Carolyn Colvin
Carolyn Colvin is Associate Professor of English Education in the College of Education. During her Obermann residency, she will further her work on the 30-year East Town community-campus partnership that sponsors literacy instruction for immigrant/refugee adults seeking to enhance their English fluency and pursue enfranchisement for their families. Colvin and project collaborators ask, What can community members and researchers learn from rural communities who undertake civic engagement as a goal? Specifically, they will explore ways that diversity (ethnicity, race, class, language, culture) of rural communities can both enhance and constrain efforts to become civically inclusive.
Sylvia Mikucki-Enyart
Sylvia Mikucki-Enyart is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies and Senior Research Fellow at the UI Public Policy Center. During her Spring 2023 Obermann residency, she will be working on a book project, “Monsters-in-Law?”: Shattering Gendered Ideologies to Understand and Improve the Mother-in-Law and Daughter-in-Law Relationship. Mikucki-Enyart writes, "By utilizing feminist and communication theories and scholarship in concert, “Monsters-in-Law?” provides a layered lens through which to view and understand the mother-in-law and daughter in-law bond. Integrating these literatures alongside my own body of scholarship, which has studied and isolated key communication features that help or hinder in-law bonds, “Monsters-in-Law?...” will provide evidence-based scripts to help mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law communication effectively. Specifically, “Monsters-in-Law?...” will draw on qualitative (e.g., interview data) and quantitative data (e.g., closed-ended survey data from over 400 in-laws) from my over 15 years of studying in-law relationships and use these findings to advance accessible and digestible communication skills that clinicians can share with clients or in-laws themselves can incorporate into their own relationships."