Welcome Back

Hello Verons! Perhaps you have received an invitation to join the blog and so are checking out the seminar site for the first time. If so, welcome! Just follow the prompts of the e-mail invitation. This will allow you to join the blog, which you must do in order to post and comment. We will go over this in our first class tomorrow. If you are having any problems with the e-mail invite/joining the blog, let me know tomorrow and we'll get you on board.

Good luck finishing up that book review!

Welcome New Vera Fellows

And congratulations to our new Vera alumni! Please check out the Alumni section of the blog (on the right) to see what Vera alumni will be doing next. Many students won awards and some will be continuing work at their agencies. Way to go, everyone, and keep us updated about your plans as they evolve.

I'd like to welcome our new Vera Fellows:

Jamie Bridgewater, an English major and a Philosophy minor.

Joseph Dunnigan, a Criminal Justice major.

Christina Gonzalez, a Deviant Behavior and Social Control major.

Chad Infante, a CUNY BA student, majoring in Literature and Philosophy.

Nadiya Kostyuk, an International Criminal Justice major and Economics minor.

Lenecia Lewis, an International Criminal Justice major.

Alexander Nechayev, a Justice Studies major and a Philosophy minor.

Jessica Rivera, an International Criminal Justice major and a History minor.

Jose Rosario, a Government major and a Law and History minor.

Katie Spoerer, a BA/MA Criminal Justice major.

We are in the process of matching students with agencies, so make sure you respond promptly to Professor Stein's e-mails!

Congratulations, again, and have a great summer!

Euphemisms: Helpful AND Harmful?

Hey everyone,

This is Emile's post. She was having trouble posting on the blog.

In the article, "Euphemisms, Dysphemisms Blunt the Truth," Howard Richler writes, "euphemisms can soothe...and for certain subjects, such as sex, euphemisms seem essential." Based on the discussion in class, it's safe to say that we all have come across beneficial euphemisms throughout the semester, whether it was during the seminar or at our internships.

However, our discussion left off where I read the response to a question that I posed for Zach, a social worker at the Guardianship Project. The question was "Do you think euphemisms, ultimately help your clients?" Zach's response was both yes and no. Yes, because when discussing difficult issues, such as death to a client, euphemisms allow the conversation to be manageable. No, because some euphemisms can be counterproductive and allow clients to avoid or hide discussing certain issues, such as domestic violence. Zach has found that when talking to clients being blunt is the best way to go. Euphemisms can sometimes cause misunderstandings.

So my question is, do you think that euphemisms can be, helpful and harmful, or both? Do you think euphemisms should be used depending on the person you are talking to? Can you think of an example where one euphemism can be both helpful and harmful?

Justice on a budget

“Overhead…the word itself is disparaging.”
What’s the public opinion on “overhead”? People tend to judge overhead on how they see nonprofits in general: that 100% of donations should go directly to the problem it seeks to help, and that workers are essentially volunteers. As Manny said, the word “non-profit” makes you think there’s no monetary profit expected. So we’re taught to separate overhead (like having decent lighting, rental space, ability to hire talented individuals to run the programs) from the cause. While it’s bold to say we should trust that 100% of donations go to the best interests of the organization, the alternative is that we see someone like the receptionist as having NOTHING to do with bettering the social problem an organization seeks to eradicate. Very simply, a receptionist keeps the organization of an organization. If she does her job well, everyone else can do their jobs that much more efficiently: the program directors are kept on top of their meetings to advocate for the cause, potential clients and funders hear the pleasant voice of the receptionist on the other end of the phone line, instead of the caseworker running between clients and phone calls.
If you want to be a social entrepreneur, working in the nonprofit sector is a most viable objective. But we know we’re entering a field that gives us mutually exclusive choices. Individuals in the NP sector are paid 11% lower on average, for someone in similar position in the for-profit sector with similar qualifications and this discrepancy is larger at higher positions. All 10 of us have high GPAs and we’re connected to professionals (our “references”) who vouch for our talent and knowledge base – without either of these things we wouldn’t have gotten this Fellowship. Still, we have to concede to the notion that the need for our skills in the helping sector will provide us a paycheck 11% lower annually than we would get if we worked for Budweiser or Loreal. Others before us have realized it: three-fourths of non-profit executives say that they’ll be leaving their position in the next 5 years due to anxiety over shaky financial stability. Why do you think it’s so easy for for-profit businesses to validate administrative costs, and not non-profits? Repeating myself from class, what do you see at the connection between “overhead” and maintaining the status quo?
Here are my thoughts on that question: When the pressure to “make the numbers” for a funder’s requirements become priority number one, an organization finds it inconvenient to pay attention to its own needs. Furthermore, they have no real incentive to. When we are forced into using efficiency measures that reduce hard work to either a “success” or a “failure” – THAT is disparaging. Efficiency measures such as these prevent charities from investing adequately in infrastructure. As Dan Pallotta states, this act “institutionalizes what [we] seek to eradicate.”

Chatting About the Future

After a hard week's work for you Verons (the Tuesday event and Thursday's seminar), I want to use the blog this week to process any thoughts/concerns/fears/dilemmas you have had as a result of thinking about your futures. So please comment on anything that you have been thinking about, whether that be something that was said/asked during the event, something that was said/asked/not asked during the session on your resumes, or something that you have been mulling over in terms of your paper.

For some of you, the next few weeks represent the end of your college careers. For all of us, it represents the end of Vera Seminar.2. Feel free to reflect on any aspect of these experiences, or concerns about future experiences. It might be nice for you to write shorter comments, but to check in and comment more frequently this week since we all might be seeking feedback.

Equality for all vs. prosperity for some

President Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in a final sense a theft from those who are hungry and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed”. What do you guys think should take precedence, social issues at home or our “national security” and position on the world stage? Some argue that social inequalities will always exist so attempting to wipe them out is a waste. All we can do is alleviate the symptoms of social inequality as they manifest. While this argument is certainly logical, is it truly the best policy? Have we even tried addressing social needs with the same fervor we afford corporate gains?

It is sad to realize that a great deal of the prosperity we enjoy in this country is due to our militarism abroad. However, those who benefit the most from this militarism are the private security forces (as in mercenaries) and weapons makers. The benefits we gain from these actions are secondary and minimal when comapred to the capital gains of the military-industrial complex.

Should we focus on social problems that indeed may never go away or may just be replaced by different social problems? Or rather, should we focus on maintaining our security abroad along with our national interests? These are very different ways of tackling the economy. In theory, the former will provide for all and help society’s neediest, while the latter will bring about greater security and economic prosperity (also in theory). These two ideas do not have to be mutually exclusive. I ask this question however, because neoliberalism treats them in such a way. According to neoliberal policy, the government is to pull away from social issues and contract these tasks to non-profits so it can focus on protecting corporate interest and bringing the free market to new regions. Is there a way to make our country secure and protect our national interests (let’s they pretend they indeed are “national” and not corporate) that does not involve militarism?

What do you guys think? Can we afford to shift interests as a nation?

Is awareness enough?

Although there's quite a few studies on compassion fatigue among therapists that work with the chronically ill, it's also an issue that affects other therapists that work with other populations (i.e. substance abusers, juveniles, etc). On Thursday we talked about compassion fatigue and tried to tie this phenomenon with what we have observed at our internships. There's often a confusion between what is compassion fatigue and burnout. According to Figley (2002), "compassion fatigue, like any other kind of fatigue, reduces our capacity or our interest in bearing the suffering of others"(1434). On the other hand, burnout is "a state of physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion caused by long term involvement in emotionally demanding situations" (Figley, 2002, pg. 1436). Compassion fatigue is prominent in cases where a therapist is empathizing with their clients to a point where their exhausted and they cannot continue being compassionate. Burnout can affect anyone when they're exhausted from their work. Since compassion fatigue is something that is more prominent in the human services/social work field (which is usually comprised of mostly woman), do you think gender plays a role in who's more susceptible? Also, do you think educating therapists of this phenomenon is enough?