Society for the Study of Social Problems Community Research and Development * Message from the Chair * Welcoming the Newly Elected Chair * CRD Sessions at the 2015 Conference * 2015 Call for Resolutions * Graduate Advice Corner * Chicago Spotlight Ð We Charge Genocide * CRD Member Publications and Awards * Jobs, Fellowships, and Calls for Submissions Spring 2015 Message from the Division Chair By Tamara G.J. Leech PhD., IU Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health at IUPUI Dear Colleagues, This newsletter contains my final message as Division Chair. It also contains a wealth of information courtesy of our newsletter editor, Rahim Kurwa. Rahim has compiled a list of all of our Division sessions at this yearÕs meeting, a ÒGraduate CornerÓ with links to helpful tools, and interesting and engaging interview with the organizer of We Charge Genocide, and the usual information about publication and job opportunities. He has also included a message from our newly elected Chairperson. Please join me in welcoming Dr. Jessica Lucero as the 2015-2017 Chair of the Community Research and Development Division! Thank you for allowing me to serve as the Chairperson these past two years. The experience has been rewarding and I have enjoyed it greatly. I hope that in the coming years you will all continue to stay involved in the division so we can all help Dr. Lucero to grow the membership and advance the mission of the Division. I personally plan to discuss the contributions of community-related research activities with at least one non-member each month in the coming year. If we each do so, that means there will be at least 1,800 engagement and advocacy moments to pull other scholars and practitioners into the work we do. This could provide a lot of momentum for our Division and its goals. I look forward to seeing and learning from all of you at this yearÕs meeting. Tamara G.J. Leech Associate Professor, Social and Behavioral Sciences IU Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health at IUPUI Welcoming the newly elected chair of the Community Research and Development Division Professor Jessica Lucero Utah State University Greetings Community Research and Development Division members! It is with great excitement that I will serve as our divisionÕs chair for the 2015-2017 term. I am currently in my fourth year as an Assistant Professor of Social Work in the Department of Sociology, Social Work, and Anthropology at Utah State University. Prior to joining the faculty at USU, I completed my doctoral studies at Wayne State University in Detroit, MI with Dr. Anna Santiago in 2012. Before I attended graduate school, I did social work in domestic violence, crisis intervention, welfare-to- work, and community organizing. Broadly speaking, my work examines how neighborhood and school contexts influence the life chances of vulnerable children and families. I work on issues such as housing, violence, marriage and fertility, and education. My research orientation is very interdisciplinary, and I have found SSSP to be the ideal organization to exchange ideas with a group of interdisciplinary scholars, practitioners, and students who are committed to social justice. As a trained social worker with a community practice emphasis, I am particularly interested in community research that has real-world recommendations for bringing social justice to marginalized communities. I am currently leading a research project with our StateÕs Labor Commission that assesses the knowledge and attitudes of UtahÕs public concerning the Fair Housing Law. These data are being used to improve educational outreach throughout the state so we can eventually decrease housing discrimination against our most vulnerable populations. Additionally, I am actively involved with our campus service learning officeÑI teach community practice with a community-engaged philosophy in which my students get out in their communities and do community-based research and intervention. Over the past 5 years at SSSP, I have been invigorated by the work of such dedicated activist- scholars in the Community Research and Development Division. I look forward to continuing this exchange of knowledge and passion in the coming years. See you all in Chicago! Community Research and Development Division Sessions at the 2015 SSSP Conference: Friday, August 21 Session 4: CRITICAL DIALOGUE: Reflections from the Field of Community-Based Research Time: 8:30 AM - 10:10 AM Room: Atlantic D Organizers & Presiders: Amie Thurber, Vanderbilt University; Alison Fisher, York University Session 14: CRITICAL DIALOGUE: New Directions in Community Research: Heterogeneity in Race, Gender, Class, and Migration Time: 10:30 AM - 12:10 PM Room: Atlantic D Organizer & Presider: Rahim Kurwa, University of California, Los Angeles Session 30: Immigrant Communities Time: 12:30 PM - 2:10 PM Room: Pacific 1 Organizers: Kasey Henricks, American Bar Foundation and Loyola University, Chicago Bill Byrnes, Loyola University, Chicago Session 42: Conflict and Social Welfare in the 21st Century: Neighborhoods, Cities, and Nations Time: 2:30 PM - 4:10 PM Room: Pacific 1 Sociology and Social Welfare Organizer & Presider: Alissa Klein, University of South Florida Saturday, August 22 Session 78: Homelessness in the U.S. Time: 10:30 AM - 12:10 PM Room: Pacific 3 Organizer, Presider & Discussant: Beth Frankel Merenstein, Central Connecticut State University Session 98: Community Engagement Roundtables Time: 2:30 PM - 4:10 PM Room: Atlantic C Organizer: Katrina Conrad, IU Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health Presiders: Patrick Donnelly, University of Dayton Shirley A. Jackson, Southern Connecticut State University Sunday, August 22 Session 122: Problematized Urban Communities and the Legacy of the Chicago School Time: 8:30 AM - 10:10 AM Room: Pacific 1 Organizer & Presider: Courtney A. Waid-Lindberg, Northern State University Session 137: Grassroots Activism Challenging Neoliberalism Time: 10:30 AM - 12:10 PM Room: Pacific 1 Organizer & Presider: Ligaya McGovern, Indiana University Kokomo Session 151: Grassroots Activism Challenging Neoliberalism II Time: 12:30 PM - 2:10 PM Room: Pacific 1 Organizer & Presider: Ligaya McGovern, Indiana University Kokomo Session 164: Power, Institutions, and Neighborhood Inequality Time: 2:30 PM - 4:10 PM Room: Pacific 1 Organizers: Meghan Ashlin Rich, University of Scranton Kelly L. Patterson, University at Buffalo, SUNY Session 173: Social (dis)Organization, Health, and Place Time: 4:30 PM - 6:10 PM Room: Pacific 1 Organizer & Presider: Tamara G.J. Leech, IU Fairbanks School of Public Health 2015 Call for Resolutions SSSP resolutions constitute an important opportunity for our scholar-activist membership to publicly declare their sentiments, thereby creating a channel for greater visibility and more direct influence upon a variety of Òpublics,Ó i.e., fellow activists, scholars, students, decision-makers, social action groups, voters, and others. Thus, as Vice- President this year, I am calling on the membership to submit resolutions for discussion, debate, and in some cases, passage. Keep in mind, that proposed resolutions serve as useful discussion points for SSSP members, helping to increase and enhance communication and activities during the long period between annual meetings. To submit a resolution, simply forward your resolution or your idea for a resolution to the Vice- President and the appropriate SSSP Division Chair(s) by July 1, 2015 in order to give members ample time to read and give serious consideration to your resolution. (If you submit your resolution to more than one chair, please inform all involved of this fact.) Proposed resolutions will be available for review prior to the Annual Meeting via posting on the SSSP website in the Òmembers-onlyÓ area and under ÒAnnual Meeting,Ó and as an e-mail blast sent to members who want to receive announcements from the Administrative Office. Resolutions submitted to Division Chairs should contain a concise position statement concerning a social problem of urgent concern to the Division. In most cases, the resolution should include some sort of call for viable action on the part of the SSSP. For more, see: http://www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/m/617/Call_for_Re solutions/ Graduate Advice Corner One of the most difficult hurdles for graduate students is publishing work in scholarly journals, particularly for the first time. The process can often seem overwhelming and intimidating. Anthony Ocampo, Assistant Professor of Sociology at California State University, Pomona and member of the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity, has provided a helpful tool for students trying to learn how to write and submit their work to an academic journal. By breaking down the process into its constituent parts, a process that once seemed overwhelming begins to look manageable. Check out OcampoÕs 8-minute video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kwag3ufdGT Q And see more about the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity here: http://www.facultydiversity.org/ We Charge Genocide members at the United Nations Chicago Community Spotlight We Charge Genocide Because the 2015 Annual Meeting will be held in Chicago, Illinois, we would like to highlight a community organization in Chicago that works on issues of police violence and racial justice. In November 2014, the organization also attended the 53rd session of the United Nations Committee Against Torture and presented evidence of police violence from communities of color in Chicago. About We Charge Genocide: ÒWe Charge Genocide is a grassroots, inter- generational effort to center the voices and experiences of the young people most targeted by police violence in Chicago. Instances of police violence reveal the underlying relationship between marginalized communities and the state. This is a relationship of unequal access to power and resources. This is also a relationship where violence is too often used by the police to silence, isolate, control and repress low-income people and young people of color in particular. We Charge Genocide was started to offer a vehicle for needed organizing and social transformation. The initiative is entirely volunteer-run - by Chicago residents concerned that the epidemic of police violence continues uninterrupted in our city.Ó Where did the name come from? ÒThe name We Charge Genocide comes from a petition filed to the United Nations in 1951, which documented 153 racial killings and other human rights abuses mostly by the police. There is a long tradition of collecting testimonies of human rights violations and taking those to the UN but thereÕs never been a specifically youth-driven effort. We want to connect the dots through lifting up youth testimony and youth voices on police violence in our city.Ó See more at their website: http://wechargegenocide.org/ Interview with We Charge Genocide organizer Page May: What should academics interested in social justice know before visiting Chicago? We have a lot of academics here who have been modeling the way, as far as what an activist intellectual looks like. Specifically, a lot of Black women - I'm thinking of folks like Cathy Cohen, Barbara Ransby, Beth Richie, Maryame Kaba, all those folks have PhDs and are teaching courses in universities here. I think itÕs [about] connecting with folks who are doing that work in a similar position. I really really want to lift up Barbara Ransby, I think she does an exceptional job at this. The University of Chicago employs one of the largest private police forces in the country. Can you talk about its relationship to people of color in Chicago? Has it been implicated in similar issues as the Chicago police? So the University of Chicago police department has been under a lot of critique and has always been seen by the Black community here as an added force of repression, because not only do we have a ton of cops in Hyde Park, but on top of this, the U of C Police Department isn't just covering the immediate area of U of C, they are, as you know, covering [streets from] 40-something through 60- something. So they have a huge, huge radius and they are policing something like 60,000 people. I do cop-watches when I see folks being stopped, searched, or arrested...usually when I do it, its cops, or state police. The other night I went down and saw the U of C arresting 4 or 5 Black folks who couldn't have been more than 11 years old. I have no idea what they were doing but I can't believe that that's what justice looks like. So I think that there's has been a lot of amazing organizing to hold the U of C police department more accountable to the community it is policing, because right now it is not. ItÕs a private security force that the community has no control over. And because it is private, it doesn't have the same regulations (the same state regulations). There is legislation that just passed the house that would open up and make the police department more transparent for the community members, and I think that is one important step that we are going to be supporting. How can graduate students and faculty help or contribute to efforts to stop police violence in general, and groups like We Charge Genocide in specific? What would you like to see from people in institutions that often have access to funding and other resources? We need everyone doing everything É Universities have a lot of institutional power and so they have been very, very helpful to us as organizers, specifically with things like material resources. Some of the biggest barriers we have as community activists who do this on our own time using our own money is that we need access to space; we need access to printers...and so again I lift up Barbara Ransby and Cathy Cohen. Cathy Cohen started Black Youth Project 100 and has used University of Chicago affiliations to help BYP100 find space and build connections with universities around the country to go and present and have retreats. And Barbara Ransby is constantly doing work through the Social Justice Institute of UIC to help connect university students with community organizers and stay updated on what's going on, to give space for us to have our events, to reach wider audiences, she's always, always helping to teach us, to share what she knows as someone with a lot of knowledge. I really see her as a mentor and an advisor and as a huge player and supporter of the movement. I think those are all folks that really model the way. When I was in college, I wasn't an organizer, and I regret that so much because in so many ways, colleges are so much easier to organize Ð everyone is in a close proximity. And I think I'm romanticizing it for sure, there are many, many challenges, but we need folks organizing their own people, and so if you are a college student, start up initiatives and projects and efforts and campaigns in your college to start building consciousness there. All of us are implicated in the police state, whether your school has a private police force or not, we all live in a country that is a police state. And so we all have ways that we can be disrupting that. What's needed is for that to be organized. So what we need is folks in universities, building networks, so when there's a call, we can mobilize those networks and get them on to the streets, get them to call the mayor. We need folks building in their communitiesÕ organized networks that we can communicate with more easily and that can come together and create really dope stuff. How does your organization view the traditional political structure? Is the re-election of Rahm Emanuel evidence that mainstream society is still doing "business as usual?" Or do you feel things are changing outside of that structure? I'm very cynical about electoral politics. I don't have hope that a mayor is going to save us. I do believe in organizing through electoral policies. I believe in building up organizations - you think of the black panther party as a great example of this - building up organizations that are of, by and for the actual people, and then building platforms and visions around our ideas and around our visions, and running on those. And it would be great if we win, but itÕs a tactic. ItÕs a really important tactic because itÕs something that many, many people pay attention to. So itÕs a way to start reaching more folks with what we're about and what we see as the problems and what we see are the solutions. So it can be a powerful tool for building a base, and for building a movement. But we always have to remember that itÕs a tool, not an end. We're never going to vote our way to liberation, and there's never going to be a moment when we're done, when we vote the right person into office. So I get cynical about how people idealize it, but I do appreciate the folks who are striving to disrupt electoral politics and bring in radicalism into that. I think that's really important. Can you comment on the effects of your internationalizing the struggle against police violence in Chicago? Are other groups working on issues of police violence interested in replicating that strategy? That's something that I'm really excited about. I think it is really important. It is something that black folks have done for a while. Many struggles have done this through history. And I get really excited when I think about what was going on in the Ô60s and Ô70s with how people of color of the world were engaging in solidarity and that's something I really want to keep building on. I've been most excited about what I'm seeing between, in the US, with police violence, and connections that are being made and solidarity that is being lived out around and between Chicago and the US and Palestine. I think that's really exciting, and I think is gonna keep growing. And I'm seeing more and more connections and spaces where folks are talking about connections between police violence in the US and the missing Ayotzinapa students. I see our struggle against white supremacy as a global one. Our struggle against anti-blackness as a global one. Our struggle against capitalism as a global one. ItÕs going to take all of us, so we're going to have to internationalize it. We've got a long way to go, that's all I can say. ItÕs gonna be a long, long fight. We're going to have to make sure that we're not building inauthentic relationships and we're going to have to question what does solidarity actually look like. Solidarity doesn't mean that we all think that we're the same. It doesn't mean that we have or are facing the same problem or that the same solution will work for all of us. Solidarity to me means recognizing that actually our struggles are distinct, they're different, but finding strategic places of connection and building off of them. So, you know the tear gas being used against protestors in Ferguson is also being used against protestors in Palestine. My friends that I live with in Chicago who are showing up for actions are Palestinians and they can't even go home. So finding connections that are about literal intersections, but also just relationships - the more people that we know and love. If I'm acting out of love for that person, that's more real solidarity than just "oh yeah I support this thing over there because its sexy" That's where I get skeptical. When we talk about international struggle we have to make sure we're not collapsing the distinctions between our movements, because that's false. What brown people in South America are experiencing is very different from what Black people in America are experiencing, but that doesn't mean we can't show up for each other. Until all of us are free, none of us are free. And so if we're not respecting each communityÕs perspectives, we're not offering liberation for everyone. If we're only looking for what we all have as the same, that's not going to be enough. And what you see time and time again is that black people get left out. Interview conducted by Rahim Kurwa. SSSP Connects! There are now multiple ways to connect with SSSP! Facebook: Click "Like" on the SSSP Community Research DivisionÕs Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/groups/SSSPDCRD/ Twitter: Follow our Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/#!/sssp1org, and include the hashtag "#SSSP" in your tweets. RSS Feed: Sign up to receive SSSP RSS feeds, and receive the latest news postings directly in the location of your choice. Community Research Division Member Publications and Awards Awards Prof Shirley A. Jackson, Southern Connecticut State University: Dr. Jackson is the 2015 recipient of the Chris Vogt Outstanding Board Member of the Year Award at New Reach, a non-profit organization in New Haven, Connecticut that helps shelter homeless women and children. Professor Beth Merenstein, Central Connecticut State University: Professor Merenstein is receiving the American Sociological AssociationÕs Sydney S. Spivack Program in Applied Social Research and Social Policy Community Action Research Award in recognition of her community action research work on housing and homelessness. Books Professor Nancy Naples, University of Connecticut: Naples, Nancy A., and Jennifer Bickman Mendez. 2015. Border Politics: Social Movements, Collective Identities and Globalization. NY: NYU Press. Cheers, Nancy Carl Ratner (www.sonic.net/~cr2) has published a new book: The Politics of Cooperation and Co-ops: Forms of Cooperation and Co-ops, and The Politics That Shape Them. Summary, contents, and Preface available at http://www.sonic.net/~cr2/Pols of Coop Web material.htm Job & Fellowship Listings Postdoctoral Research Position University of Miami The University of Miami, Center of Excellence for Health Disparities Research: El Centro (#P60MD002266), at the School of Nursing & Health Studies has an opening for an NIH-funded Post-doctoral Research Associate. The associate will lead health scientists on inter-disciplinary research in the following health foci: HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted infections; family and intimate partner violence; substance abuse; and co-occurring mental health conditions. Areas of research interest must be related to heath disparities in one or more of the El Centro focus areas or in related health conditions such as cervical cancer, diabetes or obesity. Deadline: Open until filled Type: Post-doctoral Research Associate with RN background and PhD in related field Employment Type: Full-time for 12-months; Renewable See more at: http://www.miami.edu/sonhs/index.php/elcentro/edu cation_and_training/post-doctoral_fellowship/ Associate Professor Research University of Cincinnati-Main Campus in Ohio The University of Cincinnati's College of Nursing at the University of Cincinnati is seeking to fill several tenured and tenure track faculty members that will contribute to the research mission of the college. We are seeking applicants with an established program of research in public health or with application to public health and evidence of sustained, substantial external funding Earned research doctorate in nursing Teaching experience in higher education at the graduate level eligible for rank of Associate Professor or Professor. Deadline: Open until filled Type: Tenured, tenure track Employment Type: Full-time See more at: https://chroniclevitae.com/jobs/0000881269- 01#sthash.zao39xli.dpuf Associate Dean - Health Careers City Colleges of Chicago This is an exciting time in the history of City Colleges of Chicago (CCC), District 508, the largest community college system in Illinois and among the largest in the nation. CCC is reinventing its approach to student success with a nationally recognized initiative to ensure even greater student success and outcomes across the system called Reinvention. Malcolm X College is the healthcare hub of City Colleges College to Career (C2C) initiative. The School of Health Sciences at Malcolm X provides a variety of allied health programs to students interested in completing two year associate degrees and/or obtaining credentials in the health sciences that will lead to careers in the high growth healthcare industry. Deadline: Open until filled Type: Administrative Employment Type: Full-time See more at: https://chroniclevitae.com/jobs/0000881375- 01#sthash.Q8nkecA6.dpuf Instructor/Assistant Professor Health Information Technology Suffolk County Community College Announcement is hereby made for a full-time, tenure track appointment beginning the Fall 2015 semester on the Michael J. Grant Campus in Brentwood. Suffolk County Community College is an open admissions institution committed to serving a diverse student population in a variety of degree and career programs. This is a Unit III position covered under the Faculty Association of Suffolk County Community College collective bargaining agreement with the College. Deadline: May 20, 2015 Type: Tenured, tenure track Employment Type: Full-time See more at: https://chroniclevitae.com/jobs/0000881514- 01#sthash.7T17hi4t.dpuf