My professional career has been spent working with individuals from diverse social, cultural, and socio-economic backgrounds. It is my belief that a professor's role is multifaceted. First, a professor is a teacher. He or she must convey information
in an easily understood manner and utilize a variety of instructional approaches including, but certainly not limited to, current technological techniques and advances. Second, a professor serves as a mentor and advisor to students. This role
includes encouraging the students to become critical thinkers, researchers, and problem solvers. Third, a professor is a role model to students. Any career choice within the field of criminal justice requires the employee to demonstrate
ethical and moral behavior, positive interpersonal relationships, and the ability to react firmly but fairly in all situations. Through modeling, a professor vicariously imparts the importance of these characteristics.
A professor must be more than an educator or a researcher. A professor needs to be a catalyst of positive social change. By providing students with the opportunity to question current beliefs and explore new ideas, combined with a philosophy
of conducting research that can aid society, a professor can become an agent of positive social change
My research interests have included studies of the effectiveness of peer support program, stress and the law enforcer, organizations’ communication impediments, deviance, law enforcement morale, the influence of poverty on incarceration and recidivism
rates, the challenges faced by incarcerated individuals’ reentry into rural communities, autonomy in law enforcement, and a prospective archiving of material and case study on a local mass shooting in the late 1970s.