CPAA Webcast: Criminology and Criminal Justice

Yeah yeah, yeah.

I think it's tough, they said when you don't have a UI S account like.

Right?

All right?

OK, so.

We've got some people joining us now. I will give it a little bit to let people still come through and our student participant.

Uh will come through here in a little bit, uhm, so will give that a little bit of time as well and we should be all good to go. Can everyone hear me OK?

Perfect.

Perfect.

Ah.

Yeah, well let Riley come through and then we will get started.

Ah.

Unfortunately they find not here, but I will tell you that, um.

We have a couple of people joining us today at two of our professors from UIS in our criminology and criminal justice program are with us. We also have a student who is currently in this. See CJ program, but she seems to be having some video an audio problems, so she may not be joining us, but.

We will be able to be in contact with her afterwards, so if you ever have any questions, feel free to email me an my name is Andrew Nickel and I'll be the advisor for criminology and criminal justice. We also have in the chat Jillian Briggs, who is one of the other advisors in the College of Public Affairs administration. So if you have questions, feel free to ask those in the chat or you can email in the program and will definitely get back to you as soon as we can. If you.

Want to go ahead and introduce yourselves guys and then see if Riley comes through further. Doesn't come through then, uh, we'll be hanging out and will just chat from the professors perspective. So go ahead, Steve.

Hi everybody, thanks for joining us today. My name is Steve Schnebly. I have a PhD in criminology and criminal justice from University of Missouri. St Louis have a Masters degree in administration of Justice from southern Illinois University Carbondale. Go Salukis, Bennett, uas. Now for better part of 1112 years.

You lose count after a while, especially during the corentine time doesn't mean the same as it used to, but Uhm, Yeah took my first job at Arizona State University out in Phoenix, but I was born and raised here in central Illinois near the town of Danville. Wanted to come back to University, where teaching was the primary focus and where I could work with students and sort of help them become lifelong learners in the area of criminal criminal.

Thanks for joining us.

Awesome, thanks Steve. We will let Riley introduce herself if she's got her audio and video going up. And then when Jay comes back we can let him do some self. Hey Riley, I'm glad you made it.

Hey.

Hi, sorry, I totally was Wi-Fi and had to reconnect or restart my computer.

No worries, we understand the tech problems are going to happen. So if you can introduce yourself kind of tell us what you're doing. Obviously we know your internal justice program, but what you're doing and then we'll wait for Jay to come back as well.

OK Um Hi I'm Riley. Uhm I'm technically a senior over at uas as a criminal justice student. Uhm, I feel like I'm kind of a different student because I also work full time and go to school full time so.

I mean after I'm done, I plan on going to Graduate School at UIS.

Hello.

Awesome, that's great. Um, we love that hearing that our students are working full time while going to school. But we also know that not everyone student journey looks the same, so we're glad to have you. So thanks for participating. Jay, do you want to introduce yourself?

Pretty much all I got.

Maybe he might be frozen.

Jay Jay, can you hear us?

All right?

No, he's not here in US.

Well.

I can hear Steve.

He's not hearing us.

Hey there.

Yeah, I.

Yep.

OK, if you can hear me, maybe they cannot. They can hear you talk. I can hear you so you won't introduce yourself.

Andrews frozen up on my end so.

No worries.

Yeah.

OK, you go and introduce yourself.

Perfect.

OK, I'm a doctor Gillam, I'm a professor in the Criminology Criminal Justice Department at UIS.

Been here, Bennett, UIS since 2007.

Um, and that's really it so far for this point.

But not you.

Hum.

Get your degree from.

Oh yeah, a bachelors degree. Arizona State University Ann Masters and PhD from the University of Oklahoma.

And your social right.

Yes, uh degrees are in sociology, yes.

Joe criminology and criminal justice is sort of a subset of sociology. It's really just sociology that's focused on crime justice, delinquency in those types of things.

Are you getting Andrew?

Perfect, we also had one other guest who is not who who is unable to log in.

You are.

Love you.

OK, I have no Andrew.

Yeah, we're good.

I'll put you in.

Cool.

OK Alright.

Um, so we had another guess, Michael Reynolds. He is actually an alarm of Arc program, but was having some login issues. So if you have questions for him, we can always pass those on. Steve, I think you might know him the best. Would you like to give a little more information about Michael?

OK.

Ah yeah, so, uh. Michael is a former student of ours. He graduated, I believe in 11, uh, so he's been out for quite awhile now. He took a job with the Springfield Police Department, right out of undergrad. Anne has basically just been climbing his way up the chain. He's done all sorts of different things, worked in the gang unit, is currently working undercover in the narcotics unit. One of the reasons he wasn't able to join us today was because they were in plainclothes, following some drug suspects.

And the car they were following was appearing towards all 10. So he was disappointed. He can join us, he said next time if we do another one. If you want to show us what a kilo of cocaine looks like, they're able to make a big bust. So him on that one.

OK.

Awesome.

What will definitely you know will definitely tell you that you are. Yes, we. We focus on that. Leadership lived in. That sounds exactly what Michael is doing, so it's really awesome to have him come out there and doing great things, especially coming from you. I ES. So we've got a couple of questions and will kind of ask them a little bit. From our faculty perspective from our student perspective, Fortunately we don't have the alone in perspective, but I think it'll be a good opportunity for you all to see what UIS looks like.

As a as a school and as a potential place to study your criminal justice degree.

Um?

So we'll start off. Obviously we know a little bit what you can do with criminal justice degree with one of the faculty members like to talk about what you can do with a criminal justice degree.

Sure Jade, you wanna tell him a little bit about the types of things you can do with a CJ degree?

Sure, um, we've got students that have graduated and gone on to an assortment of different jobs and careers. First and foremost, the clear path for a lot of our students is law enforcement.

We have great success with our students who choose to go into law enforcement, especially state level policing and.

Policing agencies like Springfield, Decatur, Peoria, Chicago, PD. Places like that. We also have had good luck placing our students or students getting jobs out of state with various state and local agencies, but outside of law enforcement we've had students go on and have successful careers with the Department of Corrections Department of Natural Resources, we've got a number of students that have gone on.

An become conservation police, uh and it's one of the benefits of working or being a student in the state capital. You have access to these agencies, especially when you.

We end up taking an internship or doing your internship credits. It's beneficial being in the state capital.

We've got a lot of students that also have gone the state agency route, but from a non law enforcement perspective Department of Human Services, DCF's Department of Revenue. And then we also have students that choose to continue. Like Riley said, going to grad school, we've got students that have gone on to grad school and other institutions and others have stayed at UIS, some of even gone and obtained a PhD and or tenure track professors and other institutions.

And then we also seem to have a quite a few students each year that choose to go to law school route as well. So and then I know of students that have gone into the private sector from jobs in sales. I know two former students that are coaches and so it's a. It's a good general degree that really doesn't close a lot of doors unless you're wanting to go into a career path, it's very.

Specific you're not going to get to be an accountant.

No.

I don't think I must unless there's something I don't know. Uh, you're not going to get to be an accountant with a degree in our field, but there's not a lot of doors to get closed with a degree in our major.

Awesome.

No, I would agree. I think one of the things I really pride ourselves in with the curriculum we've created and with the public liberal arts focusing biases back at the end of the day, we're trying to teach our students how to be lifelong learners. I think a lot of the time students think that I can't wait to get out of college because I don't have to learn anything anymore. and I was that way and I think the one thing that I've learned.

Graduated and moved on is that every year I've learned more in that year. Then I knew in the previous years and so life is all about just constantly learning and growing and thinking and developing. We really try our curriculum to teach people how to do that. Because once you graduate University, you're going to go into a world that is dynamic that it's changing that is going to constantly present you with new challenges. And if you're not trained and well suited to deal with that type of environment, if all you know is what you know when you walk out the door.

Boy

You're gonna be useful to a business or do a state agency for a few years, but then before you know it, you're going to be a Dinosaur. So a lot of our curriculum, although it's within the area of criminal justice and Criminology, it really emphasizes critical thinking and communication. You know, analytical skills, written work, the types of things that you could quite literally apply and find success in any other field you would possibly want.

Make cops we don't make corrections officers. We like to think that we help make better cops and better corrections officers and Better Business men and women and folks you go on and get Masters degree. They'll do better in a master's program because of the types of things that we hope our program provides is well rounded. And again, it's sort of we hope provides you with a catapult for the future. Then pretty much anything you could ever want.

Exactly idea.

Yeah.

I can't hear Andrew, but if I can piggyback on top of that, it's just something that I get feedback from. Uh, with my dealings.

For the students that do go on into law enforcement, one of the things that law enforcement agencies, the agencies that are responsible for the training really like about our students when they enter the training phase of whatever agency hires. Whether it's at the state level or the community level, they like the fact that our students don't come in with any preconceived ideas of what it means to be a police officer.

They they prefer students that come in with the skill sets that Steve spoke of versus thinking they already know what it's like to be a police officer. And then the people in charge of the training usually have to strip that off of them and kind of reprogram them, so to speak, to get them to two.

Meet the certain standards by the specific agency that's doing the training and so one of the compliments that our students get a lot of times is that they come into the Academy. Whoever is doing. The training very well prepared on the analytical side of things, but don't come in with any preconceived ideas of what it means to be a police officer, which is a good thing that way. They can train you the way they want to train you.

Done.

Absolutely. I think you know. I think JS write a uas laser, really good foundation and criminal justice and all of our programs that allow students to have that foundational knowledge into go into those careers with having the knowledge but not the preconceived notion of what that job looks like. and I think that really allows our students to do that, to grow and to take that position an run with it. That's something I've found is an employee at UIS.

A Riley would you like to talk about what you're currently doing and what your plans are with your criminal justice degree?

So right now we're finishing up the semester. This semester is been just different than, say, the least, uhm?

True.

I have a few papers to finish up in a quiz to take, but other than that were done and.

Congratulations, that's a good feeling.

Yep.

Talk soon.

Cool.

Very good.

It is except I decided I'm going to take three courses over the summer. I don't know if anyone else knows this perverts offering like free classes online through this website called X and you can pay $100 to get a certificate and they've got like literally 100 different classes you can take. So I decided I'm going to take like three of those are just a kind of pad. My resume a little bit, but.

Oh

That's awesome.

Perfect.

I plan on going to um, grad school after UIS, which is still going to be at Uas, but with the public administration in public health like dual program. Just because currently I work in a social services position and I like it. I love it, but it kind of has more so opened my eyes too.

A need for social service work in a way.

I've taken all the cast classes. Now I'm finishing up the last two. That's actually the paper I need to work on, but uhm.

Absolutely.

You know with the cast classes in the criminal justice program, they kind of go hand in hand, and I think for anyone interested in this program taking all of the cast courses would be a good idea. Just because you get your child advocacy certificate and well, taking these classes along with all the other classes, you kind of learn that law enforcement isn't just law enforcement. You need to have your social service element in with that. I don't know if I answered the question right, but.

No.

Great answer, great answer.

No, that's great.

Absolutely.

We tell our students all the time that good.

Police officers are really good social workers.

Absolutely.

So it it it it's not about fighting crime, it's about dealing with people having pretty bad days.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Solving problems being there for people, a resource.

For sure.

Absolutely so Riley we're going to stick with you for another question and then we'll go back to our faculty members.

What what made you choose? Criminal justice is your major uhm, and do you have any any advice for an incoming student who would want to select a criminal justice?

OK.

So I chose criminal justice because I had taken a few criminal justice courses over at Lincoln land. That kind of opened my eyes and made me realize it was something that I cared about. Plus I have watched, like every crime TV show ever. So that was a big part of my decision because that entertain me.

Number one recruiting tool.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Now, being in the program, this those are nothing like it. But if you like the shows, you will like the program.

Yep.

Cool.

In my eyes at least I mean I've stuck through it. I love it through and through. I would never choose any other program to like get my bachelors in just because it's been such a good experience and with the criminal justice program like they were saying, it doesn't close many doors for you. You still have plenty of options when you get out of school to find a different career path if you choose not to go to law enforcement route or anything criminal justice related. But I mean for me, criminal justice was just what really stuck in my brain. It made me actually want to be a student, be a better student.

Focus on my assignments more than I typically would. I mean, I was a terrible student at Lincoln Land and then I got to uas. I was kind of like is it going to be a repeat, but no, like the professors. Everyone just really motivate you and make it interesting and make you want to learn and do the assignments.

Ice.

That's awesome.

That's awesome, um.

For Jay-Z.

I think we end up with a lot of students as majors from our coursework being something they can find interesting and uh in motivates them to come to class.

You know, a lot of students. If they don't like the material, they find it difficult even want to do the work and come to class because life gets in the way and I think we benefit from that with not only the way we teach, but also the course offerings that we offer. Students can stomach what we do because what we do is pretty interesting to a lot of people.

Yeah.

Uhm, well from that. Do you want to talk about the favorite like the favorite course that you've taught me? There are teaching currently or the favorite your most favorite class that you taught you IS.

You wanna do favorite course Jay? And then I'll pick you back into line after.

Yes um couple of favorite courses one is my course on race ethnicity.

Uh, socioeconomic status and crime. That's one of my favourites. Another one is, of course, that I'm teaching this semester that turned into be kind of an interesting course for the Times that we are living in its class called Crime Myths and moral panics.

Lot of people may not be aware, but there's lots of myths about crime that exist that people think they know certain things but come to find out the myths that they've always thought were true or turned out to be false.

Class opens up a lot of eyes in that class has been interesting, especially this semester because of just the recent events linked to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Yeah.

It it's it's. It's been a useful course to kind of convey, uhm?

To students why it's important to pay attention to the information that you digest and some of the stuff that Steve spoke of. You need to have a critical eye when discerning between a headline of an article versus what an article actually tells you, because people can get misled just off a headline of an article that's used to grab someone's attention, and we spent a lot of time in that class kind of breaking down.

Yeah, absolutely.

Um, how to spot potential myths? How to spot potential problems in the way materials are presented in the news and in the media and in print media. And it's been a pretty neat class that be teaching during this moment in time, so but those are two of my favorites.

So I guess I need to pick my favorite class that each I know it's one of my easier classes because it's a lower division class. It's a 200 level intro to criminal justice.

But I like it up for a lot of the same reasons that Jay gave for his class. Um, a lot of people think they know a lot about crime and criminal justice. Alot of people tend to have very strong opinions about things like the death penalty or criminal punishments. And oftentimes their opinions aren't very well informed. They don't always know what type of evidence they would need to make an informed decision. So one of the things I really like is the intro class, because we're bringing in people who presumably don't know much about crime and criminal justice.

And we're able to critically assess, uh, this system, that we spend hundreds of millions of dollars on every year to incarcerate. You know, 2 + 1,000,000 people and employ hundreds of thousands of police officers. The idea that hopefully we're keeping ourselves safe. I think it's important as a criminal justice scholar and researcher and teacher that we always are critical of the topic we studied. So one of the things you won't get in our program is sort of apologetic view of the system. By default, In other words.

Absolutely.

We always look at the system, the police, the courts, the correction system and we ask what are they doing? What are they doing right and what are they doing wrong and if we find things that we think they're doing wrong, how could we make them better? We never just accept the way things are. Always tell my students by becoming a critical consumer of the criminal justice system, you become someone who is constantly asking. Is this the best way? Is this the right way? I also teach an International Criminal Justice Systems class where we look at the criminal justice systems of other countries, England.

Germany, China, Saudi Arabia, Japan and a lot of Americans will take this approach that yeah, are American justice system is the best we invented democracy.

Like they think that our system is the best because what they've always heard and and that's simply not the case. Some things are the best that we do, but we can learn from other countries. We can learn from other people from other cultures and to not be afraid to say, yeah, there's some things wrong with policing in this country. It doesn't mean we don't respect police officers, but to not admit and recognize the things that could be made better. We're just doing ourselves as citizens of this country, huge disservice. and I think the last thing that I will say about our program that I think is.

The help of the students is that we're very diverse program in terms of our student body demographics. We have a good mix of male and female students, but we also have a good mix of white students and Latino students and African American students. Folks who come from the inner city of Chicago. Folks who come from or the wealthy suburbs of Chicago. And then we have folks who from Springfield and even some very rural white places in the state. and I think for a lot of my students, it's the first time they've sat next to a person who might have a different view of what the police are.

He grew up in Riverton, which is a small community near Springfield. You might see police is different than if you grew up in the inner city of Chicago, where there's high levels of homicide in drug crimes, and so because we have such a diverse student population will have some really great discussions and approach topics from a variety of different perspectives, and I find it in the end of every semester through one has learned and grown from their colleagues doesn't mean they always. He doesn't mean that their mind gets changed per say, but we have a nice environment where we can talk about.

Presumably tricky issues. You know police.

Stop it, but we are not afraid and will never be afraid about that in our classes. And I've had students who said to me I know someone who was shot and killed by the police an that type of experience. That type of diversity in the classroom really adds to the quality of what we can do in a face to face environment. But you know, I think that's the kind of thing that we need to be able to do to help educate and help prepare students.

Absolutely. I think it's a It's a good thought that we're not always trying to change minds is that we're always trying to create informed opinions, and I think that's the best way that we should approach life in general. So Steve, thanks for bringing that up. And you also mentioned something else that you know the criminology and criminal justice degree. Uas is not just.

Right?

Focused on law enforcement, it's on the entire criminal justice system. Um, and there are classes that we offer currently, and we've offered in the past in the future. It will always focus on hitting every branch. It's not just the frontline, it's through the court system. Through the punishment side of things, and I think that's a fantastic way.

That we that are degree differs from a lot of other programs.

Out there, so I'm going to continue on with the faculty members, uhm?

What are you, um? What projects are you currently working on in the field? One thing I know about you as professors is the fact that we are we're not just not just teachers, but were mainly teachers. But we also another world working. I think outside of the classroom, so can you tell us a little bit about that. Steven relates to J as well.

Sure, I actually have Jay go first. If you want J.

Boy Uhm.

When prepared for that question.

What we what are you working on from sort of the scholarship or the service side of things? So aside from just the classroom J, what do you got? What do you got going? It has to do with your interests or your scholarship or service, to the community or to policing or whatever. I mean, you could maybe even talk about our police citizen Academy. That might be a good thing.

Thank you I I was. I was writing a student back here that it it. It said something in the chat that needed attention.

OK.

I'd only job.

Good.

Well, the thing that I was most interesting, no no, I I I can do this. Um it it's it's something that, uh.

It kind of came about it. This is all been put on hold as a result of our current living situations, but have an interest right now. Just from a research perspective on animal abuse and issues, tide, animal abuse and.

Had been interviewing people who, uh?

The best way to put it are they. They've kind of become animal vigilantes in the sense that they work in Unison with each other to relocate animals that are considered abused or neglected.

And uh it's kind of an underground network of people that communicate with each other to relocate animals who are mostly dogs who are considered abused or neglected and move them out of state move them away from their current location and get them into no kill shelters so they can.

Uh, uh, be put in Better Homes and it was something I came across accidentally due to the adoption of three dogs from a no kill shelter personally so.

Yeah.

Cool.

I really like Batman for animals, that's awesome.

Cool I, I think a lot of students wouldn't think that faculty in Criminology Criminal Justice program would.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, you wouldn't necessarily think that had something that fits with Criminology, but it totally does. Is such a broad.

Yeah, and the reason it was interesting to Maine or go ahead.

The reason it was interesting to me is.

There's a criminal act involved here there's other people are stealing other.

What?

Peoples, animals, but it's viewed as a good positive thing. It's in essence, it's a form of positive deviance or positive criminality in the sense that dog percent is being stolen from an abused or abusive or neglectful home, an relocated and so within those circles it's all viewed as positive normal behavior. But in for lack of a better way of putting it a crime is occured.

Um, and that was that was the whole point of diving into that so.

Cool.

I didn't even know you were working on that. That's pretty awesome.

Yeah, well again haven't gone very far, but it it's something that is super interesting.

It's a secret, it's underground.

Terry Tiger King asked.

Yes, in a sense. Yeah yeah.

I guess I could jump in with something that I again I think I've done research on crime reporting behavior. I looked at research on where gangs are in communities. I've done some research on defensive gun use and those are all sort of things are sort of in the sweet spot of what you would think of criminology and criminal justice. But again, I think some of the things that are useful to students or to realize that the field is much, much broader than that. So, doctor Williams, who's one of our colleagues.

And I in criminal justice, we did some research on mixed martial arts fighters, which I think a lot of students are like. What is that have to do with anything? Well, there's a lot of research out there on how hormones affect violence and aggression, and some people have even argued that MA matches represent.

Demised violence, although it could argue the argue, perhaps that it could even be criminal violence in some instances, and we actually took mixed martial arts fighters. We did mouth swabs, so not the code. 19 nose swabs. But we took out their saliva. We measure how much testosterone they had and then we use that data to try to determine whether or not let testosterone impacted whether or not they won or lost the fight, and then how much mother, how they won or lost a fight, whether it was by submission, whether it was by knockout, etc.

And again, it doesn't seem immediately relevant. Criminology and criminal justice, but there is a lot of criminal behavior is violent in nature, and so by studying mixed martial arts fighters by talking about that stuff in class, we can gain a better understanding of why human beings engage in violence and what things predict violent behavior. We have some friends over at the University of Valencia in Spain who are neural criminologists and they look at all sorts of neat things with the human brain. What makes us tick? What makes us have empty? What makes us be violent?

Um and we've partnered with them to try to do some research on empathy amongst practitioners of criminology and criminal justice. The idea that we want our police an are corrections officers and our judges to be able to empathize with people, not to see them as low down, dirty, rotten criminals, but to see them as human beings and to understand you feel pain and suffering. And can we get the police to be more empathetic? And the answer is yes, you can train people to do that, and you can help shape their brain history. You can take MRI scans, you can measure their hormones.

And you can come up with the coral. It's in the causes of more desirable behaviors amongst people. Uhm, again, a lot of people wouldn't think that criminologist would study brain scans and testosterone. But that's all well within our people, so it's a It's a wide open sandbox that you can kind of come in and play with as a researcher. And that's what I really like about it. There's really nothing off the table.

Right?

That's that sounds really interesting and cool.

Can I circle back around with? I was caught off guard by the question 'cause I can't hear Andrew and so I was down there trying to talk to a student. But in terms of some mainstream things that I've done in my past, a lot of research with drugs and drug markets where people go to purchase their drugs. What influences the locations and the decisions where people go to purchase their illegal drugs. That was tide to my dissertation coming out of grad school.

Uh, a lot of work with a juvenile justice outcomes and decision making within the court system had a couple of grants and a former job tide to that.

Then, uh, in a class that I failed to mention earlier is one of my other favorite classes. I just didn't want to give 15 different classes, but I teach a class on deviant behavior in our Department. That's a fairly popular elective, and one of my favourites research projects that I've ever participated in the past ever was on body dysmorphia and how people who have.

Body image issues.

Yeah.

Translate to translates to other deviant and criminal behavior issues and what we found was that people who have high levels of body image issues also struggle with.

Sleep.

They are also more likely to participate in other deviant and criminal activities so like binge drinking and shoplifting and things of that nature so.

Cool.

That sounds awesome. That sounds like you guys are doing very interesting and very different uhm things and I think that's great and it shows what what are field can put you into. Um so Riley, I'm going to come to you what is?

Um, what something cool or relevant to you that you've done outside the classroom with your major with your criminal justice degree, or if it was a class that took you outside the classroom to do something a little more hands-on. If you've got a good example.

I was just going to say how like pretty much my whole degree ties into my job that I have now. Uhm, I don't know if you guys know what I do. I know the advisor knows what I do. I know Andrew knows that I do. I actually work over brother James court and it is a long term care facility for developmentally disabled men. Right now we have 90 three men.

And Criminal Justice plays a part in this all the time. Because if you've ever been in a room of just 90 three men on any given day, there's crime that happens. They get in fights, they steal from each other. They break stuff. Like today, we had one of the guys. He's a klepto anyway, but he stole all of our art supplies, so we had to go track him down and use all that stuff. And you know, I mean every day. There's a situation like that. I mean, it's not always part supply. Sometimes it's someone's phone or TV. They get stolen, but

You have to go and deal with it and you have to explain it in a way that these guys understand and my degree is help me learn how to explain it in different ways other than just saying like this is bad, you can't steal.

Because then they get mad at you and yell at you. And that's not fun, but uhm, I mean. Other than that I mean.

Cancel.

From just my general skills that I've gotten from this degree, when I read an article about what's happening today, like with code and everything I can read the article and understand what they're saying. Like I get an ID, pH is website every day and read through the statistics and go through the charts and all of that. Thanks to Schnebly because I took a statistics class and actually learn statistics, but you know?

Winning.

There's a lot that this degree teaches you that you can relate to everyday life. It doesn't have to just be crime or how I said with my job. Um, just anything watching the news. You can sit there and go over and be like, OK, this is where they got their source from. You go back and trace that back and analytically note they're talking about and research a topic.

Night.

To piggyback on something really just said.

It goes back to the other question that I didn't get to hear from Andrew. Um, something that I've worked on that is still being implemented, but my wife is the one that's doing the implementation of it. Now. My wife is a board certified behavioral analyst and works in a similar. I'm not going to name them the place, but in a similar kind of setting is to write what Riley works in, but what hurt? I worked on together for a couple of years that she now has taken over is training for law enforcement officials.

On how to interact with people with autism.

Um, because it's a It's a common issue in law enforcement where officers encounter people in the public who they?

May or may not know the mental health status of uhm and may not have the skill set to identify the mental health status, but what you don't want to have happen is to assume that someone who is a nonverbal autistic male who is just doesn't have the ability to communicate with you is actually not ignoring you and define your orders because that's how you can end up with issues of abuse.

And uh, and I'm proud that we worked on it together, but she's the one that actually takes it. She does the trainings at the Illinois State Police Training Academy and the training Academy indicator.

So.

And it's it's good applicable information for people in the field of law enforcement on how to interact with the community or the population that Riley was just speaking about.

Nice.

Still have Andrew?

Yeah, absolutely. I think there. I mean, I think it's been shown today just in what you're doing, your research projects, what you're doing in the classroom, what Riley, what you're doing in your career moment. It shows how versatile the degree is.

He's popping in and off on mine.

OK.

Disappearing and then coming back on. But I still can't hear him.

Wow.

You gotta look at analogy. It's the best.

Yeah, I'm happy. I haven't in some tech issues. Um, I've gone in and out a couple times for myself as well, but I think what I was saying was just showing that.

We are degree does a really good job of showing.

Today that you can do a lot of different things out of the different programming, you can do a little bit outside of the criminal justice degree with your just your daily interactions. Reading the IDP H doing a lot of different things so.

Gonna go with one more question for each of you and then we'll open it up for some questions for our chat as well.

Um?

Do you have a? Uh, this is for Stephen Jay. Do you have a funny story as a professor with with a student that you would like to tell?

Oh

No.

Funny story question Jay. Did you some good further any guys will make cereal.

Do you have a funny story?

You know, I I. I thought about that. 'cause I entered practice with that question, uhm?

I mean, I'm a walking funny story. I teach barefooted.

Um, if it's summertime. I don't wear shoes. I mean I, I'm just funny, I don't. I mean, look at me.

Fairpoint

I mean for crying out loud.

Fairpoint yeah I would say that you know in general I think speaking for the faculty mean J and I are just to the faculty out of currently 4 in criminology and criminal justice. But I think I can say that in general we don't take ourselves too seriously in sort of at least based interaction with students. We run a classroom that we try to keep light and likely.

It's certainly not our goal to entertain students per say, but I think that the nature of the way we approach our job and the fact that we care so much about what it is we're teaching.

I think you do good job and I know they have a good job keeping students engaged. We do the job. I think using humor Riley can you know, confirm or deny that. But I think if you just drone on, if you're boring, students tended to tune out and so we try to keep it lively and exciting. And we do joke around and goof around in the classroom and we do have sort of a type of interaction with our students when they call us by our first names often times and when I bumped into Andrew.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This would have been I haven't seen you in two or three years. Probably I bumped into you a Lowe's and immediately we just like we were. You know, like we just saw each other yesterday and that sort of.

Might loose a friendly, accessible sort of approach J and I take to teaching, I think, really allows us to have, you know, just just positive happy fun interactions with students. For the most part. Again, I think some of our stories that are the most laughable just hilariously ridiculous, and maybe not always the best to share in this environment. But those moments are out there. We, we get goofy little laughs and crazy stuff all the time.

I use a lot of colorful language that I've been asked not to use today.

Oh, is it being recorded?

Yeah so.

Yeah.

Right?

Yeah.

I want you don't you ever say that that's also true for adult. We treat our students like it were not afraid to drop a few bombs and swear words occasionally. But again, it's I mean sometimes. How do you? How do not swear when you talk about some of the injustice and the horrible things that are going on, I think that helped temper you could just cry all day long in class. Sometimes we think of all the sad things are acting but keep it light and lose. It gives you a better sense of.

You know how do we deal with this? How do we move forward as a society you know you're going to be a consumer criminal justice as a citizen regardless. But as a criminology and criminal justice student, you're going to have a special responsibility because you know more about this stuff than your neighbors going to expect you. Go out and spread the word and.

Seem to learn and teach other people what you should do is a good citizen anyway.

Something just real quick that ties into what Steve just said about how we.

Manage ourselves and our students. I went back um before we started this to to to look at the current conversations I have going with former students about how they're doing in light of the current COVID-19 situation, and I found 14 either text message conversations or email conversations. Going with former students that have been gone for five plus years.

Uhm, and I think what that does, an eye. and I know Steve just even with Michael, who was supposed to be today and Steve does this with other students and so are we don't overlap with with the same kids. But we make strong connections with our former or the students when we have them to the point that we still check on them and hear from them and have the ability to talk to them and see how they're doing and be references form in future jobs.

Should we get wedding announcements? A marriage announcements? Things like that from our former students, and I think it's all a product of how we conduct ourselves in the classroom.

I agree.

Yeah.

Yeah, and I think you know Steve mentioned that we saw each other in Lowe's. UM, one thing that I've seen is that whether it's a criminal justice professor, whether it's you know, a communication professor or its arena biology professor, you're still able to create those connections that you have 510 years later, where you can reach out. So Riley, the question that the last question that I have for you would be, is there a professor that has, you know?

Touch touch you and inspired you in a way, uhm that you've kept those relationships or something that a professor said to you that has created a lasting memory on you as you are.

Days from pizza. Now like your days what's that thing that sticking on your mind?

OK Alright.

D'Angelo yeah.

OK.

No, no I know yeah yeah.

Hello.

Absolutely great.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think it you know.

I like how are students like kids see me on campus there just like what up Gillum and they call you schnebly.

Uhm, I love that. They just call us by our last name I I'd love that.

You know something I found.

I like 'cause we've created that culture.

Yeah, absolutely, and I think you know, uhm, I mean in a test that I didn't take a lot of criminal justice classes while I was at UIS as a student. But the relationship that I have with Steve is something that was created completely outside of that outside of the classroom. And the same thing with with you, Jay. I mean, from what we've known each other working professionally. It's been a couple months at this point, but I think it's awesome that their relationship can create with people. And one thing you'll find if you come to you IS, is that.

You know our class sizes are small. Our campuses physically small and uh were an intentional place and I think what you'll find with our professors. Just like Riley just stated, is that they'll respond to you with helpful information within, you know, within a couple hours within the day. It's not just, yeah, hey, by that's not helpful, but our professors are so good about reaching out to reaching out to our students, checking in on them to 510 years later just keeping those relationships going.

Um, an sometimes you just reach out to one of the professors that you know for a job reference and it works out really well that way. Um, because you've created that relationship, so is there anything that you would like to add before we open up the questions over the next couple minutes?

This is.

Um, before we before you rap up. Any thoughts? Stever, Jay. We did have a question that that I passed over.

Can you speak to the the likelihood of being able to become a detective? Uhm, and also on a separate question to become a paralegal with a criminal justice degree.

Can you speak to that at all?

Who?

For sure.

Yeah.

Um, we had we had a question in the chat about some internships that students have taken in Jill or other advisor has actually answered a little bit and I think one thing that you'll find it you IS is that a lot of our programs require an internship and Criminal Justice does require an internship at UIS and that really helps you. It helps you graduate without work experience 'cause you know, Steve said. You can't graduate and become the chief of police. You're going to need four or five years experience. The good thing about an internship is that it helps with that.

That experience it helps you start that off, and it helps you kind of build that foundation experience and that will continue to grow as you once you graduate and everything like that. So I think internships are just like the degree. They're very much so not there, not there unlimited. You can do a lot of different things. Rightly. Go ahead and add to that with your internship.

Yeah.

Cool thanks right?

Absolutely. I mean, you can make an internship uhm out of anything you can get anything you want to out of an internship. and I think that really shows really shows that you can do that with our program, especially in criminal justice in in Criminology.

Um, so if there are any more questions, I want to come through, we definitely can address those were about at our time limit here, Steve or Jay. If you want to add anything else right, literally anything else we can wrap up here and we have more questions we can hang out for a couple more minutes as well.

You say if you want to add anything else, any final moments, any final spots you can add that and we'll see if any more questions come through.

That's great, Mike. Thanks Steve.

At.

I'm having terrible audio problems.

No.

All of a sudden.

So I'm gonna say no.

OK.

I only caught a bit of that from you, it's it's. It's very crackly. All of a sudden.

I feel like I'm being punked.

Perfect what would not to me says like it's time to go. We want to appreciate that all stuck with us an you've listened to our program. If you have things.

If you have more questions for us, go ahead and, uh, you can contact Jill via email. You can contact me via email were all located on the website. If you have questions about classes you can reach out to professors and they show that will show you that they can respond to you that way. So if there are no further questions, feel free to have a great day. Hope you enjoy the nice weather. If it's not too chilly and we hope to see you on campus whenever we can all return.

Thank you all for coming. Have a great day.