Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center

The Levitt Center has announced the 2012 Levitt Summer Research Fellowship recipients and Levitt Summer Research Group Grant Recipients. Twenty-one students will conduct research with 13 faculty members.

Technological literacy is an invaluable personal skill in the information age, one that can open doors and allow individuals to escape the cyclical pattern of urban poverty. Chip Larsen ’13, Ana Baldrige ’12 and Paige Cross ’13 are spending their summer as Levitt Fellows with Associate Professor of Anthropology Chaise LaDousa on a project called “New Literacies for an Old City,” a reference to the social and economic landscape in the city of Utica.

Within the past 25 years, a new type of social movement has emerged in American culture: religious environmental groups. Their members apply religious texts and beliefs to environmental causes, raising environmental concern and benefiting sustainable practices. However, despite how diverse and numerous these groups have become, sociologists have yet to study them in detail.