MAGNOLIA—The American Association of Colleges and Universities has named Southern Arkansas University as the recipient of a $2,125 grant for students to study civic involvement.
Dr. Chrisanne Christensen, associate professor of Psychology at SAU, said she wrote a grant proposal after informally surveying students in three upper level psychology classes about what they considered to be the top ten social and global issues of today. What she discovered disturbed her because students appeared to be disengaged about issues such as hunger, homelessness, poverty and violence, and more strongly connected to issues of their age such as music downloading, Internet blogs and cheating.
The result was the application and notification of the grant.
Christensen said the grant will impact the students in behavioral and social sciences and will involve honor students from this department conducting research. The goal of the grant, and hopefully similar grants to follow, is to impact the views of students in a positive way.
“We are trying to encourage students to be aware of issues going on locally and in the world,” she said. “We want to explore avenues to encourage a larger base of students to be agents of change.”
Christensen said she plans to write additional grants to allow the program to continue. This is only the first step, she said.
