Discover projects and activities the professors and students in the public sociology and public criminology programs are currently engaged in.
Dr. Cook is engaged with public sociology/criminology in the following ways: She is an active member of the NAACP and works on the criminal justice committee in the local chapter. She serves Chairs the Board of Directors for a local non-profit devoted to prisoner reentry: LINC (Leading Into New Communities), and on the Board of Directors for the Healing Justice Project which identifies and liaises with original crime victims and exonerees in wrongful conviction cases to promote improve aftermath services across the country.
In addition, Dr. Cook is involved in promoting restorative justice practices in the greater Wilmington area.
Drs. Kristen DeVall and Christina Lanier are actively engaged in public sociology and public criminology. Their work focuses on assisting agencies and programs in the areas of grant-writing and program evaluation. Recently, they have begun work on evaluating the New Hanover Drug Treatment Court (along with Dr. Darrell Irwin) to assess the effectiveness of this problem-solving court in reducing recidivism and improving participants' quality of life.
Similarly, they recently completed (along with Dr. Mike Maume) a state-wide evaluation of the NC Treatment Accountability for Safer Communities (TASC) program for Coastal Horizons Center, Inc. This project investigated the impact of the program on criminal recidivism among TASC graduates and those who were unsuccessfully discharged. Drs. DeVall and Lanier have also worked closely with the Wilmington Housing Authority to assess the needs of public housing residents and the needs of the local community to assist in the development of a comprehensive strategy and plan for their Choice Neighborhoods grant proposal.
Drs. DeVall and Lanier received a 2014 Summer Curriculum Development award from the former College of Arts and Sciences to develop a Public Criminology undergraduate course and a 2014 Center for Teaching Excellence Summer Pedagogy award to create a set of Public Criminology course modules. The course will provide students a unique opportunity to engage in their community while the public criminology modules will allow faculty to bring public criminology into any course within the department's curriculum.
Both the course and the modules will greatly enhance students' research methods, theoretical, data analysis and writing skills as well as provide them with the opportunity to disseminate research beyond the academy.
2019-2020: Dr. Waity is currently working on a Community Engagement Grant funded research project assessing affordable housing in Navassa, North Carolina. This research is in partnership with students from the MPA program, their instructor Dr. Kirsten Kinzer, the Navassa Town Planner (a UNCW graduate), MA student Samantha Durham, and Dr. Waity’s public sociology and criminology students.
The research team is investigating options for affordable housing in Navassa as well as seeking input from Navassa residents about their views of and interest in affordable housing.
Community Engaged Research (CER) Lab
Research: In the CER lab, we work with students and community partners to conduct research that improves the community.
Teaching: We incorporate community engaged research into our undergraduate courses.
Mentoring: Throughout students’ time in our lab, we provide mentoring to help them achieve the job skills that they desire.
Publications:
Waity, Julia and Jennifer Vanderminden. 2023. “Incorporating the community into Sociology courses through community-engaged research”. In The Teaching Sociology Playbook edited by Stephanie Medley-Rath and Gregory T. Kordsmeier, Sage.
Vanderminden, Jennifer and Julia Waity. 2021. “Methodological Considerations in Doing Public Sociology in Undergraduate Courses.” Routledge International Handbook on Public Sociology, edited by Leslie Hossfeld, E. Brooke Kelly, and Cassius Hossfeld
Waity, Julia, Emily Crumpler*, Jennifer Vanderminden, and Stephanie Crowe. 2023 “Using Community-Based Research to Teach Information Literacy” in Currents in Teaching & Learning
Waity, Julia F., Mitchell Farrell, Jennifer Vanderminden, Jean-Anne Sutherland. 2023. “Mentoring students through disruption: The case for community-engaged research.” Perspectives on Undergraduate Research & Mentoring (PURM) special issue on Continuity of Mentoring Undergraduate Research in the Face of Uncertainty
*indicates student co-author