In this study, I investigate how the rhetoric used in university responses to anti-Asian violence maintained institutional status quos to protect whiteness in higher education. Using whiteness as futurity as a theoretical framework, I employed document analysis to analyze 54 statements in response to the tragic mass shooting in Atlanta in March of…

The increased publicity of mass shootings and the COVID-19 pandemic have fueled American demand for firearm purchases. Firearm violence has largely been blamed on people with mental illnesses instead of firearm accessibility, despite the lack of population-level evidence associating mental illness with firearm violence perpetration. We support…

In the textbooks, public policy analysis is a rational process in which policies are formulated to address social problems perceived by the public to be unacceptable. Effectiveness is one of the major criteria of policy evaluation. Consensus on effectiveness is difficult to achieve because underdetermined causes are the occasion for conflicting…

The 2018-19 Supreme Court term concluded with a number of unanswered questions: What is the fate of the "citizenship question" on the 2020 census? What will the developing Supreme Court jurisprudence of Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh look like in the near future? How will Chief Justice Roberts continue to evolve as the "swing"…

This piece documents the collaboration between a team of four University of Pennsylvania students and seven youth partners from across the Greater Philadelphia area who came together to discuss, understand, and take action toward civic issues impacting their communities. As youth arrived at the Civic Engagement Summer Program, a joint Philadelphia…

A conservatively-minded campus, Liberty University's administrators have, like many college campuses, struggled with creating an appropriate weapons policy. The policies in existence prior to 2011 were more traditionally anti-weapon, while those created after 2011 have been more forgiving. This article examines the background, both national and…

The Students-as-Partners (SaP) paradigm has been widely recognized for its enrichment of pedagogy and research, particularly in the scholarship of teaching and learning; in a time of acute disruption to higher education, the SaP model may further provide key insights into the adaptation of high impact teaching practices, although the changing…

This exploratory research surveyed faculty who instruct in community colleges from 18 states about their attitudes toward the concealed carry gun policies that allow appropriately licensed citizens to carry a handgun in public places such as college campuses. Building upon previous research involving 4-year institutions, we surveyed 1,889…

Despite the familiar American scene of lined-up students being ushered out of school buildings while their classmates lay wounded or dead inside, and despite repeated calls for restrictions on the guns used in such shootings, nearly twenty years after Columbine, the gun lobby retains a powerful grip on the nation's politicians - using money and…

There are a number of different safety threats that children face in their lives. One infrequent, but highly dangerous situation a child can face is finding a firearm. Hundreds of children are injured or killed by firearms each year. Fortunately, behavioral skills training (BST) and in situ training (IST) are effective approaches for teaching a…

The author of this article observes that, while much has been written on the overall topic of safety with regard to allowing guns on college campuses, little has been said about how allowing the possession of deadly weapons can create a "chilling effect" on academic discussions. This article considers how some universities have…

Engagement with political, social, and civic issues is a fundamental hallmark of an educated population. However, the level of engagement among adolescents and young adults is considered by many to be below desirable levels. This article presents details of a Psychology in Current Events course designed to increase civic engagement through an…

As U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan works with other Obama administration officials on policy responses to the shootings at a Connecticut elementary school, he brings a personal and professional history that has acquainted him with the impact of gun violence. As schools chief in Chicago from 2001 to 2008, he was affected by the gun deaths…

The question of whether guns should be permitted on college and university campuses in the United States reflects the tension between two competing perspectives. America has both a robust gun culture and an equally robust (if less well known) gun-control culture. The gun culture is as American as apple pie: There may be as many as 300 million…

Interventions aimed at preventing the important problem of gun injuries could be improved with an understanding of whether there are unique factors that place individuals at an increased risk of gun victimization. Much remains to be known about the victims of gun violence. The purpose of this article is to assess whether there are individual-level…