Overview

The Global Poverty and Practice (GPP) program is an undergraduate minor, administered by The Blum Center for Developing Economies.

The GPP Minor gives students an opportunity to examine contemporary forms of poverty, wealth, and inequality through academic course work and practical experience. The program trains students to critically and historically engage with complex issues of poverty and inequality, equipping them with methodologies and skills of engagement, and encouraging the reflexivity necessary for meaningful practice. Central to the minor is a fieldwork opportunity in which students connect theories and practices of poverty action through partnering with non-governmental or community organizations, government agencies, or other poverty or development programs in California and around the world.

Students graduating with a minor in Global Poverty and Practice will be able to demonstrate a basic understanding of the following:

1. Scholarly approaches to understanding poverty, wealth, and inequality in a historical and global context
2. Knowledge of international development and domestic poverty alleviation policies, programs, institutions, and social movements
3. Critical engagement in public debates about poverty and poverty action through written texts, as well as through the use of social, digital, and visual media
4.  Knowledge of the history and contemporary politics of poverty and inequality in a particular place or world region, in preparation for the practice requirement of the minor
5. Analytical and practical skills gained through practice experience in a particular sector of poverty action (e.g., agricultural and rural development, urban poverty, public health, human rights, legal systems, education, energy resources, and sustainable technology), at various scales (e.g., community, global) and in various forms (e.g., government policy, social movements)
6. An understanding of different modalities and relations of power involved in poverty action developed through historically informed analytical skills, practice experience, and critical reflection

Undergraduate Program

Global Poverty and Practice: Minor

Graduate Program

There is no graduate program in Global Poverty and Practice

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Courses

Global Poverty and Practice

Faculty and Instructors

+ Indicates this faculty member is the recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award.

Faculty

Alice M. Agogino, Faculty Director, Blum Center for Developing Economies. New product development, computer-aided design & databases, theory & methods, intelligent learning systems, information retrieval & data mining, digital libraries, multiobjective & strategic product, nonlinear optimization, probabilistic modeling, supervisory.
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+ Maximilian Auffhammer, Professor. Climate change, econometrics, air pollution, environmental economics, energy economics.
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Jenna Burrell, Associate Professor.

J. Bradford Delong, Professor. Economics, globalization, economic growth, convergence, economics of post WWII Europe.

Ashok Gadgil, Professor. Fuel-efficient stoves, indoor air quality, energy efficiency, developing countries, drinking water, buildings energy efficiency.
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Aihwa Ong, Professor. Cultural anthropology, anthropology, transnationalism, citizenship, global cities, migration, Southeast Asia, urbanism.
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Isha Ray, Associate Professor. Water and development; Gender, water and sanitation; technology and development.
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Robert Reich, Professor. Industrial Policy, Labor and Employment, Leadership and Management, Politics, Poverty, Inequality, Leadership and Social Change, Macroeconomic Policy, Social and Economic Policy.
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Arthur L. Reingold, Professor. Public health, epidemiology, infectious diseases, biostatistics.
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S. Shankar Sastry, Professor. Computer science, robotics, arial robots, cybersecurity, cyber defense, homeland defense, nonholonomic systems, control of hybrid systems, sensor networks, interactive visualization, robotic telesurgery, rapid prototyping.
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Nora Silver, Adjunct Professor.

+ Laura D'Andrea Tyson, Professor. High-technology competition, US industrial and technology policies, international economy, US trade policy, US competitiveness, emerging market economies, multinational companies in the US economy, gender gap (economic participation, educational attainment, political empowerment and health), research and development tax credit.
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Lecturers

Fatmir Haskaj, Lecturer. Political economy, development, critical theory and urban studies.

+ Khalid Kadir, Lecturer. Pathogen removal in natural water and wastewater treatment systems, water and sanitation in developing countries, role of experts in poverty action and development, political economy, engineering pedagogy for social justice.
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Cecilia Cissell Lucas, Lecturer. Racial justice and decolonization, poverty alleviation, reparations, education, the arts, and social justice activism. .
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Clare Talwalker, Lecturer. Qualitative methods, global poverty action, human rights, South Asia and economic anthropology.
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