Minority Fellowship Program Updates

Ray Block, PhD (RBSI 1998 and MFP 1999–2000) associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and Harwood K. McClerking, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, have published a research article entitled “Say Our Name (And Say It Right)! Extending Walton et al. on the Evolution of Race in Political Science Scholarship” in Research & Politics, a SAGE publication.

LaShonda Brenson, PhD (RBSI Class of 2009, MFP 2010–2011) defended her dissertation, “Where’s the Caucus? A Study of Minority Agenda Setting Behavior,” in June 2016 at the University of Michigan. LaShonda is currently the director of research for Project Vote in the Government Agency Voter Registration Program where she is working on a report on representational bias and voting rights and voter registration.

Justine Davis (MFP 2014–2015), a PhD student at the University of California, Berkeley, participated in the ICPSR Summer Workshop as a recipient of the Garcia Award from the Society for Political Methodology. Justine’s research focuses primarily on Sub-Saharan Africa and examines the role of civil society organizations in shaping citizens’ political behavior in newly democratizing settings.

LaGina Gause, PhD (RBSI Class of 2009, MFP 2010–2011) defended her dissertation “The Advantage of Disadvantage: Legislative Responsiveness to Collective Action by the Politically Marginalized” in April 2016. This fall, LaGina will begin a one year post-doctoral fellowship at the Ash Center for Democracy and Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School. In fall 2017, she will begin as a tenure track assistant professor in political science at the University of California, San Diego.

Taniesha Means, PhD (RBSI 2008, MFP 2009–2010) defended her dissertation “Race, representation and the US Judiciary: The Perceptions, Treatment, and Behavior of Judges” in May 2016 at Duke University and will be an assistant professor at Vassar College in the department of political science starting fall 2016.

Yalidy Matos, PhD (RBSI 2008, MFP 2009–2010) will begin the second year of the Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship at Brown University’s Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America (CSREA) and the Watson Institute for International Studies in the fall of 2016. Yalidy’s research examines the intersections between race, ethnicity, (im)migration, and conceptions of space to explain the formation of racialized places and spaces in the United States. Using an interdisciplinary approach, Yalidy draws on theoretical frameworks from political science, sociology, social psychology, and history to understand contemporary restrictive immigration policy attitudes among Americans and develop an historically-minded theoretical framework that stresses the importance of space and place and the more contemporary emergence of imagined borders.

Robin Turner, PhD (MFP 2001–2002), associate professor of political science at Butler University, received a grant from the Enduring Questions program of the National Endowment of the Humanities. The grant—“What Is Freedom?”—supports the development and teaching of a new Butler University undergraduate course centered on the question, What is freedom? The new course will be the first course in the global and historical studies program to explore the transcontinental and transoceanic movements of people, ideas, and capital across Africa, the Americas, and Europe between the fourteenth century and the present.

Sherri L. Wallace, PhD associate professor of political science at the University of Louisville (RBSI 1988 and MFP 1989-1990) and Marcus Allen, PhD, associate professor of political science at CUNY and program director of the CUNY Black Male Initiative, recently published an article in SAGE’s Journal of Black Studies entitled “Affirmative Action Debates in American Government Introductory Textbooks.”

Julian Wamble, PhD Candidate (RBSI 2010) at the University of Maryland, will be a visiting scholar and pre-doctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Political Science Diversity Pre-doctoral Fellowship program in fall 2016. Julian will be working his dissertation “Being Black Isn’t Enough: How Variation in Black Political Leadership affects Black Mass Political Behavior.” His research seeks to bridge the black political leadership and the descriptive representation literatures to identify causal mechanisms that produce the particularly high levels of black candidate support generally observed among black Americans.

ASA Task Force Issues Report on Evaluating Public Communication in Tenure and Promotion

Increasingly, social scientists use multiple forms of communication to engage broader audiences with their research and contribute to solutions of the pressing problems of our time. Yet, in academia, it is unclear whether these efforts to communicate with the public should count when colleges and universities are evaluating scholars.

To address this issue, the American Sociological Association (ASA) convened a task force on public communication and social media, which issued a report assessing how tenure and promotion committees might consider researchers’ involvement in these types of communications activities.

The report, “What Counts? Evaluating Public Communication in Tenure and Promotion,” is designed to help individual researchers planning their careers and academic departments and administrative bodies, as well as members of the media, wanting to assess contributions from academics.

“Considering how public communications might be used in tenure and promotion is critically important for emerging scholars, who often feel pulled in multiple directions as they work to establish themselves in the discipline,” said Sarah M. Ovink, a task force member and an assistant professor in the department of sociology at Virginia Tech. “I hope that one outcome of the report is that more departments will begin to take concrete steps toward rewarding and supporting public engagement in order to make it ‘count.’”

Leslie McCall, the lead author of the report and a professor of sociology at Northwestern University, said, “I engage with the ‘conventional’ media on a frequent basis, but I do not use social media and had little appreciation of its importance, particularly for junior faculty, until joining this committee.”

The report discusses the pros and cons of social scientists engaging in public communication and social media. While it does not take a stand on the desirability of this activity, it offers suggestions for how to assess the quality of contributions:

• • Type of content (e.g., public communication can include original research, synthesis, explanatory journalism, opinion, or application of research to a practical issue). Regardless of the type of communication, an overriding criterion might be whether a given piece is well grounded in sociological theory and research.

• • Rigor and quality of the communication (e.g., peer-reviewed, vetted by an editor, or a non-reviewed blog post). The main criteria here might be whether the piece communicates effectively through clear writing, foregrounding of policy implications, and compliance with the format, technology, and standards of effective engagement with public audiences.

• • Public impact (e.g., number of readers or views, evidence that practitioners found the work to be helpful, or documentation of the role the work played in policy changes). No single measure of reach or impact is sufficient, but solicitation of letters from affected parties outside of academia can be especially effective in conveying impact.

According to 2017 ASA President Michèle Lamont, a Harvard University sociology professor, who wrote the book How Professors Think: Inside the Curious World of Academic Judgment, “The rules of academic evaluation are being transformed by social media. Reputations are not made the way they used to be. This report offers tools to guide us in this brave new world.”

ABOUT THE AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION

The American Sociological Association, founded in 1905, is a nonprofit association dedicated to serving sociologists in their work, advancing sociology as a science and profession, and promoting the contributions to and use of sociology by society.

The Ralph Bunche Summer Institute scholars are pictured during the summer institute at Duke University.

Front Row (left to right): Ana Jones, North Carolina Central University; Dara Gaines, University of Arkansas; Naomi Tolbert, Southern Illinois University; Maryam Sarhan, Stockton University; Jasmine Jackson, Jackson State University.

BackRow (left to right): Jeron Fenton, Princeton University; Jasmine Smith, Indiana University; Priscilla Torres, Loyola Marymount University;

Nicauris Rosario Heredia, Rhode Island College; Claudia Granillo, University of Nebraska, Omaha; Heidi Obediente, University of Central Florida;

Renzo Olivari, James Madison University; Jose Gomez, SUNY Binghamton University; Akua Yamoah, University of South Florida; Danielle Russell, University of Connecticut.

(Photo courtesy of Shaun King, Duke University)

The report described above is available by request. For a copy of the report, contact Daniel Fowler, ASA Media Relations Manager, at (202) 527-7885 or pubinfo@asanet.org.

American Historical Association Research Grants

Each year, the American Historical Association awards several research grants with the aim of advancing the study and exploration of history in a diverse number of subject areas. All grants are offered annually and are intended to further research in progress. Grants may be used for travel to a library or archive; microfilming, photography, or photocopying; borrowing or access fees; and similar research expenses—a list of purposes that is meant to be merely illustrative, not exhaustive (other expenses, such as child care, can be included). The deadline for research grant applications is February 15, 2017. More information can be found online at https://www.historians.org/awards-and-grants/grants-and-fellowships.

Palgrave Studies Series Call for Proposals

Humanity is at a crossroads in its history, precariously poised between mastery and extinction. The fast-developing array of human enhancement therapies and technologies (e.g., genetic engineering, information technology, regenerative medicine, robotics, and nanotechnology) are increasingly impacting our lives and our future.

The most ardent advocates believe that some of these developments could permit humans to take control of their own evolution and alter human nature and the human condition in fundamental ways, perhaps to an extent that we arrive at the “posthuman,” the “successor” of humanity.

The “Palgrave Studies in the Future of Humanity and its Successors” series brings together research from a variety of fields to consider the economic, ethical, legal, political, psychological, religious, social, and other implications of cutting-edge science and technology. The series as a whole does not advocate any particular position on these matters. Rather, it provides a forum for experts to wrestle with the far-reaching implications of the enhancement technologies of our day. The time is ripe for forwarding this conversation among academics, public policy experts, and the general public.

The series is edited by Calvin Mercer, professor of religion, East Carolina University, and Steve Fuller professor of sociology, University of Warwick, UK. For more information on “Palgrave Studies in the Future of Humanity and its Successors,” please contact Phil Getz, Editor, Religion and Philosophy at phil.getz@palgrave-usa.com. More information can be found online at https://www.palgrave.com/us/series/14587.

STAFF SPOTLIGHT Teka K. Miller, Director, Member Services

Teka K. Miller is the Director of Member Services, responsible for managing the implementation of strategies, plans, and programs that result in membership recruitment growth, retention, and superior member service. Teka joined the association in 2014, bringing with her more than 10 years of association experience that includes an emphasis on membership recruitment and retention as well as event and strategic planning. Teka received her BA from North Carolina Wesleyan College where she studied psychology and English. Teka is a native Washingtonian who loves to read and travel during her spare time.

Mellon International Dissertation Research Fellowship Accepting Applications until November 1, 2016.