American Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences 2024 Annual Meeting

With my Title III funds, I attended the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences (ACJS) 2024 Annual Meeting in Chicago, Illinois which took place from Tuesday, March 19th through Saturday, March 23rd. While I did not present at the conference, I used my time attending sessions to help formulate ideas about future research and to learn more about experiential learning practices, a type of teaching Lincoln University is promoting. I began the conference by attending a special two-hour training course on “crimmigration” research on Tuesday. With a focus on researching illegal immigration, the training moved into how to use participatory action research methods, which utilize accounts by members of the community affected by the research, to generate data. These methods can also be applied to research in prisons and juvenile justice, two areas of research I am also interested in to make the workshop very valuable for me to attend. I also attended two Presidential Addresses which focused on research in the area of Juvenile Justice. These sessions were also very valuable to me. I am planning to begin two research projects in Jefferson City related to Juvenile Justice. I also attended sessions on (1) restorative Justice, and (2) teaching in prison, both also valuable for formulating possible future research. When not attending sessions in the above areas, I was attending sessions on experiential learning to formulate some ideas that I could apply to my teaching at Lincoln. In all, the conference was well worth me attending

A Teaching Professor Attending the Central States Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages

The purpose of this blog entry for Title III grant funding is to share what I learned at the Central States Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. I share my experience attending a Full-day Spanish Immersion Workshop tour of the Twin Cities. and the effectiveness of speaking in the target language and learning the culture

A Report from the 2023 National Communication Association Annual Convention

This blog post presents a brief review of activity featured at the 2023 National Communication Association\u27s annual conference, held in National Harbor from November 16-19, with the theme Freedom

Shadow Work Writers: A Literary Arts Panel and Reading

Shadow Writers Transgressions, Transformations: the intersection of change and hurt, we find our characters, our verses, and ourselves

The 2023 Society for Military History Annual Meeting

Financed by Title III funds, I attended the Society for Military History (SMH) Annual Meeting in San Diego, California. The conference took place from March 23-25 2023. The Society for Military History was established in 1933 and is the preeminent professional organization for military historians in the United States. The SMH is devoted to stimulating and advancing the study of military history and counts more than 2,700 members from academia and the armed forces. During the conference, I presented an original research paper entitled “A Soldier Can Owe Allegiance to but One Flag: Political Polarization and Military Service in Puerto Rico, 1920-1930s. In it, I argue that U.S. efforts to export Progressive reforms to Puerto Rico via the professionalization of colonial units failed to reform the island\u27s political culture in the first decades of the twentieth century

Everybody Has a South: Grit Lit at the Louisiana Book Festival

Abstract: The Louisiana Center for the Book in the State Library of Louisiana is proud to present the 19th edition of our free, world-class literary celebration of the Louisiana Book Festival (louisianabookfestival.org/index.html). Come join the fun on October 28, 2023, in downtown Baton Rouge at the State Library of Louisiana, the State Capitol, the Capitol Park Museum, and nearby locations. The Grit Lit panel consisted of writers who exemplify this subgenre of Southern (though not exclusively Southern), blue-collar literature: Frank Bill, Daren Dean, and Meagan Lucas. Schedule: 10:00 am to 11:00 am, Capitol Park Museum Auditorium Everybody Has a South: Grit Lit, with Frank Bill, Daren Dean, and Meagan Lucas

The 2023 Missouri Conference on History

I recently attended the 2023 Missouri Conference on History from March 15-17, 2023 and presented my paper, Flexible Law: The Impact of Legislative Resources on Policy Adoptio

Are State Branded Products Local? A Case in Missouri

Local food has received great interest from consumers, producers, and communities. Under this trend, all U.S. states have launched state-sponsored marketing programs and labels to help producers market their agricultural products locally, connect producers and consumers, encourage consumers to shop for local food and promote the local and state economy. Some examples are Jersey Fresh, Go Texan, and Colorado Grown. Missouri is one of these, where any producers can use the Missouri Grown logo as long as they pay a 50-dollar annual membership fee. All states invested public funds for state-sponsored programs. The effectiveness of these programs partially depends on the consumers\u27 awareness of the label and actual demand for the labeled products. Therefore, the knowledge of consumer familiarity with the state-branded labels, their preferences for the label, and their willingness to pay is crucial for policymakers and state-sponsored program managers. It will also provide helpful information for producers to participate in these programs. Many studies consider that state-branded products are local food (Naasz, Jablonski, and Thilmany 2018; Nganje, Hughner, and Lee 2011). This study examines whether consumers consider State branded products local or treat the local and state-branded products differently, the degree of consumers’ familiarity with the state-sponsored label, and what kind of consumers are more familiar with the label using the case of Missouri. We also will investigate how consumers’ familiarity with the state brand affects their willingness to pay for the labeled products. To our knowledge, limited studies explored consumers’ preferences for local and state-branded products. This paper fills the gap. An online consumer survey was conducted through Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) in 2021 for Missouri consumers. Totally, 343 valid respondents have received. Descriptive and econometric modeling will be used to determine consumers’ definitions of local food, their differentiation between local and Missouri Grown products, and how their definitions affect their willingness to pay for state-branded products. Policy and marketing implications will be drawn based on the research findings

2023 MIMH Spring Training

Abstract The 2023 Missouri Department of Mental Health’s Spring Training Institute was held June 18th-19th in Lake Ozark, Missouri. This training sought to educate various professionals, staff, and consumers of the Division of Behavioral Health and the Division of Developmental Disabilities. Subject matter tracks included trauma, self-care, suicide prevention, and ethics to broaden knowledge and enhance the understanding of the critical services provided to the citizens of Missouri. Over 1,000 behavioral health providers from across the state were in attendance

A Teaching Professor Attending a Conference Called The Teaching Professor

The Teaching Professor was a conference held in New Orleans, LA in June 2023. I attended sessions and became more informed about how to better engage my students in the classroom by using group-oriented techniques that demonstrably increased participant conversation during the conference. Using rubrics to improve student performance and speed grading time was discussed at length. Useful resources were provided in all sessions