Aspen Institute Publications
Aspen Institute publications are listed below. Many are available for purchase through Google Checkout, a secure system for handling credit card transaction online. For assistance with ordering publications, please contact our Publications office by email or by phone at (410) 820.5433. Please note: Orders are shipped two times a week from our warehouse in Queenstown, MD, on the Eastern Shore.
Resident Centered Community-Building: What Makes it Different?
A Report from the Connecting Communities Learning Exchange
What is special about resident-centered community building? Why is there such importance on relationship-building? Resident Centered Community-Building---What Makes it Different? A Report from the Connecting Communities Learning Exchange distills lessons and recommendations from resident activists and locally embedded change agents on how to engage communities in activism and change. Based on discussions at the 2012 Learning Exchange, co-hosted by the Jacobs Center for Neighborhood Innovation and the Roundtable, the report features strategies for putting residents at the center of neighborhood-based community building. The report can be found on under Roundtable publications and in print by special request.
Ten Lessons for Taking Leadership on Racial Equity
The Roundtable’s most recent publication distills ten lessons for how to take leadership on the difficult topic of race in America. Based on our ten years of work in this arena, the document is intended to encourage and suggest strategies to people willing to take up the challenge of promoting racial equity and inclusion. It is also meant to counter the fears, reticence and pessimism of those who believe that race is just too hard of a topic to address. Indeed, our experience shows that, when equipped with the right training and tools, there are many people of all races who become inspirational and effective racial equity leaders. Ten Lessons for Taking Leadership on Racial Equity can be downloaded from our website or in print by request to the Roundtable at RCCinfo@aspeninstitute.org.
Developing an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in the Palestinian Territories
Key Opportunities for Partnership:
Partners for a New Beginning (PNB), in cooperation with the Telos Group and the local chapter of PNB-Palestinian Territories, led an Entrepreneurship Delegation to the West Bank from October 3 – 7, 2012. Nearly a dozen US entrepreneurs, angel investors and those passionate about mentoring entrepreneurs traveled from across the globe for a week dedicated to understanding the challenges and opportunities facing Palestinian entrepreneurs, as well as providing mentorship and training for many of them.
The group met with representatives from several Palestinian universities, as well as successful business leaders and local investment firms to gain a holistic view of local efforts to support entrepreneurs through entrepreneurial curriculum, training, and access to capital. Perhaps most importantly, it gave both sides the opportunity to share best-practices, forge new relationships, and invest in valuable partnerships.
Connecting the Edges
The 2012 Roundtable on Institutional Innovation convened leaders to explore how organizations can stay atop today’s constant technological advancement. In the current economic environment, growth and underemployment are two outstanding national, indeed international, problems. While technological advances and globalization are often cited as instigators of the current plight, they are also beacons of hope for the future. Connecting the Edges concludes that by integrating the core of an organization with the edge, where innovation is more likely to happen, we can create dynamic, learning networks.
Evaluating Evaluations: Using Teacher Surveys to Strengthen Implementation
Public education is focused intensively on designing and implementing meaningful teacher evaluations. To convert evaluation information into more effective teaching, teachers, principals, and system leaders need to embrace a culture of ongoing, two-way feedback and a commitment to continuous improvement. Developed in partnership with The Parthenon Group, Evaluating Evaluations explains how teacher surveys can advance this work by engaging teachers, generating information on what’s working and what’s not, and supporting reciprocal accountability in education improvement efforts.
The Common Core State Standards: An Introduction for Families and Other Stakeholders
The Common Core State Standards is a near-universal set of academic standards adopted by 45 states and the District of Columbia. It represents a paradigm shift in the teaching of English Language Arts and math, emphasizing deeper learning and application of knowledge. This flyer makes the Common Core accessible to families and other stakeholders, explaining what the standards are and why they are important for improving public education.
Aspen IFS Testimony to Pensions/Retirement Working Group
As the House Ways and Means Committe embarks on a comprehensive examination of the tax code, Aspen IFS puts forward that a tax reform moment offers the opportunity to enhance retirement security for all American households.
Integrating Diplomacy and Social Media: A Report of the First Annual Aspen Institute Dialogue on Diplomacy and Technology
Advances in social media and the wave of citizen involvement in both internal and external state affairs has heightened the need to take a closer look at how communications technologies can advance national interests. The digital disruption has come to many arenas. Diplomacy is just the latest to engage it. Integrating Diplomacy and Social Media: A Report of the First Annual Aspen Institute Dialogue on Diplomacy and Technology highlights how private citizens have utilized information tools to transform the landscape of international affairs. It also delves into the increasing use of new media by working diplomats.
The Arab Revolutions and American Policy
This book is a collection of papers commissioned for the 2012 Aspen Strategy Group Summer Workshop, a bipartisan meeting of top national security experts. The papers evaluate the various drivers and outcomes of the Arab revolutions, all of which continue to bear an ever-greater influence on the formulation of American strategy in the Middle East. Authors examine the critical period of transition in Egypt, escalating violence and options of intervention in Syria, the threats associated with a nuclear Iran, balancing an effective strategy of immediate economic assistance and long-term investment in the region, and the Obama administration's successes and failures during the overall process of democratization.
Contributors include: Graham Allison (Harvard University), Melissa Dalton (Center for a New American Security), Kito de Boer (McKinsey & Company), Peter Feaver (Duke University), Michèle Flournoy (The Boston Consulting Group), Richard Haass (Council on Foreign Relations), Stephen Hadley (RiceHadleyGates LLC), David Ignatius (The Washington Post), Martin Indyk (The Brookings Institution), Colin Kahl (Georgetown University), and Tarek Masoud (Harvard University).
Compiled and edited by Director Nicholas Burns and Deputy Director Jonathon Price, this paperback book is available for purchase through the Aspen Institute bookstore (click "Add to cart" button below) and the Brookings Institution Press.
The Manufacturing Resurgence: What It Could Mean for the U.S. Economy
The Aspen Institute's Manufacturing & Society program in partnership with MAPI commissioned the University of Maryland's Interindustry Forecasting Project (Inforum) to determine how the U.S. economy would change if it were to achieve the manufacturing resurgence which has been widely touted in recent years. The results are summarized in a paper by manufacturing program director Tom Duesterberg. The importance of such a resurgence is that it very well could lead to higher growth over time, higher standards of living, and a reduction or reversal of the chronic balance of payments deficit which is shifting resources outside the country. Results are projected to 2025.
