The Dangers of Overparenting

It is one thing to be a nurturing, supportive and concerned parent, but numerous negative consequences can result when parents exert too much control over their adult children's lives.

A series of studies, led by Communication head Chris Segrin, into parent-child relationships has revealed that overparenting can lead to a reduction in an adult child's self-efficacy and an increase in a sense of self-entitlement. To read the complete story, click here and here.

Study Finds Mexican Deportees Likely to Try to Enter U.S. Again

From 2010 to 2012, a binational group of researchers, led by researchers in the UA Center for Latin American Studies, interviewed more than 1,000 Mexican nationals who had been deported. The researchers' findings have made national news, including The New York Times, USA Today, and the Arizona Daily Star.

The researchers found, among other things, that more than half of those surveyed said they were going to try to cross again, one-fourth said they had U.S.-born children, and 28 percent considered the United States home. Click here to read the report.

Student Engagement through the UA Community and School Garden Program

The University of Arizona Community and School Garden Program has sprouted up over the last few years. Started in spring 2010 with six student interns in two schools, the program now has 53 interns in 10 schools and four community gardens. 

One school that illustrates the transformative power of a school garden and ecology program is Manzo Elementary. The school is incorporating the ecology program into all of its subjects, with UA interns as energetic collaborators and implementers. Tasks range from teaching the students how to make change for Manzo Market to testing the water chemistry in the aquaponics system. To read the complete story, click here.

Artifacts Shed Light on Social Networks of the Past

The advent of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter have made us all more connected, but long-distance social networks existed long before the Internet.

A new study, led by UA anthropologist Barbara Mills, sheds light on the transformation of social networks in the late pre-Hispanic American Southwest and shows that people of that period were able to maintain surprisingly long-distance relationships with nothing more than their feet to connect them. The study is based on analysis of more than 800,000 painted ceramics and more than 4,800 obsidian artifacts dating from A.D. 1200-1450. For the complete UANews story, click here.

Female Lemurs Play It Safe and Live Longer

Females of a little-known primate from the rainforests of Madagascar have been known to outlive their male peers by many years, despite no obvious differences in hormone levels or lifestyle. A team led by a UA anthropologist Stacy Tecot has found the likely reason is that while females eventually choose to settle down, males continue to roam their entire lives.

To read the complete UANews story, click here.

Becoming Better Philosophers of Lying

To fans of "The Big Bang Theory," "Game of Thrones" and other popular television shows, books and movies: Don Fallis, a professor in the School of Information Resources and Library Science, studies the characters you love and despise, unveiling the pervasive nature of lying and deception.

Fallis, who has spent years studying false statements and dishonest intentions, has in recent years been invited to publish a series of essays on instances of lying and deception in popular culture. To read a Q/A with Fallis, click here. To read more about his work, click here.

eSociety Prepares UA students for Digital World

What does it mean to be a member of the digital age? Through the new eSociety program, students take courses covering social media strategies, artificial intelligence, identity in the digital realm, privacy concerns, Internet communications law, information ethics, strategies for managing a social presence and the access -- and barring of access -- to information, and much more.

"Technology is the most important revolution of our lifetime," said J.P. Jones, III, dean of the UA College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. "It has completely transformed the way we interact with one another, learn new things, and form communities. And every social science discipline has a role to play in understanding these changes."

To read the whole UANews story, click here. To read the Arizona Daily Wildcat article on the new major, click here. To watch the Arizona Public Media video, click here.

News Briefs

• This Arizona Daily Star article (written by UA journalism student Amer Taleb) profiles two SBS graduate students who were interrogators in the Iraq War.
  
• The Center for the Philosophy of Freedom has assumed editorial responsibility for the Social Philosophy and Policy Journal, one of the top tier philosophical publications.
• Researchers in the School of Geography and Development have found that long-term droughts in the Southwest often mean failure of both summer and winter rains. For details, click here.
  
• The Arizona Board of Regents appointed political science major Valerie Hanna as the new student regent. To read more, click here. 
  
• In February, Dean J.P. Jones gave Dan Hicks -- NBC sportscaster and UA journalism alum -- his Alumni of the Year Award. Dan also had a Q/A session with journalism students. To read more, click here.
  
• Researchers, including those from SBS, found evidence that there are two types of environmental conditions associated with seasonal influenza epidemics: cold-dry and humid-rainy. To read more, click here.
  
• With UA anthropologist Steve Lansing's help, Bali's ancient water temple system was recognized over the summer as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. To read more, click here.
  
• In the UA’s highly competitive Philosophy, Politics, Economics and Law (PPEL) major, students learn the foundations of Constitutional law, economic welfare, social justice and other topics. To read about this major, click here.
• Communication Professor Maggie Pitts has co-edited the first collections of scholarly works devoted to positive interpersonal communication. To read more, click here and here.
• Sociologist Jeffrey Sallaz's book "Labor, Economy, and Society" looks at how labor operates in a capitalist society and how that may lead to recurring labor crises. To read more, click here.
  
• Amy Shlossman, an alumnus of the UA Public Administration program, is now Chief of Staff for Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano.
• The iSTEM project, designed and run by the Southwest Institute for Research on Women, pairs 30 American Indian students with mentors who engage them in science and engineering. To learn more, click here.
  
• Check out this Tucson Weekly article on Susan Stryker, a professor in the Department of Gender and Women's Studies, who is creating a documentary on the world's most famous transsexual, Christine Jorgensen.
  
• Amer Taleb and Sami-Jo Roth, both UA journalism students, covered the landmark Prop.8 and DOMA same-sex marriage cases at the Supreme Court.
• Anthropology students are able practice their excavation skills at University Indian Ruins. To read more, click here.