Congratulations to the Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences projects that were awarded a total of $68,500 from three internal grant programs – the Office of Research’s Faculty Grant for Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activities (FGRSC), the Office of Research’s New Research Exploration Award, and Wilkinson College’s Scholarly/Creative Activity Faculty Grant. Below is a summary of each funded project.

Faculty Grant for Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activities

The Office of Research FGRSC’s internal grant program provides competitive, merit-based support for research, scholarly, and creative activities in all disciplines and fields. The FGRSC supports projects that will lead to the development of new and innovative scholarship and creative activity, or to the production of publications that attract external funding, increase competitiveness for external awards, and enhance the national visibility and reputation of Chapman faculty.

Dr. Ashley Kranjac (Sociology)

Dr. Ashley Kranjac (Sociology)
Spontaneous Prosocial Acts Across Religious Contexts (SPARC) ($15,000)

Dr. Kranjac will capture spontaneous helping behavior in real-world settings to study public attitudes toward different religious people, institutions, and organizations—faith communities—and how prosocial acts vary systematically by religious and secular markets. Dr. Kranjac will employ Milgram’s observational lost-letter technique (LLT) to gather information about the letter finder, in addition to collecting data on how the respondent behaves. Instead of using conventional self-report surveys, she will adopt the LLT protocol to empirically measure prosocial behavior toward different faith communities and test whether non-reciprocal altruism varies with the letter finder’s perception of the sender’s religious or spiritual identity. This matters because, as the share of Americans exiting conventional religiosity grows, many have raised concerns that prosocial behaviors associated with traditional religion will weaken at the societal level. The findings will provide insight into how patterns of prosocial behavior may change in response to shifts in civil society.

Dr. Hannah Ridge (Political Science)

Dr. Hannah Ridge (Political Science)
Democratic Backsliding and the Treatment of Minority and Majority Ethnic Groups ($15,000)

This project aims to investigate patterns of democratic backsliding across multiple countries, focusing on how autocratic tendencies emerge through targeted restrictions on citizen rights. Building on preliminary observations, the study will explore citizens’ varying tolerance for attacks on minority versus majority groups, hypothesizing that minorities often become initial targets due to perceived political utility. Using survey data collected from Germany, Poland, and Hungary, the research will analyze public support for policies that may appear anti-democratic, particularly when they disproportionately affect minority groups. The study aims to identify conditions under which citizens retain support for measures that undermine democratic principles, providing insights into the social and political dynamics that facilitate authoritarian consolidation. Ultimately, this research aims to contribute to understanding the early indicators of democratic erosion and inform strategies to strengthen democratic resilience in vulnerable nations.

New Research Exploration Award

The New Research Exploration Award is a one-time funding opportunity for full-time faculty to enhance their research and scholarly competitiveness and productivity. This grant seeks to support the exploration of emerging research areas with no preliminary data and the development of proposals for new funding.

Dr. Hannah Ridge (Political Science) (pictured above)
Nationalism and the Soil ($11,000)

This study will examine Americans’ and Israelis’ attitudes about what is important to being American or Israeli. It will focus on those who say that being born in the country is as important to being part of the nation. Both the US and Israel have sizeable populations adhering to that belief while also identifying as nations of immigrants. This study will explore the causes and consequences of those contradictory beliefs. This new direction of research explores this tension between the ‘nation of immigrants’ national self-conceptions/narratives and the nativist nationalist strains.

Wilkinson College Scholarly/Creative Activity Faculty Grant

The Wilkinson College Scholarly/Creative Activity Faculty Grant supports the development of impactful and innovative scholarly or creative work by Wilkinson College tenure-track or tenured faculty. This program aims to advance faculty career trajectories, elevate the national visibility and reputation of Wilkinson faculty for their excellence in creative and scholarly endeavors, and provide faculty with opportunities to catalyze new and innovative areas or bring an existing project to completion. 

Dr. Jeffrey Koerber (History)

Dr. Jeff Koerber (History) 
Before the Black Book: Early Press Dispatches of the Holocaust from Soviet Jewish Journalists, 1942-1946 ($3,700)

This project investigates how press reports originating in the Soviet Union shaped early international knowledge of the Holocaust. It focuses on the wartime activities of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAC), an organization of Soviet Jewish writers and cultural leaders that compiled the early Holocaust volume, The Black Book. The JAC produced thousands of wartime bulletins for newspapers overseas, as well as issuing some of the earliest reports on the Holocaust. Dr. Koerber has already accessed the JAC files and Soviet Yiddish publications, and his research now turns to US, British, and South American wartime newspapers at archives in New York and Washington, D.C., and at the University of Texas (Austin) and Stanford University.  

Dr. Anna Leahy (English)

Dr. Anna Leahy (English) 
The Life and Work of Georgia O’Keeffe: A Poetic Response ($5,000)

This project proposes archival research on the life and work of Georgia O’Keeffe to support the drafting and revising of several poems for a book manuscript-in-progress and also, potentially, an essay. Archival research will be conducted in person by appointment, and an artist residency at Dorland Mountain Arts will support the drafting and revising. In the field of creative writing, the artist residency serves both as a reward for past achievement and as a foundation for intensive, undistracted work on a project. Dr. Leahy’s objectives under the two-year grant period include 1) the publication of one or more poems drawing directly from the grant-funded research and 2) writing and the completion of a poetry book manuscript for submission to publishers, with 3) the possibility of drafting, revising, and submitting a creative nonfiction essay. The manuscript-in-progress represents what she expects will be her fourth full-length poetry book published.

Hannah Ridge (Political Science) (pictured above)
Nativist Nationalism in the US and Israel (Jeffrey Griffith ’11 Junior Faculty Research Award, $4,000)

In the last decade, nationalism has achieved international relevance that it had not seen in decades. Politicians regularly invoke religion, ethnicity, language, and nativity as markers of true belonging. For some citizens, being born in the country is a central marker of belonging to the national community. At the same time, some countries, like the US and Israel, identify as nations of immigrants. This study explores this tension between the ‘nation of immigrants’ national self-conceptions/narratives and the nativist nationalist strain. The study will use extant cross-national surveys from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems and the Pew Research Center to demonstrate the propensity toward nativist nationalism. It will complement these findings with original surveys. It will study the relationship between nativist nationalism and several contemporary policy domains. These include citizens’ reforms, immigration reform, birth subsidies, and democratic backsliding. 

Dr. Karen Snedker (Sociology)

Dr. Karen Snedker (Sociology)
Crisis Policing: A Mixed-Methods Study of Mental Health Policing Models ($4,800)

People undergoing a mental health crisis are increasingly coming into contact with police officers. Sometimes these police-civilian interactions have detrimental effects. In response, important improvements are underway to change policing practices and connect those in crisis with needed mental health services. One important innovation is the adoption of co-responder models such as Crisis Intervention Teams (CIT). CIT’s include police officers and mental health professionals who work collaboratively to respond to individuals undergoing a mental health crisis. The goal is to have safe interventions and divert individuals away from the criminal justice system. To date, limited research has explored the adoption of CIT programs nationally or provided rich local case studies. Findings from this research will offer a better understanding of the everyday practices involved in this evolving form of mental health policing.  

Dr. Richelle Tanner (Environmental Science & Policy)

Dr. Richelle Tanner (Interdisciplinary Programs/Environmental Science & Policy)
Advancing Public Participation in Early Detection Rapid Response Measures in Coastal Wetlands (Jeffrey Griffith ’11 Junior Faculty Research Award, $5,000)

Invasive species pose immense threats to the function and health of California ecosystems. While managers, scientists, and the public are aware of invaders’ presence and the management strategies used to address them, we collectively struggle to document early invaders and make mitigation decisions. When we empower more diverse stakeholders to make rapid, impactful decisions about invasive species, we can ease public agency workloads and enable residents to contribute to the health of habitats in their own backyards. In a choice experiment across Southern and Central California wetlands, we will evaluate public participation in a variety of early-detection reporting schemes recommended by national environmental management agencies for technical experts but never tested with the public. This project evaluates invasive species management through the lens of the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework and seeks to improve cooperative decision-making at the local level.

Dr. Jillian Warren (Art)

Dr. Jillian Warren (Art)
Making Futures Tangible: Youth Biomaterial Toolkits for Sustainability, Agency, and Futures Thinking (Jeffrey Griffith ’11 Junior Faculty Research Award, $5,000) 

This project investigates how youth-centered biomaterial toolkits can support experiential engagement with sustainability by positioning materials as dynamic and open to intervention. In response to complex environmental challenges, it examines how hands-on interaction with materials such as mycelium, biodegradable plastics, and recycled substrates can foster systems thinking, agency, and futures-oriented reflection. While existing approaches emphasize exposure and awareness, they often fall short of engaging youth in the human-designed systems that shape ecological outcomes. This project addresses this gap through accessible making activities paired with structured reflection on material lifecycles and environmental impact. The work includes toolkit design, pilot implementation, and qualitative evaluation, contributing both scholarly outcomes and openly shared resources for educators.