Student Spotlight

American Foundation for Suicide Prevention

As Volunteer Field Advocates for the AFSP, my husband and I visited WV Congressional representatives and their staff to advocate for two suicide prevention and education concerns, the Mental Health First Aid Act (S. 152, H.R. 274) and additional funding in the 2014 budget to support the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS). These actions are fundamental to the AFSP's goal to "...advocate to ensure that federal, state, and local governments do all they can to prevent suicide, and to support and care for those at risk."

The Mental Health First Aid Act (S. 152, H.R. 274) "...is a public health education program that helps people identify, understand, and respond to signs of mental illness and substance abuse...". The Mental Health First Aid Act would allocate $20 million in grants to such programs. After almost 200 AFSP Field Advocates visited Capitol Hill, almost 60 additional Congressional representatives have signed on as cosponsors to this important legislation.

The current budget for the NVDRS is $3.5 million which funds data collection on death from violent acts, including death by suicide, for only 18 states, leaving the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and government officials with incomplete data in which to base prevention and education strategies. The AFSP Field Advocates asked Congress to appropriate $25 million to expand the NVDRS to all 50 states and was happily rewarded with $15 million in the upcoming 2014 fiscal budget.
 

About the AFSP Annual Advocacy Forum:

"The Annual Advocacy Forum is AFSP's single largest effort to educate federal officials about suicide and they ways they can help to prevent it.

Each year, the Advocacy Forum brings together Suicide Prevention Advocates, volunteers, and AFSP staff to network, share the latest research, and provide the public and policy makers with the information and tools they need to be effective advocates in preventing suicide.

Participants from around the country share their personal stories and experiences with suicide, engage members of Congress in discussion on important suicide prevention issues, and share AFSP’s Federal Policy Priorities. Discussions also address funding for AFSP’s educational programs and promising research aimed at reducing the rate of suicide nationwide."

~http://www.afsp.org/advocacy-public-policy/annual-advocacy-forum

WVSU student selected for prestigious Herndon Fellowship
INSTITUTE, W.Va. –  West Virginia State University political science student Richard Anderson has been awarded a prestigious Judith A. Herndon Fellowship for the 2013 session of the West Virginia Legislature.

The Herndon Fellowship is an internship sponsored by the Legislature to instruct full-time undergraduate students in the theory and operation of legislative bodies. Only 10 students are selected for fellowships each legislative session.

“I’m very excited by this opportunity,” Anderson said. “I get to see, in action, everything that I have read about and learned about in class, but with real world results and consequences.”

The 20-year-old Anderson will be assigned to a specific legislator for the duration of the 2013 legislative session. Following the conclusion of the session, Herndon Fellows are assigned to various legislative, judicial or executive positions for the duration of their 16-week appointments.

“I hope to develop a better understanding of how the legislative process works,” Anderson said of his upcoming time under the state capitol dome. “To see an issue identified, and then watch as legislators work on a solution that could benefit West Virginia.”

Herndon Fellows are selected through a competitive process.  In order to be selected, Anderson had to complete an extensive application, and also be interviewed by a selection committee.  Students from every public college and university in West Virginia, as well as students from all but one in-state private college, participate in the program.

To be eligible for the Fellowship program, a student must have completed at least 60 undergraduate semester hours and be in good academic standing.  Each Fellow receives 12 semester hours of academic credit for their time at the Legislature.

A graduate of South Charleston High School, Anderson is currently a senior at West Virginia State University majoring in political science.

WVSU Students’ Work to be 
Featured at Undergraduate Research Day at the Capitol

INSTITUTE, W.Va. –  West Virginia State University political science students Richard Anderson, Jordyn Reed, and Derek Taylor were selected to present their research at the Legislature.

The title of their group project is “Going Negative: Immigration Rhetoric in Congressional Hearings,” (Click Here for the Poster) and examines the increasingly negative political rhetoric regarding immigration hearings during the last decade.


“Throughout WVSU, faculty encourage students to expand their knowledge and then share their findings with others,” said WVSU President Brian O. Hemphill. “The exemplary research conducted by these outstanding Yellow Jacket students is an example of the varied and wide-ranging research conducted by WVSU faculty and students. I’m proud of such ongoing efforts to open minds to new ideas, discoveries and theories.”
 

C. Damien Arthur, Ph.D., an assistant professor of political science and the faculty advisor for this research, said "the students’ project developed from an upper-division political science course wherein students were exposed to the role of theory in research, forming hypotheses and research questions, identifying variables, and gathering and analyzing statistical data." Professor Arthur said "During this practical opportunity to apply basic research methods to a problem or question in the field of political science, the students executed a research project and produced a professional quality white-paper on the growing negativity in immigration discourse. The students designed and constructed a database of information that can be used in future political science research and each of the students completed an analytical paper on immigration; each of these papers are being developed further with the hopes of publishing them in a peer-reviewed journal."

Abstract

During the last decade, the political rhetoric regarding immigration has increasingly become more negative (Arthur & Woods, 2013; Golash-Boza, 2009; Beasley, 2006; Segovia & Defever, 2010). In fact, there is research that suggests certain conditions can predict an increase in the negative presidential rhetoric regarding immigration (Arthur & Woods, 2013). Similarly, this study seeks to ascertain if the context surrounding congressional hearings can compel members of Congress and immigration experts to use and entertain negative immigration narratives. In building a comprehensive database on the discussion of immigration, we address the pertinent variables that shape immigration rhetoric. Coding remarks from every congressional hearing regarding immigration from the 103rd Congress (1993-1994) through the 113th Congress (2013-2014) allowed us to ascertain if external factors predict negativity. Moreover, this enabled us to map-out the trends in the tone of immigration rhetoric, which exemplified how congressional leadership on immigration has changed over time and across various controls. Such an analysis provides insight into the externalities and contexts that shape congressional leadership. Rather than determining if congressional attention to immigration is capable of effecting change in the policy narrative, as an entrepreneurial mechanism of power, we think that understanding the dynamic as a way for members to capitalize on the public mood provides a better assessment of congressional leadership and decision-making—which, in turn, offers a more enriching analysis of the immigration discussion.

 

The Undergraduate Research Day features 75 research posters from 15 colleges and universities from throughout West Virginia. The work will be on display in the Capitol Rotunda. Research to be showcased at the event was selected through a competitive process. You can find the conference program here (click here). 
Undergraduate Research Day is sponsored by the Higher Education Policy Commission Division of Science and Research and the West Virginia Department of Education and the Arts. 

http://www.honors.wvu.edu/URDC_2014/




WVSU Students with Chairman of the
Board of Governors at WVSU, Mr. Tom Susman






WVSU Students Posing with their Poster
on Immigration Rhetoric in Congressional
Hearings (1993 - 2010)






WVSU Student Richard Anderson discusses
his research with WV Secretary of Education
and the Arts, Kay Goodwin






WVSU Students, Faculty, and Dean
at the URDC