GSU honors its African American researchers

As part of celebrating Black History Month, Governors State University hosted its third annual gathering for recognizing the school's African American researchers February 13 in a packed Engbretson Hall.

Each of the guests who spoke in front of the audience were GSU graduates or professors and walked the guests through their latest accomplishments in their respective fields.

Dr. Giesela Grumbach began the gathering with a story of her volunteer experience at the Pace Institute at the Cook County jail where she observed inmates receiving counseling and an education. What stood out was there were no females in the programs.

From that experience she would find the inspiration for her dissertation as a doctoral candidate as she investigated what happened as mothers returned from prison back to mothering.

"We have a lot of data about crime, prison, and parenting but not about the transition back into the maternal role.  Currently African American women make up 25.4 percent of the total prison population, which is less than 14 percent of the women in the United States.  It's an overrepresentation which we can thank Reagan for," said Grumbach, who teaches in the Social Work department.

Her research has found most women in prisons are incarcerated based on non-violent crimes with a majority due to drug abuse.

The second half of her work will be interviewing mothers as they return home to their children and how, if at all, their identity had changed.

Associate Professor of Public Administration Mary Bruce explored how prepared various law enforcement agencies were for disasters both natural and manmade.

Her study compared small towns with populations less than 50,000 residents to larger towns with populations exceeding 50,000 people.

What she found was alarming when the surveys returned and none of the respondents gave their preparedness levels over the expected four out of five readiness level.

Illinois law enforcement agencies are more apt to respond to blizzards, tornadoes, and flooding, which were the highest-ranked on the survey, while terrorist attacks, hostage situations, and hazardous material removal were the lowest ranked.

"It is not surprising that the larger cities responded with a higher response level as they have more resources than their rural counterparts." said Bruce.

Dr. Lorri Glass, Associate Professor of Social Work, based her 2007 research on the help seeking behavior of African American women after being involved with a crime or through trauma.

"I saw lots of strength from these women," Glass said. "They relied on others, their support groups, or they didn't think they needed help."

She also noted that the programs themselves might not be relevant to the women's needs, or they avoided seeking help due to the negative social stigma mental health care has received over the years. Her current project is interviewing female veterans who were sexually abused while serving in the military.

Dr. Joseph Day, Assistant Professor of Community Health, served as coordinator for a randomized controlled treatment program for schools in the Chicagoland area which focused on the theory of positive action, which believes a child who is raised in a supportive environment will fare better in school and have better behavior then a child who did not.

Students who took part in the positive action portion were surrounded by role models, greeted in the morning, and were praised for their efforts beginning in the third grade and terminating in the seventh grade.

Day's experiment showed that kids who were constantly encouraged did perform better and had higher self-esteem.

"We'd ask kids in an assembly about their homes, life style, and if there were any crimes they saw since this study spanned across the boundaries of poor and rich. What came out of this was that the resources kids have do matter, positive adults change lives, and stress does impact their development," Day explained.

Associate Professor of Management Christopher Anne Robinson-Easley spoke of her recently published book which is geared towards preparing people for today's job market.

"I've been in the business world for 22 years and in today's global job market people haven't changed to meet the new demands brought on by our competition. People are being pushed out of their jobs here by people in India not because the labor is cheaper but because their quality of education and when they start is much better and earlier than ours. Right now our schools are teaching how to write business proposals which students should already know how to do while other countries are preparing their students for the global market," said Robinson-Easley.

Her book tackled the issue of employees not being skilled enough and expected to do work they had not received schooling for, as well as the miscommunication employers exhibit by not properly explaining what they expect out of new hires.

Dr. Crystal Blount, who teaches psychology, showcased her initiative called "Where are the Women?" which tasked students to select female pioneers in their respective fields who have not been recognized by the academic community and write research papers on their contributions. 

"The project has led to some of my students advocating these women be added into the text books and it has inspired students to make a difference, respect themselves, and increase their engagement in the classroom," said Blount.

Associate Professor of Occupational Therapy Cynthia Carr debunked what "active participation" was in the classroom by switching the roles of educator and student for a semester.

In her study, she became the learner and had the students tell her what participation looks like in the classroom via verbal activity and nonverbal signals to develop a better definition.