Research: USF Sarasota-Manatee | Volume 4 | Fall 2022

Building a More Just Society

Pandemic Response

The Future of Interdisciplinary Research

Hospitality &Tourism through COVID-19

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In this 03 05

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LETTERS FROM LEADERSHIP

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GRANT WRITING WORKSHOPS Virtual accessibility expands the campus-based Summer Grant Writing Workshop Program to 120 institutions worldwide

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NETWORKING ONE USF Research Administration Faculty Fellowship (RAFF) program connects researchers across campuses

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THE FUTURE OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH USF Sarasota-Manatee campus Interdisciplinary Research Grants support convergent research

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TRAILBLAZERS IN MENTORSHIP Faculty members matched with graduate and doctoral students across all USF campuses

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SECTION ONE: BUILDING A MORE JUST SOCIETY

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CULTURAL COMPETENCY Denise Davis-Cotton’s mission to create truly inclusive curricula

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"WE CAN’T BREATHE" HBCU think tank outlines first steps to remove race barriers in the hospitality industry

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CRITICALLY THINKING Reconstructing the world language classroom

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RACISM IN ADVERTISING Real-world assignments help prepare the next generation of culturally aware marketers

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SECTION TWO: IMPACT OF THE PANDEMIC

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CULTIVATING RESILIENCE Hospitality and tourism experts research solutions and offer hope for a COVID-19-wracked industry

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ONWARD AND UPWARD Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport (SRQ) CEO explains why SRQ is the fastest growing airport in the nation

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RIDING THE EMOTIONAL STORM Studies on police brutality and the pandemic point to a climate of fear

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CAMPUS ADVISORY BOARD Rick Piccolo, Chair Lisa Carlton Anila Jain, MD Bill Mariotti Diana Michel Ernie Withers REGIONAL CHANCELLOR Karen A. Holbrook, PhD CAMPUS LEADERSHIP Eddie Beauchamp

Regional Vice Chancellor for Business and Financial Affairs

Sandy Justice, CRA

Associate Director for USF Research and Innovation

Brett Kemker, PhD

Regional Vice Chancellor and Vice Provost, Academic Affairs and Student Success

Marrie Neumer

Associate Vice President of Advancement

Corey Posey

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer

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Greg Smogard, PhD

Assistant Vice President of Innovation and Business Development

Casey Welch

Assistant Vice President for External Affairs and Government Relations

EDITOR Bill Hampton ART DIRECTION Krista Lee

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PANDEMIC RIPPLE EFFECT Researchers create a framework for understanding the impact of external crises on the B2B sales industry

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BEHIND THE MASK Politics, risk perception and social interaction influence COVID-19 safety practices

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CLASSROOM CAFFEINE A podcast born through the pandemic helps connect educators with experts in their field of research

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FACULTY PUBLICATION SPOTLIGHT

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CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Melanie Bass Rich Shopes Sara Withrow COVER PHOTO Carolina Ruggero

The University of South Florida, comprised of campuses in Tampa, St. Petersburg and SarasotaManatee, is a high-impact Preeminent State Research University as designated by the Florida Board of Governors. This publication reflects the research work from the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee campus.

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From the

Regional Chancellor

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t is a time of growth and upward momentum at the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus.

We have strengthened our position in the community with key partnerships and invested in high-demand, high-growth programs including nursing and cybersecurity to serve our students. With the invaluable support of our Campus Board and USF President Rhea Law, we are focused on the future success of our community and this campus like no other time before.

We also have prioritized support for our standing as a nationally recognized research institution. The essential research conducted here and in collaboration with other universities has never been more important.

In this issue of Research: USF Sarasota-Manatee Campus, you will learn how our faculty and student researchers are collaborating to examine the themes of “Building a More Just Society” and “Impact of the Pandemic.”

“Building a More Just Society” focuses on research exposing the ongoing racial divide in K-12 curriculum delivery, the hospitality industry, advertising and more. In addition to better understanding the how and why, USF Sarasota-Manatee campus researchers are developing critical insight and actionable solutions. One example of this is the work of Denise Davis-Cotton, director of the Florida Center for Partnerships for Arts-Integrated Teaching (PAInT). She was recently awarded an $8.5 million grant to strengthen arts education on a national level that focuses on cultural history, race and equity. This five-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education is the largest awarded to a program or individual in our campus’ history.

Karen A. Holbrook, PhD Regional Chancellor, USF Sarasota-Manatee campus

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In today’s climate, the societal and scientific value of research that examines the current and future impact of the COVID-19 virus cannot be understated. Research presented in “Impact of the Pandemic” reveals the political and geographical factors in COVID-19 safety practices, the climate of fear and the long-term effects of the pandemic on the sales industry. But there also is hope, as hospitality and tourism experts investigate solutions for their hard-hit industries. Our coverage includes insight from Rick Piccolo, president and CEO of SarasotaBradenton International Airport, who addresses how the travel industry is managing the recent uptick in demand.

In addition to these important articles, there also is an overview of the future of interdisciplinary research and how the USF SarasotaManatee campus plays a key role.

As a campus and university committed to an inclusive culture and student success, we deeply value the essential research conducted now and in the future to address these topics. I invite you to you enjoy this issue and the important work the articles reflect.

Letters from Leadership

Letters from

Leadership BRETT E. KEMKER, PHD, REGIONAL VICE CHANCELLOR OF ACADEMIC AFFAIRS AND STUDENT SUCCESS AND VICE PROVOST

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he past year has proved that our community possesses an unshakable ability to thrive and find opportunity in a time of great challenge.

Even as we face ongoing uncertainty, we have been nimble in the adaptation of policies to ensure the success and ongoing safety of our campus and our community. Our success can be attributed to the actions of many – actions that reflect the core of who we are as a campus and a university. Together, we remained committed to an unparalleled mission to explore and innovate.

Throughout the global pandemic, as an institution of higher learning we empowered our students, faculty and staff to embrace new ways of succeeding, both personally and academically. As researchers, we expanded our community of discovery to examine and effectively translate issues that affect and inform the future. And as people, we bonded in a shared commitment to the wellbeing and compassion of others.

Today we traverse a new normal. Technologies and skillsets unfamiliar to many just two years ago are now second nature. We engage virtually and in person thanks to platforms and modalities in which sharing courses, information and research is easier than ever before. Our community of partners, mentors, students and neighbors has grown, exposing opportunities for innovation and collaboration even in a world that at times has felt shut down or closed off.

We have persevered and will continue to do so. As knowledge sharers, scholars and scientists, we have not wavered in our forward momentum. The faculty and student research that has occurred and that is ongoing at USF is proof of our commitment to tackling issues that are meaningful and vital to everyday life and the relationships we have with one another.

While such impactful research is important at any time, it is even more relevant today as we determine and maneuver our paths forward with new knowledge created.

SANDRA JUSTICE, CRA, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF USF RESEARCH AND INNOVATION

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hy research?

To echo American researcher Vannevar Bush, science is the

endless frontier.

Research paves the way to discovery and provides students unique experiential learning opportunities, strengthening creative and critical thinking. Today’s incoming freshmen are tomorrow’s leading artisans, educators, writers, inventors and trailblazers. This includes cultivating a research ecosystem through mentoring students, sharing the significance of their work with the community, building partnerships with industry and connecting with colleagues in other fields to dig into the more complex, interdisciplinary questions.

Ultimately, researchers are truth seekers.

Everyone has a role to play in the research mission of the nation. Standing at the nexus of research ecosystems as student researchers, scientists, computer engineers and educators, we engage and partner with our community in our pursuit of new knowledge and application of new practices.

Across the three campuses at USF, there are 1,125 labs – more than 436 thousand square feet of dedicated space allocated to research. This includes vivarium for animal studies and labs with highly sophisticated equipment used to advance research in health, technology, chemistry, biology and more. The research facilities on the Sarasota-Manatee campus represent 0.3% of the labs, just 0.1% of the square feet at USF. Humble beginnings with big sky aspiration. Imagine what we will accomplish with the proposed Nursing and STEM building!

As the only preeminent global research university for this community, we will attract world-class faculty, engage students in hands-on research and translate their learning into the highly valued skills sought by today’s competitive marketplace.

I am honored to lead the research office on the Sarasota-Manatee campus and take this role very seriously, connecting campus faculty to collaborators across the research enterprise and fostering research connections with our community partners such as Easterseals, Perlman Music Program/Suncoast and the Brain Health Initiative. When we all respond to the call to arms for research, we contribute to a robust, creative and inclusive ecosystem that drives innovation.

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Grant writing workshops

remarkable,” said Sandra Justice, director of the Office of Research at the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus and facilitator of the annual program. “Research is a passion founded in a hunger to understand – to answer the big questions – and the world was changing rapidly. To be armed with effective knowledge and advanced skills to secure the funds to conduct that research is more important than ever.”

In addition to understanding the application process and development of competitive proposals, other topics as part of the program included how and where to apply for federal grants, private foundation funding, endowments and fellowship opportunities.

“Grant writing is a specialized genre of writing that is distinct from other academic writing. Pitching high-risk, high-reward ideas in a competitive marketplace requires a distinct skillset in which first-person storytelling and process-oriented technical writing are brought together.

Learning good grantsmanship may begin with proposal development, but it is much more than that.”

In fact, effective grantsmanship is integral to professional development, especially for tenure-seeking

VIRTUAL ACCESSIBILITY EXPANDS THE USF SARASOTA-MANATEE CAMPUS-BASED PROGRAM TO 120 INSTITUTIONS WORLDWIDE

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fter a successful virtual launch of its Summer Grant Writing Workshops professional development program in 2020 due to COVID-19, the University of South Florida once again offered it online for 2021.

The results were record-breaking.

More than 850 scientists, researchers, faculty and students representing 120 unique institutions from around the world participated in an eight-week, 16-session program that outlined the grant life cycle from the basics of the application process to develop competitive proposals.

That’s twice as many as the 2020 Summer Grant Writing Workshop, via Zoom with asynchronous participation.

The 2021 program RIDA | SAR O featured 15 invited AS FL speakers including David Shifler, Office of Naval Research; Christina Payne, National Science Foundation; and Alison PROGRAM Gammie and William Elwood from the National Institutes of Health.

Clinical researchers, graduate students and postdocs have long been a part of the program’s target audience, but 2021 marked another milestone as for the first time there were also a number of participants from community colleges, public school systems and charter schools, libraries and foundations.

“While we’re excited at the opportunity to engage such a large, diverse and talented group of researchers, we shouldn’t be surprised that the turnout was so

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SUMMER GRANT WRITING WORKSHOPS

faculty at a research-intensive university. The time commitment required to develop a competitive federal proposal is significant, upwards to 120 hours for the initial submission, and another 85 hours to revise and resubmit.

For an early career faculty, research is a requirement for tenure in addition to teaching, publishing, mentorship and service. Unpacking the grant application elements and submission process is key as faculty work toward their research funding goals.

The program, launched by USF College of Arts and

Grant Writing Workshops Sciences almost 20 years ago, was an in-person program designed to strengthen grantsmanship skills and cultivate collaborations. Homed on the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus since 2017, the program has enhanced their offerings and amplified the impact. The 2021 cohort included participants from academic institutions such as the University of Michigan, Georgia State University, UCLA, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Miami University and Florida International University, and had a global reach that included Canada, China, India, Pakistan, Russia and Spain.

Participants earn a digital badge, completing weekly quizzes to validate learning. This program will hone grantsmanship skills and provide insight to the peer review process. Many leverage this course to draft their proposal, earning a course certificate and gaining valuable feedback in the program’s peer review process.

There was an impressive breadth and depth to the 2021 draft proposals ranging from the NIH K-to-R01 and NSF CAREER proposals to advance health outcomes and integrate technology, as well as projects to improve education outcomes across diverse populations.

“The core objectives of the grantsmanship training are to advance understanding of the art and architecture of preparing a clear, comprehensive and compelling research proposal,” Justice said. “Researchers have a pioneering spirit, and effective grantsmanship training further prepares them to be at the forefront as thought leaders and innovators.”

- Melanie Bass

850 PARTICIPANTS REPRESENTED 120+ INSTITUTIONS ACROSS THE WORLD

UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH CONFERENCE RETURNS TO USF SARASOTA-MANATEE CAMPUS

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SF Sarasota-Manatee campus students welcomed the return of the annual Undergraduate Research Conference after a two-year pause in the popular on-campus event due to COVID-19.

“It’s nice to see the students and connect with them about their work,” Regional Chancellor Karen A. Holbrook said as she perused the array of research posters in the campus’ Selby Auditorium. “The students have all done excellent work. I’m very impressed.”

The annual conference enables students to delve into a topic of their choosing for a semester or two under the tutelage of a faculty member, either individually or as part of a team of researchers. Lessons from the experience may be applied throughout their careers and can help as the students apply to graduate school.

“These students have been working all semester, and they’re very excited to talk about what they’ve learned,” said conference organizer Associate Professor Jessica Grosholz, adding that, in addition to the subject matter, the students learned about discipline, focus, presentation skills and collaboration.

Last year’s forum was held virtually and involved all USF campuses. Previous conferences were held separately on each campus. This year, 21 students participated.

The forum featured 10 posters and one oral presentation (and Q&A session) by biology major Maegan Durinzi titled “Rationalized, Materialized, Institutionalized: Canada’s Discrimination of Immigrants with Disability.”

Biology major Ryan Sampson, whose poster was titled, “Observation of Commensal Frequency of Gopher Tortoise (Gopherus Polyphemus) Burrows at the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee Campus,” was named the Audience Choice Winner. Angela Perez Cruz’s “How Poor Self-Perception Feeds in Harmful Self-Handicapping Behaviors” poster received Honorable Mention.

Sampson will receive a certificate, and both he and Perez Cruz will be invited to the Student Research Awards Luncheon in Tampa on April 25.

- Rich Shopes

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Networking One USF

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n an effort to promote, synergize and cultivate leaders, the Research Administration Faculty Fellowship (RAFF) has been relaunched by the SarasotaManatee campus research office to serve as a vital networking tool across the University of South Florida’s multi-campus research enterprise.

Established in 2008 by then senior vice president for research, innovation and global affairs and now the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus regional chancellor Karen Holbrook, the RAFF program was designed to mentor early-career faculty and provide a broader understanding of the research ecosystem. This unique program is ideal for researchintensive innovation incubators such as USF, which serves as a global preeminent R1 institution

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2021 RESEARCH ADMINISTRATION FACULTY FELLOWSHIP (RAFF) RECIPIENT EXPLAINS WHY PROGRAM IS VITAL TO RESEARCH PROMINENCE AND LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

with an economic impact of $6.02 billion in 2019-2020.

The program is sponsored by the Sarasota-Manatee campus research office led by Sandra Justice. Together, the office and RAFF participants have elevated existing and new programs, including launching the Trailblazers Graduate Student Research Scholars program, expanding the Summer Grant Writing Workshop, developing a graduate student grant writing program, collaborating on undergraduate research practices and implementing a national grantsmanship training survey.

Previous RAFFs include Kiki Caruson, Vice President for USF World, and Sudeep Sarkar, Computer Science and Engineering department chair and associate vice president for Research and Innovation.

RAFFs from the SarasotaManatee campus include Melissa Sloan, associate professor of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences, and Murat Haner, instructor of Criminology.

The 2021 RAFF is Jessica M. Grosholz, associate professor in the Department of Criminology and campus chair/director of the Master’s in Criminal Justice program.

As part of the program, she regularly meets with fellow researchers and departments, sharing current collaborative projects, programs and events.

Here she explains the role she plays as the RAFF.

RESEARCH: USF SARASOTA-MANATEE CAMPUS

QUESTION: Why did you want to be the RAFF? GROSHOLZ: I knew it would help me grow as a researcher at an R1 institution developing my own research funding strategy. I felt this position would also help me to see research across the institution as well as external to USF rather than just internal to our campus. I also knew that I could help increase the visibility and prominence of the outstanding research being done on the USF SarasotaManatee campus.

Q: How has the RAFF role helped you?

GROSHOLZ: The RAFF role has helped me become more aware of my own research agenda and how it fits into the larger university. It has also allowed me to understand the role of research administration and research development and how vital it is to the success of USF. This role has also led to some excellent networking opportunities with those in upper administration at USF, which will benefit me as I continue to progress and grow as a scholar.

Q: How would you describe the RAFF position?

GROSHOLZ: In a nutshell, the RAFF position is a role that allows the individual to grow professionally in terms of

their research and scholarship as well as learn the inner workings of the research enterprise at an R1 institution. In this role, you work with other scholars, even those outside of your discipline, to assist them as they advance their own research agendas and funding strategies. Additionally, you assist the Office of Research on the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus to develop and launch new and innovative funding opportunities and research initiatives.

Q: What advice would you give to incoming RAFFs? GROSHOLZ: The best piece of advice I would give would be to listen. Listen to your fellow colleagues as they tell you what they need to be productive and successful in their research endeavors. Listen to the research administrators across the USF ecosystem. Listen to upper administration as they develop new strategic plans and initiatives, which should be used to align potential funding opportunities and research initiatives launched by the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus Office of Research and the RAFF. I think the more one listens to those around them, the more successful they will be in this role to increase the visibility and highlight the excellent research being done on this campus as well as across the university.

- Melanie Bass

The Future of Interdisciplinary Research

The future of interdisciplinary research USF SARASOTA-MANATEE CAMPUS INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH GRANTS SUPPORT CONVERGENT RESEARCH

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n the field of research, novel questions drive inquiry and discovery. Yet, the more complex the question the less likely a single discipline or person will be able to discern its answer. The solution, rather, rests with team science. Enter Interdisciplinary Research (IR).

Interdisciplinary research unites diversity of experience with expertise to unlock solutions to complex, multi-faceted questions. The notion isn’t new, as team science has existed for decades at universities and foundations that support innovative research.

Among the places to embrace IR, few do so more ably than at the National Science Foundation (NSF), where interdisciplinary research is referred to as “convergent research.”

At the NSF, the integration of knowledge, methods and expertise across social and natural sciences is helping to create new frameworks to drive discovery and innovation. This is evident, in a particular way, through a program recently introduced at the NSF: the NSF Convergence Accelerator. Although still in its early stages, the Convergence Accelerator is producing remarkable results. During its first phase last year, the program hosted 28 multidisciplinary teams that together represented a $21 million investment. Clearly, this points to the exciting future that awaits interdisciplinary research at the NSF and at research universities, like USF, nationwide.

Increasingly, team science is proving successful in multi-institutional settings as well.

Think COVID-19 and how, on a global stage, artificial intelligence was leveraged with medicine and pharmaceutical sciences, plus academia and industry, in a broadly concerted effort to tackle the virus.

This view toward interdisciplinary research, which fires imaginations at the NSF and inspires deep inquiry at laboratories and universities worldwide, also rests at the heart of our approach to research at USF. In fact, USF’s mission statement asserts that the university, “in partnership with our communities, serves the people of Florida, the nation and the world by fostering intellectual inquiry and outcomes that positively shape the future – regionally, nationally and globally.”

Accordingly, one key way we meet this mission is to “conduct high-impact research and innovation to advance frontiers of knowledge, solve global problems and improve lives.”

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Indeed, our USF Research Strategic Plan is already focused on “issues where society urgently needs innovation and change” and emphasizes interdisciplinary collaboration to get there.

At the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus, the Office of Research provides IR grants to help faculty tackle complex questions best addressed through collaboration.

In fact, the 2021 grant cycle saw a wide cross-section of researchers – from natural sciences and engineering, education and the arts, and social and behavioral sciences – collaborating from a multi-disciplinary perspective.

The office’s IR investments, meanwhile, have run the gamut, from sustainability projects relating to climate change to an engineering study of the water and nutrients of craft beer. Another recent project examined Black social justice – including — Sandra Justice the Artfully Inclusive Manatee project – as well as racial disparities in elementary schools and the roles integrated social awareness and conflict resolution can play. Further research, tied to the pandemic, examined the efficacy of robotics in disinfection, the impacts of rehab for COVID-19 positive persons and vaccine hesitancy.

In a related effort, the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus recently launched the Trailblazer Scholar Awards program to expand the training and research experiences of graduate students across USF. The program, spearheaded by faculty from the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus, supports co-mentoring within a cross-section of disciplines, and many of the grants assigned to the scholars help address complex questions using IR team strategies.

So far, we are delighted with the progress of the program’s inaugural scholars, and their preliminary feedback is promising.

Interdisciplinary research brings diverse perspectives to complex problems. Consider the COVID-19 pandemic and how myriad resources were summoned to tackle the pandemic. But even now, as the worst of the pandemic appears to have receded – at least for the moment – more is to be learned and more questions to be asked. Among these, how, for example, did government-mandated “stayat-home” orders impact our environment? What longterm impacts are still to be felt on our economy, health, educational system and our society at large?

The challenges facing scientists and scholars around deep, impactful topics such as COVID-19, and others, require cooperation of wide-ranging academic disciplines.

In the same way, the vision for the USF SarasotaManatee campus aligns with this spirit of collaboration.

In fact, it is in this spirit, that the university aims to deepen its commitment to integrated learning through the construction of the Nursing/STEM Building.

The addition of the Nursing/ STEM Building will provide the USF SarasotaManatee campus with leading-edge facilities and technological infrastructure to advance interdisciplinary research, optimizing the culture of collaboration across USF’s campuses and catalyzing research experiences for students beginning as early as their freshman year.

Facilities and research infrastructure investments are critical as science and technology, working with arts and the humanities, define the future and power our economy.

Our “return on investment” from interdisciplinary research is evident not only in the questions answered and discoveries made, but in the impact these investments have on our students and how, once graduated, they will in turn impact their communities and our country.

“The challenges facing scientists and scholars around deep, impactful topics such as COVID-19 and others require cooperation of wideranging academic disciplines.”

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RESEARCH: USF SARASOTA-MANATEE CAMPUS

- Sandra Justice ______________________________________________ Sandra Justice, CRA, is the associate director of the Office of Research and Innovation at the University of South Florida. She has served as a research administrator at USF for more than 15 years, leading the research office at the Sarasota-Manatee campus since 2017, with oversight for all Sarasota-Manatee campus research programs and grant services as a key member of the administrative leadership team of the Regional Chancellor. She serves on the Task Force for the USF Pandemic Response Research Network (PRRN) and is a member of the National Organization for Research Development Professionals (NORDP), Society of Research Administrators International (SRAI) and National Council of University Research Administrators (NCURA). She most recently received a JRA Arthur Fellowship for her study examining the impact of grant writing workshops on faculty productivity.

The Future of Interdisciplinary Research

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new program at USF is connecting graduate and doctoral students with faculty researchers at the Sarasota-Manatee campus.

The Trailblazers program matches graduate and doctoral students from across the three USF campuses with faculty mentors, providing the students with quality research experiences in their chosen fields and the faculty with support for their research endeavors.

Sandra Stone, assistant dean of graduate studies at the Sarasota-Manatee campus, helped create the program to attract research assistants. “Because of the consolidation of USF’s three campuses into one university, professors on our campus now have the ability to work with hundreds of graduate students from across the university, and the students have expanded opportunities to gain valuable research experiences,” said Stone.

Six students – four PhD candidates and two students enrolled in graduate programs – were awarded researcher positions from a pool of 22 students who applied during the program’s rollout in spring 2021. Students approved for the program are eligible for generous grants to defer tuition and other expenses: graduate students receive up to $10,000 while PhD candidates are awarded up to $25,000.

In addition to Stone, a criminology professor, six other Sarasota-Manatee researchers were matched with assistants: Michelle Arnold (communication sciences and disorders), Paul Kirchman (chemistry), Jenni Menon Mariano (educational psychology), Fawn Ngo (criminology), Giti Javidi (information assurance and cybersecurity management) and Ehsan Sheybani (information systems/decisions sciences).

“We are all very excited because this program is a key component in building our graduate programs and research capacity at the Sarasota-Manatee campus,” Stone said.

One of those assistants, psychology student Amanda Connella, said she applied for the Trailblazers program because it enables her to perform research in her field of interest, human trafficking. In addition to working with Stone, she’ll assist Joan A. Reid, director of the USF Human Trafficking Risk to Resilience Research Lab on the St. Petersburg campus.

“I thought this might make a good master’s thesis,” she said. “It also offers me an opportunity to work with

USF SARASOTA-MANATEE CAMPUS FACULTY MEMBERS MATCHED WITH GRADUATE AND DOCTORAL STUDENTS ACROSS ALL USF CAMPUSES and get to know professors from other campuses. This is a really good program in terms of connecting people.”

Connella will assist in a year-long study of trafficked boys and male teens. The researchers will interview shelters and family assistance agencies and compare statistics to those from a study 10 years ago. So far, most research into human trafficking has focused on girls and young women.

“Boys are trafficked at the same rate as girls, but there are not as many resources available to them,” Connella said. “There’s still a lot of stigma and roadblocks for these boys in getting the help they need. In general, there’s not a lot of research in this area.”

Another research assistant, Tram Tran, will assist Ngo, an experienced criminologist, in exploring factors that contribute to persistent drug use.

The two plan to travel to Vietnam to interview participants of a drug-intervention program. Ngo, who spent much of her childhood in Vietnam, is fluent in Vietnamese, as is Vietnam-born Tran. Concerns about COVID-19 prevented the researchers from entering Vietnam in the summer.

Ngo said their study will look for common themes in the participants’ personal histories. She said she’s curious whether the same factors accounting for drug use in the U.S. are present in the Vietnamese addicts as well, or are other factors to blame?

“Was it pressure from friends, problems in their family, job stress or was there another reason?” she asked.

“The study will look into what led them to start using drugs and why they persisted and moved to harsher drugs.”

Tran said she’s thrilled to work with Ngo. The second-year doctoral student is studying mental health and the underlying factors of drug addiction. Before coming to USF she was a Fulbright scholar at Johns Hopkins University.

“This scholarship is a great opportunity to work with Dr. Ngo and to gain important experience,” Tran said.

“It will help me to learn more about research and to gain hands-on experience in collecting and analyzing data and understanding what it means. This program really is a great opportunity for me. I’m very excited to get started.”

- Rich Shopes

TOP TO BOTTOM: MICHELLE ARNOLD, PAUL KIRCHMAN, JENNI MENON MARIANO, FAWN NGO, GITI JAVIDI, EHSAN SHEYBANI AND SANDRA STONE

Trailblazers in mentorship

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BUILDING A MORE JUST SOCIETY

Section One “Perhaps no issue is more divisive than racial injustice in the U.S.” That's according to a November 2021 Pew Research Center report that actually focuses on political polarization.

But what it underscores is the importance and relevance of the role race plays in American society, and what justice – or

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lack of – means to different communities.

New research from the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus focuses on the role of educators as instigators of open dialogue, information and issue identifiers.

Current studies and projects highlighted here include the creation of long-absent curriculum that spotlights

RESEARCH: USF SARASOTA-MANATEE CAMPUS

contributions of Black Americans and other minority groups whose contributions to science, history and other arts have long been marginalized in school textbooks.

Through the tireless efforts of Denise Davis-Cotton, the campus’ director of the Florida Center for Partnerships for ArtsIntegrated Teaching (PAInT), this curriculum will have a

wide-reaching impact as the U.S. Department of Education awarded $8.5 million in grant monies to support a nationwide implementation effort.

In a cross-institutional effort, the campus teamed up with Bethune Cookman University to examine and launch a joint-university think tank to address high rates of minority

Cultural competency DENISE DAVIS-COTTON'S MISSION TO CREATE TRULY INCLUSIVE CURRICULA

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unemployment in the hospitality industry during COVID-19.

One study examines how to change the language of teaching models to embrace social justice, equity and democracy in classrooms – and even when is the best time in one’s life to learn a new language.

And in the age of rapid response to marketing and

advertising insensitivity, one faculty researcher lifted the veil on how companies are under pressure to show “they’re a culturally and racially inclusive company.” To support her findings, she instituted student-led projects with local minority-owned businesses to identify and modify racially charged marketing campaigns.

rowing up in Alabama in the 1960s, Denise Davis-Cotton often wondered why her textbooks contained so few voices of Black people and other people of color. How could the contributions to science, history and the arts of so many Americans go virtually unnoticed?

“At some point you have to ask, does the content speak to the student, can the student connect with the content the teacher is providing? For too long in our educational system that hasn’t happened, and students have suffered for it,” says Davis-Cotton, director of the Florida Center for Partnerships for Arts-Integrated Teaching (PAInT) at the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus.

While these questions persist today, a growing number of educators, including Davis-Cotton, are working to create new teaching pedagogies to correct these omissions and shine a light on the contributions of Blacks, Latinos and other historically marginalized groups.

Working with educators from Booker High School in Sarasota, Davis-Cotton helped create a curriculum that spotlights contributions of Black Americans and other minorities. To further assist students, she collaborated with the Sarasota-based Circus Arts Conservatory to introduce arts-integrated teaching, an instructional method that uses the arts to communicate and explain academic content.

The pilot initiatives are still in early stages and the results won’t be known for months. For now, educators are reviewing the curriculum and focusing on teacher training and classroom evaluation. However, they expect that with the enhanced teacher training and a more diverse and equitable curriculum, minoritized students will become more engaged with the content, which will lead to improved student proficiency.

“When you look at the drivers of racial disparities, you have to start with schools and whether societal movements and the contributions of diverse individuals

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are addressed or not addressed adequately in the curriculum,” Davis-Cotton said. “We know that the material in today’s textbooks was written some time ago and that much of that content is lacking when it comes to the contributions of Black and Brown individuals.

“What we’re doing at Booker,” she said, “is looking at the framework of the curriculum to see how we can equalize that content in order to teach students about these marginalized individuals and social movements in an equitable way.”

This isn’t the first time Davis-Cotton has been asked to develop programming around diversity, equity and inclusion.

In 2020, she received $30,000 in three separate grants to produce a diversity program for arts organizations and schools in Sarasota and Manatee — Denise Davis-Cotton counties.

The result, an online “train-the-trainers” course called IDEIL (Incorporate Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Leadership), was implemented regionally and involved numerous organizations, including the Circus Arts Conservatory, Florida Studio Theatre, New College of Florida, the Ringling College of Art and Design, State College of Florida, the Visible Men Academy charter school, the Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe and Booker Promise, a college-readiness program at Booker High School.

Similarly, as director of PAInT and chair of Manatee Arts Education Council’s (MAEC) executive committee, Davis-Cotton collaborated with arts groups to create artsthemed videos for parents and children to view online last summer during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The videos explored arts integration, Juneteenth – the June 19 holiday commemorating the emancipation of

slaves – and the moving Langston Hughes poem “I, too, am American,” which examines racism.

Additionally, during a meeting of the SarasotaManatee Human Resources Association in May 2021 Davis-Cotton gave a stirring address, calling attention to the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion in hiring practices across all workplace levels.

“People don’t leave jobs, they leave leaders,” she told the hiring professionals. “It’s not about race, it’s not about gender. It’s about belonging. It’s about inclusion. It’s about seeing people and hearing their voices.

It’s about a lot of deep, deep listening.”

While issues related to diversity and inclusion have made Davis-Cotton more in demand lately, the longtime professor says she has long promoted those values, just as she promotes the arts.

“It’s been my life’s work,” she says.

Examples of this resonate throughout her career. Among them, she founded and served as the first principal of the Detroit School of the Arts (DSA), a renowned arts and academic high school in midtown Detroit.

One of four magnet schools in the city, DSA was recognized by the Kennedy Center as a Creative Ticket National School of Excellence and by Newsweek magazine as one of the top public schools in the United States for its academic and artistic excellence and community outreach.

Before founding DSA in 1992, Davis-Cotton served as the first teaching artist in residence for the state of Alabama, and she is the author of “Losing My Mind over Education (Finding My Way Back to Me).” She also is a Milken Foundation internationally recognized educator.

“When I look at a school curriculum and look at the history of marginalized communities and see that they are not recognized in the curriculum, I want to examine how those gaps exist and how to eliminate those injustices in the curriculum,” DavisCotton said. “It’s up to all of us as teachers to engage with the curriculum structure and address injustices. … It all starts with schools.”

“It’s not about race, it’s not about gender. It’s about belonging. It’s about inclusion.

It’s about seeing people and hearing their voices. It’s about a lot of deep, deep listening.”

HISTORIC IMAGES FROM THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 13

RESEARCH: USF SARASOTA-MANATEE CAMPUS

- Sara Withrow

Building a More Just Society

DENISE DAVIS-COTTON

REACHING NEW HEIGHTS Denise Davis-Cotton, director of the Florida Center for Partnerships for Arts-Integrated Teaching (PAInT), has been named principal investigator of an $8.5 million grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Education to strengthen arts educational programming in the nation’s educational system.

The award, the largest to a program or individual in the history of the USF SarasotaManatee campus, was announced in October 2021.

With five years of federal funding, the “Race, Equity, Arts and Cultural History (REACH)” project will establish a replicable model to enhance student engagement and achievement by incorporating arts-based education into U.S. schools that focuses on cultural history, race and equity.

Davis-Cotton, who has leveraged community partnerships across Florida to develop innovative art-based programming, will work with multiple South Florida and national partners, including the Arts Schools Network (ASN) and the Education Development Research Institute (ERDI), to collaboratively create artsbased materials and programming as well as train superintendents and curriculum directors. Davis-Cotton formerly served as a board member and past president of ASN, a collective group of national arts leaders, thought partners and contributors to the arts.

“Dr. Davis-Cotton is continually creating ways to elevate the public discourse around issues of equity and inclusion,” said USF SarasotaManatee campus Regional Chancellor, Karen Holbrook. “It was amazing to receive the news about this grant, but not unexpected given her leadership to advance teacher proficiency and help young students become high academic achievers through the arts.”

Participating REACH schools will be represented by traditional public schools, magnet schools and charter schools in urban and rural settings. Model schools where REACH will be implemented include the William Monroe Rowlett Academy for Arts and Communication elementary and middle schools in Bradenton, the Chicagobased Arts In Motion schools, and the West Michigan Academy of Arts and Academics.

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“We can’t breathe” BREATHE” ‘WE CAN’T HBCU THINK TANK OUTLINES FIRST STEPS TO REMOVE RACE BARRIERS IN THE HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY

15

RESEARCH: USF SARASOTA-MANATEE CAMPUS

Building a More Just Society

T

he pandemic spotlighted racial inequity in the U.S., as Blacks and Hispanics died from COVID-19 at greater rates than whites and experienced higher rates of unemployment. People of color working in the hospitality industry took a direct hit. When COVID-19 safety restrictions forced restaurants and hotels to close their doors, they laid off employees, indefinitely.

Approximately 20% of these workers were Black Americans.

Aggravating the situation, the police killing of George Floyd, a Black resident of Minneapolis, sparked a national outcry against racial injustice.

Floyd’s dying words, “I can’t breathe,” became a slogan for the

The event invited university leaders from around the world to discuss industry challenges and hospitality education at HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities).

The attendees discussed the lack of career advancement opportunities for Black Americans, among other topics.

At the event, Ivan Turnipseed, a professor and coordinator of hotel, restaurant and tourism management at Cheyney University of Pennsylvania, said statistics clearly point to racial disparity. According to the Castell Project (2020), roughly 20% of hospitality employees are Black Americans, but only one in 65 hold leadership positions at the director level and above.

“This statistic stunned me,”

future think tank events. He also plans to develop an online hospitality certificate program and an HBCU Hospitality Leadership Academy – designed specifically for people of color.

“It could be internal issues; for example, lack of confidence or lack of interest that are contributing to the disparity in Black hospitality managers. We are preparing another certificate program that will address these potential issues,” he said.

Williams-Bryant agrees that education is critically important; but corporate engagement, advocacy and support are vital to engender success and provide equal opportunities to turn the tides, she said.

“In order to bridge the gap between the C-suite ONE IN 65 HOLD LEADERSHIP POSITIONS AT THE DIRECTOR LEVEL OR ABOVE

ROUGHLY 20% OF HOSPITALITY EMPLOYEES ARE BLACK AMERICANS

Black Lives Matter movement in America.

Inspired by the challenges faced by Black Americans, and particularly those working in the hospitality industry, Cihan Cobanoglu, interim dean of the USF School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, McKibbon Endowed Chair and director of the M3 Center for Hospitality Technology and Innovation, and Deanne Williams-Bryant, director of the School of Hospitality Management at BethuneCookman University, organized and led the HBCU’s “We Can’t Breathe” Think Tank.

“We wanted to see if there were some concrete things that we could do,” Cobanoglu said.

Cobanoglu said.

He and Williams-Bryant published the think tank’s findings in December 2020.

The report includes 10 action items for the HBCU Hospitality Management Consortium (HMC), a special interest group of the International Council on Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Education. The action items focus on increasing corporate membership in the HBCU HMC, developing strategies for HBCU hospitality management programs to request corporate support, establishing industry advisory boards and ongoing curriculum review, and more.

Cobanoglu said he wants to continue the conversation with

and the frontline positions where minorities prevail in great numbers, there has to be intentional commitment from the upper echelons of the organizations,” she added.

“Developmental initiatives, training and coaching are just some ways in which the decision makers in these organizations can create pathways for success. At the end of the day, productivity outweighs tokenism and equity downplays discrimination.”

Download the HBCUs “We Can’t Breathe” Think Tank report at sarasotamanatee.usf.edu/ hbcureport.

- Sara Withrow

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Critically speaking RECONSTRUCTING THE WORLD LANGUAGE CLASSROOM

A

s an academic authority in applied linguistics and critical pedagogy, Terry Osborn believes that the manner in which language is taught is a potential stimulant for creating a more socially just world. He wants to arm world language teachers with the tools to help students develop critical consciousness, to effect meaningful change for society.

“Good language instruction opens up new worlds, new ways of thinking,” said Osborn, a professor of second language acquisition at the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus.

In “World Language Education as Critical Pedagogy: The Promise of Social Justice,” coauthored by Osborn and published in 2020, he takes a critical look at traditional world language teaching practices and offers educators ideas for developing a new teaching model that reinforces ideals such as social justice, equity and democracy.

“A lot of times in language classrooms, students — Terry Osborn and teachers believe they’re just learning the nuts and bolts of language: vocabulary, grammar and a few cultural blurbs,” Osborn said. “But language education is different from a number of other subjects, because you can’t take the subject of language and separate it from the people who use the language.

Very few [academic] subjects are attached to issues of identity and diversity as much as language education.”

Osborn uses critical theory, which seeks to challenge social, historical and ideological structures and assumptions, to deconstruct language education of old, so that a more enlightened instructional process can take its place.

“Language teaching is a political act (or powerimbued),” he said. “Critical pedagogy recognizes that everything we do in schools – the curriculum, instruction and the things we don’t teach – are all tied to a value system that reflects struggles among segments of society.”

Osborn believes the world language curriculum needs to be “de-sanitized,” so that topics deemed controversial are

discussed. Qualitative studies show that students tend to be more motivated to learn world languages when teachers focus on real-life issues, such as homelessness, racism, discrimination and immigration, he said.

“We’ve been teaching students how to talk about their favorite hobby. In my experiences in Germany, I never once sat down on a train and had a stranger ask me, ‘What are your hobbies?’ It’s just not a conversation that happens,” Osborn said. “[In critical pedagogy] we’re moving away from artificial constructions of reality that do not play out in real life, and that don’t play out for the majority of our students.” According to Osborn, less than 1% of secondary school students travel to a foreign country.

Issues of identity, ethnicity and language, and how they play into trying to build a society that is more equitable, are much more relevant to students today, he said. “Social justice becomes the lodestar of where we’re directing language education.”

“You can’t take the subject of language and separate it from the people who use the language.”

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RESEARCH: USF SARASOTA-MANATEE CAMPUS

SETTING STUDENTS UP FOR SUCCESS

Osborn hopes the shift to critical pedagogy will lead to a greater respect and appreciation for language studies and the socio-cultural diversity that language embodies for society. Currently, U.S. students receive too few hours of world language training and start learning later than they should – usually as teenagers and adults.

“That’s a set up for failure,” Osborn said.

“A lot of what we’re doing is increasing the relevance of language to the everyday lives of students, so that future policymakers will see the value of language education and increase support for it – so that we can see gains in bilingualism or multilingualism in the United States.”

It will be a long process but Osborn is dedicated to it.

“I tell my colleagues, this is a multigenerational transition.

But we have got to shift the way we are thinking about language education. It’s hugely educational for students, even if they don’t end up going overseas.”

- Sara Withrow

Building a More Just Society

WHEN IS THE BEST TIME TO LEARN A NEW LANGUAGE?

BIRTH

1

AGE 10

AGE 18

AGE 11 TO 18 A STUDENT WHO BEGINS LEARNING A NEW LANGUAGE BETWEEN AGES 11 AND 18 STILL HAS A STRONG LEARNING ABILITY BUT WILL NOT BE ABLE TO DEVELOP THE PROFICIENCY OF NATIVE SPEAKER.

BIRTH TO AGE 10 TO DEVELOP THE PROFICIENCY OF A NATIVE SPEAKER, A STUDENT MUST BEGIN LEARNING A NEW LANGUAGE BY AGE 10.

WORLD LANGUAGE INSTRUCTION IS OFFERED IN:

2

AFTER AGE 18 A STUDENT’S ABILITY TO LEARN A NEW LANGUAGE BEGINS TO STEADILY DECLINE AFTER AGE 18.

THE DECLINE IN WORLD LANGUAGE OFFERINGS

25%

58%

93%

OF U.S. ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS

OF U.S. MIDDLE SCHOOLS

OF U.S. HIGH SCHOOLS

While students are best introduced to a new language before age 10, world language instruction before high school age (traditionally 14 to 18) is on the decline in the U.S. From 1997 to 2008, the percentage of U.S. elementary and middle schools offering world language coursework declined from 31% to 25% and from 75% to 58%, respectively.

HOW MANY STUDENTS ENROLL IN WORLD LANGUAGE COURSEWORK?

20%

3

OF U.S. STUDENTS STUDY A WORLD LANGUAGE IN GRADES K-12.

7.5%

4

OF U.S. STUDENTS STUDY A WORLD LANGUAGE IN COLLEGE.

Data sources: 1"A Critical Period for Second Language Acquisition: Evidence from 2/3 Million English Speakers," MIT, 2018; 2"Foreign Language Teaching in U.S. Schools: Results of a National Survey," Center for Applied Linguistics, 2010; 3"The National K-12 Foreign Language Enrollment Survey Report," American Councils for International Education, 2017; 4"Enrollments in Languages Other Than English in United States Institutions of Higher Education, Summer 2016 and Fall 2016: Preliminary Report," 2018, Modern Language Association of America

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Racism in advertising KELLY COWART'S REAL-WORLD ASSIGNMENTS HELP PREPARE THE NEXT GENERATION OF CULTURALLY AWARE MARKETERS

19

RESEARCH: USF SARASOTA-MANATEE CAMPUS

T

wo years ago, Gucci pulled a sweater from store shelves after criticism about the garment’s resemblance to blackface.

The black balaclava sweater came with an oversized collar that lifted over the chin. It included a slit for the mouth that was ringed by what appeared to be giant red lips.

The company issued a public apology. But that was hardly a one-and-done for luxury fashion. A little earlier, outerwear company Moncler pulled its “Malfi” jacket amid outrage over a big-lips insignia that also evoked blackface. Prada drew a similar rebuke in 2018, forcing it to withdraw a monkey bag charm, and in

Building a More Just Society 2019 the Katy Perry Collection withdrew a line of black leather shoes that featured blue eyes and big red lips.

“I was saddened when it was brought to my attention that it was being compared to painful images reminiscent of blackface,” the singer said of the design. “Our intention was never to inflict any pain.”

The images, of course, harken to when white actors painted their faces black to satirically portray racial stereotypes associated with Black people. That these images persist today – and as part of promotional messaging – is mindblowing. But don’t be surprised, says USF Associate Professor of marketing Kelly Cowart, who has produced a stream of scholarly research on cultural representations in advertising.

She says that companies have long played against racial stereotypes and mostly without backlash. What these latest episodes demonstrate if anything, she says, is how quickly today’s marketing professionals can pivot their messaging to depict an appearance of contriteness and racial sensitivity – now that it’s fashionable.

“What we’re seeing are companies bending over backwards to show how sensitive they are to race,” Cowart said. “They’re in a hurry to show images of Black people or interracial couples using their products or services so they can give the impression that they’re a culturally and racially inclusive company.

Whether that’s true remains to be seen.”

Cowart worked in marketing at the corporate level in Dallas/Fort Worth and ran her own marketing company before she began her academic career. She earned an MBA at Syracuse University and a PhD in business administration with a concentration in marketing and social psychology from Florida State.

Among her recent studies are articles that examine the connection between marketing and social issues, including, An Investigation of Androgyny and Sexual Orientation in Advertising, “Journal of Advertising Research” (2020); Promoting Consumer Well-being:

Examining Emotion Regulation Strategies in Social Advertising Messages, “Journal of Business Research” (2020); and Empirical Evidence of the Effect of Colorism on Customer Evaluation, “Psychology & Marketing” (2020).

And in June 2021, she presented a paper, “COVID-19, Social Injustice and Message Framing,” during the Academy of Marketing Science Annual Conference.

Cowart currently teaches graduate and undergraduate courses at the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus, with a focus on marketing research and professional sales.

She also has taught marketing strategy, principles of marketing and sales management.

In spring 2021, she revamped her graduate-level class to combine her interest in cultural representation with a student-focused, hands-on promotional project. As part of the project, student teams developed and implemented promotional plans on a $500 budget.

Before hearing from the companies – in this case, two minority-owned businesses – the students spent several classes discussing racially insensitive media and promotional strategies for diverse target audiences.

Cowart said the project’s goal was to help students understand the power of messaging, its influence and how to apply the lessons learned to a real-world setting. Most of her 22 students were white. The class included several with Asian and South American ancestry.

Funding for the class project came from a grant from the USF Research Task Force on Understanding and Addressing Blackness and Anti-Black Racism in our Local, National and International Communities, which launched in fall 2020 to address racial issues and attitudes on a local, national and global scale.

Before working with the companies, the students divided into seven groups. The companies included residential and commercial builder DuCon Construction and online personal-apparel retailer Profyle District, both based in Tampa. Cowart frequently works with local businesses as part of her classes.

“This wasn’t a cultural sensitivity class per se, but I wanted the students to be aware of how certain images can cause pain or anger to a group of people while also having the potential to damage a company’s reputation,” she said.

KELLY COWART

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“I picked Black-owned businesses because I wanted the students to learn how to work with minority business owners and to communicate their message while respecting their goals and customer base,” she said. “If I can do that in a classroom situation, and tease out the stereotypes and misnomers that can be offensive to people of color, then that should help the students later when they’re in a professional setting and working with actual clients.”

Because the students were working with limited budgets, their campaigns focused mostly on social media messaging and techniques to optimize search-engine results. While race played a role in their understanding of the businesses, it wasn’t the main factor as their assignments progressed, they said.

“After hearing the companies’ presentations I didn’t get the sense that they were interested in expanding their reach into just the Black community,” said Hector Fontanet, 29, who worked with DuCon. “It was important for them to be seen as a minority-owned business, but

“This wasn’t a cultural sensitivity class per se, but I wanted the students to be aware of how certain images can cause pain or anger to a group of people while also having the potential to damage a company’s reputation.”

— Kelly Cowart

PHOTO: STUDENTS IN KELLY COWART'S CLASS VIRTUALLY PRESENTED THEIR ADVERTISING PLANS AND RESULTS TO LOCAL BLACK-OWNED BUSINESSES.

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RESEARCH: USF SARASOTA-MANATEE CAMPUS

Building a More Just Society they didn’t want to be seen as a business for minorities, but for everybody. They wanted to expand their customer base into all different demographics.”

Fontanet is seeking a master’s degree in global sustainability. He said that while some of his classes have touched on issues of cultural sensitivity, Cowart’s class opened his eyes to the historical breadth of implicit and explicit bias in advertising and the media in general.

“The class made you think and ask questions about how as a society we respond to messages in the media and how a particular image is framed and who this commercial or print ad is talking to and what it might be saying not just explicitly, but implicitly as well,” he said.

“I think it’s important to take a closer look at messaging in advertising,” he added. “When you look at it from an economic perspective, it absolutely makes sense to connect with people culturally and socially, and to be able to communicate whatever your message is in a way they can relate to. It’s definitely long overdue to look at this from a business and marketing standpoint.”

RACIAL STEREOTYPING IN ADVERTISING

66%

OF BLACK AMERICANS

1

53% OF LATINX+ AMERICANS

Cowart says she’s evaluating the class as part of a possible research article. She said that whether that occurs, she would likely teach the class again because of its long-term importance to business and society.

“The stakes are high right now and companies are trying to get ahead of cancel culture,” she said. “This class is about preparing students to become future marketing leaders and removing bias from advertising.

“I want to help my students evolve into marketing professionals who are culturally aware,” Cowart said.

“They might one day become decision-makers for marketing campaigns targeting people who are not like them. I want to equip them to critically consider how their messaging and images impact communities of color before a campaign is launched, not after a social backlash.

My class and the class project are starting points for cultivating that awareness.”

- Rich Shopes

EFFECT OF AUTHENTIC DIVERSITY IN ADVERTISING

2

A study by Google found that consumers are more likely to consider or purchase a product when they feel that the advertisement is inclusive or diverse.

The following percentages of consumers said they took some sort of action after seeing an ad that they considered to be diverse or inclusive: ALL SURVEYED CONSUMERS

64%

FEEL THEIR ETHNICITY IS PORTRAYED STEREOTYPICALLY IN ADVERTISEMENTS. 79%

34% OF CONSUMERS HAVE BOYCOTTED A BRAND BECAUSE THEY FELT IT DID NOT REPRESENT THEIR IDENTITY IN ITS ADVERTISING.

Data sources: 1"Despite 25 years of advertising growth, diversity remains a challenge," Adobe, 2019; 2 "Inclusive ads are affecting consumer behavior, according to new research," Think with Google, 2019

85%

79%

BLACK CONSUMERS

LATINX+ CONSUMERS

ASIAN/PACIFIC ISLANDER CONSUMERS

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IMPACT OF THE PANDEMIC

Section Two As the world entered a second year of maneuvering COVID-19, ongoing discussions of variants, vaccines and grim milestones – such the one reported by Johns Hopkins University in November 2021 of more than 5 million global deaths – are reminders that the pandemic still dictates much of our current experiences.

23

But it is the exposure of societal divisions and vulnerabilities in key industries and workforces that have created a climate ripe for permanent change.

In response, USF researchers from the Sarasota-Manatee campus looked to the past for context, the present for inspiration and the future for

RESEARCH: USF SARASOTA-MANATEE CAMPUS

solutions.

One project incorporated previous studies that predicted the unprecedented losses in the hospitality and travel industries to create expanded skills programs for workers.

To underscore this, SarasotaBradenton International Airport President and CEO Rick Piccolo answers questions about

the airport’s unprecedented general aviation and commercial operations growth in just three years and during a pandemic.

He also talks about why he is confident the upward trend will continue through 2022, and how the airport and campus share a goal to create and leverage highdemand skills and high-paying job opportunities.

Cultivating resilience HOSPITALITY AND TOURISM EXPERTS RESEARCH SOLUTIONS AND OFFER HOPE FOR A COVID-19-WRACKED INDUSTRY

C

OVID-19 was a lesson in adaptability for the hospitality and tourism industry. As the virus spread, hotels, restaurants, bars and event spaces closed. The costs to the industry were sizable. Global revenue for travel and tourism plunged nearly $4.5 trillion, and the industry lost 62 million jobs in 2020, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council.

In the midst of the devastation, USF SarasotaManatee campus hospitality and tourism experts, Cihan Cobanoglu, Faizan Ali and Adam Carmer, shifted their focus to research the unprecedented situation. Along the way, they provided encouragement, training and a path to resilience for people around the globe.

“We wanted to give people hope and help them find their way, because the industry was lost,” said Cobanoglu, interim dean of the USF School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, McKibbon Endowed Chair and director of the M3 Center for Hospitality Technology and Innovation. “They didn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. We wanted to provide a light so they could see around.”

PREDICTING THE FUTURE Campus researchers also teamed with other academics to explore increasingly high levels of fear during COVID-19.

And as mask mandates are debated and evaluated around the country, researchers examine how geography and politics have become the deciding factors – not necessarily science – on whether or not to mask up

throughout the United States.

Researchers also outline how COVID-19 forever altered how businesses and their salespeople connect with customers.

Lastly, learn how a professor’s podcast kept research faculty in touch with resources and experts during the pandemic.

Near the start of the pandemic, Cobanoglu and Ali, an assistant professor and graduate coordinator for the USF School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, predicted heavy losses for the industry. A survey they conducted in March 2020 of more than 2,000 travelers from 28 countries showed that 63.8% would reduce their travel plans in the next 12 months. The study also projected hospitality and tourism business losses of 50% for 2020.

Their study was one of the first to forecast the industry’s demise. It was featured in The Conversation, a

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L-R: FAIZAN ALI AND CIHAN COBANOGLU ON THE RUNWAY OF THE SARASOTA–BRADENTON INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT (SRQ)

popular online repository of research articles, as well as in Forbes, the Chicago Tribune and other media outlets.

Albeit a gloomy message, the study helped prepare the hospitality and tourism industry for a sustained economic downturn and further positioned the USF SarasotaManatee campus and the M3 Center as industry thought leaders.

It also proved to be an epiphany for Cobanoglu.

“What we found in that initial study is that what determines whether people travel is their level of confidence,” he said. “We have seen in the top moments of COVID that some people would still travel, unless it was banned 100%. This has nothing to do with the level of threat. The way these people perceived it as a threat was very different.”

Armed with this knowledge, Cobanoglu developed a survey instrument to measure consumer confidence: The American Travel Confidence Index. “We are seeing the confidence index is a great predictor of how many people are traveling now and how many will travel in the coming months,” he said. “This will be a tool that we can use to

25

RESEARCH: USF SARASOTA-MANATEE CAMPUS

predict travel demand in the future.”

OPENING DOORS IN A POST-CRISIS WORLD In light of the job loss forecast, Cobanoglu spearheaded the development of an online certificate to help hospitality workers prepare for a post-COVID-19 industry and to pivot their skills to new careers, if necessary. Partnering with Open edX, an open-source learning platform, the M3 Center hosted a tuition-free, Post-Crisis Hospitality Management Certificate program.

It was the first massive open online course (MOOC) offered by USF. “With open-source technology, it cost us $100. All of our faculty volunteered to teach,” Cobanoglu said.

The program combined academic insights with realworld examples and industry testimonials. Roughly 6,000 students from more than 100 countries registered for the seven-week course.

“My biggest takeaway was hearing from industry leaders about how they maintained their businesses

Impact of the Pandemic THE AMERICAN CONFIDENCE INDEX COMPARED TO DAILY U.S. COVID CASES JULY 2020 - JULY 2021

DAILY COVID-19 CASES IN U.S.

TRAVEL CONFIDENCE INDEX RANKING

319,500

90

284,000

80

248,500

70

213,000

60

177,500

50

142,000

40

106,500

30

71,000

20

35,500

10

0

JUL-20

AUG-20

SEPT-20

OCT-20

NOV-20

DEC-20

JAN-21

FEB-21

MAR-21

APR-21

MAY-21

JUN-21

JUL-21

DAILY U.S. COVID CASES

CRUISE SHIP TRAVEL CONFIDENCE

TRAIN TRAVEL CONFIDENCE

AIR TRAVEL CONFIDENCE

CAR TRAVEL CONFIDENCE

PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION CONFIDENCE

RESTAURANT CONFIDENCE

HOTEL CONFIDENCE

BUS TRAVEL CONFIDENCE

and improved upon them during this pandemic,” said course participant Clarence Burge II, who works at Walt Disney Company and Universal Orlando Resort. “It truly showed me that transformative practices, re-invention and creativity are what it takes to survive.”

HELPING BRANDS SHAPE THE MESSAGE With the hospitality industry already crippled by storefront closures, Faizan Ali, who taught a marketing course for the certificate, recognized the industry needed help with its brand messaging. “I noticed that early-on in the pandemic, for the most part brands were all saying the same thing. Everyone was talking about social distancing and cleanliness. The CDC was also saying this.”

Should brands be the purveyors of health and safety messaging, Ali asked himself, or do people want something else from their brands? A nationwide survey confirmed his suspicions.

“We saw 86% of respondents say that brands can be a positive, unifying force during a crisis by connecting

0

consumers,” he said. Brands have a large platform through which they can influence public opinion, as well as financial resources, media coverage and in some cases virtual communities. Most of these resources are focused on monetizing a product or service; but survey respondents said these could also be used for public good, he said.

The study also found that in a pandemic, people want brands to talk about available products and services, and how they’re dealing with their employees, e.g., layoffs or furloughs – not public health recommendations.

In another 2020 study, Ali assessed consumers’ perceptions of brands that took a stand on social issues related to COVID-19. During COVID-19, some brands temporarily changed their logos to reflect their support of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) safety recommendations. “McDonalds changed its logo so that the M was separated, to promote social distancing.

Starbucks put a mask on its mermaid logo. … Audi separated the circles in its logo,” he said.

Ali found that consumers were divided on the

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PERCEPTIONS OF HOSPITALITY BRANDS In a survey of U.S. consumers, Faizan Ali found that Americans tend to hold hospitality brands in high regard. Participants ranked the statements below on a scale of 1-3, where 1 represents “Strongly Disagree” and 3 represents “Strongly Agree.”

2.5

OUT OF 3

HOSPITALITY BRANDS SHOULD USE THEIR RESOURCES TO HELP CUSTOMERS, BRING THEM TOGETHER AND RAISE AWARENESS ABOUT COVID-19

HOSPITALITY BRANDS SHOULD UNITE PEOPLE FROM DIFFERENT BACKGROUNDS AND ACT AS LEADERS

2.5

2.6

OUT OF 3

OUT OF 3

MY FAVORITE HOSPITALITY BRANDS UNDERSTAND ME AND MY NEEDS AND WANTS

I TRUST MY FAVORITE HOSPITALITY BRANDS

practice. “Right wing political stance holders absolutely hated brands for doing it,” he said. “More leftist-middle leaning people, they actually liked it. There is no way a brand can make everybody happy.”

Ali suggested that companies use data analytics and crowd/social media monitoring strategies to determine when, where, how and how much to take a stand on social issues. Brands could also host panel discussions that feature differing points of view. After listening to its consumers, the brand can better justify the public stance that it takes, he said.

INNOVATING SAFETY OPTIONS Ali and Cobanoglu’s studies on consumer confidence also saw benefits for businesses that adopted technology and digital processes. “For example, during the pandemic, some people didn’t want to touch menus,” Cobanoglu said. Restaurants that created QR codes that allowed people to access menus digitally with their cell phones and hotels that offered contactless check-in processes saw increases in customer loyalty.

The key is not to force the technology, he said. “Our research tells us that confidence level is determined on an individual level, so you need to give people options so they can pick and choose. ‘Options’ is the new buzz word in hospitality, based on our research.”

Another study conducted by Cobanoglu and Ali found that consumer confidence increases when hotel 27

2.4

OUT OF 3

RESEARCH: USF SARASOTA-MANATEE CAMPUS

and restaurant workers wear masks. Solid black masks provided the greatest level of customer assurance, based on the survey. The study was published online in January 2021 in The Conversation.

“Our goal [with these studies] is to help the industry cope with this [crisis],” Cobanoglu said.

TASTING VIRTUALLY Helping to feed that industry are educators, who are developing tomorrow’s hospitality and tourism professionals. The pandemic strained the talent pipeline.

Professors had to create or adapt curricula to an online or hybrid delivery method – in a matter of days – and students also had to adjust.

“It was panic-gogy,” a place where panic and pedagogy intersect, said Adam Carmer, coining a phrase from a colleague. An assistant professor and chair of the Beverage Education Special Interest Group (SIG) of the International Council on Hotel, Restaurant, and Institutional Education (ICHRIE), Carmer organized a faculty learning community for beverage educators to brainstorm virtual classroom solutions and support each other during the transition.

A particularly challenging course to convert to online delivery was the sensory perception of wine tasting. A talented sommelier identifies a wine’s varietal, its region of origin and the type of soil where the wine’s grapes are grown, without ever looking at a label. Books don’t teach

Impact of the Pandemic

PHOTOS: ADAM CARMER EXPLAINS THE TYPES OF GLASSWARE HE USES IN TASTINGS

these skills, Carmer said.

He should know. In 2008, he invented the Carmer Spirits Tasting Enhancement Method, only the second of two tasting methods in the world. He was knighted in Belgium in 2014 in recognition of his work in beverage education.

“Experiential learning is not just the flavor of the week. Especially in hospitality, most every student values — Cihan Cobanoglu their experiential learning, just like a medical student working on a cadaver would value that experience,” Carmer said.

The SIG’s 136 beverage instructors – from around the globe – met weekly to discuss how best to teach these valuable lessons in the new COVID environment. Carmer and five other SIG members consequently compiled a case study on the topic. The Wine Business Journal published the resulting article, “An inquiry into the pedagogy of the sensory perception tasting component of wine courses in the time of COVID-19.” The study filled a knowledge gap for a valuable subset of wine industry

stakeholders: beverage educators.

“The idea was to make a meaningful, valuable impact – and oftentimes in our business in academia that’s through research and publication,” Carmer said.

“At the end of the day, this is the reason we have universities.

We want to help impact our environment, industry, people, and educate people to do jobs.”

INDUSTRY BOUNCEBACK

Cobangolu and Ali share his sentiment. “At the end of the day, this is the reason we have universities,” Cobangolu said.

“We want to help impact our environment, industry, people, and educate people to do jobs.”

Even as the hospitality and tourism industry begins to bounce back from the effects of COVID-19, Cobanoglu predicts the economic sting of the pandemic will endure.

“Meeting exhibitions, industry fairs, shows and conferences, those are going to be impacted 30%,” he said.

“If today the World Health Organization said there is no pandemic in the world, 30 percent of that demand will never come back. COVID has changed the behavior of people, mostly of business travelers.”

- Sara Withrow SPRING 2022

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Onward and upward

I

SARASOTA-BRADENTON INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT CEO ON HOW EVEN A PANDEMIC DIDN’T SLOW RECORD GROWTH AND PLANS FOR BRIGHT FUTURE

n a November 2021 quarterly assessment, the Airports Council International (ACI) World outlined the economic impact of COVID-19 on the global airport business for the past two years and its path to recovery. As expected, the aviation industry was hit hard with passenger numbers falling sharply by more than 50% worldwide, increased safety costs, staffing issues, fuel costs and ever-changing guidelines. Recovery is expected, but it will be slow according to the ACI. But one airport – Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport (SRQ) – actually grew its passenger numbers, airline and community partners, nonstop destinations and

29

RESEARCH: USF SARASOTA-MANATEE CAMPUS

services during the pandemic, and did so at the highest percentage of any airport in the U.S. Rick Piccolo, SRQ’s president and CEO and chair of the USF Sarasota-Manatee Campus Board, explains how the “mini city” did it and how it is moving forward after COVID-19 with plans to expand its footprint, add new destinations and more. Plans also include building educational facilities and increasing partnerships and programming with the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus – among other partners – to leverage the proximity of SRQ to the campus and support new career pathways for students.

Impact of the Pandemic QUESTION: You have referred to SarasotaBradenton International Airport as the “fastest growing airport in the world” – is it still, and what exactly does that mean?

PICCOLO: SRQ has grown at double-digit and tripledigit percentages every year except in 2020. In 2019, SRQ grew at 43%, which was the highest percentage of any airport in the U.S. with the airport handling just under 2 million passengers. In the first three months of 2020, SRQ grew at 53%, which was again the highest percentage of any airport in the U.S. In March 2020, COVID-19 hit, and while traffic declined, SRQ’s recovery was much more robust than most airports in the world. In 2021, SRQ grew at 155% over the COVID19-impacted 2020 but was also 61% higher than preCOVID-19 2019 with 3,163,543 passengers using the airport. So far in 2022, SRQ again is up 125% over the record 2021. Most airports are still below their prepandemic levels, yet SRQ is well ahead of those levels.

Q: What does this mean for the community as well as the future of aviation in the region?

PICCOLO: There are several positive impacts for the community. First and foremost, it gives our residents a myriad of choices both from a nonstop destination opportunities and pricing standpoint. In 2018, SRQ had six airlines, 12 nonstop destinations and no Ultra Low-Cost Carriers (ULCC).

Today SRQ has 12 airlines and 53 nonstop destinations with five ULCCs. It also has a tremendous economic impact and job creation impact. SRQ has over $2 billion of

Q: In the past few years, we have all been dealing with the pandemic and its effects on our lives. How has it impacted the business of SRQ, and, more importantly, what factors have allowed for SRQ to emerge with record growth?

PICCOLO: Our recovery was much more robust due to several factors. As COVID-19 lockdowns across the country and the world were enacted, people began to look for destinations that offered outdoor activities. Our area has some of the best beaches in the world, boating, fishing and numerous golf venues. The governor enacted gradual easing of business restrictions that allowed people to enjoy restaurant and activity venues as well. These factors led to great demand, and airlines began ramping up service to SRQ. Each new service became so successful that other airlines saw this and began entering our market or adding destinations to existing service. Additionally, as virtual work became a norm, individuals realized that they could work from a beautiful, warm-weather location with advantageous tax laws – that spurred added growth and service demand. In addition, SRQ and the two county Convention and Visitors Bureaus (CVB) work in tandem to promote new service. SRQ offers fee-free operations for the first two years of any new airline route and matches dollar for dollar promotional marketing funds of the CVBs. Last year, over $2 million was dedicated to airline service promotions at different inbound cities. This

“In a global economy a vibrant airport is a critical element for any community’s economic success.”

— Rick Piccolo

annual economic impact, and over 12,000 jobs are created by our activities. In a global economy a vibrant airport is a critical element for any community’s economic success.

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helps to ensure success of the new routes and provides long-term economic return to the airport and the community.

Q: Earlier this year, you mentioned the addition of another airline and even more nonstop destinations by new and existing airlines at SRQ. This brings the total to 11 airlines providing 51 nonstop destinations throughout the U.S. and Canada, up from just six airlines and 12 nonstop destinations in March 2018. What airlines and destinations are you hoping to add next?

PICCOLO: We talk to every airline, but domestically there are not many left that we don’t already have.

Certainly, Silver Airways, which flies a significant amount of intrastate service, is one we would like to add. We are also pursuing several new Canadian startup airlines and trying to get international charter service from Europe and South America. International services are recovering much slower than domestic service, so those efforts are more long term.

Q: Are Florida destinations (i.e., Tallahassee, Miami, the Keys, etc.) on the table?

PICCOLO: We have been trying to get service to all three of those destinations and hope we can see some success this year.

Q: With this growth, you have been evaluating and implementing facilities, resources and technology.

What are some of the changes we can expect to see at SRQ in the next year, five years, 10 years?

PICCOLO: Presently over $150 million of capital improvement projects are in various stages and should be completed over the next two to three years. They include a new five-gate, ground-based terminal, expansion of concessions and hold room space in the existing terminal, a new baggage system for inspecting and processing luggage, a new ground transportation center, a new parkand-ride facility, a new consolidated rental car service area and a renovated observation area off 15th Street. Longerterm projects include another terminal expansion and parking garage facilities. We also are working with the

PASSENGER TRAFFIC AT SARASOTA-BRADENTON INTERNATIONAL 2016 - 2021 3,500,000

TOTAL PASSENGERS

3,000,000 2,500,000 2,000,000 1,500,000 1,000,000 500,000 0 2016

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2017

RESEARCH: USF SARASOTA-MANATEE CAMPUS

2018

2019

2020

2021

Impact of the Pandemic Manatee and Sarasota County School Systems and the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus on an educational facility.

Overall, about half-a-billion dollars of improvements are planned in the next two decades.

Q: What projects are you most excited about?

PICCOLO: The new terminal wing is an exciting project that will increase our capacity and enhance the convenience experience. While the baggage and ground transportation projects are sizable, I’m more excited about the observation area project off 15th Street. Cars currently park in the dirt there and watch the planes take off. This project will put in paved parking, covered seating areas, a small playground, historical pictures and a speaker system so you can hear the Air Traffic Control Tower transmissions. The educational facility efforts we are doing in partnership with the school boards and university have exciting potential as well.

Q: How do SRQ relationships and partnerships within the community and beyond ensure this upward momentum continues?

PICCOLO: We interact with myriad political and regulatory agency leaders at every level. I spend a great deal of time talking with federal, state and local elected officials to review what is happening and what our needs are to ensure they have a good understanding of our structure and impact on the community. I sit on myriad business and community boards to also get our position and message out. I have worked in leadership positions on several charitable and foundation boards to give back to the community. Many staff members do charitable and community work as well. We also work very closely with the Convention and Visitors Bureaus to ensure success of new services. In addition, I average about three to five speaking engagements a month to inform community groups about what is going on at the airport and our positive impact on the community.

Q: Speaking of partnerships, are there plans to expand aviation educational facilities at the airport?

PICCOLO: There are two major educational efforts here at SRQ. First, there is a K-12 charter school being constructed on airport property just across from the airfield off 15th Street. This charter school is 97% minority and 83% economically challenged children.

It will have an aviation theme and expose children to career fields in our industry. It is the first of its kind on airport land in the U.S., and we are very excited about

the exposure it will give to these children. The second facility is an Airframe and Powerplant (A&P) mechanics school that is being developed on the airfield, which will also offer university-level aviation education courses. This project will allow high school graduates to go to the A&P school and get licensed as an airplane mechanic in about 18 months. The average starting salary is around $65,000 and offers employment opportunities worldwide.

Q: What type of jobs and workforce do you anticipate SRQ needing in the immediate future?

Ten years down the road?

PICCOLO: People tend to think of airport jobs only in the context of pilots and flight attendants. Airports offer a wide range of professions such as accounting, information technology, logistics, all the skilled trades, police, firefighting and sales. There are jobs in hospitality, airline services and retail as well. Information technology is becoming more and more important as we go forward, and the demand for pilots and mechanics will continue to grow exponentially.

Q: How can the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus and SRQ work together to provide that talent pipeline for the airport?

PICCOLO: Many of the programs at the USF SarasotaManatee campus provide training in all areas utilized at the airport. SRQ is a bit of a “mini city,” so the training students receive at the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus offers myriad possibilities at the airport. Students should consider either full- or part-time employment during their schooling, which is right across the street. This will give them practical experience and open opportunities in the aviation field in the future.

Q: You obviously have a lot to be optimistic about when it comes to the future of SRQ – what keeps you up at night?

PICCOLO: Public safety concerns are always top of mind. SRQ has its own police force and fire department, as well as working with the Transportation Security Administration and other federal and state police agencies on counterterrorism threats. Additionally, meeting the capacity needs for the future in an expeditious manner given our unprecedented growth is a significant challenge, whether it’s capital construction projects or meeting workforce staffing needs.

- Melanie Bass

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Riding the emotional storm STUDIES ON POLICE BRUTALITY AND THE PANDEMIC POINT TO A CLIMATE OF FEAR

R

acial, social and political tensions collided in 2020 against the backdrop of a global pandemic. Spurred by a divisive presidential election, the police killing of African American George Floyd Jr. and a partisan mainstream media, this perfect storm had the makings of an “emotional climate” of fear.

“An emotional climate is where fear predominates the whole society; people are restricted in their behaviors and they respond in different ways because of those fears. It’s fear at a macro level, where it permeates everything,” said Melissa Sloan, a sociologist of emotion and an associate professor at the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus.

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RESEARCH: USF SARASOTA-MANATEE CAMPUS

Sloan and Murat Haner, an instructor of criminology at the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus, collaborated with several colleagues from other universities on two separate studies that help inform the whirlwind of emotions experienced in 2020.

FEAR OF POLICE BRUTALITY Floyd’s May 2020 death amplified the emotional climate already piqued by the pandemic.

A 2018 survey conducted by Sloan, Haner, et al, provides insight into some of the emotions underpinning the public outrage that followed Floyd’s killing.

The survey found that Black and Hispanic Americans are, respectively, five and four times more fearful of police brutality than white Americans.

The article, “Worrying About Police Brutality: The Hidden Injuries of Minority Status in America,” describes the survey’s findings. Victims & Offenders: An International Journal of Evidence-based Research, Policy, and Practice published the article online – just one day after Floyd was killed while in custody by Minneapolis police.

“I don’t have words. It’s just appalling,” Sloan said, recalling the video of Derek Chauvin pinning Floyd’s neck to the ground with his knee. “That these fears are justified, that’s what’s so awful.” In April 2021, a jury found officer Derek Chauvin

Impact of the Pandemic guilty of three charges in causing Floyd’s death.

Breaking new ground, the 2020 study is the first to explore the fear of police brutality, specific and apart from a general fear of police. “Taken as a whole, the study reveals an insidious picture in which communities worry about those they are supposed to trust in their greatest time of need. There is a substantial subpopulation in America that worries about being victimized, not by some perpetrator, but by the State – the very people sworn to protect and serve them,” Haner said.

The study also addressed levels of worry related to being a victim of crimes unrelated to the police, including racial/hate crimes, violent crimes, a home invasion, a mass shooting and a terrorist attack. “Across the board, Blacks and Hispanics were more fearful than whites,” Sloan said.

Accenting the racial disparity, 75.5% of whites reported they “do not worry at all” about violent crime, compared to 30% of nonwhites. The study illuminates a clear racial/ethnic divide between whites, and Blacks and Hispanics, when it comes to the fear of being victimized, Sloan said. “They [white people] have no concept, no idea of what other people worry about.”

Sloan added, “One of the

big contributions of this study is to show that these underlying fears are out there, and they’re disadvantaging these segments of the population and we’re not hearing about it.”

Research indicates that the hidden injuries of fear of police brutality and other violent crimes can impact individuals and society. These injuries can have psychological and physical health consequences and can also result in avoidance and protective behaviors; e.g., restricting normal activities, avoiding social interaction, not seeking help from law enforcement and buying a gun, Sloan said.

A surprising result from the study was that Hispanics were more fearful of being victimized than Blacks in three violent crime scenarios, and their fear of police brutality was on par with Blacks. Hispanics don’t have a national movement akin to Black Lives Matter (BLM), nor do they have the political advocacy and media muscle that BLM garners. Lacking these, the fear experienced by Hispanics goes largely unnoticed, Sloan said. Given that Hispanics are the second largest racial/ethnic group (18%) in the U.S., and their number is growing by roughly 2% per year, this finding is particularly significant.

PANDEMIC FEARS In a separate study that assessed personal fear and altruistic fear (the fear for other people’s well-being) related to the pandemic, Hispanics and Blacks also expressed greater levels of worry compared to whites.

“Pandemic Emotions: The Extent, Correlates, and Mental Health Consequences of Fear of COVID-19,” published in the May 2021 edition of the online journal, Sociological Spectrum, details the findings of a nationwide survey conducted in March 2020.

Authored by Sloan, Haner and several colleagues, the article likens pandemic fears to the fear of terrorism. Both are adverse events that cause uncertainty and a potential serious threat to personal safety and create a sense of helplessness, Sloan said.

In addition to race/ethnicity, the study found several factors appeared to contribute to people’s fear of the pandemic, including level of media exposure, their political leanings and gender.

The study also looked at psychological distress related to the pandemic. People who reported higher levels of personal fear also reported increased levels of psychological distress.

Additionally, those who felt they had a greater risk of dying

from the virus, or who had a friend or family member who had contracted the disease, also reported more mental distress.

While fewer whites experienced personal fear compared to nonwhites, whites reported greater levels of psychological distress.

Lifestyle disruptions due to increased isolation, the closure of businesses and workplaces, and the potential for quarantine, severe illness and long-term health effects are frightening. It’s no surprise that the pandemic caused elevated levels of fear across the board, Sloan said.

In fact, only 14% of survey respondents indicated they were “not worried at all” about dying from the virus – and this was in March, when COVID-19 had killed just 2,135 people.

It’s highly likely that people’s fear increased as the pandemic intensified, Sloan said. As of May 2021, nearly 600,000 people had died from the disease in the U.S. For Sloan, the study is important because fear changes people’s behaviors and can have long-term psychological and emotional impacts. “The high levels of fear noted in the survey – that early on in the crisis – suggest the origination of a climate of fear that could dominate American society for quite some time,” she said.

- Sara Withrow

“HOW MUCH DO YOU WORRY ABOUT POLICE BRUTALITY?” BLACK

WORRY A LOT

HISPANIC

WHITE

WORRY A LITTLE

DON’T WORRY AT ALL

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Pandemic ripple effect

W

hen COVID-19 hit, businesses closed their doors — but most of them didn’t stop selling. Instead, they developed new ways of marketing and distributing their products and services.

Nathan Hartmann, an assistant professor and senior researcher at the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus, studies the behavior and attitudes of salespeople. He said the pandemic was a shock to the business-to-business (B2B) sector that created ripples of systemic change and had a tremendous impact on the B2B sales force. “For the salesperson, it was really a tumultuous environment.”

COVID-19 effectively halted the “art” of inperson selling, forcing salespeople to learn new technology and virtual sales techniques.

Because salespeople generally tend to be extroverted and less computer savvy, the new online environment was particularly challenging, Hartmann said. “It amplified their concerns and anxiety.”

The digital environment also challenged sales organizations. They had to create online data sharing processes and policies, while protecting sensitive client information from potential hackers.

The COVID-19 situation forced companies to adjust projected outcomes, as well. Lacking the ability to personally meet customers hindered salespeople from soliciting new business. “Organizations had to change their quotas for salespeople, in order to recognize this different environment,” Hartmann said.

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RESEARCH: USF SARASOTA-MANATEE CAMPUS

RESEARCHERS CREATE A FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING THE IMPACT OF EXTERNAL CRISES ON THE B2B SALES INDUSTRY

A MODEL FOR MANAGING THROUGH CRISIS In an effort to help the B2B industry navigate this new COVID-19 territory, Hartmann and Bruno Lussier, an associate professor at HEC Montréal Business School, developed and tested a socio technical model of sales force change. The model contextualizes Harold Leavitt’s 1965 blueprint for organizational change to the B2B industry in crisis.

“It’s a framework to help managers understand how the COVID-19 environment influences sales force organizational outcomes,” Hartmann said. Variables such as people/employees, the tasks they perform, the technology they use and the business structure, which includes sales goals and quotas, are constants in the B2B industry. However, new stressors like financial pressures, health implications and a rapid shift to remote working change the levels of and relationships between these variables, he explained.

“What happens in a critical period is that some of the relationships in the model strengthen, some emerge and others are weakened or may be disrupted. There is a lot more change going on during this period because of the exogenous [externally developed] shock of the virus,” Hartmann said.

To test the model, Hartmann and Lussier conducted an extensive review of practitioner-oriented publications and interviews with managers and sales sources.

The article, “Managing the Sales Force Through the Unexpected Exogenous COVID-19 Crisis,” published in the journal for Industrial Marketing Management in July 2020, describes their findings.

BUSINESS UPSIDE The pandemic created derivative effects for the B2B industry – as implicated by the socio technical model.

While the final permutations are still unknown, the impacts weren’t all bad. For example, Hartmann said, COVID-19 expedited the industry’s transition to a fully digital environment, which allows sales actions to be more

Impact of the Pandemic

SALES FORCE VARIABLES

TASK

TECHNOLOGY

HUMAN ENVIRONMENT • ECONOMIC CONDITIONS DITIONS • INDUSTRY COMPETITIVENESS TITIVENESS • GOVERNMENT POLICIES IES • POLITICAL FACTORS • CUSTOMER AND SUPPLIER R POWER • EVENTS

SALES FORCE AND ORGANIZATION OUTCOMES • REVENUE

STRUCTURE

• PROFITABILITY

• CUSTOMER SATISFACTION • MARGINS

EXOGENEOUS SHOCK: COVID-19 PANDEMIC

LEAVITT’S MODEL OF ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE (1965)

measurable and trackable. Ironically, it also allowed some companies to build their sales teams.

“Even though more companies were laying off than hiring, there were wise companies that realized there were more talented salespeople in the job market. Those companies used the pandemic as an opportunity to build a stronger sales force,” he said.

Moving forward, companies may need to restructure their compensation packages, increasing base pay, to keep and attract sales talent, he added. “There are salespeople who were earning a lot of money whose salaries dropped considerably during COVID. Salespeople now tend to be more willing to give up some of their income potential for something more predictable.”

Another ripple effect for the industry is the potential blurring of “external/outside” and “internal/inside” sales

HARTMANN AND LUSSIER’S B2B EXPANSION (2020)

teams. Historically, outside salespeople meet with buyers directly, earn higher wages and have perks, like expense accounts. “With COVID, that distinction disappears.

Everyone’s working from home; it’s no longer as relevant,” Hartmann said.

Additionally, some companies may retire the practice (and cost) of sending salespeople to trade shows and conferences to close deals with clients.

“The consequences of COVID-19 have not been all negative for companies. We see long-lasting changes that will reduce the cost structure of organizations, increase the number of salespeople working inside companies and increase selling using virtual platforms,” Hartmann said.

- Sara Withrow

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Behind the mask

POLITICS, RISK PERCEPTION AND SOCIAL INTERACTION INFLUENCE COVID-19 SAFETY PRACTICES

S

hortly after the coronavirus pandemic started impacting the U.S. in March 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended everyone wear a face covering, or a mask, to prevent the spread of COVID-19. However, not all Americans complied.

In light of the growing number of COVID-19related deaths – nearly 600,000 as of May 2021 – it was important to identify the underlying motivations that trigger protective behaviors, said Feng Hao, an assistant professor of sociology at the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus.

Collaborating with a geographer from the University of Alabama and an expert in education from Ringling College of Art and Design on a multi-level, interdisciplinary study, Hao determined that where a person lives makes a difference in how they respond to the pandemic. Specifically, the political climate and the COVID-19 death rate of a person’s home state influence their mask wearing practices.

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RESEARCH: USF SARASOTA-MANATEE CAMPUS

THREAT PROXIMITY = GREATER RESPONSE An environmental sociologist known for his research on the human causes and socioeconomic costs of climate change, Hao was not surprised. “There are many similarities between climate change and the pandemic.

They are all threats to our well-being, and both issues have been politicized,” he said.

Hao found construal level theory, a theory he’s used to study public response to climate change, apropos to this study, as well. The theory holds that the psychological distance between a person and a perceived risk influences their perceptions and subsequent behavior. For example, those who experience more symptoms of climate change, such as rising sea levels and dramatic weather events, perceive it as a greater threat, he said. In this study, people living in states with high death rates perceive the risk of COVID-19 to be greater; therefore, they are more likely to wear a mask.

Impact of the Pandemic Hao said policymakers should keep this in mind: “If the threat is perceived to be close enough, risk mitigation actions can be more easily motivated.”

The study examined survey responses from 10,000 people across 10 states (California, Colorado, Louisiana, Minnesota, Florida, Missouri, Montana, New York, Oregon and Texas). The survey was funded by the Data Foundation and conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago over three separate weeks in April, May and June 2020.

As lead author, Hao describes the findings in “Understanding the Influence of Contextual Factors and Individual Social Capital on American Public Mask Wearing in Response to COVID 19.”

Medicine (2020). “Democrats are more likely to perceive the [COVID-19] risk than Republicans.”

Both studies point to the need to divorce public health issues like the pandemic from politics, Hao said. “If we can treat COVID-19 as a public health issue, we will be more equipped to address it.”

STRENGTH IN NUMBERS

MONTANA

MINNESOTA

MISSOURI

OREGON

FLORIDA

LOUISIANA

TEXAS

COLORADO

CALIFORNIA

NEW YORK

Of the individual-level factors assessed in the 10-state study, one finding was of particular interest to Hao. “We found that people with stronger social networks (social capital) and more frequent interaction with family and friends were more likely to wear a mask,” he said.

The finding supports earlier research related to the H1N1/Swine Flu outbreak in 2009-10, which also POLITICAL PERSUASION found a positive relationship between social capital and individual response to the virus.

A key finding from the survey was that people living “When people interact with each other, they gather in states with unified Democratic Party control, where information and have more opportunities to learn about there was a Democratic majority in the house and senate the pandemic in an objective way,” Hao said. “They also and a Democratic governor, were more likely to wear tend to care about each other and show mutual support. a mask, Hao said. This was true for three DemocraticThis leads to their behavior of wearing a mask – not only controlled states, California, Colorado and New York, to prevent getting COVID themselves, but also to prevent where more than 90% of respondents said they wear a it from infecting the people around them.” mask. By comparison, 87% of respondents from all 10 Hao said the study’s interdisciplinary approach states said they wear a mask. added to its significance and its potential to inform future Hao suspects the polarized U.S. political climate – virus-related policy. “The pandemic is a very complicated intensified by a partisan mainstream media – helped issue and it really requires the knowledge of different politicize the virus. “There were different messages being disciplines. In this case, it’s an example of how experts told by politicians and the media, based on their political in sociology, geography and education came together to leanings,” he said. “There is a clear party divide,” added study this problem,” he said.

Hao, citing a previous study he coauthored: “Confidence In another article published in May 2021, in Political Leaders Can Slant Risk Perceptions in “Understanding the Effects of Individual and State-Level a Highly Polarized Environment,” Social Science & Factors on American Public Response to COVID-19” in the American Journal of Health Promotion, Hao has expanded the research to a nationwide sample of all 96% 94% 50 states and Washington, 92% 87% 86% D.C. Findings show 85% 85% 81% 80% that people from states 74% with more COVID-19 cases, mandatory face mask policies and liberal governments are more likely to respond to the pandemic while people from states whose economies have recovered closer to the pre-pandemic level are less likely to do so.

PERCENTAGE OF RESPONDENTS WHO WEAR A FACE MASK IN RESPONSE TO COVID-19

- Sara Withrow

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Classroom Caffeine

A PODCAST BORN THROUGH THE PANDEMIC HELPS CONNECT EDUCATORS WITH EXPERTS IN THEIR FIELD OF RESEARCH

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ccess to research isn’t always easy for teachers, and many miss out on important studies affecting their profession, said Lindsay Persohn, an assistant professor of literacy studies in the College of Education on the USF SarasotaManatee campus.

The volume of materials – articles, journals, books, websites and social media sites – can be crushing. Then there are the subscription fees. It can all be too much, said Persohn, which is why she’s offering a less-daunting alternative.

In fall 2020, she launched a podcast series with internationally known experts to discuss the latest and biggest findings to emerge from educational research. The series, “Classroom Caffeine,” is available at classroomcaffeine.com and on Apple and Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify and other hosting sites.

The segments run from 20 minutes to an hour, making them ideal for busy teachers.

“It really can take a lot of time searching through journals to find the right research article or study, and

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RESEARCH: USF SARASOTA-MANATEE CAMPUS

teachers are busy,” she said. “The podcast series allows teachers to hear directly from top researchers in their field in a format that lends itself well to multitasking.”

Persohn debuted Classroom Caffeine in late 2020.

The first season featured interviews with the researchers, summaries of their findings and relatable advice. Most of the podcasts focused on literacy studies, Persohn’s specialty, and featured experts in the field. Among them were 2008 Reading Hall of Fame inductee David Reinking of the University of Georgia, USF literacy studies Professor and Fulbright scholar Jenifer Jasinski Schneider, renowned reading fluency expert Tim Rasinksi of Kent State University and Patricia A. Edwards, a Reading Hall of Fame inductee and the first African American president of the Literacy Research Association.

Profiles of all guests can be found on the show’s website.

Persohn’s interviews are usually conducted over Zoom and minimally edited to maintain the conversational feel. They focus on the researchers’ key takeaways and how their work can translate to the classroom level.

Impact of the Pandemic “When I talk with expert guests, I try to put myself back in the role of a classroom teacher and think about the kinds of questions I would have liked to ask and what I would have wanted to hear when it comes to applying a particular research topic to the classroom,” Persohn said. “I want the conversation to be natural and for it to really represent the guest as they are really are, offering actionable ideas and questions for big-thinking teachers.”

Persohn believes that literacy vastly influences our daily lives, and while the topic remains the focus of her podcasts, her interviews will sometimes turn to current events, such as the pandemic and issues of social and racial equality, and how teachers can better support each student and understand viewpoints different from their own.

“A lot of guests have talked about how our responses to the pandemic have affected education,” she said. “We also spent time talking about the current political and social contexts of education and

what this era means for education going forward, even after we emerge from the pandemic.

“While this has been a particularly challenging time, a lot of growth has come out of these challenges. The show’s guests often highlight opportunities to positively shape the field of education and explore educational research. In total, it aims to get at what’s most important to education and research.”

For now, the podcasts are distributed in an audioonly format. Eventually, Persohn wants to add videos, transcripts of the conversations and a special-focus series if she can acquire government grants or foundational support.

Looking ahead to season two, she plans to showcase diverse voices in education and examine racism and its impact on learning.

“I think it’s important to not only explore topics that involve literacy and the latest research, but also to take a look at how changes in society affect the classroom and their long-term implications,” she said. “I’m really looking forward to many more interesting and engaging discussions.”

- Rich Shopes

ENGAGING USF DOCTORAL STUDENTS Through the production of her podcast, Lindsay Persohn has been able to enlist the help of USF Literacy Studies doctoral candidates Csaba Osvath (Fall 2020) and Stephanie Branson (Spring 2021), whose work ranged from audio production and podcast art development to website and metadata management and review of podcasting literature.

Persohn, Osvath and Branson have already garnered support and recognition of their efforts: they have a USF research grant supporting their literature review as well as two accepted conference proposals to premier literacy and education research conferences, with more submissions on the way.

Their ongoing research projects include listener surveys and podcast episode content analysis.

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Hot off the Press

FACULTY PUBLICATION SPOTLIGHT

"ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE FOR DIGITAL BUSINESS: INTEGRATED TRANSFORMATIONAL STRATEGIES" BY TUSHAR K. HAZRA AND BHUVAN UNHELKAR

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nterprise Architecture (EA) is essential to business, but EA can also be disruptive as it transcends and transforms business technology.

In his book, “Enterprise Architecture for Digital Business: Integrated Transformation Strategies,” (Routledge) USF Professor Bhuvan Unhelkar explores the impact of EA on business.

Highly disruptive technologies such as big data, machine learning and mobile and cloud computing require a balance between their business and technical aspects, said Unhelkar, a faculty member at the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus.

“EA is the glue that ties an organization’s solutions and systems to its goals,” he said. “EA helps align organizational competencies to what businesses want to achieve, thereby prioritizing competencies and eliminating wasted time and effort. But with the increasing complexity of software solutions, the need to integrate data, applications, services, visualization and security becomes immense. Our book focuses on these myriad aspects of an enterprise to help it deliver value.”

Unhelkar’s book, co-written by business and technology professor Tushar K. Hazra, an adjunct at Johns Hopkins University and chief technology innovation officer of Maryland-based EpitomiOne, focuses on preparing organizations – large and small – to leverage these emerging, disruptive and innovative technologies within the EA framework.

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“I decided to write this book along with good friend and highly experienced Enterprise Architect Dr. Tushar Hazra because the importance of EA cannot be emphasized enough. We thought our combined EA experience is worth bringing to the fore to benefit practitioners, especially in large, multinational organizations.”

"WORLD LANGUAGE EDUCATION AS CRITICAL PEDAGOGY: THE PROMISE OF SOCIAL JUSTICE"

BY TIMOTHY G. REAGAN AND TERRY A. OSBORN

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he new edition of “World Language Education as Critical Pedagogy: The Promise of Social Justice” (Routledge) offers an important and much-needed perspective on world language education.

Building off his seminal 2002 work, “The Foreign Language Educator in Society,” USF Professor of Education Terry A. Osborn addresses critical issues facing world language educators today, including language myths, advocacy, the perceived and real benefits of language learning, linguistic human rights, constructivism, learning theories, language standards, monolingualism, bilingualism and multiculturalism.

“Language teaching is inherently tied to the social context in which it takes place,” Osborn, a faculty member at the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus, said.

“Understanding how language teaching reflects, and can improve, our society is critical for us to understand as educators. As we have pursued these ideals over the last two decades, we have seen significant progress in the field of world language education.”

Recent Publications

Co-written by Timothy G. Reagan, a professor of foreign language education at the University of Maine, their book explores the conventional wisdom around language education and examines current social and political realities, assumptions and controversies within the field.

The book is organized into three parts – Knowing Language, Learning Language and Teaching Language – and each chapter offers questions for discussion to support students and educators in developing their own perspectives about teaching and learning languages.

“The reason we decided to write this book was that our 2002 book, the ‘Foreign Language Educator in Society: Toward a Critical Pedagogy,’ had become a classic and was widely viewed in the field of world language education as groundbreaking,” Osborn said. “However, in the approximately 20 years since that book, we have learned a lot from our research. Other educators had begun to bring those insights into the classroom and it was time to revisit where we are as a profession.”

"ROBOTS, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, AND SERVICE AUTOMATION IN RESTAURANTS" BY CIHAN COBANOGLU, KATERINA BEREZINA AND OLENA CIFTCI

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ihan Cobanoglu, interim dean of the USF School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, reunites with former USF faculty member Katerina Berezina and graduate student Olena Ciftci to contribute a chapter to the recently published “Robots, AI and Service Automation

in Travel, Tourism and Hospitality,” (Emerald) edited

by Stanislav Ivanov and Craig Webster.

The three wrote the chapter titled, “Robots, Artificial Intelligence and Service Automation in Restaurants,” which examines automation trends within the service industry.

While much of the book tackles the range of topics around robots, artificial intelligence and service automation (RAISA) in travel, tourism and hospitality, the chapter by Cobanoglu and his cowriters presents the first systematic and in-depth review of RAISA technologies within the restaurant industry.

The authors present examples of restaurants implementing such technologies in their businesses – both for operations and customer use – and explore technologies used by businesses, in some cases proposing strategic alignment between business needs and technological capabilities.

“There also is an interesting interview with Mr. Juan Higueros, co-founder and COO of Bear Robotics, the inventor and producer of the robot runner Penny for restaurants,” Cobanoglu said. “The chapter and the book would be of interest to professors, graduate students and industry professionals.”

He said he decided to write the chapter because automation is growing in hospitality each year due to recent technological advancements.

“Automation and robots, with the help of artificial intelligence, have proven to cut costs, improve guest services and even help employees do their jobs better, faster and more efficiently,” Cobanoglu said. “We wanted to investigate this growth in the industry and provide a strategic and practical guide to using automation and robots in restaurants.”

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With campuses in Tampa, St. Petersburg and Sarasota-Manatee, the University of South Florida is the fastest-rising university in America, according to U.S. News and World Report’s 2022 Best Colleges rankings. The USF SarasotaManatee campus features a unique, personalized learning environment-an inclusive culture in which faculty and staff know and support students as they achieve their career goals.