CBR Projects

Ganey Collaborative Community-Based Research Mini Grant Award Winners 2007

Ganey Collaborative Community-Based Research Mini Grant Award Winners 2006

Other Current Projects

The “Take Ten” Evaluation

Take Ten is a skills-based violence prevention program that operates in 15 local schools and community centers.  The evaluation intends to measure the impact of the Take Ten program on schools and individuals participating directly and indirectly in the program.  Currently six psychology majors and one sociology major, in collaboration with the Robinson Community Learning Center, are involved in field work (interviewing and surveying youth), other data collection, data entry, and analysis.  Their research intends to find whether youth in the program use the skills they acquire to resolve their conflicts in a non-violent manner and whether the program has an impact on the overall school climate. Email Jess Collado at jcollado@nd.edu if you are interested in learning more or getting involved.

Head Start Field Work

Professor Jeanne Day of the psychology department is facilitating a community-based research project with a local Head Start chapter.  Professor Day has recruited undergraduate students to help interview children, in order to examine the impact of the Head Start program on their literacy and math skills. The students receive four hours of training and the project requires a one month commitment.  Students may work for class credit or as volunteers. Contact Jeanne Day at Jeanne.D.Day.1@nd.edu if you are interested in working on this project or getting involved with other research she does with Head Start.

The St. Joseph County Home Mortgage Foreclosure Project .  

Numerous studies have shown that mortgage foreclosures can be devastating both to individuals and to the communities they live in.  Unfortunately, Indiana has one of the highest home mortgage foreclosure rates in the nation.  To assess the problem locally, law student Skyler Bradbury has collected data on 7,000 mortgage foreclosures in St. Joseph County for the years 2001-2006.  Professor Judy Fox from the Law School and Professor Richard Williams from Sociology are now analyzing the data.  They plan to examine longitudinal and geographic trends, the characteristics of areas that are most prone to foreclosures, and whether the rise in foreclosures can be linked to the rise in subprime lending.

Summer 2006 Projects

Juvenile Justice in Albany, NY; Kevin Bailey, Junior Theology Major

Kevin participated in research as part of his Summer Service Learning Project with Hon. W. Dennis Duggan in Albany County Family Court.  This research consisted in reviewing past case files of youth adjudicated as juvenile delinquents.  The goal of the research was to identify trends in the roles that the father played in the lives of these youth while highlighting any other pertinent family circumstances.  The end result of the research will be to help family court better serve its youth through a more complete understanding of an inner city youth’s worldview and family situation.

Fight Dyslipidemia Project;  Naveen V. Turlapati, Senior, Science Preprofessional Studies, Joliet, IL, Will Gundy Medical Clinic

Naveen helped organize the "Fight Dyslipidemia Project" for the uninsured at the Will-Grundy Medical Clinic, promoting a healthy and active lifestyle.  The project targeted patients with extreme lipid levels and rewarded them for different milestones they set with the exercise program.  During the course of the program, which ends December 2006, he tracked their individual numbers in order to better serve their goals and progression towards a healthy lifestyle.

KIPP Project; Rebecca Farrell, Senior, Psychology, Chicago, IL, Ascend Carter School

While at KIPP, a Chicago charter school, Rebecca performed statistical analysis of student test scores.  She compared KIPP's results to area schools, tracked growth, and created a presentaion for faculty and staff.  Currently, Rebecca has expanded her research interests into the classroom by pursuing a research project for an Education, Schooling, and Society course relating to her experiences at KIPP.  She is exploring a possible change in motivation that occurs in KIPP fifth graders between the time they enter KIPP, and after acculturation into the KIPP environment. 

HIV and Community Treatment Options, Kyle Bocinsky, Junior, Anthropology/Physics, Syracuse, NY, DePalmer House and The Living Room

Kyle worked at two sites serving the HIV positive community in Syracuse, NY:  The Living Room, which is a nutritional facility, and DePalmer House, which is a transitional living facility for homeless people.  Kyle conducted research (discourse analysis and informal interviews) on whether a community-based living facility (CLF) such as DePalmer served to increase HIV medication adherence among its residents.  In the process, he reviewed literature on the use of CLFs as a substance abuse treament strategy, and attempted to locate similarities in needs of substance-abusing clients in recovery and HIV positive persons undergoing treatment.  He found numerous examples of supportive social structures being formed in DePalmer House; these led to peer-to-peer medication interventions, as well as a heightened level of self-efficacy in treatment.

ACCION New England, Ricardo E. Cantu, Senior, Business Management Consulitng/Spanish, New Enland

During the summer, Richard was required to head various marketing projects.  In order to do so he was required to research the demographics of Boston proper and surrounding areas, including central and eastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island.  Along with the demographics of people's residences, Richard studied the area's different types of businesses.  In an effort to create new partnerships with local CPAs, he called various firms around the area and interviewed people on the types of reward system that would best suit them as incentives for these partnerships. 

Center for the Homeless and the Role of Community, Tricia Moye, Senior, Anthropology/French, South Bend, IN Center for the Homeless

Tricia will be incorporating her summer research into her work on her senior thesis for the Arts & Letters Honors Program.  Her research interests arose based on her experience at the Center for the Homeless this past summer and her continued experience there during this school year.  Tricia's thesis will focus on the importance of the idea of community among the guests at the Center for the Homeless and the center's role in assisting them in escaping the state of homelessness and poverty.

Catholic Relief Services; Courtney Lare, Senior, Political Science/Anthropology, Honduras

While with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) in Honduras, Courtney worked in the Health, Education, Water, and Sanitation Division.  Her primary focus was on a project involving potable water, the aim of which was to bring clean water and sanitation to rural communities who would otherwise not have access to it.  She was commissioned to research this particular area and to make recommendations about how to increase the involvement of women in this project.  The research was primarily text based, and involved sifting through previous reports and case studies on the involvement of women in potable water projects throughout CRS and the world, as well as recommendations by various organizations (especially the United Nations) on how to better include women.  The results of her research were put to use in the form of recommendations for future incorporation of women into this community project. 

Phnom Penh, Cambodia; Sarah Wheaton, Senior, Peace Studies/Political Science

During the summer of 2006 and 2006/2007 school year Sarah conducted research while in Cambodia.  This research consisted of interviewing different Non-Governmental Organization workers and Cambodians.  The formal research was supplemented by her observations, experiences, and casual interactions while she was there.  Her research will inform and ground her senior thesis, which she is currently writing on Buddhism and peace-building in Cambodia.  Upon completion of her thesis, Sarah will be making recommendations for community peace-building organizations in Cambodia. 

John G. Borkowski Receives the Ganey Faculty Community-Based Research Award

2006-2007 Course Development Grant Recipients

Past Projects

Ganey Faculty Community-Based Research Awards

Ganey Collaborative Community-Based Research Mini-Grant Recipients

2005-2006                      

2004-2005                      

2003-2004

2005-2006

Alicia Lachiondo, Senior Pre-Med Anthropology Major

Alicia wrote hersenior thesis on the socio-cultural barriers affecting breast cancer risks for African-American women. She worked with Professor Dan Lende, of the sociology department, and Margaret McKinney-Arnold of Women in Touch. Last spring, and was awarded a Ganey Mini-Grant that allowed her to remain in South Bend during the summer and conduct research.

Claire Berezowitz, Senior Environmental Science Major

Claire was just one of twenty-four students in "The Ethics of Energy Conservation" class, taught by Professors Wilasa Vichit-Vadakan from the Civil Engineering and Geological Sciences department, and Margie Pfeil from the Theology department, who conducted an energy efficiency study for four non-profit organizations in South Bend.

Megan Conway, Senior Political Science Major, Peace Studies Minor

Megan wrote her political science senior thesis on the effects of political participation on the provision of government services, more specifically how voter turn out correlates with police officer allocation throughout Chicago neighborhoods. She gathered data from the US Commission on Civil Rights, the Chicago police department, and the cith clerk. Her advisor is Professor John Griffin.

2004-2005

Alissa Mendoza, Senior Economics Major

As part of her coursework for Professor Mary Beckman's economics course, "Addressing the Problem of U.S. Poverty at a Local Level", Alissa Mendoza worked with Michelle Peters at the Chapin Street Clinic on a semester-long project to design a program for the St. Joe's Hospital to combat childhood obesity, regardless of the economic status of the child. Obesity is a huge problem for children; if it is not addressed early, the future health consequences can be devastating. Often, nutritional food is not available to children in low income families. School lunches, fast food, and inexpensive processed food options are less costly and more prevalent than healthier options.

N. Eugene Walls, Sociology Graduate Student

For more than two and a half years, Eugene worked to create a data set from nine years of admissions records gathered by the Center for the Homeless. With the help of Felicia LeClere at the Labratory for Social Research on campus, Eugene used a statistical analysis to measure if the duration of a client's stay at the center was correlated with the length of time between visits. Two undergraduate students assisted with data collection as most information was contained in paper files. The study hoped to identify which programs were most effective at helping various demographic groups move out of homelessness. Eugene also hoped to use this quanitative analysis to evaluate the generally accepted belief that the many possible causes for homelessness prevent sociologists from drawing significant conclusions.

Leslie Follmer, Junior Math & Economics Major

After participating in a CBR course during the fall of her Sophomore year, Leslie decided to continue to engage in CBR by interning with the Service Employee's International Union (SEIU) Local #615, in Boston. Her internship was organized as a CSC Summer Service Project through the Interfaith Worker Justice, a national organization committed to labor rights. She spent the summer working on the "Justice for Janitors" campaign, specifically by collecting information to create a market-size estimate. SEIU's campaign strategy centered around unionizing the majority of janitors in various sectors of the city, so they calculated the number of janitors by measuring the amount of residential and commercial space and dividing by the footage that one worker could clean.

Susan Lenderts, Senior Economics & Political Science Major

As part of her course work for Professor Mary Beckman's course, Susan spent about two hours a week during the semester working with Deb Stanley at Imani Unidad, an organization dedicated to increasing HIV/AIDS awareness in the African-American community. Susan was responsible for reading and organizing HIV/AIDS literature to determine its relevance and significance.  Her notes and organization would enable Deb to access information for grant proposals or other documents.

Jon van Wyck, Senior Economics Major, Minoring in the Hesburgh Program in Public Service

Over the summer, Jon worked full time with Karen Ainsley from the Near Northwest Neighborhood Association and with Angela Miller-McGraw on campus to study the prevalence of predatory lending practices to low income residents in South Bend. His research included a consideration of anti-predatory lending legislature in other areas of Indiana, and was incorporated into his senior thesis, a requirement of his minor. The NNN is an organization dedicated to the preservation and revitalization of the neighborhood through provision of affordable housing to low and moderate income households.

2003-2004

Diane Price, Senior Environmental Science Major

During the fall of 2003, Diane Price engaged in community based research with United Way in their creation and organization of the Heating Assistance Task Force, in response to concerns regarding rising heating prices and the problems they cause for low-income families. Record numbers of South Bend residents were on disconnect or disconnect notice at the start of this winter, and assistance organizations in the area were under a great deal of strain to try to meet the needs of the community. Regarding the project, Diane wrote, “My focus with the task force has been researching information on energy prices, regulation of energy providers, state and local government assistance programs, information on other communities’ efforts to meet rising energy prices, as well as other miscellaneous research questions. In addition, I have assisted with the coordination and communication between the different sub-committees.”