College of Public Service
Research Centers

Center for Public Service Ethics

This Center focuses on best practices in the training of leaders in ethical decision making as well as researching organizational dynamics that contribute to or detract from an ethical decision making culture. The Center, working with the University's well-established Emerson Electric Center for Business Ethics and Center for Health Care Ethics, develops curricular tools for teaching ethics across urban professions. It also provides consultation and training services to government and not-for-profit entities.

Center for Community Research and Renewal

This Center researches and analyzes best practices related to the integrating tasks of economic, physical, and educational renewal for targeted central city neighborhoods. It is linked with the newly established Urban Planning and Real Estate Development degree and with the Professional Development School Project. The Center focuses particularly on how the business, educational, social service, and grass roots organizations of an area can be linked more effectively to revitalize urban communities. This Center is also linked to the neighborhood programs coordinator through the College of Public Service.

Midwest Center for Policy Research and Evaluation

The Midwest Center for Policy Research and Evaluation (MCPRE) operates as a research unit within the College of Public Service at Saint Louis University. The Center is dedicated to the provision of policy and evaluation research services to all levels of government, nonprofit organizations, and private foundations. The MCPRE is organized in a manner that promotes working partnerships between its research and evaluation clients and teams of research and evaluation faculty at Saint Louis University. The MCPRE is capable of responding to the research and evaluation needs of local, state, and federal government, private foundations, and non-profit agencies and organizations.

The specific research and evaluation objectives of MCPRE are to address the policy issues and problems that confront metropolitan regions. These issues and problems include urban and regional economic development, strategies to sustain urban neighborhoods, nonprofit management and faith-based community development, urban educational policy and leadership, crime and criminal justice policy, families and children at risk, public health policy, and metropolitan governance and regionalism. The ongoing research activities and evaluation services of the Center include: (1) the development and execution of comprehensive research and evaluation services for the public and private sectors, and non-profit organizations, (2) the development and articulation of policy innovations and alternatives for public officials and community leaders, (3) the dissemination of research and written reports addressing issues central to the public interest, and (4) the provision of forums and venues where public officials and community leaders can seek resolution of issues central to the public interest.

For more information about the Midwest Center, please contact Scott Cummings, Ph.D., director of the Center, at 314-977-3934 or via e-mail at: sbcumm01@slu.edu.

Center for Organizational Leadership and Renewal

The mission of the Center for Organizational Leadership and Renewal (COLR) is to assist organizations to build their knowledge and capacity to learn, adapt and renew themselves to more effectively achieve their organizational objects. To accomplish this mission COLR is a resource that offers:

• Collaborative research opportunities to advance organizational learning
  
• Targeted workshops for data driven improvement
  
• Facilitated planning sessions to reframe issues and develop new strategies
  
• Discussion forums on selected organizational learning problems
  
• Professional development programs for organizational leadership.

To date 14 different faculty from nine departments and four colleges have been actively involved in COLR activities.

COLR has demonstrated its commitment to multidisciplinary collaboration through its activities. For example, COLR recently submitted a $1.3 million research grant to the Department of Education. The grant includes faculty from four different departments. COLR has been providing services to the St. Louis Public Schools with faculty from three departments. It has conducted a series of presentations called Discussion Forums. Faculty from nine departments and graduate students from five departments have taken part in this series. Last summer COLR delivered a 3-day workshop with faculty from four departments. These are only some of the multidisciplinary activities conducted by COLR in the past year.

For more information about the Center for Organizational Leadership and Renewal, please contact the co-directors: Bob Mai at 314-977-1980 or e-mail: mair@slu.edu; or Mary Domahidy at 314-977-3934 or e-mail: domahimr@slu.edu.

RegionWise

RegionWise envisions a vital St. Louis metropolitan area where the possibilities for all people are maximized through the power of knowledge sharing, partnership, and monitoring the state of the region. To realize this vision, RegionWise uses evidence based approaches to promote positive regional change.

The organization serves the people of the St. Louis region by building a clearinghouse of regional information, measuring regional progress, and collaborating with other organizations to promote public involvement in regional policy discussion and action.

RegionWise complements the renewal that St. Louis 2004 began. As St. Louis 2004 heralded innovation and the inspiration of civic commitment, RegionWise developed a structure to focus innovation and support a continuous improvement process. Its work is framed by goals originally defined by the St. Louis 2004 civic forums:

• People Safe and Healthy
  
• Children Prepared for Life
  
• Economic Security and Opportunity
  
• Social Justice and Racial Equality
  
• Enriched and Vital Lives

The St. Louis Region includes 16 counties in the metropolitan area. In Illinois, these are: Bond, Calhoun, Clinton, Jersey, Macoupin, Madison, Monroe, and St. Clair. In Missouri, the included counties are: Franklin, Jefferson, Lincoln, St. Charles, St. Louis, Warren, Washington, and St. Louis City. RegionWise releases reports that track local issues in their regional context.

For more information about RegionWise, please contact Barbara Holmes, Ph.D. at 314-977-3939 or e-mail her at: holmesbj@slu.edu

The Stupp GIS Laboratory and its resources offer a unique environment for teaching, research and service. Data collections contained in the laboratory represent physical, social and cultural issues and topics. Using GIS technologies and applications, datasets are organized spatially, by location of place, and provide for analyses in decision-making.

The GIS Laboratory supports instruction, research and services in the department of public policy studies and seeks to further the understanding, utility and application of spatial data. The laboratory is available as a resource to members of the Saint Louis University community, public and private entities, and not-for-profit organizations.

For more information about the GIS Laboratory, please contact Gary Higgs, Ph.D., director of the Lab, at 314-977-3384 or e-mail him at: higgsgb@slu.edu.

Emmett J. and Mary Martha Doerr Center for Social Justice Education & Research

The Emmett J. and Mary Martha Doerr Center for Social Justice Education and Research, an entity within the Saint Louis University School of Social Work, is an internationally recognized intellectual clearinghouse and a moral force of excellence advocating the advancement of a just society for all, especially the poor and vulnerable. Through innovative projects and original research, the Center creates knowledge, generates ethical perspectives and expands service systems that encourage investments in the social development of people.

Within the School of Social Work, the Center seeks to:

• Promote social justice within social work education
  
• Encourage students to become practitioners of social justice
  
• Support faculty-community partnerships for social justice research