On May 4, 1970, four students were killed and nine were wounded when National Guardsmen opened fire on anti-war protestors at Kent State University. This case study explores the tragedy and the experiences of student affairs professionals at KSU leading up to and after the shootings. Although the field of crisis management did not exist in 1970,…

School safety continues to be a concerning and vital topic in education. This quantitative study examines the willingness of students from a rural Arkansas school district to report weapons being brought to school or violent occurrences happening at school and analyzes the behavior associated with students reporting or not reporting. The study…

This study assessed teachers' and administrators' perceptions of school-related violent acts on non-involved students' attendance and academic performance. The researcher began the investigation by completing a quantitative analysis in a large inner-city high school in a southeastern state, assessing the impact of violent acts on the attendance…

This dissertation explores the newly theorized concept of "sexualized aggression" in U.S. college women's social drinking spaces (e.g., parties, bars, clubs). I developed the concept of sexualized aggression to refer to understudied and overlooked forms of sexual assault and aggression--more specifically, sexual assault that happens in…

Police brutality--including the incidents that mobilized collective outrage and action across the world during the summer of 2020--has negatively impacted the psychological health of Black youth for generations. Police harassment is a persistent form of racial discrimination that Black youth frequently navigate (Brunson, 2007), and particularly as…

Objective: We examine role of ACEs and pathways to risk of opioid misuse among young adults. Participants and Methods: A cross-sectional survey of validated measures of ACEs, risk of opioid misuse, and health conditions with a sample of 1,402 students from a large public university followed by multivariate logistic regression and pathway analysis.…

Amidst the current unprecedented climate, characterized by events such as COVID-19, overt acts of racism, insurrection, the emergence of White supremacist groups, high-profile murders of Black and Brown individuals by the police, increased political activism, and unapologetic racist political rhetoric, this research aimed to examine how external…

This article provides an overview of the Survivors: Local Stories of Domestic Violence (hereafter, Survivors) civic engagement project. Survivors' learning objectives were to increase the understanding of the complexity of intimate partner abuse and foster empathy in outsiders' responses, something at the cornerstone of the #MeToo social movement…

This article is a conceptual examination of tolerance and pedagogy with regard to the prevention of violence in the Arab world from a critical theory perspective. Tolerance is a socially and culturally bound system, indicating that any pedagogy of tolerance must be authentic to its context. Therefore, the value of adopting a nuanced Western…

The present pilot study explores pre-service teachers' experiences related to active shooter preparedness and perceptions of preparedness of active shooter training and drills. A survey was conducted among pre-service teachers (N = 97) regarding (a) previous experiences with active shooter response drills, (b) perceptions of preparedness for…

Most students released from detention never return to school. This study uses youth participatory action research and Social Justice Youth Development Theory to explore the experiences of those who do. Findings demonstrate that formerly incarcerated students want to return to school but face institutionalized resistance that amounts to racialized…

Acceptability of a sexual violence (SV) risk reduction program called "RealConsent" designed for first-year female college students was conducted as part of a larger, randomized controlled trial. "RealConsent" uses web-based and mobile technology to deliver four 45-minute theoretically and empirically derived modules designed…

In the past several decades, the number of college students who experience mental health concerns has increased astronomically. During that time, acts of campus violence have increased as well. Unfortunately, many colleges have been unable to effectively meet the needs of students with mental disorders. This article explores the challenges…

The current study examined the impact of a live, virtual training on the combined topics of affirmative consent and bystander intervention among 1,395 students new to the university in 2022. Student responses on pre-survey and post-training surveys were analyzed to determine if attending the intervention promoted students' ability to understand,…

A variety of factors are associated with the likelihood of reporting guns at school; however, mixed empirical findings hinder our ability to inform policies to reduce school violence. Additionally, many of the established factors are difficult to change over time, and limited attention has been devoted to more malleable factors such as anonymous…