CULJP 2020 Award Recipients
2020 Winner of Teaching Innovation Award in Interdisciplinary Legal Studies Teaching
The Consortium for Undergraduate Law & Justice Programs is pleased to announce that the recipient for the 2020 Teaching Innovation Award in Interdisciplinary Legal Studies is Professor Chrysanthi Leon, Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, University of Delaware, for the undergraduate sociolegal research course sequence titled Sociology of Law and Law and Social Science INSIDE OUT taught at the Baylor Women’s Correctional Institution (BWCI) in Delaware.
While the INSIDEOUT program is a well established one, two innovative techniques were the creation of the prison intersectionality exercise initiated by an incarcerated student and the use of "I Poems" in a law and social science class. Prof Leon utilized an intersectionality exercise that introduced a set of biographies that in the process prompted an incarcerated student Nicole to come up with a “prison intersectionality” exercise based on inmate experiences and created a new set of biographies. As the nomination letter notes, “It is very effective in making explicit the specific and multiple disadvantages faced by incarcerated people and provides a tangible application of the intersectional theory developed by black feminists Kimberlé Crenshaw and Patricia Hill-Collins.”
The second innovation was the utilization of the "I Poem" model created by Marie Bailey Kloch that was the basis of a class exercise involving an interpretive approach to oral history transcripts of Chicano/a activists. Students highlighted the “I” statements, and then pulled those statements out to create a poem and discussed and edited them collectively. These innovative exercises in the classes allowed initiation of teaching innovations from the incarcerated and also connected approaches from law and humanities and social sciences in a creative way. We congratulate Professor Leon for her innovative teaching.
While the INSIDEOUT program is a well established one, two innovative techniques were the creation of the prison intersectionality exercise initiated by an incarcerated student and the use of "I Poems" in a law and social science class. Prof Leon utilized an intersectionality exercise that introduced a set of biographies that in the process prompted an incarcerated student Nicole to come up with a “prison intersectionality” exercise based on inmate experiences and created a new set of biographies. As the nomination letter notes, “It is very effective in making explicit the specific and multiple disadvantages faced by incarcerated people and provides a tangible application of the intersectional theory developed by black feminists Kimberlé Crenshaw and Patricia Hill-Collins.”
The second innovation was the utilization of the "I Poem" model created by Marie Bailey Kloch that was the basis of a class exercise involving an interpretive approach to oral history transcripts of Chicano/a activists. Students highlighted the “I” statements, and then pulled those statements out to create a poem and discussed and edited them collectively. These innovative exercises in the classes allowed initiation of teaching innovations from the incarcerated and also connected approaches from law and humanities and social sciences in a creative way. We congratulate Professor Leon for her innovative teaching.
The Honorable Mention for the 2020 Teaching Innovation Award in Interdisciplinary Legal Studies is Professor Jonathan Marshall, Director of the Legal Studies Undergraduate Program at the University of California, Berkeley, for the undergraduate course Legal Studies 123: Data, Prediction, and Law. Now in its third year, LS 123 trains students to critically interrogate and actually apply the use of quantitative data analysis in sociolegal research, legal decision-making, and law and policy.
The course, which currently enrolls more than 50 students, employs innovative approaches. In one assignment, students conduct big data analyses of race, social class, and spatial dynamics of the use of force by U.S. police officers. In another assignment, students work with digitized textual data from the Old Bailey, which contains 197,000 case records spanning 1674 to 1913 from the central London criminal court. As the nomination letter notes, “The question is not only how to technically conduct such an analysis, but also centrally what one’s analyses mean substantively.... In this way, while students learn about law, legal institutions and data science, they also learn about how to pose meaningful theoretical and policy-oriented research questions, make meaningful data analytic interpretations, and become conversant with research methodology.” The course brings sociolegal studies into conversation with data science in innovative ways, with potential for broad impact on sociolegal and legal education more generally. We congratulate Professor Marshall for his accomplishment.
The course, which currently enrolls more than 50 students, employs innovative approaches. In one assignment, students conduct big data analyses of race, social class, and spatial dynamics of the use of force by U.S. police officers. In another assignment, students work with digitized textual data from the Old Bailey, which contains 197,000 case records spanning 1674 to 1913 from the central London criminal court. As the nomination letter notes, “The question is not only how to technically conduct such an analysis, but also centrally what one’s analyses mean substantively.... In this way, while students learn about law, legal institutions and data science, they also learn about how to pose meaningful theoretical and policy-oriented research questions, make meaningful data analytic interpretations, and become conversant with research methodology.” The course brings sociolegal studies into conversation with data science in innovative ways, with potential for broad impact on sociolegal and legal education more generally. We congratulate Professor Marshall for his accomplishment.
2020 Winner of Best Undergraduate Student Paper Award in Interdisciplinary Legal Studies
The Consortium for Undergraduate Law & Justice Programs is pleased to announce that “Accessing a (W)hole New Life: Resident Pathways to Coping While Living in Restricted Housing Units” is the recipient of the 2020 Best Undergraduate Student Paper Award in Interdisciplinary Legal Studies. In bestowing this award, the committee recognizes the outstanding accomplishments of Bryce Kushmerick-McCune and Heather Pickett, George Mason University Criminology, Law and Society students, for their outstanding research project. Kushmerick-McCune and Pickett’s research paper addresses a question of enormous practical and academic significance: how do prison inmates cope with the highly punitive conditions of solitary confinement? Adopting an interdisciplinary approach that draws heavily on the literatures in psychology and criminology, the authors conducted an in-depth, qualitative study of residents living within solitary confinement units within four state penal institutions, as well as the correctional staff working within these units. This paper is marked by clear topic definition, a highly important research question, excellent background literature research, lucid and compelling argumentation, and impressive research design and analysis.
The committee would also like to award an honorable mention to Lauren Yehle’s “Movement and Countermovement Dynamics Between the Religious Right and LGB Community Arising from Colorado’s Amendment 2.” Yehle, a University of Denver Political Science student, provides a novel, timely, and important investigation into the social movements active in Colorado’s Amendment 2, which prevented the passage of anti-discrimination legislation that would protect sexuality as a class. This well-researched and sophisticated paper provides substantial insight into LGBTQ+ rights and social movements more generally.
The committee would also like to award an honorable mention to Lauren Yehle’s “Movement and Countermovement Dynamics Between the Religious Right and LGB Community Arising from Colorado’s Amendment 2.” Yehle, a University of Denver Political Science student, provides a novel, timely, and important investigation into the social movements active in Colorado’s Amendment 2, which prevented the passage of anti-discrimination legislation that would protect sexuality as a class. This well-researched and sophisticated paper provides substantial insight into LGBTQ+ rights and social movements more generally.