization that proves there's an appetite for archi-tourism here.) Next door to the famous ones are other commercial structures, in brick and terra-cotta (a revived local industry ), which would be noteworthy in another town. First among equals is Louis Sullivan 's Guaranty Building (1894-95), restored by the law firm Hodgson Russ for use as its principal office. Like most of Sullivan's work, the Guaranty Building is profusely ornamented, its molded surface as gorgeous as jewelry in a close-up, which, despite its minute detail works to emphasize the building's height from a distance. In the lobby (which is open to the public), admire the bronze staircase and elevator cages, the stained glass ceiling, and mosaic walls.

A block away, Minoru Yamasaki 's One M&T Plaza, completed in 1966, makes formal reference to the Guaranty building in its arched ground-floor windows, striated slab, and prominent cornice. But it will remind most people of the Twin Towers, also by Yamasaki, which had the same cool delicacy of design extended to monumental proportions. You can see important public works of art here too: Harry Bertoia 's leaf-like fountain , commissioned for the location, and Sheila Hicks 's Thread Bas-Relief in the lobby, originally commissioned in 1972 by the Wilmington Trust Company. Turn south and you can visit Daniel Burnham's circa-1896 Ellicott Square . Its exterior reminds me of a wedding cake— Burnham's firm could do better —but the skylit interior courtyard is a romantic surprise.

The 1880 Richardson Olmsted Complex , designed by H.H. Richardson as the Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane, defines good bones. Standing on its second floor, looking at the enfilade of high-ceilinged rooms stretching north and south (check), one is tempted to tell the architects of its in-progress rehabilitation (who include Flynn Battaglia Architects , Deborah Berke Partners , and Goody Clancy ) to stop right there. Seal the peeling institutional green walls, add some high-backed sofas, call it a day: all you need is the space and the light. But that's not what they are doing, of course. In 2016, the complex will reopen as the 88-room Hotel Henry (after H. H.) with a farm-to-table restaurant called 100 Acres, a 500-person conference facility, and an on-site greenhouse. Berke, the design architect, is adding simple, industrially-flavored elements to Richardson's Medina sandstone façade, including a steel-and-glass portico and stair. The building is enormous, half a million square feet in total, but the hotel will only occupy the central building and flanking bays. Wings of patient rooms, which fall away from the complex's landmark towers like a fan, will be redeveloped at a later date. The wings, which are brick rather than sandstone, reminded me of all the officers' housing on Governors Island, ideal for artists' residencies or other small-scale and semi-public uses; an architecture center, a hub for tours, exhibits and programs, will be included in the hotel's public spaces.

When it opens in 2016, the Hotel Henry will be part of a developing cultural district, close to the Albright-Knox Museum and its neighbor, the far less architecturally distinguished Burchfield Penney Art Center , with access to Delaware Park (highly reminiscent of Olmsted's Prospect Park, with a larger meadow), the Buffalo History Museum, and the walkable Elmwood Village. Monica Pellegrino Faix, executive director of the Richardson Center Corporation, describes the whole thing as an "urban resort." Which would sound like an oxymoron except— What am I doing in Buffalo, anyway? Treating it as a landscape worthy of exploration . Some of us would rather trek a mile in urban shoes.

Other architectural masterpieces are nestled in residential neighborhoods. Which is lucky, because Buffalo's neighborhoods are an abiding attraction best encountered by slowing down on your way somewhere else. If I were a millennial thinking of moving to Buffalo, it wouldn't be the landmarks that would convince me, but the green, tight-knit neighborhoods and charming wood-frame houses. Frank Lloyd Wright 's Darwin D. Martin House (1903-05), for example, is in the rather grand Parkside area. Martin was secretary of the Larkin Soap Company, one of the country's largest retailers in 1900, until their mail-order business was undone by department stores. The Larkin company hired Wright in 1904 to design its Administration Building , a radical precursor to today's daylit, open-plan office buildings. It is still hard to believe the Larkin Building was torn down in 1950. Only a wall remains . Locals say the building's disappearance had a galvanizing effect on the Buffalo preservation community analogous to the demolition of New York City's Penn Station.

BUT ALL IS NOT PERFECT

If the Buffalo preservation scene has a blind spot, it concerns architecture built after its industrial peak. In 1937, then little-known Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen , working with his son Eero, won the commission for the Kleinhans Music Hall near Symphony Circle, one of Olmsted's original park elements. It would be among his first completed American buildings. Kleinhans is rather plain from the outside, albeit precisely detailed, with a Japanese-style portico, aluminum-framed doors, and stepped ledges that suggest the tiers of seats inside. Inside, the building opens up. The auditorium and smaller hall are clearly Eliel's work, their horseshoe shapes lined in rhythmic Neo-classical wood paneling and filled with golden light. The lobby is Eero on the make: a double-height space with curving lines in which the floor melts into the stairs, which then melt into a long plaster dome. Charles Eames—in that period, working at Cranbrook—contributed fruit-wedge-shaped sofas set on mirror-polished metal legs. As the building's National Register application puts it, "The interiors seem to be in motion." The complex concrete geometries of the TWA Terminal , designed two decades later, were first sketched here. Kleinhans is really an extraordinary feat, though it (along with Bunshaft's black-and-white Albright-Knox, crisp mid-century perfection from 1962) tends to get discussed after the local work of Richardson, Sullivan, and Wright.

Kleinhans and the Albright-Knox are in no danger, however, unlike Paul Rudolph 's 1974 Shoreline Apartments, a few blocks north of City Hall. As Mark Byrnes reported for CityLab in June , one section of this affordable housing development has already been torn down, and the rest are in ragged shape. As with so much of Rudolph's work, it is appreciated more by outsiders than locals, even local architecture enthusiasts, , though there is a small band of people rallying support for Shoreline's continued existence and maintenance. As Barbara Campagna, a local architect leading the fight to preserve Shoreline, wrote for DOCOMOMO ,

It is easy to blame the buildings and grounds for the vacancy rates and crime in modern public housing developments. But a walk around the site today, shows blocks full of buildings in various states of repair with little thought given or planning to the expansive land on which it sits. The private balconies and garden courts are desirable features in high-end condos all over town and the 9.5 acres of mostly ill-used land would be desirable in any city. A good architect and landscape architect, with the ability to respect Rudolph's intent while recommending native and sustainable land use approaches, could do wonders with this complex. It was obvious from even a brief walk around the Shoreline complex how its good intentions had been undercut by neglect . Openings that were supposed to allow flow through the site were fenced off, making open space unwelcoming or even unusable to residents while impeding Rudolph's classic modernist idea of building a village from scratch.

AND ELSEWHERE IN TOWN

Buffalo's East Side has also been slower to appreciate, and to attract restoration dollars. The East Side was historically the immigrant destination in the city , once home to America's second-largest Polish neighborhood. Today, it is majority African-American. Buffalo's empty, 17-story Central Terminal , trainless since 1979, looms above the area as a reminder of the city's peak population: 580,000 people in 1950. Some East Side blocks that were once home to rows of houses now just contain one house, singular, flanked by weedy lots. What once was an urban fabric is now, in many places, tatters. In the 1950s, the intersection of Broadway and Fillmore was considered Buffalo's second downtown, with streetfront retail that included the fabulous Art Moderne Eckhardt's department store . These blocks are likely eligible for the National Register, and could also take advantage of the 40% combined tax credit. When I was touring the Richardson-Olmsted Complex, Pellegrino Faix talked about Buffalo's architectural rebirth as a "string" of three buildings: Guaranty, the Martin House, and now the Hotel Henry. Is it too much to hope that the Central Terminal be added to that classification?

On July 15, Governor Cuomo announced that a $44 million Western Workforce Development Center would be built on Fillmore, on the East Side, in order to train residents for the new-model manufacturing jobs in the region—most notably Elon Musk 's SolarCity, which is projected to be the world's largest solar-panel factory when it opens in 2016 on the site of a former steel plant.

Meanwhile, Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy is working with various community groups to improve the East Side landscape infrastructure in hopes of improving the neighborhoods' amenities, partly by restoring their original parks and parkway connections to the West Side. "We ask ourselves WWOD: What would Olmsted do?" says Brian Dold, Planning and Design Manager for the conservancy. "We think about his parks within the modern context. It's not preservation for preservation's sake." On the East Side, the City of Buffalo restored Humboldt Basin , a 500-foot wading pool that is the centerpiece of what is now known as Martin Luther King Jr. Park, making it usable as a splash pad in summer and ice rink in winter, as well as the adjacent Shelter House. "Capital investment is huge, but we feel a big part of what makes a great community is well cared for public parks and streetscapes," says Dold.

Last year, New York State DOU, the Department of Transportation, and the University at Buffalo did an economic impact study on bringing back the Humboldt Parkway , which once connected MLK Park to the system's crown jewel, Delaware Park , via a 200-foot-wide, three-mile road shaded by six rows of maple trees, making it possible to travel from the east to the west side in a park-like setting. By 1963, the trees were gone and the roadway depressed, creating the Kensington Expressway, which local activists would like to deck over. The large houses with front porches on either side speak to the street's former incarnation, though now they look at nothing.

Last, but certainly not least, there's the Buffalo River .

Picturesque grain elevators dot the riverfront, concrete cylinders that were beloved by European modernists as a taste of architecture to come. A 20-year clean-up effort has made it into a recreation space, from Canalside—where part of the former Erie Canal opened last winter as New York's largest outdoor ice rink—past elevators and factories that are still in use. (You can buy a t-shirt, inspired by the General Mills factory, that reads "My city smells like Cheerios." ) A 171-acre masterplan for the shoreline along Lake Erie, designed by Perkins+Will , will include a mixed-use community alongside new parks and open spaces, all of which has relied on feedback from the public in its planning process.

At RiverWorks , you can get married, watch roller derby, play pickleball, go ice skating, attend a concert, and drink beer made in one grain silo in the geometric, picturesque ruins of another. (Placemaking projects in Buffalo tend to come with a side of sports and/or beer.) The silos are perhaps the best example of adaptive reuse: The smooth, cylindrical towers, innovative construction in their day, are now canvases for art installations, theater performances, and, if RiverWorks's Doug Swift has his way, rock-climbing and other extreme sports. Swift says he was inspired by New York City's Chelsea neighborhood, where Chelsea Piers, Chelsea Market, and the High Line converge. When you've got space, waterfront, and empty buildings, why not?

In Buffalo, I got the feeling that people across the breadth of the city, and across class lines, appreciate the city's architecture and understand it as a tangible asset. The citizens don't need to build a new museum, they need ways for people to live, work, and play in the urban fabric they already have. Buffalo's population may never reach 580,132 again (the 2014 estimate is 258,703 , a barely discernible decline from the last census in 2010), so the challenge for the next decade is spreading those historic tax credits further afield. Buffalo should keep restoring attractions, like the Olmsted parks and parkways, that are free for all, to link the prosperous and the up-and-coming as they were intended to do. Listening to its legacy gives Buffalo a different kind of architectural ambition than it had as America's eighth largest city, but it is no less worthy of admiration.

· All Critical Eye posts [Curbed] · Writer Uncovers Pearls Of Architecture Among Blight of Buffalo [New York Times, archived by Preservation Buffalo Niagara] · Where are Legacy Cities? [legacycitiesbydesign.org] · Buildings & Sites [Preservation Buffalo Niagara] · Bertoia Skips Town [Buffalo Rising] · Shoreline Apartments [BeImaged Photography] · The Slow Death of a Brutalist Vision for Buffalo [CityLab] · $44 million job training center coming to Buffalo's East Side neighborhood [The Buffalo News] · Waterfront officials say changes to Outer Harbor plan 'will reflect much of the feedback' they have heard [The Buffalo News] · REMAKING BUFFALO'S WATERFRONT: LESSONS FOR THE REST OF THE RUST BELT [Belt Magazine]

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National Center for case study teaching in science

2019 keynote speaker / session presenters, conference leader.

Clyde (Kipp) Herreid

SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, and Director, National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY [email protected]

Trained as a biologist and physiological ecologist with post-doctoral experience in marine biology, Clyde (Kipp) Herreid has been using case teaching methods for over 30 years. To date, he has received over $3.4 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Education, The Pew Charitable Trusts, and the National Science Foundation to further the development and dissemination of case-based teaching in science in the United States. As Director of the National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science (NCCSTS), he leads a national effort to reform undergraduate science education through the use of active learning strategies, focusing on case-based and problem-based learning. He has conducted numerous workshops on case-based education and is the author of a regularly featured column on case studies in the Journal of College Science Teaching. In addition, he has published three books on the case method, Start with a Story: The Case Study Method of Teaching College Science (NSTA 2006, reprinted by the NCCSTS in 2013), Science Stories: Using Case Studies to Teach Critical Thinking (NSTA Press, 2012), and Science Stories You Can Count On: 51 Case Studies with Quantitative Reasoning in Biology (NSTA Press, 2014).

Kipp received his BA in Zoology from Colorado College, MS in Ecology and Comparative Behavior from Johns Hopkins University, and PhD in Zoology and Entomology from Pennsylvania State University.

Keynote Speaker

Associate Professor in Psychology, Neuroscience and Behavior, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, [email protected], follow him on Twitter @ProfJoeKim

Joe is actively involved in the scholarship of teaching and learning, Joseph (Joe) Kim coordinates the innovative McMaster Introductory Psychology (macintropsych.com) program, which combines traditional lectures with interactive online resources and small group tutorials. The program has been prominently featured in Maclean’s , Globe and Mail , Toronto Star , and numerous education media outlets. In addition, he directs the Education & Cognition Lab, which aims to understand how cognitive principles such as attention, memory, and learning can be applied to develop evidence-based interventions in education and training, and organizes the annual McMaster Symposium on Education & Cognition (edcog.ca), which brings together cognitive scientists, educators, and policy makers to explore how cognitive science can be applied to educational policy and instructional design.

With an active interest in curriculum and education, Joe is regularly invited to deliver keynotes and workshops on blended learning, applied cognition in teaching practice, presentation design, and productivity. He also regularly consults on curriculum development for universities and several policy groups including the Council of Ontario Universities Online Workgroup and the Innovation and Productivity Roundtable for the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities.

Recent honors include: D2L Innovation in Teaching and Learning Award, Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (2017), Residence Life Campus Partner of the Year (2012), Innovator of the Year Award (McMaster VPR, 2010), and the President’s Award for Excellence in Course and Resource Design (2010).

Joe earned his BS in Biology and Psychology and his PhD in Experimental Psychology from McMaster University.

Session Presenters

William Cliff

Professor, Department of Biology, Niagara University, Niagara Falls, NY, [email protected]

Bill Cliff is a professor in the Department of Biology at Niagara University and has served as the chairperson of the Committee on College Teaching and Learning and the Taskforce on Active and Integrative Learning. At Niagara University, he teaches courses in human anatomy and physiology, animal physiology, pharmacology, cell biology and natural history. He is also a visiting professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. Cliff is a Carnegie Scholar at the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning and a member of the Faculty for the 21st Century sponsored by Project Kaleidoscope. He is an investigative member of the Physiology Education Research Consortium. He also serves on the editorial board of Advances in Physiology Education .

Bill received his BS in Biological Sciences and PhD in Biology from Cornell University.

Shuchi Dutta

Scientific Educational Development Lead, RCSB Protein Data Bank / Research Assistant Professor, Institute for Quantitative Biomedicine, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ, [email protected]

Shuchismita (Shuchi) Dutta is the Scientific Educational Development Lead at the Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics Protein Data Bank (RCSB PDB). She is a trained crystallographer and is committed to promoting a molecular view of biology to a broad range of audiences. Shuchi teaches an undergraduate honors seminar at Rutgers University where students learn the molecular structural bases of global health topics. She also teaches molecular visualization in graduate-level courses at Rutgers and Georgetown University. She has collaborated with New Jersey high school educators to develop curricular materials for introducing students to biomolecular structure and functions. These materials are available from RCSB PDB’s educational portal, PDB-101, and accessed by students and educators worldwide. She continues to work on a number of national outreach and educational projects to promote molecular structural literacy, e.g., Protein Modeling at the Science Olympiad, RCSB PDB video challenge, and development of the PDB-101 Global Health pages. Recently, Shuchi has assembled a group of undergraduate educators from around the nation to form Molecular CaseNet for the purposes of collaboratively developing and testing molecular case studies.

Shuchi earned her BS in Human Biology with a specialization in Biophysics and her MS in Biotechnology from All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India. She completed her PhD in Biophysics at Boston University‘s School of Medicine and did a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School.

Phil Gibson

HHMI BioInteractive Ambassador, Professor, Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology Department of Biology, The University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK [email protected]

Phil Gibson is a Professor and Associate Director of Education at the Kessler Atmospheric and Ecological Field Station. He currently teaches large introductory biology courses for life science majors, smaller introductory courses for non-majors, and an upper division course in economic botany and field sampling techniques. He uses case studies extensively in all of these courses. A devoted field botanist from an early age, his botanical research investigates the evolutionary ecology of plant reproductive systems and conservation biology.

Phil’s interest in STEM education reform began with his first faculty position at Agnes Scott College where he was one of the early members of the PKAL F21 group. He later accepted a position at the University of Oklahoma where he used his experience in active, inquiry-driven learning to help transform the introductory biology lecture and lab experience. He has written a number of case studies and developed videos for flipped cases and flipped labs. His pedagogical work has recently focused on development of botanical modules, tree-thinking activities, data literacy activities, and universal design features in lab exercises. He was named a Paul G. Risser Innovative Teaching Fellow and received the Longmire Prize for Teaching from the University of Oklahoma. He has also received the Thomas Henry Huxley Award from the Society for the Study of Evolution, and the Bessey Award and Postlethwait Award from the Botanical Society of America for his work in botany and evolution education.

Phil received his BS in Botany from Oklahoma State University, MS in Botany from the University of Georgia, and his PhD in Environmental, Population, and Organismic Biology from the University of Colorado.

Kathy Hoppe

STEM Education Consultant, STEMisED, Alexandria, VA, [email protected]

Kathy Hoppe is currently an Education Consultant at STEMisED and a former Education Associate at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in the Office of Education and Outreach. Kathy has over 30 years of teaching experience and was a STEM/Science Instructional Specialist and Director for the Elementary Science Program at Monroe 2-Orleans BOCES in Spencerport, New York. She also taught AP Biology, Regents Biology and Intermediate Level Science at Kendall Junior Senior High School and served as a Regional Biology Mentor and STANYS Director at Large for Biology and Professional Development. Kathy is a former Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator (2013-15) who was placed at the National Science Foundation in the Directorate of Engineering, Division of Engineering Education and Centers. In addition to practicing case-based learning, Kathy has been trained as a facilitator at the Illinois Math and Science Academy's advanced PBL, Buck Institutes PBL (Level 1, 2, coaching) and has been a National Flipped Learning presenter. Many of the strategies used in the PBL model are adapted and used in cases presented to the students at the Monroe 2-Orleans BOCES and through Invention Education with the USPTO.

Kathy received her BS and MS in Biology and Exercise Physiology from Auburn University.

Annie Prud'homme-Genereux

Director, Continuing Studies and Executive Education, Capilano University, North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, [email protected]

Annie Prud'homme-Genereux is one of the five founding faculty of Quest University Canada in Squamish, British Columbia. There, she developed dozens of interdisciplinary courses using hands-on learning on the block scheduling plan. Annie has explored problem-based learning, team-based learning, the CREATE method (which makes use of the primary scientific literature rather than textbooks to teach science), and the case study method. Using stories as a scaffold for learning, her preferred classroom approach is the case study discussion method. Annie has written dozens of case studies in the NCCSTS collection, including many co-authored with her undergraduate students. She was awarded the 2012 National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT) Four Year College and University Teaching Award. She has worked in science communication as Vice President, Science, at TELUS World of Science Edmonton. Currently she is working at the intersection of formal and informal learning as Director of Continuing Studies and Executive Education at Capilano University.

Annie received her BS in Biology (specializing in neurobiology) from McGill University and her PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of British Columbia. She is currently completing a Master of Science Writing at Johns Hopkins University and a Master of Distance Education at Athabasca University.

Matthew Rowe

Professor of Biology, The University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, [email protected]

Matt Rowe’s two main research interests are in behavioral ecology and science pedagogy. His research in behavioral ecology deals primarily with coevolution between predators and prey. In collaboration with his wife, Dr. Ashlee Rowe, he investigates the interactions between grasshopper mice (Onychomys spp.) and their biochemically protected prey, including bark scorpions (Centruroides spp.) and pinacate beetles (Eleodes spp.). Matt’s interest in science pedagogy is driven by H.G. Wells’ warning that “civilization is a race between education and catastrophe.” We now find ourselves in a “post-truth” world of our own making. Reason, logic, and evidentiary thinking (i.e., the underpinnings of science) no longer matter—reality is whatever one believes it to be. Vaccines cause autism, global warming is a hoax, the moon landings were faked. Denialism, unfortunately, seldom solves problems, and tips the scales towards catastrophe. Thus, his passion is effective science instruction for everyone, including students not majoring in the sciences. He is actively involved in efforts to find better approaches for enhancing scientific literacy, for teaching critical thinking, and for empowering students to use logic and evidence when making important decisions in their daily lives.

Matt has a BS in Psychology and both an MS and PhD in Ecology, all from the University of California at Davis.

Michèle Shuster

Associate Professor of Biology, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM, [email protected]

Michèle Shuster is a faculty member in the Biology Department at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. She teaches introductory biology in a TEAL (active learning) classroom, which facilitates the use of (partially) flipped case studies. She also teaches an introductory course in scientific thinking modeled on a CREATE Cornerstone approach (in which students learn to read and think more critically using both popular press and more scientific sources). Her upper division courses include an introduction to cancer course and a medical microbiology course. She uses case- and story-based approaches in all of her classes, as well as in Biology for a Changing World , an introductory textbook for non-science majors that she has written with two colleagues.

Michele received her BSc in Biology from Queen’s University and her PhD in Molecular Microbiology from the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Studies at Tufts University

Sandra Westmoreland

Associate Professor of Biology at Texas Woman’s University (retired) and Clinical Assistant Professor in the College of Nursing and Health Innovations at The University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX, [email protected]

Sandra Westmoreland has 25 years of experience in teaching science both as an Associate Professor of Biology at Texas Woman’s University and as a Clinical Assistant Professor in the College of Nursing and Health Innovation at The University of Texas at Arlington. A major focus of her education research is on the use of active engagement teaching and learning strategies, such as Team-Based Learning and personal answer devices in large enrollment courses to foster student achievement, critical thinking, and retention. She created the Active Engagement Academy at Texas Woman’s University to help other faculty develop high engagement teaching strategies for their own courses. Sandra is a certified Team-Based Learning Trainer and Consultant and has led many workshops at local, state, and national U.S. venues on using high engagement teaching and learning methods, including Team-Based Learning, for university faculty as well as high school and middle school faculty.

Sandra received her BS in Biology from The University of Houston, and her MS in Biology and PhD in Quantitative Biology from The University of Texas at Arlington

Conference Coordinator

Carolyn Wright

Conference Coordinator / Project Director National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science

University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY [email protected]

Carolyn Wright coordinates the activities of the National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science, including the Center's annual summer workshop and fall conference. In addition to being the central point of contact for the Center and managing its day-to-day and financial operations, Carolyn also serves as our grants administrator and manages the case study submittal process, working with case authors and other Center staff to track case manuscripts as they move through the stages of review, revision, and publication on our website.

Carolyn received her BS and MBA from the University at Buffalo.

© 1999-2024 National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science, University at Buffalo. All Rights Reserved.

View videos, articles, presentations, research papers, and other resources of interest to STEM Teacher Leaders.  

National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science

• Case Studies

This website provides access to an award-winning collection of peer-reviewed case studies. The National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science also offers a five-day summer workshop and a two-day fall conference to train faculty in the case method of teaching science. In addition, they are actively engaged in educational research to assess the impact of the case method on student learning.

National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science (NCCSTS)

The mission of the National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science (NCCSTS) at SUNY-Buffalo is to promote the development and dissemination of materials and practices for case teaching in the sciences. 

Click on the links below to learn more about-

• a bibliography of case studies,
• faculty perceptions on the benefit of teaching case studies, and
• research articles

Below is a sample work flow showing how to navigate the NCCSTS case collection. Enjoy!

1. Start at the NCCSTS homepage ( http://sciencecases.lib.buffalo.edu/cs/ ). Then click on Case Collection (red arrow, upper right).

nccsts_front_page.png

2. Clicking on Case Collection takes you to the Keyword Search page. As shown below use the dropdown arrows to narrow your search parameters. As an example I chose Organic Chemistry under Subject Heading.

nccsts_keyword_search.png

3. Below is a partial list (6/25) of case studies categorized under the Subject Heading choice, Organic Chemistry.

nccsts_search_results.png

4. Click on a case study. I chose The Case of the Missing Bees (not shown in the partial list above). Below is a partial screenshot of the case study description. To download the case study click on the DOWNLOAD CASE icon (red arrow, upper right).

nccsts_download_case.png

5. Below is the the top of the first page of the case study, The Case of the Missing Bees .

nccsts_case_front_page.png

6. And of course make sure to review and adhere to the Permitted and Standard Uses and Permissions ( http://sciencecases.lib.buffalo.edu/cs/collection/uses/ ).

nccsts_uses.png

National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science

Case study title: The Case of the Missing Bees: High Fructose Corn Syrup and Colony Collapse Disorder

Case study authors: Jeffri C. Bohlscheid and Frank J. Dinan

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Case Interviewing

A case interview is a job interview where the candidate is asked to solve a business problem. It tests both analytical and soft skills. 

Case Interviewing Resources

There are many resources available to assist students in preparing for case interviews.

The best selling book for case interviews is Case In Point by Marc Cosentino.

Marc Cosentino has 25 years of experience with case questions. He has written more than 100 cases, while coaching, preparing and training more than 100,000 students and alumni. He has written three books involving cases and consulting. Cosentino has given workshops to students at a number of colleges and MBA programs and has held training sessions for career services professionals. He has consulted with and designed cases for private sector firms, government agencies and nonprofits.

Case Interviewing Overview

• Management Consulted : Join the largest management consulting community. Sign up for their free newsletter. Watch case interviewing walkthroughs. Hear from consulting experts on the hiring process.
• Management Consulted Complete Case Prep Guide
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• Mastering the Case Interview webinar : Log into  BizLink  | Resources | Vault. Go to the Video Library | Advice Topics | Career | Case Interviewing.

Case Questions and Preparation

• CaseCoach :  The market-leading toolkit preparing you for all aspects of case and consulting interviews. Built on the expertise of a former McKinsey interviewer. Log into  BizLink  | Resources to access this tool. 
• Complete Case Prep Guide (Management Consulted)
• Boston Consulting Group (BCG) Case Interview Preparation
• McKinsey and Company Interview Resources and Tips
• Mastering the Case Interview
• How to Ace the Case Interview
• The #1 Case Interview Mistake
• Consulting Case Frameworks: How, When, and Why We Use Them
• Structuring Your Case Interview Notes
• Revenue Frameworks for Case Interviews
• CaseQuestions.com
• PrepLounge  has a selection of case studies that mirror the wide variety in real​ case interviews

Case Interviewing Books

• Case In Point by Marc Cosentino  Recommended
• Case Interview Secrets by Victor Cheng
• Crack the Case System by David Ohrvall

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• Green Building A to Z: understanding the language of green building by Jerry Yudelson ; foreword by Kevin Hydes. Call Number: Online Book Publication Date: 2007 Green Building A to Z is an informative, technically accurate, and highly visual guide to green building, for both decision-makers and interested citizens. It begins with an introduction to the importance of green buildings and a brief history of the green building movement, outlines the benefits and costs of green buildings, and shows how you can influence the spread of green buildings. The book touches on key issues, such as enhancing water conservation, reducing energy use, and creating a conservation economy.

Online Case Studies

• Rudy Bruner Award Digital Archive The Rudy Bruner Award Digital Archive (RBADA) provides access to award winning and fully documented urban design case studies. Intended as a resource for architecture students and practitioners as they study precedents in urban design, the Archive contains projects from 1987 to the present that have received the prestigious Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence.
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NCCSTS Case Collection • Teaching Resources

The publications listed below have been produced by the National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science.

Start with a Story: The Case Study Method of Teaching College Science , edited by Clyde Freeman Herreid, originally published in 2006 by NSTA Press; reprinted by the National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science (NCCSTS) in 2013. Collection of 40+ essays examining every aspect of the case study method and its use in the science classroom. The book is available for purchase through NSTA .

Science Stories You Can Count On: 51 Case Studies with Quantitative Reasoning in Biology , edited by Clyde Freeman Herreid, Nancy A. Schiller, and Ky F. Herreid, NSTA Press, 2014. Includes case studies as well as tips and techniques for promoting quantitative reasoning in biology. The book is available for purchase through NSTA or from Amazon .

Science Stories: Using Case Studies to Teach Critical Thinking , edited by Clyde Freeman Herreid, Nancy A. Schiller, and Ky F. Herreid, NSTA Press, 2012. A compilation of case studies with questions and teaching notes that can be used to help develop STEM students’ critical thinking skills. The book is available for purchase through NSTA or from Amazon .

The NCCSTS has produced two training videos with supporting brochures on the case method and its use in science education.

Use of Case Studies and Group Discussion in Science Education This hands-on video shows the classical method of running a case study class used by Harvard law and business school professors for almost 100 years—the art of using successful group discussion. In 26 minutes you will learn how to ensure that your large group discussion is not a free-for-all or an exercise in futility as you try to get students to say something intelligent. Preparation and control are the key ingredients. For preparation students must read a case study ahead of time. But it is more than that. In this video, which focuses on a case study involving genetically modified food, you will see how an actual class is given a “warm-up” by breaking into small groups to discuss the reading they’ve done ahead of time. Then you will see how a large group discussion is successfully controlled. It’s the important, yet subtle, use of appropriate questions, body language, blackboard planning, and summarization that makes it all work. Video on YouTube | Access the video booklet (PDF)

Team Learning: Cooperative Learning in the Science Classroom Having students work in small groups is arguably the best way to teach science and this includes teaching science using cases. But how can we run a classroom this way? Here is one answer using a method called Team Learning. This 26-minute video shows you how to establish groups, how to set up a grading system that encourages group participation, how to answer students’ questions and, most importantly, why this is a superior method of teaching. Video on YouTube | Access the video booklet (PDF)

Bibliographies

• Bibliography on Case Study Teaching in Science compiled by Nancy A. Schiller and Clyde Freeman Herreid.

Selected Articles by Clyde F. Herreid and other members of the NCCSTS

Getting started.

• Case Studies in Science: A Novel Method of Science Education
• What is a Case? Bringing to Science Education the Established Teaching Tool of Law and Medicine
• My Favorite Case and What Makes It So
• What Makes a Good Case? Some Basic Rules of Good Storytelling Help Teachers Generate Student Excitement in the Classroom
• Sorting Potatoes for Miss Bonner: Bringing Order to Case Study Methodology Through a Classification Scheme
• Can Case Studies Be Used to Teach Critical Thinking?
• A Peek Behind the Curtain of Tenure and Promotion

Writing Cases

• Cooking With Betty Crocker: A Recipe for Case Writing
• The Way of Flesch: The Art of Writing Readable Cases
• Twixt Fact and Fiction: A Case Writer’s Dilemma
• Let’s Get Personal: Putting Personality into your Cases
• Puttin’ on the Ritz: How to Put Science into Cases
• Putting Words in Their Mouth: Writing Dialogue for Case Studies
• And All That Jazz: An Essay Extolling the Virtues of Writing Case Teaching Notes
• Exercises in Style: Is There a Best Way to Write a Case Study?
• The Chef Returns: A Recipe for Writing Great Case Studies
• Creating a Video Case Study

Teaching with Cases

• Don't! What Not to Do When Teaching Cases
• Return to Mars: How Not to Teach a Case Study
• Assembling a Case Study Tool Kit: 10 Tools for Teaching With Cases
• The Interrupted Case Method
• Case Studies and the Flipped Classroom
• A Chat with the Survey Monkey: Case Studies and the Flipped Classroom
• Intimate Debate Technique
• "Clicker" Cases: Introducing Case Study Teaching into Large Classrooms
• Structured Controversy: A Case Study Strategy
• Trigger Cases Versus Capstone Cases
• The Boy Scouts Said Its Best: Some Advice on Case Study Teaching and Student Prepara-tion
• Naming Names
• Science, Pseudoscience, and Nonsense

Cases and Cooperative Learning

• The Bee and the Groundhog: Lessons in Cooperative Learning
• I Never Knew Joe Paterno: An Essay on Teamwork and Love
• The Wisdom of Groups

Grading Case Work

• When Justice Peeks: Evaluating Students in Case Study Teaching

Start with a Story: The Case Study Method of Teaching College Science

Edited by Clyde Freeman Herreid

Originally published in 2006 by NSTA Press; reprinted by the National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science (NCCSTS) in 2013. Collection of 40+ essays examining every aspect of the case study method and its use in the science classroom. The book is available for purchase through NSTA .

Science Stories You Can Count On: 51 Case Studies with Quantitative Reasoning in Biology

Edited by Clyde Freeman Herreid, Nancy A. Schiller, and Ky F. Herreid, NSTA Press, 2014.

Includes case studies as well as tips and techniques for promoting quantitative reasoning in biology. The book is available for purchase through NSTA or from Amazon .

Science Stories: Using Case Studies to Teach Critical Thinking

Edited by Clyde Freeman Herreid, Nancy A. Schiller, and Ky F. Herreid, NSTA Press, 2012.

A compilation of case studies with questions and teaching notes that can be used to help develop STEM students’ critical thinking skills. The book is available for purchase through NSTA or from Amazon .

Use of Case Studies and Group Discussion in Science Education

This hands-on video shows the classical method of running a case study class used by Harvard law and business school professors for almost 100 years—the art of using successful group discussion. In 26 minutes you will learn how to ensure that your large group discussion is not a free-for-all or an exercise in futility as you try to get students to say something intelligent. Preparation and control are the key ingredients. For preparation students must read a case study ahead of time. But it is more than that. In this video, which focuses on a case study involving genetically modified food, you will see how an actual class is given a “warm-up” by breaking into small groups to discuss the reading they’ve done ahead of time. Then you will see how a large group discussion is successfully controlled. It’s the important, yet subtle, use of appropriate questions, body language, blackboard planning, and summarization that makes it all work.

Video on YouTube | Access the video booklet (PDF)

Team Learning: Cooperative Learning in the Science Classroom

Having students work in small groups is arguably the best way to teach science and this includes teaching science using cases. But how can we run a classroom this way? Here is one answer using a method called Team Learning. This 26-minute video shows you how to establish groups, how to set up a grading system that encourages group participation, how to answer students’ questions and, most importantly, why this is a superior method of teaching.

The articles listed below are selected by Clyde F. Herreid and other members of the NCCSTS.

Buffalo Bayou Park

Format Full City Houston State/Province TX Country USA Metro Area Houston Project Type District/Corridor/Community Location Type Other Central City Land Uses Connected Regional Bicycle Paths Event Space Open space Restaurant Visitor Center Water Uses/Amenities Wetland Keywords Amphitheater Dog park Flash flood area Linear park Park Park system Playground Public art Public-private partnership Resilient design Restaurants Stormwater management Trails ULI Global Awards for Excellence 2017 Winner Visitor center Waterways Site Size 160 acres acres hectares Date Started 2010 Date Opened 2015

Buffalo Bayou Park is a 160-acre linear park stretching for 2.3 miles west of downtown Houston, along the region’s primary river. A $58 million capital campaign transformed the park from a neglected drainage ditch into a citywide showpiece. Its ten acres of trails wind past seven major public art installations, three gardens of native flora, and over four pedestrian bridges; two festival lawns, a dog park, a skate park, a nature play area, a restaurant, and an art exhibit hall draw visitors from afar. Structures were carefully sited above the path of potential floods, while park elements within the valley were designed and built to be submerged during future floods—requiring cleanup, rather than reconstruction, after the inevitable floods.

The nonprofit Buffalo Bayou Partnership orchestrated a joint effort between public sector partners and private donors: private donors funded the park, in tandem with public sector improvements to the river channel and adjacent streets, and with a plan for ongoing maintenance. The park’s completion was a milestone that launched a broader effort to reimagine the possibilities of streams across the region.

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Project address

105 Sabine St. Houston, Texas 77007

https://buffalobayou.org/visit/destination/buffalo-bayou-park/

Master plans:  http://issuu.com/buffalobayou

Buffalo Bayou Partnership

City of Houston

Harris County Flood Control District

Financial partners

Downtown Redevelopment Authority (Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone #3)

Kinder Foundation

Landscape architect and planning

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Millis Development & Construction, Inc.

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ADA consultant

Advanced Design Solutions

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United Engineers

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L'Observatoire

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Hunt & Hunt Engineering

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ETM Associates

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Natural Learning Initiative

Specialty garden design

Reed Hilderbrand

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McKim and Creed

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Marek Hill Design

Interviewees

Kerri da Silva, associate, SWA Group

Guy Hagstette, director of parks and civic projects, Kinder Foundation; former project manager, Buffalo Bayou Park

Anne Olson, president, Buffalo Bayou Partnership

Tim Peterson, principal, SWA Group

Michael Robinson, associate, SWA Group

Billy Grayson Executive Director Center for Sustainability and Economic Performance

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• Arts & Entertainment

At Circus Smirkus, coming to Maine on Aug. 5-6, kids entertain kids

The Vermont-based family circus will stage shows in Cumberland, Kennebunkport and Fryeburg.

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Sayad Moudachirou brought his daughters to see Circus Smirkus last year, figuring it would be a fun family thing to do.

It was. But he also left the show with a couple aspiring circus performers on his hands.

CIRCUS SMIRKUS

WHEN : 1 and 6 p.m. Aug. 5 and 6

WHERE : Cumberland Fairgrounds, Cumberland

HOW MUCH : $25 to $40

INFO : portlandovations.org

WHAT ELSE : Circus Smirkus will also be performing Aug. 8-9 in Kennebunkport and Aug. 11-13 in Fryeburg. For more info, go to smirkus.org.

“As soon as the show ended, they wanted to enroll in circus camp. They appreciated that all the performers are still kids, and that makes it so relatable,” said Moudachirou of Scarborough.

Circus Smirkus will be back in Maine for more than a dozen shows under the big top this summer. The Maine tour begins with four shows at Cumberland Fairgrounds on Aug. 5 and 6.  There will also be four shows at Rockin’ Horse Stables in in Kennebunkport on Aug. 8-9 and five shows at Fryeburg Fairgrounds on Aug. 11-13.

Moudachirou will be there with his daughters, Maya, 9 and Shoshana, 7. Both are interested in taking classes at their local neighborhood circus school, The Gym Dandies Circus School of Maine. Last year, when Moudachirou and his family saw Circus Smirkus, the show was at Payson Park in Portland. But this year, the presenter of the Portland-area shows, Portland Ovations, picked the Cumberland Fairgrounds to provide more parking and a better site for the giant tent, which holds 750 people.

Circus Smirkus features performers between 10 and 18 years old.   Photo by Justin Miel

Circus Smirkus is a traveling advertisement for the new generation of circuses, focused on young, skilled performers who take classes and study things like juggling, acrobatics or unicycling. The days when circuses were known largely for lion tamers and elephant riders are gone. Advertisement

Circus Smirkus was founded in 1987, as an arts and education organization, training performers, offering camps and classes, and putting on family shows. It’s based in Vermont.

The performers are between 10 and 18 years old, and this year’s tour theme is “The Imaginarium,” a magical toy shop that comes to life with performers taking the roles of tumbling teddy bears, high-flying marionettes or a jumpy Jack-in-the-Box.

One of the performers coming to Maine is Cora Williams, 18, of Ithaca, New York, in her third summer season with the circus. She took lessons at a circus school near her home, then studied at a circus school in Montreal.

Circus Smirkus, based in Vermont, is a circus for kids by kids. Photo by Justin Miel

She remembers seeing traditional circuses as a kid, including Ringling Bros. and Big Apple Circus. But when she first saw Circus Smirkus, she realized entertaining people under the big top was something she could do sooner, rather than later.

Williams said she loves the fact that when she does a show, she could be inspiring the next generation of circus performers.

“The nice thing is this is a show for kids by kids, but we don’t dumb it down. I love it when the kids (in the audience) come and talk to us,” said Williams. “We have lots of little kids who come up to us. That’s how I got into it. We teach them some tricks, and we get lots of hugs.” Advertisement

Williams says it took her three or four months to learn unicycle tricks. She can do spins and pirouettes and “wheel walking,” where it seems as if the cycle’s one wheel is walking, one step at a time. She’s also an acrobat, standing on others’ shoulders and being flipped and tossed through the air.

Because she’s 18, Williams is “graduating” from Smirkus. She’s excited to be part of a “new generation reimagining what circus is” without animals and without limits. She says that young performers go on to careers using their circus skills in a variety of places and fields, including with touring circuses, as part of cruise ship shows, or in companies that put on shows for businesses.

Circus Smirkus is coming to Maine this month. Photo by Justin Miel

Moudachirou said his is one of about five Scarborough families he knows that are going to the show this year. Some went last year, and some heard from others about how engaging the performances are for kids.

He said that, as a parent, he’s glad to see groups like Circus Smirkus and The Gym Dandies offering a fun activity and a chance to learn a skill, besides the traditional offerings of sports or music lessons for kids. He also thinks that from what he’s seen so far at Circus Smirkus, the performers learn more than just juggling or acrobatics.

“For me, as a parent, it was great to see the performers taking ownership of what they were doing. It goes beyond performing; it’s almost about leadership,” Moudachirou said of the show he saw last year. “They were going into the crowd and talking to people, sharing their excitement.”

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Study: Employment outcomes worse in states restricting criminal records-based discrimination

Policies restricting criminal records discrimination are associated with worse outcomes not only for fathers with criminal records, but also for Black fathers who have never had criminal justice contact, according to new UB research.

By Bert Gambini

Release Date: December 6, 2021

BUFFALO, N.Y. – Many states have enacted polices to prohibit employers from discriminating against people with criminal records. Yet fathers living in states with more of these policy protections in place were less likely to be working than their counterparts in less regulated states, according to the results of a new study by a University at Buffalo sociologist.

The research published in the journal Social Problems contributes to a growing body of evidence suggesting that trying to address discrimination on the basis of criminal records without addressing parallel race-based discrimination typically fails to fix either problem, and could even worsen racial disparities.

“These policies are not associated with better employment outcomes for men with records,” says Allison Dwyer Emory, PhD, the study’s author and an assistant professor of sociology in the UB College of Arts and Sciences.

“In fact, they’re associated with worse outcomes, not only for fathers with criminal records, but also for Black fathers who have never had criminal justice contact. White fathers with records faced some employment disadvantages, but the particular state policy was largely unrelated to their ability to find work.”

The paper looked exclusively at how these state anti-discrimination policies affect fathers.

“It’s appealing to put these broad policies on the books expecting a panacea to solve problems, but my study shows that establishing a policy to address criminal records-based discrimination is at best not going to solve the problem and, at worst, might end up contributing to further racial discrimination,” says Dwyer Emory, an expert in criminology and social policy. “The main explanations presented in this larger body of research point to employers’ racial bias and structural racism rather than the qualifications of applicants.

“Employers could be responding to restrictions on their ability to use criminal record information by intentionally using race as a proxy for record status, or merely default to racial stereotypes about criminality the absence of evidence to the contrary like a clean record check.”

Criminal justice involvement is pervasive in the United States. More than 6.5 million Americans are under the supervision of the criminal justice system on any given day, and nearly 1 out of every 3 adults in the U.S. has a criminal record. The figures include a disproportionate number of men from racial minorities, the majority of whom are fathers.

People with criminal records face legal barriers, stigma and limited economic opportunities, which is why some states do not allow employers to access criminal records as part of the hiring process or as a condition for employment, although even states with the most protective policies leave room for exceptions.

The motivation for these policies is clear: Having a job makes criminal justice involvement and future criminal activity less likely, but criminal justice involvement makes it harder to find a job.

“When I see that kind of a cycle I see an opportunity for a disruptive intervention, but the policies we’re putting in place are not disrupting that cycle,” says Dwyer Emory. “Discrimination on the basis of criminal records is a problem. It’s a problem for those with records. It’s a problem for their families. It’s a problem for individual communities and the larger society – it affects everyone.”

Dwyer Emory merged two data sets for the study. The first set was from a previous research project created in collaboration with researchers from Rutgers, Boston University and Cornell that examined how state policies affect fathers’ ability to engage with their families. That was combined with self-reported data from fathers in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS), a longitudinal study following nearly 5,000 children born (1998-2000) in large U.S. cities and their parents over a decade with five waves of data collection.

“The FFCWS is one of the best longitudinal datasets for studying the implications of criminal justice involvement for hard-to-reach families. Only parents were sampled, although the findings likely generalize to men without children given how common parenthood is among criminal justice involved populations,” says Dwyer Emory. “This data was not originally intended to study criminal justice contact, but the sampling strategy meant that many of the fathers in the study were at high risk. In my study nearly 40% had contact consistent with a criminal record.”

The study examined six policies (in place from 1996-2014) identified by the Legal Action Center as barriers to employment for individuals with criminal records, including bans denying employment or obtaining a professional license to individuals with criminal records by private employers, public employers, licensing agencies and considering arrest records not leading to conviction in the same three categories.

“This study does not suggest that all legislation is doomed to failure,” says Dwyer Emory. “Let’s first consider enforcement. Let’s be certain that anti-discrimination laws are accompanied by a robust infrastructure that’s prepared to address complaints of discrimination.”

Dwyer Emory also asks that policymakers consider the purpose of a criminal record.

“These records are obviously not all equal: They include a range of offenses from serious to trivial; they linger long after any official sanctioning or rehabilitation is complete; and they’re not always correct, a problem made worse by the inherent difficulty of expunging or correcting records.”

She also mentions that previous research suggests that old records and records of minor offenses are not particularly predictive of future behavior.

“If the purpose of a criminal record is to indicate the likelihood of committing a future crime or the likelihood of being a bad employee, then we need to be more critical of the kinds of information we’re looking for in that history,” she says.

Funding for this study was provided by the Fatherhood Research and Practice Network.

Media Contact Information

Bert Gambini News Content Manager Humanities, Economics, Social Sciences, Social Work, Libraries Tel: 716-645-5334 [email protected]