Kelly Alley, professor in Anthropology, was interviewed and cited by the Huffington Post. Please read her interview at the Huffington Post.

A study performed by Dr. Carole Zugazaga, College of Liberal Arts Engaged Scholar and associate professor of social work and Dr. Denise Davis-Maye, associate professor of social work, was recently featured in the Montgomery Advertiser.

The study, "The Status of Women with Children Age One and Below in Alabama," was commissioned by the Alabama Women's Commission to better understand issues most relevant to new moms. Postpartum depression (PPD), lack of equitable access to high-quality childcare and disproportionately high rates of infant mortality emerged as the most significant concerns. "For the Medicaid births in Alabama over a two-year period, about 4% of the mothers were diagnosed with PPD," says Zugazaga. "And that means that there are at least 9% of moms who have PPD and are undiagnosed and most likely untreated. Postpartum Depression is a serious mental health disorder that poses significant health and mental health risks for both infants and mothers."

The CLA Engaged Scholar program is designed to support superior faculty in the college and strengthen student and faculty engagement in the local community as well as national and international arenas. For more information on the program and a list of current faculty, see this link.

The CLA Student Services Center (this includes all Advisor and Administrative offices) is moving to 321 Tichenor Hall. We hope to be open for advising in our new offices on Aug. 26. We will be closed on the afternoon of Aug. 21 and all day Aug. 24 and Aug. 25 in order to make the move. Please keep checking your email for updates--as with all moves, there may be some last minute changes to the schedule.

The Department of Communication and Journalism will also be moving back to Tichenor. Please look for more information from the Department.

SISTERS OF THE ACADEMY UNDERTAKES LITERACY PROJECT

Members collect and donate more than 150 books to help students in the Black Belt of Alabama

(Pictured above: Social Work Professor Dr. Denise Davis-Maye with best-selling author ReShonda Tate Billingsly at the SOTA program in Auburn)

Auburn, AL-Third grade students attending George Washington Carver Elementary School in Tuskegee, AL, will return to school in September with more than 150 new books. Members of the Sisters of the Academy (SOTA) collected and presented the books to school officials during their week-long Research BootCamp, Aug. 2-8 at Auburn University.

"We know that literacy dictates outcome," said Rema Reynolds , Chair of Outreach Committee, "Indeed, prison officials make projections using the reading scores of third and fourth graders. Our goal is to offset those projections and ensure academic success for these students."

The literacy project is one of activities during the Sisters of the Academy third Research BootCamp. The BootCamp, which is offered biennially, is an intensive weeklong experience that provides useful tools to support the development of graduate students' dissertation research and helps junior faculty further the preparation of manuscripts for submission to peer-reviewed journals. SOTA implemented the first BootCamp at Auburn University in 2005. The College of Liberal Arts offers financial support of this program.

"We know that literacy is the vehicle to educational attainment-an ideal to which we as academics are personally committed," explained Reynolds.

For more information on the Research BootCamp or the literacy project, contact Denise Davis-Maye at (334) 844-2822 or davisd4@auburn.edu .

Sisters of the Academy (SOTA) Institute was founded on March 7, 2001 by the authors of Sisters of the Academy: Emergent Black Women Scholars in Higher Education" (Stylus Publishing, 2001). Designed to address many of the issues raised in the book, the mission of SOTA is to facilitate the success of Black women in the academy by fostering research and scholarship collaboration. Numbering more than 100 Black women representing three countries, our members are Master's and Doctoral students, junior and senior faculty, administrators in higher education, and practicing professionals in the fields of business, medicine, law, and government.

 

 

 

 

For more information on the Research BootCamp or the literacy project, contact Denise Davis-Maye at (334) 844-2822 or davisd4@auburn.edu .

 

 

 

 

 

Sisters of the Academy (SOTA) Institute was founded on March 7, 2001 by the authors of Sisters of the Academy: Emergent Black Women Scholars in Higher Education" (Stylus Publishing, 2001). Designed to address many of the issues raised in the book, the mission of SOTA is to facilitate the success of Black women in the academy by fostering research and scholarship collaboration. Numbering more than 100 Black women representing three countries, our members are Master's and Doctoral students, junior and senior faculty, administrators in higher education, and practicing professionals in the fields of business, medicine, law, and government.

Kristrina Shuler has recently had an article entitled "Life and Death on a Barbadian Sugar Plantation: Historic and Bioarchaeological Views of Infection and Mortality at Newton Plantation (1660-1820)" accepted for publication in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology. Dr. Shuler (with Schroeder H, J Evans, T O'Connell, KA Shuler, and R Hedges) also published "Trans-Atlantic slavery: Isotopic evidence for forced migration to Barbados" in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology. (Early View). Published Online: Apr 6 2009. DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.21019. She received an Auburn University CLA Arts Non-Competitive Summer Research Grant $6,000 in 2008 and an Auburn University FY 2008 Competitive GFE Award $1,350.

Ki Seroka and Carole Zugazaga published "One Piece in the Child Welfare Puzzle: An Evaluation of Public Child Welfare Internships and Subsequent Employment". Journal of Baccalaureate Social Work 13(2). Spring 2008

Ki Seroka also received a grant from the Alabama Administrative Office of the Courts, 10-08 to 9-09 for $8,000 to fund the Family Connections Family Visitation Program which she co-directs on the A.U. campus.
Emily Myers received the State of Alabama and Montgomery Chapters Social Worker of The Year- National Association of Social Workers April 2008, the Civic Engagement Summer Academy- College of Liberal Arts grant of $1500.00 and the Title IV Child Welfare Training Grant from the Univ of Alabama for $8,000

Kelly Alley has an article titled, Legal Activism and River Pollution in India, coming out in the Georgetown International Environmental Law Review 2009

Janice Clifford has co-edited a book titled "Female Victims of Crime: Reality Reconsidered" Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
http://www.pearsonhighered.com/educator/academic/product/0,3110,0132339315,00.html

The College of Liberal Arts at Auburn University is proud to announce the winners of the 2009 Community and Civic Engagement YouTube Contest.

This year's first place video, and winner of $500 in prize money, is "Auburn Social Work Students" submitted by Ashley Nunn, Amanda Taylor, and Beyondai Hall. "Reading is Fun," submitted by John Anderson, secured second place and a prize of $250, and "Ummm...," submitted by Amanda Morris, won the third place prize and $150. All three of the videos are available for viewing at: http://media.cla.auburn.edu/cla/youTube_contest.cfm.

Sponsored by Auburn University's College of Liberal Arts, the 2009 YouTube contest invited contestants to grab a video camera and document instances of Auburn students demonstrating their commitment to civic responsibility by transforming public education into public good. The videos were judged on creativity, originality, relevance to the contest theme, potential to provoke discussion regarding civic engagement at Auburn University, and the number of votes received from Auburn University students and staff.

Of all the entries, the judges thought that the three winning videos offered the most creative, compelling, and thought-provoking glimpses of how community and civic engagement is a prominent part of learning and living at Auburn University and beyond.

The judges said that they were looking for videos that would prompt the Auburn community to reflect on, talk about, and even take a critical perspective of civic responsibility as a key feature of what the College of Liberal Arts and its students do. The judges were pleased that the three winning videos clearly met those criteria.

Nunn, Taylor, and Hall's "Auburn Social Work Students" proved to be the best of the best. Featuring students and faculty in Auburn University's Social Work program describing the numerous contributions they make to local, national, and global communities, the video boldly underscores the need for civic engagement as a cornerstone of higher education.

Any undergraduate or graduate student enrolled at Auburn University is eligible to submit a video. Only one video may be entered per person or group.

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$500 will be awarded to the creator(s) of the video selected as the first place winner. The creator(s) of the second and third place videos will receive $250 and $150, respectively. Prize money is sponsored by Auburn University's College of Liberal Arts.
The three winning videos will also be showcased on the CLA website.

To submit a video, upload your video on YouTube and then email its url to Christa Slaton, Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at ccepc@auburn.edu. Emails must be sent from an Auburn University email account. Please type "CLA YouTube Contest" in the subject line of your email, and include in the body of the email the names of the person, persons, or group submitting the video. The College of Liberal Arts will make your video available for viewing on the contest website. You will receive confirmation email from the College of Liberal Arts indicating that your video entry has been received.

In the event that you are unfamiliar with how to upload a video to YouTube, directions are available at http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=57931.

Videos need to be between one and five minutes in length.

The deadline for submitting videos is March 27, 2009. Videos received after the deadline cannot be considered.

Between April 1 and April 5, students are invited to vote for their favorite contest video by sending an email to Christa Slaton, Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at ccepc@auburn.edu. Emails must be sent from an Auburn University email account. Please type "Vote CLA YouTube" in the subject line of your email and indicate the title of the favorite video in the email's body. Only one vote per person will be tallied.

Videos will be judged by members of the College of Liberal Art's Civic Engagement Planning Committee. Videos will be judged based on the five criteria outlined below:

• Relevance to the contest theme
• Extent to which the video provokes productive reflection, discussion, debate, and/or critique regarding civic responsibility as a feature of learning and living at Auburn University
• Creativity
• Originality
• Number of student votes

Contest winners will be notified via email on April 10, 2009.

View the Video Entries

• Submitted by Amanda Morris
• Submitted by Ashley Nunn
• Submitted by John Anderson
• Submitted by Griffin Limerick and John Collins
• Submitted by Jillian Clair
• Submitted by Mallory Rice

Denise Davis-Maye, associate professor in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work in the College of Liberal Arts, has been selected to participate in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation New Connections Research and Coaching Clinic. The New Connections program is designed to expand the diversity of perspectives that inform foundation programming and introduce new researchers and scholars to the foundation, while simultaneously helping to meet staff needs for data analysis that measures progress toward program objectives. The clinic will be held during the 2008 American Public Health Association conference in San Diego Oct. 25-26. Davis-Maye's program of research focuses on the psychosocial and physical health attributes and concerns of African-American females.

They are Barb Bondy, Art; Brigitta Brunner, Communication and Journalism; Jeff Jakeman, History; Jim Johnston, Psychology; and Carole Zugazaga, Sociology. The program is designed to support superior faculty in the college, and, through the quality of the recipients' work, to strengthen student and faculty engagement in the local community as well as nationally and internationally. Each chosen faculty member will hold the title of CLA Engaged Scholar for a three-year appointment and will receive an annual supplement of $5,000. A committee selected the five recipients based on exemplary professional citizenship and participation in promoting the college's commitment to civic engagement.