Fulbright College of Arts & Sciences

Stephen K. Boss, professor of environmental dynamics and sustainability in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Arkansas, launched the Coastlines & People (CoPe) Virtual Symposium Project on September 14, 2022. Boss presented “Far-Field Effects of Sea-Level Rise and Ocean-Climate Processes on the Heartland: An Overview.” This project was cosponsored by the David and Barbara Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History in Fulbright College.

The fourteenth presentation entitled "Measuring Community Resilience: An Empirical Evaluation of Two Instruments" was delivered on April 20, 2023, by Charleen McNeill and Betsy Garrison.

McNeill is a professor and Executive Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. She obtained her PhD from the University of Texas at Tyler, her MSN from the University of Texas at El Paso, and her BSN from the University of Arkansas. Her research involves emergency shelter placement, community health issues to include emergency preparedness and response, resilience, opioid utilization and most recently, COVID-19. McNeill is involved in studies to determine the prevalence of COVID-19 among various populations, the impact of COVID-19 on the lives of participants, and how antibody levels change over time. McNeill is an Army veteran who was recognized as the 2017 Inaugural Outstanding Alumni for the University of Texas at Tyler and the 2017 Outstanding Alumni for the College of Education and Health Professions at the University of Arkansas.  

Garrison has been a professor of human development and family sciences in the School of Human Environmental Sciences at the University of Arkansas and its former director since 2014. She earned her bachelor's degree at Benedictine College and her MS and PhD degree in human development and family science at Iowa State University. Garrison retired from Louisiana State University in 2014 after a twenty-year career there as an assistant professor, associate professor and finally Associate Dean of Agriculture and Professor. Throughout her career, Garrison’s research, supported often by USDS through the Agricultural Experiment Station, has broadly focused on family stress, health and resilience, including disasters. She is an author of more than 50 publications, including two Hurricane Katrina-related book chapters, and has secured more than $1M to support her work.  Garrison is also a former California 4-Her and a county 4-H extension agent in Iowa.