Research

The LYNX Blue Line Extension’s first trip in March 2018 signaled dramatic change for UNC Charlotte and the Charlotte community. For researchers Isabelle Nilsson and Elizabeth Delmelle, the new line and the neighborhoods it passes through between Uptown Charlotte and the main campus represent a living laboratory for research exploring how transit investments affect neighborhood change and the implications for residential mobility and income segregation.

UNC Charlotte historian Aaron Shapiro thinks deeply about the impact of society’s resting places and the importance of protecting and understanding them. In his co-teaching of a history class called “Preserving Memory in the Digital Age,” Shapiro strives to help students broaden their perspectives on cemeteries and their surrounding communities, through in-depth research and class work.

This summer, dozens of College of Liberal Arts & Sciences undergraduate students from varied majors and disciplines will gain experience in research through UNC Charlotte initiatives that emphasize learn-by-doing models. They also will benefit from professional development opportunities, mentoring and interactions with each other.

A new UNC Charlotte study with college-age football linemen suggests that the roots of a sleep breathing health problem in football players may begin early and points to the need to fully assess the potential consequences of college training, particularly for linemen who quit conditioning after college.

UNC Charlotte students in Karen Cox’s public history class learned about the magnitude of a historic schoolhouse’s place in history and its value to the local community. Through their hands-on research about the school, built in the early 1900s to educate African-American children, they are contributing to the planning process for the building’s potential preservation.

The acts of professional athletes who have “taken a knee” during the playing of the national anthem during sport events reflect something more than a momentary message was being sent by the players, research by Dan Grano suggests. Grano, an associate professor in communication studies who researches public advocacy and sports communication and culture, says, “It’s a different moment in the history of sport.”

UNC Charlotte researcher Roslyn Mickelson is providing context for a debate about legislation to allow towns near Charlotte to create charter schools. She is drawing from her decades’ long research into segregation and re-segregation of schools and commenting in local and national media accounts.

Faculty authors in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences at UNC Charlotte in 2017 edited and published 42 books that were diverse in topic ranging from language and culture studies to physics and optical science. Texts also included topics such as public relations, history, religious studies, and African American studies. The books included textbooks, research publications, novels, and other forms.

For couples seeking to overcome infertility, the process can prove emotionally and financially daunting. At the same time, those who care about them can struggle to know how to show support. A new documentary created by graduate students in a visual ethnography class in UNC Charlotte’s Department of Communication Studies offers insights to the couples and their loved ones.

For the first time, researchers have evidence of exactly what dads are doing while moms are taking care of housework or tending to their child. A study by Jill Yavorsky, assistant professor of sociology at UNC Charlotte, and colleagues at The Ohio State University, found men were most often relaxing while women did housework or child care.