Center for

Community Studies

2010 Annual Report

2

Table of Contents

Letter from the Director 3

SECTION ONE

Center Overview 4

Center Structure 5

Center Highlights 6-7

Small Grant Spotlight 8-11

New Programs 12-15

Center-Sponsored Events 16-27

SECTION TWO

Active Research Projects of Affiliated Members 28-39

Center for Community Studies College of Education and Human Development

Vanderbilt Peabody College

Vanderbilt University

Susan Saegert, Director

Mayborn 106D

susan.c.saegert@vanderbilt.edu

615-343-6176

Jill Robinson, Assistant Director

jill.robinson@vanderbilt.edu

Cover Photos Courtesy of Jennifer Mokos and Jill Robinson

3

Dear Friends and Colleagues:

The Center for Community Studies has had a year of growth while continuing to strive to find

ways to increase the quality of community life through research, program development and

partnerships with many different sectors. More, and more diverse, people attended our

functions (colloquia and conferences) than the previous year. Our collaborations with

community and governmental agencies expanded and bore fruit. For example, the Center

worked with a local non-profit housing agency (The Housing Fund) and the Metro Development

and Housing Authority to secure NSPII funds totaling $31 million dollars (see page 7). The

Center also supported affiliated faculty member Craig Anne Heflinger and student member

Marielle Lovecchio who collaborated with the Tennessee Health Care Campaign/ Tennessee

Small Business Coalition to survey small business owners about their opinions and experiences

with health care coverage (see page 6).

All of these efforts contribute to the goals of facilitating ongoing conversations, idea sharing and

collaboration around solving problems that communities face in these challenging times. In this

annual report, you will read about our new efforts to achieve these goals. They include the

initiation of a Community Matching Program, as well as our endeavor to facilitate the

development of a database to bring together different community statistics that would be widely

useful in analyzing community problems and policy impacts.

This report serves as another opportunity to expand the conversation, reach out to new

potential partners, report on our activities and spotlight the interesting work in which our

members are engaged. This report is divided into two sections. The first section describes CCS

achievements and new programs. The second section highlights the projects of our affiliated

members. Thank you for your continued support of the Center.

Sincerely yours,

Susan Saegert, Ph.D.

Director, Center for Community Studies

Professor, Graduate Program in Community Research and Action

4

Center Overview

We continue to build upon the foundation laid from 1966-1981 by the director of

the original Center for Community Studies, Professor Emeritus Bob

Newbrough, and by the work of Associate Professor Doug Perkins, who revived

the interdisciplinary collaboration in 2004 and served as director until 2008.

Mission Statement:

• To conduct research that will enlarge the body of scholarly

knowledge and inform workable social policies and initiatives;

• To educate and mentor the next generation of community research

and action scholars;

• To work as partners with community agencies and groups that are

trying to meet the everyday challenges affecting people and the

places they live.

Our Mission is Carried Out Through:

• Grant-funded and other research, often collaborative and

sometimes involving class and student projects

• Colloquia, conferences and other types of information-

dissemination and convening activities;

• Project collaboration both internally among Center members and

externally with our many community-partner agencies and

organizations.

5

Center Structure

Susan Saegert, Professor of Human and Organizational Development, is the Center’s

director. Other than providing her professional guidance in all areas of the Center’s work,

she contributes her expertise in community organizing and empowerment efforts to local

community organizations. Furthermore, she functions as a convener for faculty, students

and community-partners by identifying how their independent goals can coalesce.

Jill Robinson, doctoral candidate in the Community Research and Action program, is our

assistant director. She provides support on research projects, meeting organization and

community-partner relationships. She is also in charge of the day to day organization of the

Community Matching Program and inquiries from organizations wishing to work with CCS

student or faculty members.

Research Groups

Input from faculty and student members has informed the

restructuring this year of the Center with the goal of developing

and formalizing ways to expand support for both Center

members and community partners. To this end, a system for

initiating research groups and interest groups has been

developed. . Research groups involve a more substantial

investments of time by members and can receive support from

CCS in seeking funds and carrying out programs or projects.

Currently research groups are Community Health;

International Community Studies; Schools, Community and

Youth (SCY); Urban Neighborhoods.

International

Community

Studies

Community

Health

Urban

Neighborhoods

Schools,

Community and

Youth

6

Center Highlights

The three projects described here each indicate, in their unique way, the talents

and accomplishments of our affiliated faculty and students as well as the capacity

the Center has to convene various entities in order to achieve important goals.

All of these successes were the product of collaborations, which is a key function

of the Center.

Tennessee’s Small Businesses and Factors Influencing Health Insurance

Coverage Craig Anne Heflinger, Mareielle Lovecchio, Jill Robinson, and Lori Smith (Tennessee Health Care

Campaign/Tennessee Small Business Coalition)

The TN Health Care Campaign (THCC)/TN Small Business Coalition (TSBC) was active in

advocating for health care reform over the past few years. In order to support their efforts and

gather data about the issue, they collaborated with CCS affiliated members to distribute a survey to

small businesses across the state. They found that these small businesses were struggling to

provide health care coverage for their employees, mainly because of cost increases. Nine in ten of

the respondents indicated an increase in cost over just one year. The study received wide press

coverage in The Tennessean and other local media outlets. To read the full report, visit the CCS

website. This study energized the coalition’s continuing efforts to advocate for health care reform

on behalf of small business owners.

Funding: Consumer Voices for Coverage; The Small Business Majority

Participatory Action Research Event Our October Participatory Action Research (PAR) consultation brought together national experts on

PAR with representatives from Nashville’s various faith communities to explore how university-

based researchers work with faith-based initiatives which tackle various community problems. To

open the event, Reverend Bill Barnes, pastor emeritus of Edgehill United Methodist Church and

noted community organizer, reflected on some of the history of interfaith cooperation in Nashville.

Several CCS-affiliated faculty members convened groups from Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and

interfaith groups to discuss their history, their current activities, and the ways in which they

interact with Vanderbilt faculty and students. We heard presentations concerning faith-based social

service provision, community organizing, and interfaith dialogue. Following these presentations,

there was a roundtable discussion about the role of the academy in faith-based work in community

settings. Representatives from CCS described some of their work and the ways in which they may

be able to work with community organizations. Finally, Michelle Fine, Maria Torre, and Reverend

Donnie Cook from the Institute for Participatory Action Research and Design reflected on some of

the lessons they have learned over the course of numerous PAR-oriented projects and led discussion

on how those lessons might apply to existing potential partnerships between CCS and faith-based

partners in Nashville.

Funding: The Ford Foundation

The following CCS-affiliated faculty/community members convened topical interest groups.

• Doug Perkins: Interfaith dialogue and community-building post-9/11 (Scarritt-Bennett Center,

the Interfaith Alliance of Middle Tennessee, and the Islamic Center of Nashville)

• Sandra Barnes: Connecting Faith and Praxis for Community Action (Spruce Street Baptist

Church)

• Terrie Spetalnick and Angela Cowser: TNT and POGO: Community Organizing and Identity

(People of God (POGO) and Tying Nashville Together (TNT))

• Becca Stephens and Susan Saegert: Recovery and Community (Magdalene House)

7

Nashville Shared Equity Initiative Susan Saegert, Principal Investigator: Emily Thaden and Andrew Greer

This was a big year for the Nashville Shared Equity Initiative and the research team. Andrew Greer

took a leading role in preparing the data for the problem analysis and estimated program impact for

Nashville’s Neighborhood Stabilization Program 2 grant proposal. It was submitted by a consortium

of housing agencies including Nashville’s Metropolitan Development and Housing Authority with the

Housing Fund, Woodbine Community Organization, Urban Housing Solutions, and Pinnacle Bank

and won $30.5 million in a very competitive national process. The program’s goal is to stabilize

housing markets and community life in neighborhoods with high foreclosure and high vacancy rates.

Below, a map of foreclosures in Davidson County highlights the 17 census tracts that the Nashville

consortium is targeting for housing interventions. In addition to a variety of rental and

homeownership initiatives, the NSP2 plan includes starting up a shared equity sector of at least 100

homes within the next 3 years. Emily Thaden was hired to help develop the shared equity portion of

the project. Andrew Greer was hired to collect and analyze baseline data for an ongoing evaluation of

the NSP2. New PhD students and urban planner, Donald Anthony, has joined him in this work

during the summer 2010.

HUD risk-scores are based on projected foreclosure and vacancy data, with scores

ranging from 0-20. HUD requires the overall average of census-tract scores to be 18 in

order to provide NSP2 funds.

At the Urban Affairs Association annual conference, the team presented an analysis of data from

focus groups with potential residents of shared equity indicating a high degree of interest in the

scheme, as well as suggesting that low income residents were seeking to achieve many non-economic

values in buying a home that might better be achieved through shared equity than market

homeownership. A second presentation analyzed clusters of foreclosures with different loan and

population characteristics and then described the different types of residents, their different forms of

attachment or alienation from their homes, and policy implications. These presentations are under

revision for publication. In addition, a review is being written of the consequences of homeownership

for low and moderate income residents in light of the foreclosure crisis. Finally, the team is

conducting an ongoing ethnographic study of the development of the shared equity sector in Nashville

and of the NSP2 project. Saegert has also extended earlier research on the foreclosure crisis to an

analysis of how among African Americans, the crisis represents another in a long series of

displacements from homes and extraction of assets. This paper is to appear in a special issue of

Journal of Urban Health on Serial Displacement.

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NSP2

!( 2009 foreclosures

HUD score <17

HUD scores

17

18

19

20

0 7 143.5 Miles

Nashville-Davidson County

‾

8

Small Grant Spotlight

In the past, the Center received funding to distribute small grants to our affiliated

members. Unfortunately, because of financial cutbacks, we are not able to continue this

program, but some of the projects still continue. The following pages provide an

overview of three projects funded fully or in-part by CCS small grants.

The Tied Together Parenting Initiative at the Martha O’Bryan Center

Kimberly Bess, Principal Investigator; Bernadette Doykos*, Laura Vilines, Jessica Thompson, and

Robin Daniels.

The Tied Together parenting initiative began as part of a broader multi-year effort at the Martha

O’Bryan Center under the leadership of CEO Marsha Edwards to expand the center’s work beyond a

traditional service provision model by focusing on the development of new programs and practices

grounded in the goals of prevention, community participation and empowerment, and community

condition change. Launched in 2008, Tied Together has served as the cornerstone of these efforts

and provides the foundation for realizing the following key community-identified priorities: 1) Young

children are ready for school; 2) Children are succeeding in school; Youth are ready to become

productive adults; 4) Children and families are safe; and 5) Children and families are healthy.

The center provides the following description of the program’s content and aims:

“Our Tied Together parenting initiative gives at-risk parents from the Cayce Homes and

surrounding east Nashville the education, resources, and modeling they need to raise healthy

families. The program, which teaches positive parenting skills and supports good health

outcomes among mothers, works to reduce infant mortality. Tied Together helps parents

learn how to become their children's best teachers through gaining an understanding of child

development. The nine-week curriculum is divided into topics that include Forming a

Community of Learners, Immunizations, Brain Development, Health and Nutrition, and

Safety. Parents receive essential educational, medical, safety, and nutritional items to take

home after each session, to implement best practices learned in class.” (emphasis added)

Inspired by the Harlem Children’s Baby College, the philosophy underlying the Tied Together

parenting initiative is one of scaling-up whereby programs are linked and integrated as part of a

multi-level systemic intervention. At the Martha O’Bryan Center the idea of scaling-up is referred

to as the highway. Practically speaking, the goal is to connect parents who are participating in Tied

Together to other appropriate programs (e.g., GED classes) and services that will strengthen and

support the family.

Funding: Center for Community Studies, Governor’s Office of Children’s Care Coordination

*Graduate Assistant Bernadette Doykos was with the Harlem Children’s Zone before joining CRA

and working with Bess on the Tied Together Project. She states, “One of the projects I worked

closely with was called Baby College, and is the program after which Tied Together is modeled.

Upon entering CRA, I was paired with Kimberly Bess as my advisor who has worked closely with

Tied Together since it's most nascent phases. It's been a phenomenal experience for me to work

even more closely with a programmatic model with which I was already familiar. We work together

with the staff, conducting observations, pre- and posttest surveys and social network maps, and

exit interviews.”

9

Tied Together Program Preliminary Survey Results: Mean Scores

Number of Survey

Participants Minimum Maximum Mean

Pre-Program: Knowledge of Infant

Development Inventory Percent Correct

Score

100 20% 90% 67.56%

Post-Program: Knowledge of Infant

Development Inventory Percent Correct

Score

50 31% 92% 71.10%

Pre-Program: Neighborhood Sense of

Community

99 1.00 5.00 2.6957

Post-Program: Neighborhood Sense of

Community

50 1.00 5.00 3.1737

Pre-Program: Tied-Together Sense of

Community

96 1.25 5.00 4.3326

Post-Program: Tied-Together Sense of

Community

50 1.87 5.00 4.6153

Pre-Program: Parent Confidence Scale 100 2.93 4.93 4.3056

Post-Program: Parent Confidence Scale 48 3.57 5.00 4.4762

“...I have a lot of friends interested in the

Tied Together program. It was just very full

this time around….but, a lot of people don't

feel connected to the neighborhood, but

they feel very connected in this Tied

Together program, which is a good thing

because we actually want to hear other

people's good stories. I mean the

neighborhood's kind of tragic and we don't

like the neighborhood, but this is our sense

of community. Tied Together is our

community.” (Tied Together participant)

Kim Bess and Bernadette Doykos presented on this project this

summer at the International Network for Social Network Analy-

sis (INSNA) Sunbelt Conference in Italy.

Title: Who’s in and who’s out: The construction of parent social

support networks

10

Small Grant Spotlight

The Impact of Hope VI Housing Programs on Neighborhoods

Claire Smrekar, Principal Investigator; Lydia Bentley, Ph.D. student

Recent studies sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and

private research groups have examined the neighborhood effects of HOPE VI projects (Holin

et al., 2003; Turbov and Piper, 2005; Zielenbach, 2002). Although the magnitude of positive

neighborhood impact varies across sites, most reports indicate reductions in rates of poverty,

crime and unemployment in and near

HOPE VI neighborhoods. None of these

studies, however, explores the impact of

HOPE VI community revitalization on

nearby neighborhood schools, prompting

an array of important, unanswered

policy questions. This study of

neighborhood change, neighborhood

capacity, and neighborhood effects on

schools is anchored to conceptual models

found in traditional urban sociology.

This sociological approach blends

ecological (Berry and Kasarda, 1977;

Kornhauser, 1978; Park and Burgess,

1916, 1925) and social area analysis

(Shevsky and Bell, 1955) models to

understand how structural conditions

are associated with social processes that

are bounded by the physical space of neighborhoods. Our attention rests with the social

processes and structures in communities that impact the educational experiences and

opportunities of families and children. This is the first effort to systematically examine the

impact of HOPE VI neighborhood

revitalization on traditional public

schools in such areas as change in

social structures, perceptions of

safety, and social engagement in

schooling. As part of this study, we

also have conducted an analysis of the

effect of HOPE VI revitalization on

neighborhood housing stock, including

values, sales and maintenance.

Photos courtesy of Claire Smrekar: Traditional public housing

HOPE VI public housing

11

Resisting Environmental Injustice: A Multi-site, Process, Outcomes, and Network-based

Evaluation of Participatory Permitting Workshops for Tribal Communities in New Mexico

Courte Voorhees, Principal Investigator

Humans have significantly transformed the Earth, sometimes with destructive effects rang-

ing from local pollution to global catastrophe (Miller, 2000). Since the 1970s, environmental

issues have become more visible in mainstream society but environmental justice (EJ) advo-

cates claim that there are still persistent environmental injustices that have not gotten the

attention afforded more mainstream issues (Taylor, 2000). Tribal lands in the Southwest

are some of the nations leaders

in poverty and diminished ac-

cess to amenities (Webster &

Bishaw, 2007) while the U.S.

Southwest has been a focal point

for tribal experiences of environ-

mental injustice (Kuletz, 1998) –

although recent policy changes

may reshape the future land-

scape of tribal interactions with

state governments. These

changes have provided an oppor-

tunity to reshape environmental

decision making for tribes and

forge beneficial relationships

with the state.

In response to this opportunity,

Voorhees collaborated with rep-

resentatives from the New Mex-

ico Environment Department

(NMED) and the American In-

dian Law Center (AILC), creating workshops to disseminate policy and technical informa-

tion to all 22 New Mexico tribes. These workshops, part of a larger participatory action re-

search (PAR) project, train tribal communities to utilize EJ policies, create network connec-

tions with state environmental regulators, and encourage tribal workers, leaders, and com-

munity members to take an active role in environmental decision making and forging in-

creased community readiness. Using a PAR lens, Voorhees used a mixed-method design in-

cluding quantitative/qualitative program evaluation, participatory social network analysis,

and qualitative interviews. Partially funded by a Center for Community Studies small

grant, Voorhees helped plan, implement, and evaluate the participatory workshops. Thus

far, analysis of process evaluation data shows promising response to the workshops and po-

tential for tribal community use of information. Voorhees currently collecting final out-

comes data and analysis of these data is ongoing. He anticipates completion before August

of 2010.

Photo courtesy of Courte Voorhees: Tour of a solid waste site at Isleta Pueblo as

part of the second participatory workshop on environmental justice and permit-

ting.

12

New Programs

The Center for Community Studies (Peabody College, Vanderbilt University) is committed to

bridging academic and community resources. The Community Matching program differs

from traditional student internship programs in that it is more flexible and adaptable to the

changing needs and capacities of community organizations. This year we pilot tested the

project and had 15 organizations request assistance. Of these we succeeded in making

matches with interested students for 5 of these requests. The strong positive response to the

program led us to begin to seek funding to facilitate greater student participation and

continue insure effective faculty supervision. We also have reached out to field research

classes as a way of meeting the demand. For example, a masters and PhD graduate class in

Action Research undertook several of the projects in 2009-2010.

The Housing Fund

CRA student Andrew Greer assisted The Housing Fund (a local CDFI) with an assessment

of down-payment need in Davidson County, with an update of THF's website, and with a

project to study potential market demand and implementation approaches for Shared-Equity

homeownership. For more information on this work on shared equity, see page 7 and/or

contact Andrew Greer (Andrew.l.greer@vanderbilt.edu).

Magdalene House

CDA students Nicole Garcia, Jenny Gray, Angie Harris, and Jessica Thompson worked with

Magdalene House, a free, non-medical recovery and support residential program, to help

address the issue of affordable housing for graduates of the program. Their research focused

on individual, program, and community barriers to and possible solutions for achieving

independent living. For more information, contact Nicole Garcia (nicolergarcia@gmail.com),

Jenny Gray (jenny.l.gray@vanderbilt.edu), Angie Harris (angela.k.harris@vanderbilt.edu), or

Jessica Thompson (jiessica.r.thompson@vanderbilt.edu).

Metro Public Health Department

CDA students Jessica Thompson and Andy D’Alessandro worked with the Ryan White

Planning Council, including matriculating CRA student Lauren Brinkley-Rubinstein, to

better understand the Council's training needs related to understanding data and data

display. Their work included developing a logic model, creating and administering a survey

to gauge the council’s understanding of data concepts, and using the information from the

survey to implement a data training workshop. The workshop included teaching Planning

Council members basic data concepts including commonly used public health terminology

and showed the Council members how to better understand basic data displays. The

workshop will ultimately help Planning Council members be able to make more informed

decisions regarding resource allocation as they will have a better foundation in data

regarding the HIV community in the Nashville Metro Statistical Area. For more

information, contact Lauren Brinkley-Rubinstein

(lauren.k.brinkley-rubinstein@vanderbilt.edu)

Community Matching Program

13

Metro Nashville Public Schools

In an expansion of an existing partnership between CCS faculty and several metro schools,

CRA student Adam Voight and CDA student Laura Vilines worked with MNPS and

Alignment Nashville on a youth-violence-prevention project at Jere Baxter Middle

School. The goals of their project were to “understand students and student social needs,

evaluate existing social services in the school, and refine the protocol for linking at-risk

students to appropriate service providers.” Using data gathered through an annual survey

they demonstrated need for targeted social services and found a positive impact of service

utilization.

For more information on this project, contact

Adam Voight (adam.m.voight@vanderbilt.edu) or

Laura Vilines (laura.vilines@vanderbilt.edu)

Urban Housing Solutions

Teaching and Learning doctoral student, Christopher Keyes, and CDA students Wes Jami-

son, Amanda Taylor and Courtney Williams worked with Urban Housing Solutions on their

“Health Matters” program at Mercury Courts, which is a 174—apartment low-income resi-

dence. Their goals were to determine if emergency calls have decreased since the program

was implemented, and to assess the current health care needs of residents. For more infor-

mation, contact Chris Keyes (christopher.s.keyes@vanderbilt.edu), Wes Jamison

(wes.jamison@vanderbilt.edu), Amanda Taylor (amanda.taylor@vanderbilt.edu),

or Courtney Williams (Courtney.e.williams@vanderbilt.edu).

Nashville Metropolitan Planning

Organization

CDA students Laura Stamm and Emily Stew-

art helped develop a health impact assessment

to inform the expansion of the Music City Star,

which is Nashville’s commuter rail system. In

their literature review, the student research-

ers explored how the urban form relates to

rates of obesity. They helped MPO design, im-

plement and analyze an online survey to as-

sess needs. In addition, they conducted site

visits to Nashville neighborhoods scheduled for

transit oriented development and worked with

a design team to integrate their findings into

the design. With MPO officials, they visited

Denver and were tasked to study the city’s

transit oriented design innovations.

For more information, contact Laura Stamm

(laura.k.stamm@vanderbilt.edu) or

Emily Stewart

(emily.d.stewart@vanderbilt.edu).

14

New Programs

The Center for Community Studies is working on a database that is structured as an

integrated, longitudinal, multi-dimensional data system for Nashville/Davidson County. It

is useful for applied, scholarly, and public policy endeavors. This “relational database” was

developed in SQL (“structured query language” - a computer programming language) using

data drawn from the US Census (1970, 1980, 1990, and 2000) and from Metro planning.

A “relational database” matches data from different datasets by finding common

characteristics across those datasets so that they can be linked. In other words, the datasets

“talk” to each other using common variables. For example, we can combine voting, crime,

health and home ownership records at the parcel level (individual property level), which is

the common denominator, to get a better idea of a household and neighborhood context.

This provides a richer understanding of community processes than what is generated by just

one of these datasets. Not all data are available at the parcel level, in those cases, we

aggregate up to larger geographic units. Our existing database is both cross-sectional and

longitudinal and captures data at different geographic scales related to multiple community

variables such as voting, crime rates, health indicators, housing, and so on. At different

geographic scales, we will be able to look at community dynamics and using geographic

information system (GIS), we can look at these dynamics spatially.

This database will give us an unprecedented look at the contextual impact of housing and

other neighborhood features on individual outcomes. It promises large-scale collaborative

studies with scholars and community partners. The relational database team currently

consists of Professors Susan Saegert, Paul Speer, Beth Shinn, and Maury Nation (HOD), and

Claire Smrekar (LPO). The project’s research assistants are doctoral students Andrew

Greer, Adam Voight, and Jill Robinson (CRA).

Community Statistics Relational Database

15

CATEGORY POTENTIAL DATA

Economy

Tax records*

Employment data

Education Standardized test Disciplinary actions Head Start records

Health

Immunizations

Vital records ER admissions

Social Services Public assistance Day care licenses Mental health

Safety

Crime rates Child abuse Liquor outlets

Commercial data PRIZM data

Community

resources

Social service

agencies

Community Voting

Housing

Foreclosures

Tax assessments Building permits

Environment

Pollution

Toxic waste sites

The table below provides an outline of datasets initially sought for the database. This is in

no way exhaustive, and not all data sought will be successfully accessed. The most critical

aspect of this project is data access – and access in disaggregated form.

So far, approximately $65,000 has gone into the development of the database, and we are

currently in a capital campaign to raise funds to further develop the database. Our goal is to

raise $150,000 for this research tool.

We would need additional funding so that 1) we can purchase server space and 2) our

programmer can be paid to finish the last steps of integrating the database and web

application.

However, even in its current stage of development, the database has been a valuable tool.

For example, it was used in the successful application of a $30.5 million Neighborhood

Stabilization Program 2 grant (see page 7).

* An underline indicates we currently have those data.

16

Center-Sponsored Events

Our fall conference was held on October 30. Every fall, CCS hosts a one-day conference to

highlight the research and action projects engaged in by our affiliated faculty, students, and

community members. Colleagues from multiple departments across Vanderbilt and

Tennessee State University were invited to present their work in panel sessions. This year,

we added moderators to promote discussion during the sessions. We would like to thank the

following faculty and student moderators: Sandra Barnes, Oluchi Nwosu, Doug Perkins,

Beth Shinn, and Craig Anne Heflinger

The following pages list the session abstracts from our conference:

Housing & Urban Development Josh Bazuin

HOPE VI and the Right to Housing: Moral Discourse around a Two-tiered Public Housing

System

HOPE VI represents a retreat from the principle of a right to housing, reestablishing a

meritocratic system where a “deserving” minority of people are given high quality housing in

exchange for a meeting behavioral norms established by the landlord; people unable or

unwilling to conform with these standards are relegated to substandard, unsafe housing.

Based on interviews with 113 HOPE VI residents in Nashville, Tennessee, Bazuin examined

the moral discourse around a two-tiered public housing system, considering the identity

work resident of HOPE VI developments do to justify the disparity between the redeveloped

units and their run-down counterparts. These justifications were then contrasted with the

views of several theorists and

practitioners who have considered the

place of a “right to housing” in public

policy and public discourse.

Jim Fraser and Josh Bazuin

The Contours of Mixed-Income Living in

the Music City

One of the cornerstones of developing

mixed-income housing has been to

promote changes in impoverished

neighborhoods through transforming

social relations that constitute it. Fraser

and Bazuin reported on a study

conducted in four HOPE VI

redevelopments in Nashville, Tennessee,

to examine the ways in which people

experience everyday life, and, in turn,

how their ‘homespace’ provides opportunities and obstacles for working towards an enhanced

quality of life. The authors concluded with theorization on mixed-income living as it relates

to urban redevelopment/city building more broadly.

Fall Conference

Conference photos courtesy of Ting Li Wang (visit www.tingliwang.com)

17

Ginger Pepper

Jefferson Street Renewal Project

Through the leadership of Jefferson Street United Merchants Partnership, the TN

Department of Transportation, the City of Nashville, Tennessee State University (TSU), and

the Department of Housing and Urban Development, over $2 million will be invested in

Jefferson Street in North Nashville over the next three years. Improvements will hopefully

lay the groundwork for economic and community improvement. In September 2009, TSU’s

Center for Service Learning and Civic Engagement was awarded a grant from the U.S.

Housing and Urban Development Historically Black Colleges and Universities Program.

Funds will be used to invigorate the historic Jefferson Street corridor, as well as renovate

homes of elderly citizens in North Nashville. TSU will use some of the funds to rehabilitate

the Interstate 40-Jefferson Street underpass to create a safe, accessible, historically-reverent

gathering space, called the “Gateway to Heritage.” TSU will allocate more than $400,000 of

grant funds to improve fencing, lighting and landscaping of the underpass, as well as create

a mural and painting plan to document through art the history of Jefferson Street. TSU

faculty and students in art, architectural engineering, geography, history and other

disciplines will participate in the project. Currently, business students at TSU are learning

about Jefferson Street and will conduct survey research to determine what residents,

students, faculty, and staff of the nearby universities (TSU, Fisk, and Meharry) like about

Jefferson Street and what they would like to see changed.

Andrew Greer

Differences in Default: Examining Neighborhood Characteristics and Exploring Resident

Connections to Homeownership

Residents of neighborhoods with high foreclosure rates have multiple reasons for

homeownership exit. Purely quantitative studies that examine the relationship between

high-risk lending and mortgage default tend to emphasize individual financial factors and

minimize defaulter psycho-social factors that may highlight homeowner exit rationales.

While recent qualitative work has elucidated the psychological impacts of foreclosure, these

investigations have not focused on how and why defaulters stay or exit their homes and how

neighborhood characteristics impact these trends. This mixed-methods study in Nashville,

TN addresses these gaps. Cluster analyses of census tracts explore whether neighborhoods

with high foreclosure rates have unique characteristics based on foreclosure predictors from

previous studies. North Nashville had above average percentages of “high-cost” loans,

African Americans, female heads of households, low median incomes, lower education levels,

unemployment, and properties vacant for ninety days or more. Antioch had above average

percentages of highly leveraged loans, foreign born citizens, newer homes, employment, and

higher income. Interviews with defaulters from each neighborhood were presented to expose

psycho-social factors that inform defaulters and further solidify how neighborhood attributes

relate to these factors. Implications for foreclosure prevention and interventions, such as

Shared Equity housing, were discussed.

Mick Nelson

Quantifying Racial Dynamics in Housing: A Tale of One City and Three Studies.

In this presentation Nelson outlined some results from his studies of racial dynamics in the

Nashville housing market. These studies ask the question: To what extent is race a factor in

the desirability of neighborhoods and the location of households? Different theoretical

perspectives on this question were explored with conclusions drawn from the results of

extant literature as well as the preliminary results of his research.

18

Center-Sponsored Events

Education

Christon Arthur & Tammy Lipsey

Building Literacy through P-16 Service-Learning Partnerships

Tennessee State University, College of Education and Center for Service Learning and Civic

Engagement have formed a literacy partnership with Metro Nashville Public Schools. This

partnership is a model for merging university, community and school resources. The

Literacy Partnership improves academic achievement of P-12 and college students by

providing school-based, university supervised reading clinics. The clinics offer hands-on

experience in the teaching of reading for pre-service teachers as well as valuable one-on-one

tutoring for struggling students in grades K-6. Pre-service teacher learn a five-part research

based method for tutoring struggling readers. Students in the school attend the one-to-one

tutoring session for 30 minutes, twice a week for a minimum of eight weeks. The

partnership began in 2007 and has been in operation for four semesters with successful

results. This semester, three newly established school-based reading clinics are in

operation, McKissack (Pearl Cohn 9th Grade Center, John Early Middle School, and

Charlotte Park Elementary School. This partnership promotes promising practices in

literacy that will significantly raise the level of literacy achievement for all students and

better prepare pre-service teachers for the classroom. The effort has been partially funded

by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and Tennessee Board of

Regents.

Emily Lample

Knowledge-sharing Practices in a Colombian Education Program: A Look at Strength of Ties

in Students’ Networks of Knowledge-sharing

While a larger community-level impact is often a secondary goal of education programs,

there is limited empirical research regarding the paths along which ideas may travel

between students of a program and other members of the community. The case of the

“Preparation for Social Action” Program in Colombia highlights the potential for

educational programs both to diffuse ideas into the community and to draw upon local

knowledge for student learning. Granovetter’s strength of weak ties theory offers a useful

framework by which to understand the different ways that students can engage in

knowledge-sharing with members of the larger community. This study draws from a mixed-

method approach to social network analysis, building from 26 student ego-network

representations, interviews with 19 students and 3 teachers of the program, curriculum

analysis and field observations. It identifies patterns in students knowledge-sharing

practices according to strength of tie along with typologies of student knowledge-sharing

networks to explore implications for the role of knowledge-sharing in enabling education to

contribute to community change.

Fall Conference

19

John Vick

The Louisville Schoolyards Project: Building Spaces for Learning and Community

The Louisville Schoolyards Project is a design and community-building process for two

elementary schools in Metro Louisville. Researchers from the University of Louisville

partnered with the local school system to facilitate a community-based redesign of the

schoolyards at two environmental studies magnate schools to create outdoor learning and

recreation spaces for the school children, as well as establish shared spaces for use by both

the school and the surrounding neighborhood. The research team developed a participatory

framework to engage teachers, parents, neighborhood residents, neighborhood organizations,

and city officials in the process. The purpose of this process was twofold: 1) to gather input

from potential users of the space to inform the schoolyard redesign plan, and 2) to build

community and create a shared sense of ownership centered on the use and maintenance of

the schoolyard space. This presentation focused on the process of engaging the community

in the redesign process, how the

process was influenced by external

factors and funding constraints,

and lessons learned by the

facilitation team.

Gilman Whiting

Up Against the Wall: Young Black

Men and the Scholar Identity

Institute @ Vanderbilt University

Equal and equitable education in America is key to a life full with opportunity and success.

To date, far too many young Black children have been, and are continuing to be, left out of

doors. Annually, in many cities across America, the graduation rate for young Black males

has plummeted below 25%. In 2009, research tells us that even those Black males fortunate

enough to survive to college, and enter with high achievement scores are graduating less

than 25%. In fact, Black male athletes (traditionally not know for high academics) are now

graduating at a higher rate. Why?

This and other questions were answered in this lively presentation. The presenter discussed

a psychosocial model of achievement used for five years at Vanderbilt University.

Participants of this session saw the program’s participants in a three-time award winning

video, and discussed how this works directly impacts the work of the Center for Community

Studies’ mission. The author of the Scholar Identity Model presented the past, present and

future plans for this published work.

20

Center-Sponsored Events

Migration

Benjamin Siankam

Doctors Beyond Borders: Ecological and Psychopolitical Validity of Medical Migration from

Sub-Saharan Africa

If people admittedly vote with their feet, then migration is a political act, and skilled

migration an even more powerful political statement. Traditional frameworks used to

analyze skilled migration have not devoted much attention to the role of power in relation

to migrants’ decision to leave, stay, or return. Yet, throughout much of Sub-Saharan Africa

(SSA), many skilled professionals are asserting their power by emigrating overseas. Hence,

a culture of skilled migration is expanding and is now entrenched in several countries.

What is commonly referred to as "brain drain" is a countermovement of human resources

whereby a significant fraction of the most valuable and most essential members of a given

country uproot themselves from the place where their identity is anchored, and settle

abroad to live and work. In many SSA countries, this comes at a very high cost as the

aggrieved community that is left behind oftentimes experiences a significant decrease in its

circumstances as a result of skilled emigration. To reflect the complexity of the problem,

Siankam examined the medical brain drain from SSA using an eco-psychopolitically valid

framework. The framework takes into account three core elements, namely context, power,

and change. It was argued that migrants yearn to breathe free, and skilled migrants are not

merely commodified agents within the global space of flows, but are essentially in pursuit of

liberation and wellness. This may ultimately be attained by way of return migration.

Doug Perkins

Community Participation by Migrants and Long-time Residents in the U.S

Community organizing, participation and migration were put in brief historical and global

context. A comprehensive framework for analyzing and promoting empowerment at

multiple levels was presented. At each level, sociocultural, political, economic, and physical

environmental forms of capital were considered. The framework provides a guide for

transdisciplinary research questions and development. 3 studies of social capital and

community civic participation in urban samples of migrants and longtime residents in the

United States were presented . Studies 1, 2, and 3: Individual and streetblock-level

observational and survey data from New York City, Baltimore, and Salt Lake City predicted

residents' participation in block and neighborhood associations, both cross-sectionally and

longitudinally. Income, home ownership, minority status, and residential stability were

positively, but inconsistently, related to participation. Community-focused social cognitions

(organizational efficacy, civic responsibility, community attachments) and social capital

behaviors (neighboring, volunteer work through churches and other community

organizations) were consistently and positively predictive of participation at both the

individual and block levels. Comparison of long-time residents vs. recent migrants were

emphasized.

Fall Conference

21

Neal Palmer, Doug Perkins, and Xu Qingwen

Community Participation by Migrants and Long-time Residents in China

This paper compared community participation by migrants and a nationally

representative sample in China. In the national sample, they examined sense of

community, neighboring behavior, and social capital and their ability to predict local

political participation. Rural, older and married residents and those with a primary or

high school education and higher perceived socio-economic status were more likely to

participate. For urban residents, knowing one’s neighbors is more important whereas in

rural areas, neighboring behavior is more important, but both predict participation. In

the 2nd study, they used survey data from a convenience sample of migrant workers in

seven cities across China to offer predictors of three types of community participation: 1)

amount of contact with community organizations, 2) frequency of help sought from

community organizations, and 3) the rate of more formal participation in Urban

Resident Committee (URC) meetings. Results indicate that education, neighborhood

social interaction, and organizational social capital predict all three types of community

participation. Additional predictors include number of children currently residing in the

household, duration of residence in the current city, trust in community members, place

attachment, and occupational quality of life (for amount of contact with community

organizations); number of children currently residing in the household and neighborhood

social capital (for frequency of help sought from community organizations); and number

of elderly kin living in the household and place attachment (for participation in URC

meetings). Implications for labor and migration policy, community participation, &

democratization in China were discussed.

22

Center-Sponsored Events

Justice, Community Organizing, & Spatial Barriers

Laurel Lunn, Neal Palmer, and Sharon Shields

Social Determinants of Obesity in a Rural Southwestern Community: A Collaborative

Project.

Recent trends in the New Mexico population show higher levels of obesity than ever before;

such increases are particularly alarming for children. Many communities within or adjacent

to Native American reservations have significant populations spread out over great

distances. This leads to various barriers in accessing high quality, affordable, healthy food,

as well as barriers that hinder participation in physical activity. We used survey, focus

group, and community audit data to explore social determinants related to the prevalence of

pediatric obesity in Caucasian, Hispanic, and Native American children living in the rural

Gallup, NM area. We paid particular attention to the intersection of geography, culture,

perceptions, and behavior. Our results aimed to inform the development of effective

community-based intervention strategies to combat the spread of obesity and early-onset

diabetes. The authors also presented lessons learned from the research project, with a

particular focus on the experiences of undergraduate, master's, and doctoral level students.

Contributors included Veronica Calvin, Sarah Edmiston, Liz Gilbert, Akua Hill, Julie

Phenis, Laura Shade, Teresa Sharp, Nora Testerman, and Courtney Williams.

Courte Voorhees

Resisting Environmental Injustice: A Multi-site Evaluation of Participatory Permitting

Workshops for Tribal Communities in New Mexico

The Four Corners region of the southwestern United States has been relegated to a

wasteland by both government and industry (Kuletz, 1998). Tribal peoples have had little or

no say about mining, waste, and the related dangers and health risks – while often carrying

a disproportionately large burden of negative consequences and reaping few benefits

(McLeod, Switkes, & Hayes, 1983). In response to the Clinton administration's

Environmental Justice Executive Order in 1994, New Mexico became the 6th state to enact

a policy based on environmental justice (EJ) principles (Richardson, 2005). In response to

the opportunity created by this executive order, the Environmental Justice Tribal Liaison

for the State of New Mexico and the American Indian Law Center (AILC) at the University

of New Mexico have begun creating participatory workshops to disseminate details about

changes in permitting regulations and encourage use of these regulations to protect

community health and well-being. These workshops will encourage tribal leaders and

environmental employees to take an active role in permitting processes that will affect their

communities. Voorhees provided input and assistance in planning, organizing, and

implementing the workshops – as well as conducted an evaluation of the workshops to

improve their impact.

Fall Conference

23

Eric Tesdahl and Paul Speer

Building Organizational Collaborations at a Community Scale: An Examination of

Community Organizing

The classic organizing model developed by Saul Alinksy took place in urban areas with

dense networks of individuals and institutions. Since the Alinsky era, the urban form has

undergone a remarkable transformation that can be characterized, more than anything, by

spatial expansion – presenting new challenges for local groups working to build their social

power. An examination of how spatial constraints can be overcome is critical if community

organizing efforts are to operate at the scale necessary to affect the change sufficient to

improve quality of life for community residents in our globalizing world (Orr, 2007). Previous

work in this field suggests that cultivating collaboration across space has become more

complicated undertaking due to processes of deindustrialization and suburban sprawl (Knox

& Agnew, 1998). This study examined organizational participation in two community

organizing efforts in a Midwestern and a Western community. Both organizing efforts are

structured as federations – multiple (~10 to 40) local groups collaborating together on issues

of common interest. Specifically, Tesdahl and Speer sought to test whether spatial

proximity significantly predicts collaboration among federation members. Social capital

theory suggests that trust developed through relationship can enhance collaboration (Lin,

2001). This study tested whether development of relationships can counteract the negative

effects of space. They hypothesized that the effects of spatial distance between organizations

will weaken over time as a result of previous collaboration.

Youth & Family

Paul Juarez, Kimberly Bess, Vicente Samaniego, and Brandon Hill

Engaging Youth in Research: The Role of Social Networks as Protective Factors in

Preventing Youth Violence

The aim of this pilot study was to assess the role of social networks of high school students

in preventing youth violence. For the purpose of this study violence prevention was

operationalized as safe places, caring adults/mentors, and job training/work opportunities.

The primary hypothesis addressed by this study was that strong social networks associated

with personal safety, caring adults, and job training/youth employment opportunities are

independently associated with lower risk to youth for interpersonal violence. Data collection

included integration of outcomes of youth surveys and secondary data sets. Study results

allowed us to examine the relationship between risk of violence, other risk and protective

factors, and the strength, density, and spatial proximity of their social networks. Social

network analysis was used to assess the characteristics of their social networks, including

strength, centrality, and density. Results also were geo-coded and pulled into ArcView/GIS

program to provide a spatial depiction of the social networks of youth. Analyses provide a

better understanding of the relationship of social networks of youth for safe places, mentors/

caring adults, and job training/work opportunities and risk for youth violence.

Lindsay Satterwhite, Velma McBride Murry, and Cady Berkel

The Role of Gender in Family Processes: A Decade Review 1999-2009 & Future

Recommendations

This presentation focused on the role gender plays in family processes and the way these

constructs have been studied in the literature from 1999-2009. Specific areas of focus

included caregiving, work/family balance, division of labor, and the changing family

structure. Each of these areas were discussed in terms of the theories, assumptions, and

methodologies used in the literature. Critical perspectives and recommendations for future

research were discussed as well.

24

Center-Sponsored Events

Health

Sara Cottrill

Family Connection Pilot Study

Families with a child suffering from a serious emotional or behavioral disorder face unique

challenges. Tennessee Voices for Children’s Family Connection program of peer support

aims to solve some of these problems. This pilot study utilized qualitative interviews of both

family caregivers (FCs) and Family Support Providers (FSPs) to understand some of the key

elements of the program, including services provided, what is most useful, and barriers or

challenges in the program. The value of the FSPs, empowerment, needing more time, and

the challenges working with the Department of Children’s Services were all salient themes

throughout the interviews. The findings of this study give vital information to Tennessee

Voices for Children in regards to possible program improvement and data to help influence

to possible funders. In addition, this pilot study informs researchers preparing for a grant to

implement and evaluate a similar program.

Eli Po’e

Pediatric Obesity Community Programs: Barriers & Facilitators toward Sustainability

Our current generation of young people could become the first generation to live shorter

lives than their parents. Families need resources in their community to address this issue.

Identifying barriers and facilitators of community organizations to offer obesity-related

services is a first step in understanding sustainable community programs. The objective of

this study is to identify common barriers and facilitators in community organizational

programs designed to prevent or reduce pediatric obesity. We conducted an exploratory

qualitative research study based on grounded theory. Thirty-six community organizations

were identified based on self-descriptions of goals involving pediatric obesity. Semi-

structured, systematic, face-to-face interviews among program directors (n=24) were

recorded, transcribed, and coded for recurrent themes. Seventy percent of organizations

indicated that obesity prevention/treatment was their explicit goal with remaining groups

indicating healthy lifestyles as a more general goal. Facilitators to provision of these

programs included: programmatic enhancements such as improved curriculums (73%),

community involvement such as volunteers (62.5%), and partnerships with other programs

(54.2%). Barriers that threatened sustainability included lack of consistent funding (43.8%),

lack of consistent participation from the target population (41.7%) and lack of support staff

(20.8%). New approaches in fostering partnerships between organizations need to be

developed.

Fall Conference

25

Kathy Makara

Experience of the Creative Arts with People in Recovery from Mental Illness or Substance

Abuse.

When speaking of recovery in mental illness and substance abuse, it is not a matter of

being “cured”, but rather an ability to lead a full life. Consumers and service providers of

mental illness and substance abuse programs are interested in both internal and

external factors that lead to recovery. The Creative Arts Program, through the Middle

Tennessee Mental Health and Substance Abuse Coalition. (MTMHSAC) has been

involved with bringing art programs to peer support centers throughout Middle

Tennessee with the hopes of contributing to recovery. In this session data was presented

from 26 interviews conducted with artists throughout Middle Tennessee who are in

recovery from mental illness and/or substance abuse. Through the MTMHSAC, the

participants had the opportunity to take classes, obtain art supplies, and display

artwork . The artists shared their experience about participation in the program and art

making in general. Analysis was conducted on the interviews for emergent themes,

including but not limited to recovery domains. Implications were discussed for the art

program and for further research.

Closing Session: Academic and Community Collaborations

Action research students reported on their collaborative projects with community

partners: The Housing Fund; Metro Nashville Public Schools – The Middle School

Project; Magdalene House; Metro Public Health; Nashville Area Metro Planning

Organization; Urban Housing Solutions.

26

Center-Sponsored Events

Friday, August 28

Bob Newbrough (Professor Emeritus) Newbrough was the director of the original Center, from its inception in

1966 until it ceased operation in 1981.

The Center for Community Studies: Thriving in Context, Past and Present

This colloquium explored the history of the Center for Community Studies, emphasizing parallels and contrasts

between its previous and present context. Beyond a history of research work and structure, the purpose of this

colloquium was to celebrate current successes of the CCS and determine if institutional knowledge from the

past contains relevant lessons for our current context.

Friday, October 2

Michelle Fine and Maria Torre (The Graduate Center of The City University of New York)

Participatory Action Research in Prisons, Schools and Communities

Michelle Fine is a distinguished professor of Social Psychology, Women’s Studies and Urban Education at The

Graduate Center of The City University of New York, where she is a founding member of the Participatory

Action Research and Design Collective. Her research has been organized through participatory action research

and focuses on how youth think about and contest injustice in schools, communities and prisons. Among other

awards, Fine received the 2008 Social Justice award from the Cross Cultural Winter Roundtable.

Maria Elena Torre is the director of the Institute for Participatory Action Research and Design at The

Graduate Center of The City University of New York. Committed to participatory approaches that feature

spaces of radical inclusion in communities such as schools and prisons, she is a co-author of Echoes of Brown:

Youth Documenting and Performing the Legacy of Brown v. Board of Education and Changing Minds: The

Impact of College on a Maximum Security Prison.

Friday, October 16

Richard Lloyd (Assistant Professor of Sociology)

East Nashville Skyline: The Great Tomato Toss and the Remaking of a Local Landscape.

This presentation examined familiar intersections of urban ideology and neighborhood change in a less familiar

setting – Nashville. Nashville’s unevenly gentrifying East Side was used as a vehicle for critically engaging

prevailing discourses of civic design and urban culture: the New Urbanism and the Creative City.

Focusing on the juxtaposition of a low-density district targeted for redevelopment in East Nashville with the

obdurate presence of neighboring public housing projects, this talk exposed the practical contradictions and

conflicts that accompany the implementation of one-size-fits-all material and cultural models within distinct –

and largely uncongenial – urban environments. A dramatic encounter between old and new styles of urban

development in East Nashville’s recent history – the Great Tomato Toss of 2006 – was contextualized within an

analysis of broader political processes and intellectual currents.

Friday, December 4

Damian Williams (Sociology Ph.D. candidate) with discussant Beth Shinn (Professor of Human and

Organizational Development)

The Drama of Contingent Work: Homeless Day Laborers' Negotiation of the Job Queue

Drawing on ethnographic observation in four-day labor agencies located in Nashville’s Lafayette district, this

talk examined how interactions between homeless workers and day-labor dispatchers create an informal

system of workplace control in a seemingly chaotic employment arrangement. Specifically, Damian examined

how homeless day laborers comprehend and negotiate dispatchers’ allocation of jobs (i.e., the “job queue”) and

show how this interactive process creates workers’ loyalty to one particular agency by turning them against one

another. Damian suggested that this divide-and-rule dynamic creates a provisional structure that enables

dispatchers to retain a “reliably contingent,” transient workforce. This exploitative workplace structure is

reinforced by the “spatial mismatch” between the Lafayette district and low-skilled jobs located on the urban

periphery, as well as by homeless men’s labor market limitations.

Colloquia

27

Fri, Feb 19

Katharine Donato (Professor of Sociology, Chair) with discussant Doug Perkins (Assistant Professor of Human

and Organizational Development)

Parental Involvement in Schools and Immigration in U.S. Destinations.

Website: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/sociology/VDOS_People_KatharineDonato.shtml

Friday, Feb 26

Working Meeting: Center for Community Studies Matching Program

Graduate students reported on their projects with local community partners. This was an informal discussion

about issues and discoveries that have arisen during collaborative work with the community. We invited

graduate students and faculty to attend to offer their feedback and advice for these students.

Friday, March 19

The Schools, Community, and Youth Research Group hosted a colloquium to showcase the research of several

Peabody faculty whose work considers the intersections of education and

community, issues of diversity, and social justice. Drs. Mimi Engel, Stella

Flores, Maury Nation and Claire Smrekar each discussed their current

research with a question and answer session that followed. This colloquium

offered an opportunity to foster a greater degree of interdepartmental

collegiality at Peabody among faculty and students interested in themes of

schools, communities, youth development, and social justice.

Friday, April 2

Cecelia Tichi (William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of English)

Professor Tichi lectured on her book entitled “Civic Passions: Seven who

Launched Progressive America.” Following her lecture, CCS affiliated

faculty commented on particular activists whose historical work aligns with

their current research and/or action. Our featured discussants were Tony

Brown (Sociology) and Paul Speer (HOD).

Website: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/magazines/vanderbilt-

magazine/2009/08/books-and-writers-tichi-wins-hubbell-medal-for-lifetime-

achievement/

Friday, April 30

Michela Lenzi (visiting doctoral student from the University of Padua, Italy)

The Role of Neighborhood Context for the Development of Adolescent Prosocial Behavior in Italy

and Civic Engagement in Five Countries

Friday, April 16

This colloquium was organized by the Human and Organizational Development (HOD) Minority Student

Committee and sponsored by the HOD and Sociology departments, the Vanderbilt Center for Community

Studies, and the Divinity School.

Colloquium with Juan Battle (Professor of Sociology, Public Health and Urban Education – City

University of New York)

Social Justice Sexuality: Insights from a Public Sociologist

An internationally known scholar, Battle is a Fulbright Senior Specialist and was the Fulbright

Distinguished Chair of Gender Studies at the University of Klagenfurt, Austria. His research interests

include race, sexuality and social justice. Battle currently is heading several large research endeavors

examining race and sexuality in the United States, of which the largest is the Social Justice Sexuality

initiative. He is a recent president of the Association of Black Sociologists and is actively involved with

the American Sociological Association. In addition to publishing in many academic journals, Battle's

work has been highlighted in popular national magazines, on radio shows and in newspapers. He was

selected as one of the "Ten Black Men Transforming the World."

28

Active Research Projects

This section highlights the projects engaged in by our affiliated members. This depicts

the diversity of our Center members, their interests and talents.

The Nashville Yard Project

James Fraser and George Hornberger,

Principal Investigators; Kimberly Bess

(Neighborhood Network Analysis)

The research team represents a combination of

social scientists, hydrologists, and an

environmental lawyer. The research will involve

hydrology and soil studies, sociology,

community, environmental, and social

psychology, human geography, and

environmental law and public policy as a

coherent whole and will train students within a

truly interdisciplinary research program. The

project will focus on cultivating research

methods and analysis skills, as well as broad

theoretical knowledge of the questions to be

investigated, among undergraduate and

graduate students in several disciplines across

multiple colleges and schools at Vanderbilt

University. The project will also contribute to

the development of research and

education capacity of the nonprofits and community-based organizations operating in the Richland

Creek watershed area in Nashville

(particularly the Richland Creek

Watershed Alliance and the

Cumberland River Compact), other

Nashville watersheds, and other

urban regions of the United States.

The project aims to assist

environmental activist groups,

homeowners associations, and other

organizations to help homeowners

make more environmentally friendly

lawn care decisions. Additionally,

the data sets and models we produce

will be useful for environmental

policy planning and for managing

urban and suburban watershed

environmental challenges.

Funding: National Science

Foundation

Images courtesy of Jim Fraser

29

Exploring the Determinants of Household Environmental Behavior: A Socio-Spatial Analysis of

Lawn Care Practices

James Fraser, Principal Investigator

In this research, James Fraser is examining the spatial distribution and the socioeconomic and

environmental factors that influence residential lawn management behavior in Baltimore. As one of

the key sources of nutrients that are exported into and threaten the biodiversity of the Chesapeake

Bay, residential lawn management has to be understood as a complex activity occurring at the nexus

of biophysical, spatial and socio-economic factors. Research design is multi-faceted and involves in-

person household and organizational surveys, telephone interviews, soil sampling, high-resolution

image analysis of residential patterns, and the analysis of census and commercial demographic and

consumption information. These data are assembled into a GIS database, which is used to determine

to what extent household versus neighborhood characteristics predict household environmental

behavior. Interview and survey responses complement the analysis by exploring the mechanisms

through which these predictors operate.

Funding: National Science Foundation

Collaborative Research: Exploring Homeland Security Fusion Centers (2010-2012)

Torin Monahan and Priscilla Regan

Governments are increasingly turning toward public-private partnerships for the provision of

national security. In the United States, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has supported

the creation of “fusion centers” to share data across government agencies as well as across public and

private sectors. This two-year collaborative project will begin to document and critically evaluate the

information sharing practices of fusion centers. Specifically, the research will focus on variations in

data sharing across fusion centers. The research questions are (1) What types of data sharing are

occurring with – or enabled by – fusion centers? and (2) What factors contribute to the data-sharing

practices of fusion centers? Using qualitative methods, research will be conducted through document

analysis of government and media sources, observational studies at government-sponsored security

conferences, and a minimum of 40 semi-structured interviews with representatives of government

agencies, private companies, and civil society organizations. The merit of this project is its

contribution to an understanding of the implications of new organizational and technological

developments for the provision of national security. This study is theoretically valuable because it

will contribute to scholarship on surveillance and society, the privatization of security, and the

politics of technological systems. In addition to producing refereed articles and conference

presentations, this research will provide an important empirical piece to a larger international

project called “The New Transparency,” which is facilitating multi-national and cross-cultural

comparisons of the global security industry. The broader impacts of this project include an increased

awareness of the roles, contributions and implications of fusion centers.

Funding: National Science Foundation.

30

Impact of Housing and Services Intervention on Homeless Families

Beth Shinn, “External” Principal Investigator (in collaboration with Abt Associates,

“Internal” Principal Investigator)

This study is designed to understand what types of housing and service interventions for

homeless families work best to promote families’ residential stability and self sufficiency, adult

and child well-being, and family preservation. Researchers will randomly assign 2,400 homeless

families across 12 cities to four types of housing and service interventions to develop rigorous

answers to the question, “What works best for what sorts of families?”

Funding: Department of Housing and Urban Development (in collaboration with Abt

Associates, Inc.)

Pending addition:

The Effects of Homeless Interventions on Child Outcomes

Beth Shinn, Principal Investigator, Velma McBride Murry, Lindsay Satterwhite

This study is proposed to add a child component and a qualitative component to the HUD-funded

study just described. We will interview children as well as mothers to understand child outcomes,

and conduct qualitative interviews with a smaller sample of mothers to understand why families do

not always take up housing options that policy makers believe should be attractive, how families

make decisions, often among bad alternatives, about whether children will remain with parents, and

how different interventions affect parenting.

Funding pending: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (in collaboration

with Abt Associates, Inc.)

Fostering Capabilities for Individuals with Serious Mental Illness

José Ornelas, Maria Vargas-Moniz, and Beth Shinn

This study in collaboration with researchers from the Instituto Superior de Psicologia Aplicada and

the Associação para o Estudo e Integração Psicossocial in Lisbon Portugal attempts to understand

and measure how social programs and community-based organizations promote social integration for

individuals who experience mental illness. The work uses the capabilities framework pioneered by

economist Amartya Sen and philosopher Martha Nussbaum to understand people’s freedom to plan

their lives, undertake valued social roles and live life fully, despite disabilities. The research focuses

on features of social settings that enhance or impede these freedoms or “capabilities.”

Funding: European Union Funds applied for

Effects of Housing Subsidies on Maternal and Child Well-Being

Beth Shinn and Laurel Lunn

This is a reanalysis of old data from as study of homeless families in New York, some of whom

received housing subsidies after leaving shelter. Previous analyses showed that families who

received subsidies were much more likely to attain residential stability. The current analyses ask

whether the beneficial effects of stability extend to other outcomes.

Identifying Families At Risk of Homelessness

Beth Shinn and Andrew Greer

This study examines data from the HomeBase homeless prevention programs in New York City to

determine what characteristics of families applying for prevention services predict entry into shelter.

The goal is to help New York City target its prevention services more effectively.

31

Contested terrains of rights: the rights based approach to gender and development and social justice

philanthropy

Brooke Ackerly, Principal Investigator

Despite being a seemingly straight forward moral claim,

human rights is a contested concept. In this project, I

work through some of the contested terrain of human

rights arguments, specifically, those associated with the

“rights-based approach” to gender and development and

to social change philanthropy. I argue that while this

descriptor has been used to apply to a wide range of issue

areas, the real contestation around the meaning of a

“rights-based approach” to development and social change

philanthropy is not in a debate about the meaning of

“rights.” Rather a rights-based approach is assumed to be

the appropriate and most legitimate approach to gender

and development and to social change work.

Consequently, the label is often claimed without the demands of such an approach fully understood.

I conclude by clarifying the demands of a “rights-based approach” that is consistent with the

women’s human rights struggles (and theory of human rights) that led to its legitimacy

Social determinants of obesity in a rural southwestern community.

Teresa Sharp (University of Colorado - Denver), Principle Investigator, Elizabeth Gilbert

(University of Northern Colorado),

Educational Consultant: Sharon Shields

(Vanderbilt University), Neal Palmer and Laurel

Lunn (Vanderbilt University), Project

Coordinators.

Other Vanderbilt project members: Sarah

Edmiston, Akua Hill, Julie Phenis, Courtney

Williams (Vanderbilt Master's students);

Veronica Calvin, Laura Shade (Vanderbilt

undergraduate students)

Abstract: Rates of obesity and diabetes in the United

States are alarming, and these conditions

disproportionately affect those already marginalized

by race, class, geography, and other structural

barriers. We conducted a mixed methods pilot study in a diverse rural southwestern community,

which examined the social determinants of obesity associated with access to healthy foods and

physical activity resources. Research team members conducted built environment assessments of

Gallup, New Mexico, and collected information about the locations and availability of foods and

physical activity resources/facilities. Surveys were used to collect quantitative data regarding diet

and physical activity behaviors and resources; qualitative focus group sessions provided rich

contextual and descriptive information. Together, the data elucidate the barriers that individuals

and families residing in this area face due to its geographic remoteness. Our results aim to inform

community-based intervention strategies developed by a council of community residents.

Funding: Colorado Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute, Peabody College

Photo courtesy of Brooke Ackerly: “The young women

are garment workers whose employer was denying

them wages because they were children.

Photo courtesy of Laurel Lunn: Gallup, NM

32

Taking Charge of Choice: How Political Contexts Matter

Claire Smrekar, Principal Investigator

This project examines the policy context of charter school adoption and implementation in

Indianapolis. Against the backdrop of increased accountability, autonomy, and competition

associated with mayoral-authorized charters, this study identifies specific implications of this shift in

the urban educational policy landscape, including expanded civic capacity to support urban school

reform and innovation diffusion across Indianapolis area public school systems. This qualitative

project utilizes over 40 in-depth interviews conducted with key stakeholders. Multiple types of

documents were analyzed for descriptive evidence of expanded civic capacity, school innovation, and

charter/non-charter school competitive pressures, including transcripts from legislative hearings, IN

state school reports, charter school accountability reports, and transcripts from school board

meetings.

Funding: The National Center on School Choice. U.S. Department of Education

Strengthening Community Organizing Processes.

Paul Speer, Principal Investigator

This project is taking extant data from a community organizing project and analyzing the way

organizing staff are expending time across multiple organizations within a coalition or federation

structure. The study documents individual interactions between organizing staff and voluntary

leaders, the type, focus and frequency of organizational meetings/events, and the volunteer

participants attending organizing activities. These data are feedback to the organizing staff as a

form of intervention – providing frequent information about where organizational energies are

focused and the impact of those energies as measured by participation rates.

Center for Research on Rural Families and Communities

Velma McBride Murry, Director

The Center for Research on Rural Families & Communities examines the influence of a variety of

factors (e.g., parenting, neighborhood, individual differences, schooling, etc) on the well-being of

families residing in rural communities. Through alliances with other universities, community

officials, child welfare organizations, and parents, CRRFC strives to empower children with the skills

they need in order to engage in positive decisions and start planning for their futures. Current

Projects include: Pathways for African American Success; African American Mental Health Research

Scientist Consortium.

33

Barriers and Challenges in a Caregiver Support Program

Craig Anne Heflinger and Sara Cottrill

As systems of care become more prevalent for children and adolescents with mental health needs,

there are an increasing number of peer support programs available for their caregivers. Though

these programs have shown some success, further research is warranted in determining how these

programs can best serve families. Specifically, there is a lack of research on such programs, in the

area of barriers and challenges. Cottrill’s thesis is a qualitative study using interviews with

caregivers and peer supporters in a peer support program for families. The barriers and challenges

to program success and implementation (from the point of view of both caregivers and peer

supporters) are the foci. Barriers and challenges will be coded and categorized at the following

levels: individual (supporter and caregiver), family and friends, school and work, program, and

system (children’s services). Implications of these findings will include a better understanding of

these programs' general functioning as well as specific recommendations for program improvement.

Additionally, there are broader implications surrounding systems of care.

The Role of the Creative Arts in the Lives of Consumers in Recovery

Craig Anne Heflinger and Kathy Makara

Our purpose was to examine the experiences and perceptions of mental health consumers who had

participated in the Middle Tennessee Mental Health and Substance Abuse Coalition’s “Creative

Arts Project” Semi-structured Interviews were conducted throughout Middle Tennessee with 27

people in recovery from mental illness and substance abuse.

Partner: Middle Tennessee Mental Health and Substance Abuse Coalition

Funding: Tennessee Disability Coalition

Fizzy’s Lunch Lab (PBS)

Sharon Shields, Heather Smith, and Dianne Killebrew; Educational consultants

Fizzy’s Lunch Lab is a kid-friendly web-based

series educating children, teachers and

parents on the importance of children’s

access to and knowledge of healthy foods.

The educational consultants were responsible

for creating the family and teacher lesson

plans that accompany the interactive

episodes of lunch lab. Lunch Lab was

nominated for an Emmy in New Approaches

to Daytime Children’s Programming.

Website: http://pbskids.org/lunchlab.

Source: http://pbskids.org/lunchlab/

34

The Ethics of Human Development and Community

by Paul R. Dokecki

This book is a revision and extension of an earlier book, The Tragi-Comic Professional: Basic

Considerations for Ethical Reflective-Generative Practice (Dokecki, 1996). That book is both a close

relative and a creature of the Human and Organizational Development (HOD) Program at Peabody

College of Vanderbilt University. The book and the program are inheritors of the legacy of Nicholas

Hobbs, the founder of the modern era of psychology and human development at Peabody College. The

present book elaborates the argument for the proposition that, at their best, human development

professionals are reflective-generative practitioners. Such practitioners act ethically and thoughtfully

to develop social environments that promote human development and community. And so, the book

develops the ethics of human development and community, an HOD-related ethical theory for the

professions comprising six major principles — caring, veracity, autonomy, beneficence,

nonmaleficence, justice. Within this theory, the premise is that an excellent professional is an ethical

professional.

How Are Politico-Religious Narratives Constructed?

by Dylan Swift and Paul R. Dokecki

In this chapter, a component of a three-year field study conducted by Vanderbilt’s Center for the

Study of Religion and Culture, the authors examine, both theoretically and empirically, people’s

beliefs, values, and emotions or sentiments concerning two fundamental domains of the human

condition, religion and politics. In our research, we have interviewed participants with the goal of

obtaining the stories they use to explain their views regarding religion, political issues, candidates,

and parties. In doing so, we have asked people to explicitly state the values that they believe

undergird their religious and political positions. The research allows for the systematic identification

of moral/religious domains as they emerge within political narratives, thus helping us understand

how various moral domains individually and collectively influence political views.

Study of Religion and Politics in Tennessee Communities

Paul Speer and Douglas Knight, Co-Principal Investigators; Bill Partridge, Dylan Swift,

Diana Jones, John Vick, Obiko Magvanjav, Josh Bazuin and Eric Tesdahl

This ethnographic study addresses the interaction between religion and politics, especially its form

within local communities of the South. The project eschews the specialized research silos wherein

religious and political behaviors are circumscribed into distinct arenas. Instead, we will address their

convergence in contemporary American communities. We posit an intercultural nexus wherein

human communities' religious and political beliefs and practices are increasingly merging, where

local values, beliefs and aspirations derived from contrasting secular and sacred traditions are

negotiated and harmonized. We ask how Americans are learning to construct and transmit to the

next generation a coherent, cohesive world view that accommodates deep-seated contradictions

among their religious and political commitments. We seek to explore how local cultural and religious

forces propel citizens toward certain political decisions and actions and, conversely, how local

cultural and political forces induce certain religious belief and practice. We bridge the social sciences

and humanities to conduct research along both theoretical and empirical lines. In addition to other

topics pursued in this work, the Vanderbilt Project on Religion and Politics will achieve special focus

by examining current social issues, as well as the problem of war.

Funding: Vanderbilt Peabody College, Center for the Study of Religion and Culture, School of Law

and Center for Ethics

35

Field School in South Africa

Maury Nation and Adam Voight, Project Directors

After students complete Module I, which will include a class and field experience in Nashville, the

core of the field experience in Cape Town, South Africa will be a sustained internship at a community

youth development site. Internships will be arranged primarily with the Extra-Mural Education

Project (EMEP) organization, which works in over 20 locations (primarily schools) in the Cape Town

area. Assignments will be prearranged and students will spend a portion of the module in a

homestay with organizational partners.

Some sites are in the Cape Town metro area

and other are in more rural areas within one

to two hours driving distance from Cape

Town. Each student will have a tentative

action plan prior to beginning their

internship. The specifics will be negotiated

with the organizational partner upon

arrival.

Aside from the internship experience,

students will meet with

representatives in local government,

education, community development,

and public health to better

understand the landscape of youth

and community development in Cape

Town and to help in their internship

work.

The objectives of the VISAGE South Africa course are for students to: Understand the ecological

model of development and the value of interdisciplinarity; Analyze a community and its

developmental landscape using an ecological lens; Think critically about historical, social, political,

economic, and cultural forces that impact on human development; Explore the similarities and

differences in issues of development in cross-cultural contexts; Become familiar with the types of

settings in which multifaceted, ecological interventions are conducted; Work with community

partners to plan and execute action steps for improving ecological conditions; and Engage in the

action-reflection cycle of experiential learning and incorporate resultant knowledge into their

individual professional identities

Potential Partnerships: SHAWCO, the Extra Mural Education Project, The Warehouse, Proudly

Manenberg and the South African Community Fund.

Photos Courtesy of Adam Voight: Cape

Town Community Centers

36

Community Engaged Research Core: Clinical Translational Science Award.

Douglas D. Perkins, Velma McBride Murry, Paul Juarez and Russell Rothman

The goal of this program is to develop transformative collaborative structures and strategies that will bring

clinical and translational investigators and research programs together with community partners to shape

and support innovative and community-engaged research. Strategies include health-focused community

building efforts, community health research forums, research consultation services, training studios and

pilot research funding opportunities. For more information on this research initiative, visit

http://www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/victr/pub/community/

Social Capital, Community Civic Participation and Health and Wellbeing among Both

Representative and Migrant Samples in the People's Republic of China (study series)

Neal Palmer, Douglas D. Perkins and Qingwen Xu (Boston College)

Participation in Urban Resident Committees (URCs) and other community organizations

offers important opportunities for the development of social capital and democracy. In the

first study by Xu, Perkins and Julian Chow (UC-Berkeley), urban and rural political

participation are compared using a nationally representative survey. For urban residents,

just knowing one's neighbors is more important whereas in rural areas, neighboring (helping)

behavior is more important, but both predict participation. Social capital was not found to

predict local political participation among the general population in China.

A second study, led by Palmer, focuses on the massive migrant population in China. Survey

data from a sample of migrant workers in seven cities across China are used to predict three

types of community participation: (1) contact with community organizations; (2) frequency of

help sought from community organizations; and (3) the rate of more formal participation in

URC meetings. Results indicate that education, neighborhood social interaction and

organizational social capital predict all three types of community participation. Additional

predictors of community organization contact include number of children in the household,

length of residence, trust in community members, place attachment and occupational quality

of life. Predictors of help-seeking also include number of children and neighborhood social

capital. Predictors of participation in URC meetings also include number of elderly kin living

in the household and place attachment. In a related project, the team is exploring influences

on the health and wellbeing of migrants and their families in China.

Community and Applied Developmental Psychology in Italy

Douglas D. Perkins, Massimo Santinello, Alessio Vieno, Lorenza Dallago, Francesca

Cristini, Michela Lenzi

Based on a series of visiting scholar and Ph.D. candidate exchanges, both at the CCS and at

the University of Padua, Italy, a group of CCS faculty has collaborated and published extensively

with an Italian team of applied developmental and community psychologists. Based on various

Italian and WHO datasets, studies have included: civic participation and the development of

adolescent behavior problems; a multilevel analysis of democratic school climate and sense of

community; social support, sense of community in school and self efficacy as resources during early

adolescence; bullying in school and adolescent sense of empowerment--an analysis of relationships

with parents, friends and teachers; adolescent place attachment, social capital and perceived safety-

-a comparison of 13 countries; the Adolescents, Life Context & School Project--youth voice and civic

participation; and a special edited volume on community psychology in Italy.

Funding: Università degli Studi di Padova, Italy, University of Lecce, Italy

Partners: Università degli Studi di Padova, World Health Organization Health Behavior of

School-aged Children Collaborative

37

NUPACE Research Collaboration

Nashville Urban Partnership Academic Center of Excellence (NUPACE)

Paul Juarez, Principal Investigator; Maury Nation, Doug Perkins, Rev. Neely Williams

and Vicente Samaniego

The mission of NUPACE is an academic/community partnership that integrates prevention science

with community action to reduce youth violence. It advises and consults with public agencies,

community representatives and youth to incorporate scientific methods and evidence-based practice

knowledge into youth violence prevention surveillance, programming, organization, research and

evaluation methods. NUPACE uses a strengths-based primary prevention and developmental-

ecological model that examines youth violence within the context of family, peers, schools and

community. It employs a community-based participatory research (CBPR) model that promotes and

supports inter-disciplinary collaboration among academic and community partners in carrying out

planning, research and evaluation, communication and dissemination activities on effective youth

violence prevention interventions, outcomes and best practices.

NUPACE: Metro Nashville Middle School Bullying Prevention Experiment

Maury Nation, Principal Investigator, Adam Voight, Leslie Collins, and Joanna Geller

This five-year, quasi-experimental action-study to improve middle school climates to reduce bullying

and violence is a centerpiece of the NUPACE grant. The primary aim of this project is to implement

and evaluate two bullying prevention programs that take different, but complementary, approaches

to changing school climate in public middle schools. Previous research has associated bullying with

the development of more serious forms of violence, including suicides and school shootings, and a

host of other risky behaviors, including juvenile delinquency. Both theory and research suggest a

sustained decrease in the prevalence of bullying is most likely to occur when there are changes in

the school climate. Central to the program is an enhancement of student services developed by

Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools through Alignment Nashville. The Alignment Enhanced

Services (AES) intervention is based in part on a comprehensive approach to student well-being

called Student Assistance Programs (SAP). SAP is a systemic process that mobilizes school resources

to remove barriers to learning. The core of the program is a professionally trained coordinator who

serves as a liaison to community agencies to address violence and behavior problems of students.

Funding: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Partners: Metro Public Schools, Alignment Nashville, Oasis Center, the Center

for Youth Issues (STARS), Martha O’Bryan Family Resource Center

NUPACE: Monitoring Change in the Network of Organizations Addressing Youth Violence

Doug Perkins, Principal Investigator; Kimberly Bess, Paul Speer, Adam Voight, Eric

Tesdahl, Dan Cooper, Kathleen Makara, Jessica Thompson, Dan Wallace, Katie Klein,

Kate Foster

This is a five-year study that monitors and analyzes changes in the network of nonprofit

organizations and public agencies addressing youth violence in Nashville. Leaders of all the major

organizations on this issue have been interviewed. Analyses focus on: (1) organizational

relationships at the city level; (2) the external networks of each of 12 middle schools participating in

a bullying and violence prevention experiment; and (3) change in the approaches and resources each

organization devotes to youth violence prevention and in the approaches taken, with particular

attention to ones that are strengths-based, primary preventive, empowering, and focused on

changing root causes of violence in the community.

Funding: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Partners: Meharry Medical College, Nashville Urban Partnership Academic Center of Excellence,

Nashville Community Coalition for Youth Safety

38

Keyhole Garden Demonstration

Patricia Conway and Jill Robinson

CRA students Patricia and Jill designed and constructed a keyhole demonstration garden in East

Nashville. The keyhole garden design has been used in Lesotho (Africa) to help families secure

access to fresh produce year-round. Created by the non-profit organization “Send a Cow”, the

keyhole garden design is ingenious in its simplicity. The name comes from the gardens shape, a

circular structure with an opening

shaped like a key hole. Built

from layers of stone, up to 4 feet

high, with earth in the center, the

design allows food to be grown

above ground, overcoming the

problem of poor soil conditions in

many African contexts. A fuel cell

is built into the garden, a basket to

place food scraps, provides

compost to enrich the soil. As a

raised garden, seedlings are

planted, watered, tended and

harvested while standing; there is

no bending, reducing the labor

needed to grow food, particularly

important for children and the elderly, who are often responsible for family food production. The

circular design means food can be grown in every inch of the garden, enabling people to grow a lot of

food in a small space. The stone retains heat, protecting the soil inside from frost, extending the

growing season. Jill and Patricia wanted to test the design out in an urban setting, to see if it could

help city gardeners grow. This spring, Holland House Bar and Refuge agreed to sponsor and host the

garden, with additional sponsorship from Gardens of Babylon and Maxwell Heights neighbors. Our

design was modified to fit the needs and aesthetics of the restaurant, we built a lower wider

structure to complement their landscaping, and left out the fuel cell to avoid composting odor. Our

hosts are delighted with the end results; the garden has beautified the restaurant patio and will

provide the chefs with a bounty

of heirloom tomatoes and

peppers.

To find out more about keyhole

gardens in Lesotho, visit http://

www.cowfiles.com/african-

gardens/keyhole-gardens. To

see a keyhole garden, visit the

Holland House Bar and Refuge

in East Nashville!

Photos courtesy of Patricia Conway

39

Post-Genocide Recovery in Rwanda

Josh Bazuin, Principal Investigator

Bazuin is continuing work on his disserta-

tion examining how religion and spiritual-

ity have affected post-genocide recovery in

Rwanda. Over the summer of 2010, he

will interview 60 people about how their

beliefs, behaviors, affiliations, and rela-

tionships related to religion may have pro-

vided resources or obstacles towards cop-

ing and reconciliation. He will also per-

form additional interviews with leaders of

religious institutions and faith-based or-

ganizations to understand how those or-

ganizations have changed since the geno-

cide as well as how they are contributing to the transformation of Rwanda. A previous round of

data collection in 2008 was supported by a

Center for Community Studies small grant.

The Children of Moldovan Orphanages

Jill Robinson, Principal Investigator

Rolling Hills Community Church in Brent-

wood, Tennessee, has been working with

Moldovan orphanages for the past five years.

In response to the needs of children graduat-

ing from orphanages, and especially their

vulnerability to human trafficking, the

church is founding a non-profit organization

to assist children with transitional living

needs. Although church staff has collected

some data to gauge the perspectives and

needs of children, Robinson designed a re-

search project which helped them with more

systematic data collection. The pilot study

was conducted over a two week period in the

summer of 2008 in and around Chisinau,

Moldova. Once analyzed, this data is in-

tended to help the church better make deci-

sions about addressing the needs of the chil-

dren they are serving. The project involved

two different data collection methods: ques-

tionnaire distribution (85 questionnaires col-

lected); and stick-figure art activity (28 draw-

ings collected).

“This is my future. Even though I have a lot of happy

days in the past, I wanted to write about my future. 1) I

like to help people and sort out their problems. I want to

be a psychologist. This is the department of psychology

and I'm working to obtain my goal. 2) After I graduate,

this is my office and the people who I am trying to help.

I'm very happy here now. 3) I am very happy here too be-

cause now I am able to take care of my family and other

people too” (in this scene, her future family (husband and

two children) is on the left and the center where she will

work is on the right).

--Andrea, Age 15

40

The Center for Community Studies would like to thank

our university and community colleagues for helping us

make our Center a success!

For more information about CCS, please contact

Jill Robinson at jill.robinson@vanderbilt.edu.

We’re on the Web! http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/ccs/