Dr. Lambert accepted a volunteer position to be the Conference Chair of OverDRIVE 2017 in Seattle, WA- a fundraising analytics-based educational program for non-profits and higher education. Dr. Lambert will choose faculty and develop the programming for the conference. This event is part of the professional development programming offered by the Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement (APRA).

Dr. Nickels has presented papers at various conferences this year including ARNOVA in Washington, D.C., the 2nd Regional Mental Health Conference in Costa Rica, and the 3rd Health Research Congress in El Salvador. Dr. Nickels' and his partners' mental health organization in El Salvador received a 2 year grant from the Dorothy Ann Foundation for 2017-2018. This spring he will be teaching a research seminar for Honors College students at JMU, and 2 courses in Global Health at Mary Baldwin University. Also, Dr. Nickels is now a "Research Affiliate" with the JMU Department of Graduate Psychology.

In September, Dr. Pyle presented “Ethical Reasoning: Moving the Liberal Arts Tradition into 21st Century Action” with Erin Phillippi at the Association for General and Liberal Studies Annual Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. She also presented “Empathy, Fairness, Liberty: Are Leaders Asking the Right Ethical Questions for Decision Making?”at the International Leadership Association 18^th Annual Global Conference in Atlanta GA in November.

Dr. Pyle also teamed up with Madison Collaborative Chair Dr. Bill Hawk to teach a special elective course this fall- LEAD 703: Special Topics in Leadership: Leadership and Ethics to SSLS students. The course was designed to help prepare doctoral students in leadership studies for complicated moral problems they encounter as leaders and in daily life. The course explored a variety of domains including ethics, ethical reasoning, behavioral ethics, moral development, moral psychology, moral philosophy, behavioral economics, social psychology, and decision sciences and how those domains relate to overall leadership studies and leadership practice. 

Dr. Merritt was presented the Nancy Macduff Scholarship at ARNOVA's annual conference in Washington, D.C. this November. This scholarship helps provide Academics or Practitioners with the opportunity to attend the ARNOVA conference and continue to help bridge the gap between the two professional worlds. Dr. Merritt also presented two papers at this conference:

• “Motivations for Remittances and Philanthropy – Towards an Integrated (Mid-Range) Theory of Giving.” (Collaborative- Merritt, D.M., Sabith, K., & De Wit, Arjen.)
• "Understanding Nonprofit Partnerships by Experience."

Dr. Harris, was chosen as the recipient of the 2016 Brenda Lloyd Outstanding Dissertation Award by the Virginia Educational Research Association (VERA) committee for her dissertation entitled “The Achievement Gap and Students Living in Poverty: The Role of Core Self-Evaluation and Transformational Leadership in Teachers.” Dr. Harris was presented the award at the VERA conference on September 16th in Charlottesville, Virginia.  

• Lisa Akers joined the Executive Leadership Team for the March of Dimes Harrisonburg March for Babies. March of Dimes is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the health of babies by preventing birth defects, premature birth and infant mortality. 
• Recipient of the Women's Health-Dietetic Practive Group Excellence in Practice in Women’s Health Award. 
• The Graduate School Travel Grants Award Recipient (ARNOVA presentation, November 2016). See student publications for more details. 

The Graduate School Travel Grants Award Recipient (2 papers presented at ARNOVA, November 2016). See student publications and presentations for more details. 

Kim Hartzler-Weakley received the 2016 National Arts & Humanities Youth Program Award presented by First Lady Michelle Obama at The White House for her work with the Reading Road Show & Gus Bus literacy program. Read more about The Reading Road Show & Gus Bus program.

Eric was selected as the awardee of the Southern Regional Educational Board (SREB) State Doctoral Scholars Program for Virginia. The goal of the Doctoral Scholars Program is to increase the number of minority students who earn doctorates and choose to become faculty at colleges and universities through providing multiple layers of support including financial assistance, research funding, professional development opportunities, and career counseling. Read More.

Theresa was selected as one of ARNOVA’s Doctoral Fellows for 2016.  Theresa joined nine other Fellows and three faculty members for the Doctoral Fellows Seminar II during the ARNOVA conference in November in Washington, D.C. The seminar provides fellows the opportunity to get feedback on research, a stipend to support travel to the conference, and mentoring and networking opportunities.

The Graduate School Travel Grants Award Recipient (paper presented at ARNOVA, November 2016). See student publications for more details.

Paul and his collaborators received a 4-VA Grant Award for using debate and argument education to improve student learning and faculty engagement in education and exceptional education across the Commonwealth. Using 4-VA technologies, Paul and his team will collaborate with faculty at George Mason University, Longwood University, and Virginia Commonwealth University to redesign some of their courses, provide support, and research the impact of debate and argument education. Undergraduate and graduate students will be collaborating with them on the JMU side of this project.

Aaron Noland’s paper “The Relationship Between Slacktivism and Online and Offline Social Capital, Cosmopolitanism, and Social Cause Engagement Activities” was selected as Top Paper in Applied Communications for the Eastern Communication Association Conference to be held March 29-April 2 in Boston, MA. 

Alyse Lehrke 

Kristin Sowden

Tiffany Brutus

Adam Vanhove, Ph.D.

Smith, E. L., Donovan, K. J., Howard, K. A., Takahashi, L. S., Yung, R., Roy, M. M., Uyguner, N., Mabrey III, P. E., & Lee, M. R. (2016, August). Experiences of Discrimination by College Students with Disabilities. Poster presented at the American Psychological Association Annual Convention, Denver, CO. 

Collaborative work "Madison Matters: Fostering Institutional Change through Student Research on Campus Climate” accepted to the American Association of Colleges & Universities conference Diversity, Learning, and Student Success: Voices Leading Change in March 2017. 

Kim presented two collaborative works at the 2016 Department of Health and Human Services Teen Pregnancy Prevention Conference “Connecting the Dots: Collaborating to Achieve Lasting Impacts for Youth (https://www.cmpinc.net/tppconference/home.html):

Poster presentation with Michael Maurice (IHHS, JMU)- “Parent perceptions and attitudes toward sexuality education in rural Virginia”

Panel presentation with Michael Maurice and Kati Derrick (IHHS, JMU)- “More partners isn't always risky: Creating multi-sector partnerships to develop and implement a community-wide action plan”

Seán McCarthy, Audrey Barnes, Kevin Giovanetti, Fred Briggs, Patrice Ludwig, Kelsey Robinson, and Nick Swayne. 2016. Undergraduate Social Entrepreneurship Education and Communication Design. In Proceedings of the 34th ACM International Conference on the Design of Communication (SIGDOC '16). ACM, New York, NY, USA, , Article 29 , 5 pages. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/2987592.2987625

SSLS's Nonprofit concentration was well-represented at ARNOVA's annual conference this year, held November 17-19 in Washington, D.C. The following student, alumni, faculty, and student-faculty collaborative projects were presented at this year's conferece themed "Nonprofit, Philanthropy, and Government- Policy and Partnership in an Era of Change:"

Akers, L. & Sloan, M.F. (2016, November) “The Reciprocating Effect of Nonprofit Hospital Community Development.”

Allen, R. (2016, November) “The Development of Undergraduate Education for Social Entrepreneurship and Nonprofit Management: Current Trends and Future Directions.”

Allen, R. (2016, November) “Holding Ourselves Accountable: A Comparison of Accountability Mechanisms for Social Enterprises.”

Chung, S. (2016, November) “Cultural Values and Voluntary Participation: A Comparison Study Between USA and South Korea.”

Ford, K.A. & Fernsler, T. (2016, November) “Are They Collaborating? Exploring Small to Mid-Size Nonprofits Collaborative Experiences.”

Merritt, D.M., Sabith, K., & De Wit, Arjen. (2016, November) “Motivations for Remittances and Philanthropy – Towards an Integrated (Mid-Range) Theory of Giving.” Presented at 45th Annual Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action Conference, Washington, D.C.

Nickels, S. (2016, November) “Do Grassroots Organizations in El Salvador Help Develop Leadership, Empowerment, and Social Capital? A Quantitative Study.” Presented at 45th Annual Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action Conference, Washington, D.C.

Adam J. Vanhove, Alyssa M. Gibbons & Uma Kedharnath (2016): Rater agreement, accuracy, and experienced cognitive load: Comparison of distributional and traditional assessment approaches to rating performance, Human Performance, DOI: 10.1080/08959285.2016.1192632

Harms, P.D., Vanhove, A. and Luthans, F. (2016), Positive Projections and Health: An Initial Validation of the Implicit Psychological Capital Health Measure. Applied Psychology. doi:10.1111/apps.12077