Mat Despard, Ph.D. ’15, successfully defended his dissertation entitled, “Evidence-Based Practice in Nonprofit Human Service Organizations.” His dissertation included three papers related to enhancing evidence-based practice in non-profit human service organizations (NPHSO); assessing psychometric properties of NPHSO capacity and performance; and assessing evidence-based practice-related outcomes of an NPHSO Capacity Building Intervention.
Carey Robertson Evans, Ph.D. ’15, successfully defended her dissertation entitled, “Bystander Behavior and Victim Coping Strategies: A mixed methods study of rural bullying.” “Evans completed groundbreaking work on how social capital, or the lack thereof, influences positive and negative bystander behavior during episodes of bullying,” noted Associate Dean for Doctoral Education Sheryl Zimmerman. “Her qualitative work was innovative in mapping how victims of bullying use different mechanisms to cope.”
Will Hall, Ph.D. ’15, successfully defended his dissertation on April 8. Hall’s three paper dissertation addressed, “The Implementation and Effectiveness of Policy Interventions for School Bullying.” In addition to a systematic review of this topic, Hall completed analyses of data he collected in 2010 through Safe Schools North Carolina regarding the implementation of the North Carolina School Violence Prevention act. He took on the challenge of merging that data with contextual school level variables, in order to examine the potential impact of school context variables on implementation fidelity.
Todd Jensen and Charity Sneed Watkins were selected as Frank Porter Graham Honor Society Inductees. This society recognizes outstanding service provided to the University and community by graduate and professional students enrolled at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Kevin White, Ph.D. ’15, successfully defended his dissertation, entitled, “An Examination of Post-Permanency Adjustment and Discontinuity for Older Foster Youth in Adoptive and Guardianship Homes.” It is one of the first studies to look at the long-term stability of adoptive and guardianship placements after the passage of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997.
