JSU-CJ Travel Grant Awarded to Amanda Freeman

Amanda Freeman - ACJS Travel Awardee

Ms. Amanda Freeman of Talladega has been awarded a $1,500 travel grant from a special fund recently created to help non-traditional criminal justice students showing special promise and overcoming difficult challenges. Ms. Freeman is a 36-year-old mother of a nine-year-old son Cannon, working to support her family and to attend Jacksonville State University.

A paralegal working for the law office of Clark Carpenter, Ms. Freeman is a transfer student from Gadsden State Community College. She came to JSU in 2006 and is the advisee of Dr. Ardie Dial. She was unaware of the travel grant until she was informed by Dr. Ron Mellen that she had been nominated. Drs. Mellen, Vance McLaughlin and Randy Wood served on the departmental selection committee which recommended Ms. Freeman for the award.

The grant will pay Ms. Freeman’s expenses to attend the annual meeting of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences in Seattle, Washington in March 2007. When notified of the award, she said that she was “excited about it.” She never has been to the West Coast, but worked online for several years with a company based in Seattle. She hopes to meet in person some of the people with whom she had worked with online.

At the ACJS meeting she plans to attend presentations of papers by JSU criminal justice faculty Dr. Richards Davis on legal loopholes in gambling laws and Dr. Ronald Mellen and Mrs. Nancy Mellen's presentations on psychological profiles of jail staffs. While at the conference, Ms. Freeman also will take part in a tour of the medical examiner’s office.

For further information, contact:

Richard R. E. Kania, Department Head
JSU Criminal Justice Department
256-782-5339 or RKania@JSU.edu

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