THE ABELL AWARD IN URBAN POLICY
Project: ABELL AWARD IN URBAN POLICY
Sponsor: The Abell Foundation
IPS Staff: Sandra Newman and Laura Vernon-Russell
Purpose and Approach
The Abell Award in Urban Policy is an annual competition for the best student paper that provides a cogent analysis of a critical policy issue facing the City of Baltimore and proposes well-reasoned, feas-ible solutions. The competition is open to matriculated students at all Baltimore-area colleges and uni-versities. The submissions are blind-reviewed by a panel of distinguished judges. The first prize award is $4,000, and the second prize award is $1,000. (If there is only one winner, the award is $5,000.) The winning papers are distributed to key policymakers and opinion leaders and are posted on the IPS and Abell Foundation websites.
Results
Two Johns Hopkins students shared the 2009 award: Natalie Draisin (B.A. in Public Health-Social Sciences expected 2010) for her paper, “A Lighter Future for Baltimore City: Using Schools in the Fight Against Childhood Obesity,” and Harvir Kaur (B.A. in Political Science expected 2011) for her paper, “State of Emergency: Providing Oral Health Care Services to Low-Income and Medicaid Popu-lations in Baltimore City.”
Topics of previous award-winning papers include linking drug treatment and employment services, addressing arrests ending in release without charges, detention alternatives in the juvenile justice sys-tem, reusing vacant properties; youth violence prevention, zero-tolerance school discipline policies and police tactics, reducing the Latina teen birth rate, and reducing the city’s infant mortality rate. All pa-pers appear on the IPS website.
