Gina Luster, co-founder of the Flint Rising Coalition, will be speaking at UD on April 11th at 6 PM in Memorial Hall 127. From the flier attached: “The Flint Rising Coalition, through resident-to-resident contact and extensive community conversations, addresses the critical health, infrastructure and economic impacts of Flint’s water disaster.”

Hosted by the Department of Africana Studies. Sponsored by the Black Student Union, the Center for Black Culture, the Delaware Environmental Institute, the Vice Provost for Diversity, and the Delaware Concerned Residents for Environmental Justice.

Gina Luster Flint Rising Coalition Event

Read the inspiring story in The Review about the Southbridge Community Garden, which needs your help! Learn about Mr. Wayne Marshall’s journey and the growth of the community garden into a symbol of community resilience, food accessibility, and health. Thanks to The Review’s Ross Doty for authoring the piece!

I was elated to join my colleagues from the Disaster Research Center (DRC) at UD, as well as several other experts in emergency management and disasters, in meeting Mark Zuckerberg September 25th. As CEO of Facebook, Mr. Zuckerberg is looking for innovative ways that his company can help in disaster recovery and resilience. Also contributing to the discussion was Marie Reed, Southbridge Civic Association president, representing the community of Southbridge in South Wilmington, DE. Read more about the meeting here!

Co-founder and current chairman and CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg meets with representatives from the University of Delaware’s Disaster Research Center, local community groups, the Red Cross, and Delaware Jewish Community Centers for lunch. As part of his 50-state tour, Mr. Zuckerberg stopped by Wilmington to talk about community responses to disaster and ways to organize and leverage the support of community groups in responding to crises. – (Evan Krape / University of Delaware)

Join us July 14th-16th for this year’s Southbridge Weekend!  A totally free “carnival-like” atmosphere, the Southbridge Weekend has food, games, entertainment, lots of useful information for the community, book bag giveaways, and more!  We’ll also be doing some research on local community issues on Saturday the 15th, so come out and help promote Unity in the Community!

The ability to document social issues using cutting-edge software is a recent component of my Honors Introduction to Sociology course.  In the spring 2017 semester, students worked in teams to examine a social issue of their choice geo-spatially, with PolicyMap, which is very user-friendly software with real data that is accessible to any student.  By employing Durkheim’s concept of the “social fact” and other sociological lenses, students were able to identify and explain a variety of social issues using maps!  Here’s an example!

PolicyMapClip

In the fall 2015 semester, the Honors add-on section of my Fads and Fashions class made a documentary about fads on campus!  Utilizing quantitative surveys, in-depth interviews, and video footage around campus, the three-person team did an amazing job of gathering social science data and presenting it to their peers in an innovative format: the research documentary!  Here’s a brief clip of the full project!

Honors Fads and Fashions Makes a Documentary