UCKED AWAY IN A restored 1890s red brick residence on West 27th Street not far from UT Austin's central campus, a group of economists, researchers, and policy analysts is working on issues that are at the forefront of current public debate--education, job training, and welfare reform. The group makes up the LBJ School's Center for the Study of Human Resources, a research effort established 25 years ago to bridge the gap between the policymaking process and the world of academic research.

Johnston High School student Brenna Cronky (right), shown here with AMD employee Steve Laymen, was among the area youth who participated in a work-based learning program last summer. The school-industry partnership is coordinated by the Capital Area Training Foundation, which grew out of research done by the Center for the Study of Human Resources. Photo courtesy Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.

Founded in 1970 by UT Professor Ray Marshall as a think tank for a small group of independent scholars and researchers, CSHR was originally affiliated with the UT Economics Department. At the time, it dealt with labor, rural development, equal employment opportunity, and other economic issues.

Since 1981--when Marshall returned to Austin after serving four years as U.S. Secretary of Labor in the Carter administration--CSHR has gradually expanded its interests to include more human resource topics and a greater emphasis on Texas policies. In 1987 the Center became part of the LBJ School.

Today, CSHR is directed by LBJ School Professor Leigh Boske, with day-to-day operations overseen by Christopher King, an expert on welfare-to-work issues, program evaluation, and performance standards. Research activities cover a broad range of human resource issues, including education, apprenticeship and job training, welfare dynamics, and labor markets.

Funded entirely by contracts and grants, the research is directed toward providing decisionmakers with concrete findings and recommendations on which to base policy changes. The Center's track record is impressive.

Since 1993, for example, CSHR researchers have produced a series of policy reports on welfare reform that were sent to all Texas state legislators and other key decisionmakers. CSHR researchers also testified on their findings before several legislative committees in both the Texas House and Senate. This input had a direct impact on key provisions of legislation that eventually became Texas House Bill 1863, a welfare reform bill signed into law by Governor George W. Bush in June 1995.

When State Senator Rodney Ellis (LBJ Class of '77), in a last-minute maneuver on the Senate floor, tacked onto this bill a 100-page workforce program consolidation amendment, he was relying in part on extensive research generated by the Center. For several years, CSHR researchers (most notably, Research Associate Robert McPherson) had been investigating the need to merge a number of workforce programs. Clients in need of employment and training services were being served by different agencies with a confusing and sometimes overlapping array of eligibility criteria and other provisions. The new Texas Workforce Commission will combine most employment and job-training programs in a single state agency over the next year.

Another area with practical application grew out of research conducted by Research Scientist Bob Glover on the absence of school-to-work systems in the United States.

"The problem is that, compared to youths in other industrialized countries, young people in this country tend to flounder around for several years before they decide or happen upon a career," Glover said. "Without access to career development information and occupational training, many young people spend a number of inefficient years--often 10 years or more--before they settle into productive careers. Some never make it."

Out of this research came the Capital Area Training Foundation, a nonprofit industry group that promotes partnerships between local industries and public schools to assist youth in making the transition from school to workplace. Through this initiative, local employers (including major firms such as Advanced Micro Devices, IBM, Motorola, and Texas Instruments) have provided students with information about professional opportunities, mentoring relationships, and work-based learning. These efforts led to more than 200 Austin-area youths being placed in jobs during summer 1995.

Apart from the basic support provided by the LBJ School--such as facility maintenance and computer services--CSHR is a self-supporting organization, funded by a mix of private and public sources. In recent years, CSHR has enjoyed major funding support from the Charles Stewart Mott, Sloan, and Carnegie foundations as well as more than a dozen federal agencies and commissions and state agencies concerned with workforce issues.

In October, the Urban Institute announced that Christopher King and CSHR Research Associate Leslie Lawson (LBJ Class of '94) were among the first recipients of a new national small grants program called "Transitions from Welfare to Work." Their winning project proposal--one of five chosen from about 130 applications--is a study on the employment problems and prospects of Texas welfare mothers. Funding for the award is provided by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Foundation for Child Development.

Currently, CSHR employs 10 researchers and several administrative and support staff members.