Dr. Tara Opsal has been awarded an Ann Gill Faculty Development Award for Outstanding Research and Creative Activity in the College of Liberal Arts.

Her winning project is Penitentiaries on the Plains: Rural Economies, Identities, and the Carceral State. In her proposal, Dr. Opsal says this is one component of a larger comparative project that examines the sociological interactions between rurality, community identity, and the carceral state. Receiving this award at this stage of the research propels the critical first stage of the project as it enables her to travel to the research site several times during the summer of 2019 to complete data collection which includes ethnography, interviews, and archival research.

This award supports summer of 2019 work and is made possible by the donor members of CLA’s Great Conversations series. Read more here.

“We deeply appreciate the excellence you bring to the College of Liberal Arts and Colorado State University, and it is a pleasure to be able to support your research agenda in this way.” – Dean Withers