“Student Activists, Initiatives, and Beyond,” as part of theEducation for Sustainable Living Program (ESLP). ESLP is a student designed, student developed, and student facilitated program offered through ucla’s Institute of the Environment. ESLP runs a Lecture Series which brings guest speakers from UCLA and across the country to speak on specialized subjects including food systems, green business, organic gardens, sustainable living, the green economy, environmental justice, transportation, as well as sustainability projects across Los Angeles. More information can be found at www.eslp-la.com. Matthew E. Kahn is a Professor at the UCLA Institute of the Environment, the Department of Economics, and the Department of Public Policy. He is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Before joining the UCLA faculty in January 2007, he taught at Columbia and the Fletcher School at Tufts University. He has served as a Visiting Professor at Harvard and Stanford. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Chicago. He is the author of Green Cities: Urban Growth and the Environment (Brookings Institution Press 2006) and the co-author of Heroes and Cowards: The Social Face of War (Princeton University Press 2009). He blogs on environmental and urban topics at greeneconomics.blogspot.com. Some clips and images may have been blurred or removed to avoid copyright infringement. * See all the UCLA Education for Sustainable Living classes in this series …

presentation of my Information Product project in my Statistical Process Control class. the class: this class was Statistical Process Control (SPC) / Total Quality Management (TQM). as one of the pioneering industrial engineers (IE), WE Deming applied the rigid SPC methodologies to manufacturing processes that developed into a tool applicable to any facet of business. the application has evolved into the moniker “six sigma.” this content of this class was the various techniques utilized in six sigma analysis. the text was the standard by Chambers and Wheeler. the assignment: the assignment was to “use the TDQM Improvement Methodology to perform an information quality (IQ) analysis on the information product of your choice and to devise an action plan for improvement.” the program: the master’s of information quality program at the university of arkansas at little rock is homed in the information technology department. its focus, basically, is to apply industrial engineering methodology to information. ie’s have traditionally applied their knowledge to organizational processes in order to maximize efficiency. this traditionally takes place in a setting where a process is repeated on a very large scale –like a manufacturing plant. information quality, though, is more focused on the metaphysical applications of IE principles. where ies are concerned with manufacturing, say, a refrigerator, IQ is concerned with manufacturing information. organizations use information to make …