Meet the 2020-2021 Menino Fellow: Daniel Daponte

The Initiative on Cities (IOC) is pleased to announce Daniel Daponte (CAS ’22) as our 2020-2021 National League of Cities (NLC) Menino Fellow. Daniel is pursuing a BA in Environmental Analysis and Policy with a minor in Urban Studies. He aspires to have a career in city planning or local government to create more sustainable and equitable cities. Through this Fellowship, Daniel will spend the fall semester paired with IOC Director and Professor Graham Wilson in a Directed Study program. He will spend the 2021 spring semester working with the NLC’s Institute for Youth, Education and Families (YEF), where he hopes to increase equity in juvenile justice and advocate for the needs of cities.

Daniel’s Directed Study will focus on restorative justice initiatives, analyzing the policy landscape and conducting case studies of the Red Hook Community Justice Center in New York City and Chicago’s Community Justice Program. As an exercise in policy research, Daniel looks forward to synthesizing the theory and examples of restorative justice projects to put together a policy proposal. Daniel hopes to learn more about alternative methods of criminal justice that focus on maintaining community and reducing recidivism.

Daniel is a city enthusiast, born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He’s always been curious about how cities work and how they can be improved. His favorite place in his hometown is his local branch of the Brooklyn Public Library where he helps run the summer reading program and community engagement programs, as well as writing grant proposals. In his free time, Daniel enjoys biking, cooking, and rock climbing. On campus, Daniel participates in BU Student Government as part of the Student Elections Commission. He is also a Writing Consultant at CAS Writing Center, helping students improve their writing skills. Besides that, Daniel is a CAS Academic Ambassador.

We asked Daniel a few questions about his future plans and his interest in the fellowship.

What made you interested in applying for the NLC Menino Fellowship?

I’ve spent a lot of time at BU trying to study city planning and urban policy. I’ve looked at courses from across majors in CAS and the Metropolitan College, but very few fit exactly what I want to study. The Menino Fellowship offers the opportunity to focus squarely on cities and the unique challenges they face while also enabling me to do the kind of research that made me excited to attend BU, because I get to work closely with Professor Graham Wilson, an expert on urban affairs.

When did you become interested in city planning?

I think I’ve always been interested in city planning to some extent. When I was a kid I was fascinated by cities: trains, buildings, highways, street maps, and how they all fit together. That curiosity is still there, and now it motivates me to look beyond the brick and mortar that make up a city, and to try and solve the more abstract problems that cities face such as building better institutions and imagining more equitable cities.

Your Directed Study will focus on restorative justice initiatives, why did you choose this topic?

I was first introduced to restorative justice because I live practically next door to the Red Hook Community Justice Center—the preeminent court in the United States that applies the principles of restorative justice. While I didn’t have to look far for inspiration, I also recognize the potential restorative justice has to change how we approach criminal justice in the United States. Community courts like the one in Red Hook, Brooklyn feature a multi-jurisdictional courtroom where one judge is able to hear cases from rent disputes to criminal offenses and is able to offer more personalized and effective solutions as sentences. The goal of restorative justice in this sense is to help people overcome issues that lead them to commit crime and keep them out of jail, while still adjudicating cases fairly and with the full force of law. I think cities would benefit from a less punitive approach to criminal justice and one that focuses on maintaining community, both by keeping people out of prison and letting victims have justice in court. I am excited to research how restorative justice initiatives can gain greater acceptance in cities across the United States.

What are you most looking forward to next Spring, during your internship with NLC?

What I am most excited about is the work itself. I relish the opportunity to be working behind the scenes helping develop policy and advocating for the needs of cities. The NLC is committed to helping interns do work based on their interests and connecting them with experts in that area. This makes the work that much more meaningful. One aspect I found really interesting was the NLC’s emphasis on communicating big, abstract policy ideas to the general public in a way that is engaging and logical. I think it’s easy as a college student to immerse oneself in academic writing, but most of the world doesn’t communicate like that, so it’s important to be fluent in both worlds in order to turn one’s ideas from theory to action.