About Me
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Hello and welcome to my place on the Internet. I'm interested in making the world a better place and working with others who share this worthy goal. I teach, do research and work with various communities. My organizational home is in the School of Urban Affairs and Public Policy and The Center for Community Research and Service at the University of Delaware. We are an interdisciplinary school with a strong commitment social betterment. |
I study technology and nonprofit organizations, particularly those using the Internet for social change. This was an opportunity to combine my passion for technology with my commitment to social justice. When I first began my research in the mid 1990s, it was a rarely explored territory. Everyone was a pioneer and everything was new. I spent a lot of time defending myself from people who felt that this wasn't a serious topic for research. Then came Jessie Ventura, Howard Dean and Move On. This is now the mainstream and advocates who don't use these techniques are rapidly being considered dinosaurs. Other areas I write and do research in are communitarian thought, international development, Appalachia and environmental matters.
I was involved in social causes and politics in college, but shortly after graduating I served as a VISTA Volunteer in Birmingham, Alabama. I worked with indigent defendants in a county jail as part of a pre-trial release program. I was horrified by what I saw and I knew then that I wanted to change some of those situations.
While in graduate school, I worked for a National Center for Volunteers in Criminal Justice. I've been a practitioner, mostly in child welfare and criminal justice. I started teaching at one of The University of Virginia branch campuses in 1980 and over the last quarter of a century have had the privilege of working with a number of America's future leaders.
I went to Mars Hill College for my undergraduate degree, did my masters at the University of Alabama and my Ph.D at the University of Tennessee. I belong to ASPA, ARNOVA, CDS, SWPPG, ACOSA, ISTR, UAA and a number of other organizations.
| I moderate the SWPOLICY discussion group, the
Electronic Advocacy [EA] Discussion Group The Nonprofit Informatics Research
Group [NIRG] and Discussion Groups for a number of other
interests. From 1994-1996 I managed the courseware exchange for CSWE's Annual Program Meeting. In 1997 I became the first chair of the Information Technology Symposium for the same meeting, a position I held until 2004. I am also the current Chair of the Social Welfare Policy and Practice Group. On a personal note, I was born in Trenton, New Jersey and spent most of my earlier years in Washington's Crossing, New Jersey and went to High school in Medford Lakes, NJ. I live here in Newark, DE. My hobbies are maritime history, lighthouses, old forts and politics. |
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