|
BY
MARINA DUNDJERSKI
UCLA Today Staff
As a young boy growing up in the ’50s, Duncan
Lindsey and his twin brother migrated back and forth from Miami
in winter to the Adirondacks in summertime. “We had the
best of both worlds,” said Lindsey, social welfare professor
and new chair of the Academic Senate.
But unlike tourists merely seeking more temperate
climates, the boys were following their mother, a single parent
who worked tirelessly waiting tables in resorts and hotels.
“At the time, my brother and I really hadn’t
a clue as to what she was doing,” Lindsey said. “Now,
I think it was amazing that she raised two kids on her own, which
wasn’t the easiest thing in the world.”
As he grew older, Lindsey became increasingly
intrigued by children’s poverty and social welfare issues.
Why did some public institutions seem to work across broad purposes
while others were ineffective?
Today, those questions continue to shape his teaching,
research and much of his spare time. In fact, his interest in
helping poor kids become future Bruins extends to his work as
senate chair. One of his goals is to ensure that “barriers
aren’t in place to prevent people from disadvantaged backgrounds
from entering the university.”
Said Lindsey: “I have a commitment to the
field that’s not strictly intellectual. We were poor kids;
so for me, it’s a sense of wanting to give back.”
His passion is, he believes, “ingrained
within,” but it is also visible: On his desk, he keeps a
brass sculpture of a mother bear (a Bruin, of course) tending
to two cubs, which he teasingly calls, “Child Welfare at
UCLA.”
At home, rooms are cluttered with literature on
child welfare and literacy — Lindsey’s wife, Deborah,
is a Panorama City elementary school teacher whose goal is to
improve childhood literacy rates. Such reading materials also
go along on family vacations. “I don’t sectorize my
life and say this is work — this is home,” said Lindsey,
who came to UCLA in 1994 after teaching at the University of Toronto.
The blurred lines are reflected in his No. 1 hobby:
www.childwelfare.com, which he launched in 1995 to provide updates
on what’s happening in the child welfare field. He also
started “Children and Youth Ser-vices Review,” a well-respected
journal. Lindsey has been called upon for his expertise by state
agencies and charitable organizations alike.
In his own research, Lindsey found that, contrary
to popular belief, child poverty levels have not dropped significantly
since the welfare system was reformed in 1996. He found that while
the number of child welfare recipients reportedly dropped by half,
the number of children on food stamps remained roughly the same.
“In the United States, we’ve been
very successful with public policies in terms of the elderly,”
Lindsey said, noting the development of the federal Social Security
program in 1936. “I’m not sure we’ve had success
with social programs for kids.”
|
