Finding dignity in a landscape of fear: enslaved women and girls at the University of Virginia

From its inception, the University of Virginia was a destination for enslaved men, women, and children who were forced to leave their families to build and sustain the needs of this newly founded institution. This article explores the unique experiences of the enslaved women and girls who labored at the University of Virginia, and highlights the distinct intersectionality of their oppression in terms of their race, class, and gender. Their stories showcase the particular challenges that arose while enslaved at a university filled with young privileged white men, bringing attention to the historic and continual struggles of black women throughout history.     

A Virginia Tech MFT ethics class reflects on the shootings at Virginia Tech

The authors of this article include the professor and most of the students in a doctoral course on marriage and family therapy ethical and professional issues that met the semester that a disturbed student shot and killed 32 Virginia Tech students and faculty before killing himself. In this article, we reflect through short essays on issues related to the tragedy, ethics, and recovery.     

The power of friendship: the Compeer Program at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth

Diminishing financial support for individuals with severe mental illnesses has required creative solutions to meet the needs of this population. Loneliness and stigma further hinder these individuals' efforts toward recovery. The Compeer program can provide friendship relationships, which can help to reduce loneliness and strengthen the effects of psychosocial interventions. University Compeer programs have proven successful in meeting the needs of both students and their Compeer friends.     

The role of law enforcement in schools: the Virginia experience--a practitioner report

Although there has been little academic research on the impact of placing police officers in schools, this practice has grown substantially in response to school shootings and other violent crimes in schools. With a standardized training program since 1999, the state of Virginia has law enforcement officers working in approximately 88 percent of Virginia's 631 secondary schools. Based on this experience, the state training coordinator describes how police officers should be selected and prepared to work as school resource officers. The success of school-based law enforcement requires careful selection and specialized training of officers who can adapt to the school culture and work collaboratively with school authorities.     

The impact of the minimum wage in West Virginia: A test of the low-wage-area theory

VI. Conclusions West Virginia counties do provide evidence of significant dis-employment due to the minimum wage, a finding that supports the theory that low-wage areas are more susceptible to employment losses when the legislated minimum wage is increased. My results show that a 10 percent increase in the minimum wage will reduce total employment in the average West Virginia county by 1.1 percent. The most rural counties may also respond more severely, up to 1.4 percent for the same minimum wage change. I thank Clifford Hawley, Sudeshna Bandypadhyay, George Hammond, Stratford Douglass, Brian Cushing, Tom Garrett, Victor Claar, Gary Wagner, and an anonymous referee for helpful comments.     

The growth of the sociology graduate program at Kent State University

The initial growth of the graduate program in sociology at Kent State University was dominated by the interests, academic training and career goals of particular people who participated in it. Moreover, in 1939, when the program was initiated, its growth closely mirrored the principal concerns of the discipline. Today the program is responsive less to the discipline or particular faculty, and more to political, economic and demographic factors. As a state-funded institution, this university and graduate program are more likely to react to state needs and those of its other public, the students. Her interests include professional socialization and organizational change, particular in the field of health care. His most recent work is research on “belief in a just world” and in the social psychological aspects of gender roles.     

The Use of Cervical Caps at the University of California/Berkeley

Abstract

The higher rates of disease and death associated with male gender have been widely documented, yet little is being done in the college health setting to address men's health issues. Many of men's health risks are related to social isolation and prohibitions on showing weakness. The authors describe the Virginia Tech University experience with 3 Man Alive groups that were developed to (a) create a supportive social structure for male college students who may otherwise be socially isolated, (b) model healthy expression of emotions, such as anger, fear, sadness, and joy; (c) create a safe space for men to discuss sensitive issues, such as relationships with significant others, sexuality, and substance abuse.     

Adoption of an Outdoor Residential Hall Smoking Policy in a California Public University: A Case Study

Abstract

Objective: Because secondhand smoke is a public health concern, many colleges have adopted bans to ensure healthier environments. This study demonstrates how outdoor smoking policy change can be accomplished at a large public university. Participants: The participants were 1,537 students housed in residential communities at the University of California, Berkeley, who completed an online survey. Methods: A proposal for smoke-free residential communities that included student resident survey data was prepared. Results: The survey data indicated that most students (77%) were bothered by secondhand smoke, and most (66%) favored smoke-free environments. The data were used to advocate for a change in the residential community smoking policy. Conclusion: The survey data and institutional comparisons played a key role in administrators’ decision-making about campus smoking policy. Despite administrators’ concerns about students’ safety and freedom of choice, student-led advocacy was able to influence policy change.     

The ebb and flow of the fortunes of African studies at the University of Cape Town: an overview

ABSTRACT

This article is an overview of African Studies at the University of Cape Town (UCT). Its main conclusion is that the University has so far failed to put the issue of African Studies high on its agenda. This is by no means a detailed account of the evolution of the concept of African Studies at UCT, but rather an overview that is meant to stimulate debate and discussion as UCT commemorates a centenary of African Studies. The article shows how UCT dealt with the notion of African Studies. In the period leading to the introduction of apartheid in South Africa UCT saw its role as providing resources to those tasked with the formulation and implementation of a “Native policy”. With the advent of apartheid, African Studies focused internally on the study of Africa and its people. This provides the backdrop to the debates of the late 1990s involving Mahmood Mamdani, which centred on the teaching of Africa in an African university. I wrap up this article by sounding a clarion call for UCT to put African Studies high on its agenda if it is serious in fulfilling its mission of making UCT a truly African university.     

Dequantifying diversity: affirmative action and admissions at the University of Michigan

Theory and Society - To explore the limits of quantification as a form of rationalization, we examine a rare case of dequantification: race-based affirmative action in undergraduate admissions at...     

Community Economic Identity: The Coal Industry and Ideology Construction in West Virginia

Economic changes and the machinations of the treadmill of production have dramatically reduced the number of jobs provided by extractive industries, such as mining and timber, in the United States and other affluent nations in the post–World War II era. As the importance of these industries to national, regional, and local economies wanes, community resistance to ecologically and socially destructive industry practices threatens the political power of corporations engaged in natural‐resource extraction. Here we argue that to maintain their power (and profits) as their contribution to employment declines, extractive industries have increased their efforts to maintain and amplify the extent to which the “economic identity” of communities is connected with the industry that was historically an important source of employment. We fit this argument within the neo‐Marxian theoretical tradition, which emphasizes the roles ideology and legitimation play in maintaining elite rule. We illustrate this theorized process by analyzing the efforts of the West Virginia coal industry, which, through its (faux) “grassroots” front group “Friends of Coal,” attempts to construct the image that West Virginia's economy and cultural identity are centered on coal production. Our analysis relies on content analysis of various sources and on experience gained from field research. We find that key strategies of the Friends of Coal include efforts to become pervasively visible in the social landscape and the appropriation of cultural icons that exploit the hegemonic masculinity of the region. These findings have implications for how industries around the country, and the world, work to maintain their power through ideological manipulation.     

Women's Studies at the University of Illinois Press

No abstract available for this article.     

Ethics and Institutional Conflict of Interest: The Research Confidentiality Controversy at Simon Fraser University

This paper describes the lengthy controversy at Simon Fraser University (SFU) over academic freedom and the ethics and law of research confidentiality that began when the Vancouver Coroner subpoenaed criminology graduate student Russel Ogden to testify at an inquest. There were two parts to the controversy. The first concerned the SFU administration's failure to mount a legal defense of Ogden's undertaking to keep absolutely confidential the identities of participants in his study of assisted suicide and euthanasia of persons with AIDS. The second concerned the threat to academic freedom created by the administration's subsequent imposition of limited confidentiality on researchers according to its Law of the Land doctrine of research ethics. We examine these controversies and the institutional conflict of interest underlying them in light of the ethical principles for research with human subjects laid out in various disciplinary ethics codes and, after the fact, by the Tri-Council Policy Statement, the research ethics code created by Canada's three federal research-granting agencies.