Climate Hazards Research Agenda for HBCUs

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) are largely missing from the climate hazards research literature focused on higher education institutions. Developed with Dr. Mark Barnes, Assistant Professor of Geography at Morgan State University, this project aims to establish the need for a research agenda focused expressly and unapologetically on the needs of HBCUs with managing and mitigating the impacts of climate hazards, such as extreme weather and climate change. Given the historical exposure of HBCUs to climate hazards, the urgency of this research agenda is paramount. The agenda calls for a team of interdisciplinary researchers to move from a reactive focus on postsecondary institutions' emergency experiences to a proactive and robust agenda that intently includes HBCU experiences. Manuscripts are in progress and under review.

Campus Memorialization of Tragic Moments

Each academic year is marred by any number of campus emergencies, many of which become tragedies. After such incidents, campus communities are faced with the questions of whether and how to memorialize precipitating incidents and any lost lives. This project focuses on campus memorials--both physical structures and their accompanying annual commemorative events--that offer a permanent and/or recurring reminder of past tragedy. Findings offer insight into how institutions can move forward after a campus tragedy by investigating: (a) how memorials have aided the crisis recovery process; (b) how people interact with and make meaning of campus memorials; and (c) administrative decisions regarding which situations warrant memorialization and how to properly design a space that will capture the proper emotion and meaning. Data collection is ongoing.
​Historical Timeline of College Athletics Tragedies

Disaster Impacts of Communities of Color

In partnership with Dr. Louise Michelle Vital of Boston College, this developing manuscript argues that disasters reveal the severe under-resourcing of communities of color. Repurposed case studies from research on Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Haiti's earthquake in 2010 are used to frame examples of disaster impacts on educational institutions that primarily service Black students and communities. These institutions' struggles to recover post-disaster are recounted to highlight the lack of tangible resources and offer evidence of the central theme.

Emerging Ideas in Student Affairs EM

A series of articles curated and co-edited alongside Dr. Danielle K. Molina will appear in upcoming issues of ACPA's Developments beginning in Winter 2017. The opening article to the series, co-authored by Drs. Molina and Shaw, provides an overview of the state of emergency management research in student affairs. The remainder of the series is written by practitioner scholars who use their lived experiences to define and offer insight on the evolving emergency management demands within contemporary student affairs practice.

Teaching Crisis Management with Cases

As an applied topic, crisis management is impossible to teach using only traditional pedagogical methods of reading, lecture, discussion, and reflection. Applied subjects are best learned when people are actively engaged in the hands-on process of practicing the sills to be mastered. This project tested multiple methods for helping current and future student affairs professionals to master crisis management skills and techniques. Findings are presented across various manuscripts, and hold implications for how student affairs professionals are engaged in crisis management training, and how crisis management topics can be effectively infused into courses across disciplines.