Natasha Iskander

The heart of NYU Wagner's programs is our faculty. An amalgam of full-time, clinical/research/visiting, and adjunct professors, they are outstanding teachers, expert researchers and committed practitioners.

Both domestically and globally, research by NYU Wagner faculty examines issues of public importance with an eye to making a difference.

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The Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service is home to research and policy centers, institutes, and initiatives that focus on solving urban problems and strengthening public policy and public service nationally and around the world.

The Financial Access Initiative (FAI) is a consortium of researchers at NYU, Yale, Harvard and IPA focused on finding answers to how financial sectors can better meet the needs of poor households.

Since its founding in 1994, the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy has become the leading academic research center in New York City devoted to the public policy aspects of land use, real estate development and housing.

The Institute for Civil Infrastructure Systems (ICIS) is a research and education center founded in January 1998, located at New York University's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, and directed by Professor Rae Zimmerman. ICIS promotes interdisciplinary approaches to planning, building, and managing the complex world of civil infrastructure systems to meet their social and environmental objectives.

A university-wide, multidisciplinary enterprise, the Institute for Education and Social Policy was founded by former Wagner Dean and NYU Executive Vice President Robert Berne, the Aaron Diamond Foundation's Norm Fruchter, and NYU Steinhardt School of Education Dean Ann Marcus. The Institute investigates urban education issues and studies the impact of public policy on students from poor, disadvantaged, urban communities.

New York University is proud to announce the establishment of the John Brademas Center for the Study of Congress at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. The Center is named in honor of NYU President Emeritus and former Member of Congress, Dr. John Brademas.

The NYUAD Center for Global Public Service and Social Impact's mission is to advance international understanding and effective practice for strengthening the global public service as a driver of social impact in a constantly changing international environment. It is designed to support the entrepreneurial, effective and efficient production of public value by governments, nongovernmental organizations and private social ventures, by working through networks of scholars, opinion leaders and senior executives across the world.

Housed within the NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, the Research Center for Leadership in Action (RCLA) creates collaborative learning environments that break down this isolation, foster needed connections and networks, and yield new and practical insights and strategies.

Established in 1996 at New York University's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, and named in September 2000 in recognition of a generous gift from civic leader Lewis Rudin, the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy & Management is currently led by Mitchell Moss.

The Mission
The purpose of the project is to create and convene an interdisciplinary network of thinkers and doers (the "Network") that could help with making the transition from closed-and-centralized to open-and-collaborative institutions of governance.

The Berman Jewish Policy Archive at NYU's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service is a central address for Jewish communal and social policy, both on the web and in its home at NYU Wagner. Named for its principal funder, The Berman Foundation, BJPA's primary focus is on making the vast amount of policy-relevant material accessible and available to all those who seek it.

The Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation Program in Social Entrepreneurship is designed to attract, encourage and train a new generation of leaders in public service. Each year, the program will expose a highly selective group of graduate and undergraduate students from throughout New York University to the cross-disciplinary skills, experiences and networking opportunities needed to advance and support their efforts to realize sustainable and scalable pattern-breaking solutions to society's most intractable problems.

Global forces are dramatically changing the environments of children, youth and adults both in the United States and throughout the world. First- and second-generation immigrant children are on their way to becoming the majority of children in the U.S., bringing linguistic and cultural diversity to the institutions with which they come in contact.

NYU Wagner is affiliated with the Nathan Kline Institute, the National Hispanic Health Foundation, and the Transatlantic Policy Consortium.

Degree Programs

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Ranked #6 in Public Affairs by U.S. News & World Report, the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service educates the future leaders of public, nonprofit, healthcare and private sector organizations addressing the world's critical issues.

Students who wish to take only a few courses at Wagner must apply as a non-degree student by the appropriate deadlines; however, non-degree and advanced certificate applicants are not eligible for scholarship consideration.

NYU Wagner offers more than 150 different courses, allowing students to select not only by degree and specialization within that degree, but also by topic area.

Capstone is learning in action. Part of the core curriculum of the MPA and MUP programs at NYU Wagner, the Capstone program combines critical learning with an opportunity to perform a public service.

The flexible and fluid world of public service requires a broad and transferable education. Housed in a school of public service, rather than a school of public policy or public affairs, the Master of Public Administration in Public and Nonprofit Management and Policy program at NYU Wagner educates professionals committed to public service in all sectors.

NYU Wagner's Health Policy and Management program has been recognized as one of the best in the country. Located in a school of public service rather than in a medical or public health school, our program crosses traditional boundaries, linking management, finance, and policy, and provides students with the cutting-edge concepts and skills needed to shape the future of health policy and management.

NYU Wagner's Master of Urban Planning program prepares students for the full set of challenges of today's cities, balancing development, community needs and social justice, provision of critical public services, sustainability and security.

Through theoretical and methodological training, Wagner's doctoral students learn how to produce insights required for effective and equitable public and nonprofit programs and policies.? Our program is interdisciplinary, flexible, and provides a wide range of academic opportunities for students.

With a powerful professional network and a flexible curriculum, the Executive MPA program helps mid-career professionals prepare for the highest levels of public service leadership.

NYU Wagner offers a number of dual degrees in conjunction with other NYU schools. Programming and academic resources can include exclusive speaker events, tailored orientations and designated faculty and administrative advisors.

The Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service offers a set of courses and minors open only to undergraduates. All of the courses are taught by Wagner School faculty who are recognized experts in their fields and provide students with an opportunity to explore some of the most important public policy issues facing policy-makers and practitioners at the local and national level today.

Students arrive at NYU with the desire to serve the public. They leave with the skills and experience to bring about change. Combining coursework in management, finance and policy with cutting-edge research and work experience in urban communities, the NYU Wagner education will enable you to transform your personal commitment into public leadership.

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Deciding where to attend graduate school can be difficult. When choosing the right school, students must carefully consider many factors.

The admissions process is designed to review the overall potential of applicants to determine which students will succeed in their studies and their careers.

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These procedures supplement the Student Disciplinary Procedures of New York University, as approved by the vote of the Wagner school faculty on December 16, 2010.

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Composing Your Career is a guide to help you on your path to work that matters to the public and to you.

The Wagner Student Association encourages students to get involved in extracurricular life at NYU Wagner through student organizations, volunteer efforts and community events.

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NYU Wagner's Office of Career Services (OCS) provides students and alumni with the resources needed to build successful public service careers. Explore our resources for Job seekers and employers.

During Walk-In Hours and Scheduled Appointments, OCS advisors provide students and alumni with one-on-one career counseling. Visit us to discuss resumes and cover letters, prepare for interviews, discuss work-place issues and more.

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Date	Publication/Paper
2010	Iskander, Natasha and Nichola Lowe 2010. *Hidden Talent: Tacit Skill Formation and Labor Market Incorporation of Latino Immigrants in the United States.* Journal of Planning Education and Research. Abstract This paper examines informal training and skill development pathways of Latino immigrant construction workers in two different urban labor markets: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. We find that institutional differences across local labor markets not only shape how immigrants develop skills in specific places, but also determine the localized obstacles they face in demonstrating and harnessing these skills for employment. To explain the role of local institutions in shaping differences in skill development experience and opportunities, we draw on the concept of tacit skill, a term that is rarely incorporated into studies of the labor market participation of less educated immigrants. We argue that innovative pathways that Latino immigrant workers have created to develop tacit skill can strengthen advocacy planning efforts aimed at improving employment opportunities and working conditions for marginalized workers, immigrant and non-immigrant alike.
	Lowe, N., Hagan, J. & Iskander, N. 2010. *Hidden Talent: Skill Formation and Labor Market Incorporation of Latino Immigrants in the United States.* Environment and Planning A. Abstract This article examines informal training and skill development pathways of Latino immigrant construction workers in two different urban labor markets: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. We find that institutional differences across local labor markets not only shape how immigrants develop skills in specific places but also determine the localized obstacles they face in demonstrating and harnessing these skills for employment. To explain the role of local institutions in shaping differences in skill development experience and opportunities, we draw on the concept of tacit skill, a term that is rarely incorporated into studies of the labor market participation of less educated immigrants. We argue that innovative pathways that Latino immigrant workers have created to develop tacit skill can strengthen advocacy planning efforts aimed at improving employment opportunities and working conditions for marginalized workers, immigrant and nonimmigrant alike.
	Iskander, N. 2010. *Creative State: Forty Years of Migration and Development Policy in Morocco and Mexico.* Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Creative State at Cornell University Press Abstract At the turn of the twenty-first century, with the amount of money emigrants sent home soaring to new highs, governments around the world began searching for ways to capitalize on emigration for economic growth, and they looked to nations that already had policies in place. Morocco and Mexico featured prominently as sources of "best practices" in this area, with tailor-made financial instruments that brought migrants into the banking system, captured remittances for national development projects, fostered partnerships with emigrants for infrastructure design and provision, hosted transnational forums for development planning, and emboldened cross-border political lobbies. In Creative State, Natasha Iskander chronicles how these innovative policies emerged and evolved over forty years. She reveals that the Moroccan and Mexican policies emulated as models of excellence were not initially devised to link emigration to development, but rather were deployed to strengthen both governments' domestic hold on power. The process of policy design, however, was so iterative and improvisational that neither the governments nor their migrant constituencies ever predicted, much less intended, the ways the new initiatives would gradually but fundamentally redefine nationhood, development, and citizenship. Morocco's and Mexico's experiences with migration and development policy demonstrate that far from being a prosaic institution resistant to change, the state can be a remarkable site of creativity, an essential but often overlooked component of good governance.
	Iskander, Natasha, Nichola Lowe, and Christine Riordan 2010. *The Rise and Fall of a Micro-Learning Region: Mexican Immigrants and Construction in Center-South Philadelphia.* 2010. Environment and Planning A, Volume 42, Number 7. Abstract This paper documents the rise and fall of a micro-learning region in Philadelphia. The central actors in this region are undocumented Mexican immigrants who until recently were able to draw on the intensity of their workplace interactions and their heterodox knowledge to produce new and innovative building techniques in the city's residential construction. The new knowledge they developed was primarily tacit. More significantly, the learning practices through which immigrant workers developed skill and innovated new techniques were also heavily tacit. Because these practices were never made formal and were never made explicit, they remained invisible and difficult to defend. With the housing market collapse and subsequent decline in housing renovation in south-center region of Philadelphia, this tacit knowledge and the practices that gave it shape and significance, are no longer easily accessible. We draw on this case to demonstrate the importance of access to the political and economic resources to turn learning practices into visible structured institutions that protect knowledge and skill. Whether or not the practices that support knowledge development are themselves made explicit can determine whether the knowledge they produce becomes an innovation that is recognized and adopted or whether it remains confined to a set of ephemeral practices that exist only so long as they are being enacted.
2008	Iskander, N. & Bentaleb N. 2008. *Assets, Agency, and Engagement in Community Driven Development: The Case of a Moroccan Community.* The Roles of Assets and Agency in explaining community-driven development, Coady International Institute.
	Iskander, N. 2008. *Diaspora Networks for National Infrastructure: Rural Morocco, 1985-2005.* In J. Brikenhoff ed. Diasporas and Development: Exploring the Potential. Washington, D. C. : Lynne Reider.
2007	Iskander, N. 2007. *Informal Work and Protest: Undocumented Immigrant Activism in France, 1996-2000.* British Journal of Industrial Relations, June 2007, Vol. 45 Issue 2, p309-334, 26p. Abstract Nominally, the wave of protests by undocumented immigrants that swept through France in the late 1990s successfully challenged the restrictive Pasqua immigration laws. However, despite appearances, the mass movement was at base a labour protest: undocumented workers demonstrated against immigration laws that undermined the way they navigated informal labour markets and, in particular, truncated their opportunities for skill development. Furthermore, it is proposed in this article that examining social movements for their labour content can reveal erosions of working conditions and worker power in informal sector employment. A case study of the Paris garment district is presented to demonstrate how the spread of ‘hybrid-informality' made legal work permits a prerequisite for working informally and relegated undocumented immigrants to lower quality jobs outside the cluster.

This paper examines informal training and skill development pathways of Latino immigrant construction workers in two different urban labor markets: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. We find that institutional differences across local labor markets not only shape how immigrants develop skills in specific places, but also determine the localized obstacles they face in demonstrating and harnessing these skills for employment. To explain the role of local institutions in shaping differences in skill development experience and opportunities, we draw on the concept of tacit skill, a term that is rarely incorporated into studies of the labor market participation of less educated immigrants. We argue that innovative pathways that Latino immigrant workers have created to develop tacit skill can strengthen advocacy planning efforts aimed at improving employment opportunities and working conditions for marginalized workers, immigrant and non-immigrant alike.

This article examines informal training and skill development pathways of Latino immigrant construction workers in two different urban labor markets: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. We find that institutional differences across local labor markets not only shape how immigrants develop skills in specific places but also determine the localized obstacles they face in demonstrating and harnessing these skills for employment. To explain the role of local institutions in shaping differences in skill development experience and opportunities, we draw on the concept of tacit skill, a term that is rarely incorporated into studies of the labor market participation of less educated immigrants. We argue that innovative pathways that Latino immigrant workers have created to develop tacit skill can strengthen advocacy planning efforts aimed at improving employment opportunities and working conditions for marginalized workers, immigrant and nonimmigrant alike.

At the turn of the twenty-first century, with the amount of money emigrants sent home soaring to new highs, governments around the world began searching for ways to capitalize on emigration for economic growth, and they looked to nations that already had policies in place. Morocco and Mexico featured prominently as sources of "best practices" in this area, with tailor-made financial instruments that brought migrants into the banking system, captured remittances for national development projects, fostered partnerships with emigrants for infrastructure design and provision, hosted transnational forums for development planning, and emboldened cross-border political lobbies.

In Creative State, Natasha Iskander chronicles how these innovative policies emerged and evolved over forty years. She reveals that the Moroccan and Mexican policies emulated as models of excellence were not initially devised to link emigration to development, but rather were deployed to strengthen both governments' domestic hold on power. The process of policy design, however, was so iterative and improvisational that neither the governments nor their migrant constituencies ever predicted, much less intended, the ways the new initiatives would gradually but fundamentally redefine nationhood, development, and citizenship. Morocco's and Mexico's experiences with migration and development policy demonstrate that far from being a prosaic institution resistant to change, the state can be a remarkable site of creativity, an essential but often overlooked component of good governance.

Natasha Iskander
Associate Professor of Public Policy

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