Dr. Rachel A. Willis

Dr. Rachel A. Willis
CB # 3520; 519 Greenlaw Hall
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3520
Phone: (919) 962-0277
Fax: (919) 403-7415
Rachel.Willis@unc.edu

Dr. Willis is best reached by email, especially during the summer.

Education

Ph.D., Northwestern University, Economics
M.A., University of Notre Dame, Economic Development
B.S., University of California at Riverside, Economics
B.A., University of California at Riverside, Political Science

Recent Awards/Work:

Socks, Trains, and Wheelchairs: Service Learning as the Vehicle for Teaching Diversity, American Association for Colleges and Universities, Diversity & Democracy,  Volume 11, Number 2 (2008), http://www.diversityweb.org/DiversityDemocracy/vol11no2/willis.cfm

Willis led six undergraduate research and teaching assistants (Danielle Allen, Matthew Garza, Allison Harrison, Michael Lee, Nicholas Neptune, and Kapa Yang) in the presentation of "ACE Campus Tours: Lessons from Targeted Access Programs to College Campuses" at the North Carolina College Access Conference, Greensboro, NC, Feb. 2008. http://www1.cfnc.org/Gear_Up/News_Events/Annual_Conference.aspx

In January 2008, Willis contributed to a panel highlighting institutional commitment to engaged scholarship in higher education.  "Intentional Service-Learning: Unscripted Challenges" was organized by Campus Compact and presented at the American Association of Colleges and Universities annual meetings in Washington, D.C. http://www.aacu.org/meetings/annualmeeting/index.cfm
 
In May 2007, Campus Compact honored Willis as a national finalist for the Thomas Ehrlich Faculty Award for Service-Learning.  http://www.compact.org/news/press/release/658

In February 2007, Willis received the North Carolina Campus Compact 2007 Robert L. Sigmon Service-Learning Award http://college.unc.edu/features/march2007/article.2007-03-07.3043135187

Throughout 2007, Willlis was on sabbatical.  Awarded a Kauffman Faculty Fellowship at the Institute for the Arts and Humanities during the Spring and a Bowman and Gordon Gray sabbatical for the Fall, she primarily focused on social entrepreneurship, service-learning, and engaged scholarship.  She served on the Steering and Selection Committee's for UNC's new Faculty Engaged Scholarship Program http://www.unc.edu/cps/faculty-engaged-scholars.php, traveled extensively to learn from other leading institutions in public service, and shared lessons about UNC's "Path to Engaged Scholarship" in seminars and at conferences.   http://org.elon.edu/nccc/events/documents/SLConferenceProgram-Final_000.pdf

Willis is collaborating with Mary Morrison, Jenny Huq, and Julie Fann on "Harvest from the APPLES Orchard:  Reflections on Service-Learning at the Nation's First Public University."   An APPLES Kauffman Symposium was held Feb. 29 - March 1, 2008 in Chapel Hill for the contributors.  Current drafts can be accessed at blackboard.unc.edu

Willis continues to focus on access to work in her research.  She participated in recent conferences including the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research/Chicago Federal Reserve Board's conference on "The Economic Mobility of Workers" http://www.chicagofed.org/community_development/2007_mobility_of_workers_conference_session1.cfm  and Wake Forest's Voices of our Time conference on "Immigration:  Recasting the Debate" http://www.wfu.edu/voices/vot.immigration/immigration.media.html

During the 2007-2008 year she served on the Steering Committee for the UNC Global Initiatives Conference.  Entitled "Beyond the Sunbelt:  Southern Economic Development in a Global Content,"  it was the fourth annual conference in the Globalizing the American South series.  http://gi.unc.edu/research/ngasc/pdf/GlobalAmericanSouthProgram-2008.pdf

The policy brief on community colleges and revitalizing manufacturing jobs written for the Center on Work, Poverty, and Opportunity by Rachel Willis and Rachel Connelly (of Bowdoin College) can be accessed at  http://www.law.unc.edu/PDFs/Poverty/WillisandConnellyPolicyBrief.pdf

UNC ACCESS Project work can be seen on the website initially created by Thomas Barnett at Elon University at http://access.unc.edu/  The spring 2008 design revision (led by Allison Harrison) includes the work of the major service-learning placements in American Studies 57 to:  YES I Can (led by Danielle Allen), Hoop Dreams, and the NC College Access Conference.  Developed as part of a Carolina Entrepreneurial Initiative Kauffman First Year Seminar http://www.kenaninstitute.unc.edu/centers/cei/?y=firstyear&t=First-Year%20Seminars (AMST 57:  Access to Higher Education), the APPLES Service-Learning course http://www.unc.edu/apples/ also participated in technology pilots for the UNC Information Technology Services Teaching and Learning Division   http://its.unc.edu/tl/projects/tabletpc.php and the Learning Space Design Group of ITS http://multimedia.unc.edu/

Earlier results of the UNC 16-campus site surveys, methodology, and facilities planning recommendations for improved access to higher education for persons with physical disabilities are still available at the website.  More detailed programs on the research were presented at the 2007 meetings of AHEAD (The Association for Higher Education and Disability) by Lindsey Weaver, Jordan Scarboro, and Kelsey Cain.   Preliminary data was presented at the 2006 AHEAD Annual meeting in San Diego by Nicholaus Neptune, Erica Johnson, and Ana Hacic-Vlahovic and at the Pacific Rim Conference on Disabilities by Allison Harrison, Erica Johnson, and Nicholaus Neptune.   Additionally, Willis presented her broader research findings on physical access to college campuses as part of a US Department of Justice symposium at the 2007 AHEAD meetings.   http://www.ahead.org/training/conference/2007_conf/symposia.php  and http://www.ahead.org/training/conference/2007_conf/poster.php

International Golden Key Honour Society 2007 Honorary Member and Keynote Speaker, UNC Chapel Hill "XAV as you work with Honour."

Pogue Scholarship 2007 Keynote Speaker "THINK about Journeys to Carolina: Sea Turtles, the Hmong People, and You."

Morehead-Cain 2007 Speaker for Class of 2011 Scholars "Secrets to a Successful START at Carolina"

Research

Factors affecting access to work in the American economy are at the core of the research agenda for Willis. Topics include work/family balance policies, transportation, education, gender, race, immigrant status, and health as they affect access to employment. She has received grants and fellowships from numerous sources including the Russell Sage and Rockefeller Foundations' Future of Work Program, the National Science Foundation, The Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, The Ford Foundation, The Department of Education,  the Smith Richardson Foundation, and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

Recent research projects are focusing on the value of benefits and the future of US manufacturing jobs, especially in the southeastern United States. Her publications include a monograph on childcare (with Rachel Connelly and Deborah DeGraff), articles and book chapters about academic labor markets (with Paul Pieper and Ronald Ehrenberg), child care (with Susan Russell, Teresa Derrick, Caroline Slade), transportation education (with Brad Rathgeber), service learning, the Hmong integration in North Carolina, and the industrial strategy of manufacturers and the Hosiery Technology Center (HTC) to meet changes in technology, the labor force, and global competition. She is nearing completion of a book on the hosiery industry tentatively titled "Knitting the Social Fabric: The Survival of Work and Family Balance in a Global Economy."

She has collaborated on research with her students on photo, media, and web projects including "SOCKHELP" (with John Knoch, Alex Mehfar, Eugene Kim, Raj Naik, and Michael Hyatt), The Hmong Journey to Carolina (with Eugene Kim, Sendra Yang and Emily Williamson), "Student Life@Carolina" (with Cynthia Wolf-Johnson), "THINK Transit" (with Brad Rathgeber, Andrew Pike and Matthew Mattila) and "The SoHoJourners" (with Meredith McGee and Teige West).  Willis has collaborated with and supervised Public Service Scholars Landis Wofford on a documentation project about displaced textile workers and Rebekah Willford on measuring wheelchair accessbility throughout the UNC System.  In 2007, she is collaborating with Julie Fann, doctoral candidate at UNC  on developing guidelines for electronic discussion board security for service-learning pedagogy as well as a protoype of a digital archive of service-learning placements with Emily Cohn.   She continues working with Courtney Thornton, Ed.D., of North Carolina State University on editing the archives of plenary speakers on "The Role of the University in American Life." http://www.unc.edu/courses/2005fall/amst/094/001/Website/

Willis is a Chapman Fellow at the Institute for the Arts and Humanities (in residence in both 1994 and 2000), a Faculty Fellow at the Center for Urban and Regional Studies and, a Kauffman Faculty Fellow.   She has received several technology and travel grants from the Center for the Study of the American South, The University Center for International Studies, and the University Research Council to document workers and communities in the U.S., Europe, and Asia through photographs and oral histories. She has been the Wildacres Leadership Center Writer-in-Residence three times and regularly presents at academic conferences as well as professional meetings in education,  transportation, and manufacturing policy.

Teaching

Willis has developed a number of innovative courses including "The Role of the University in American Life." Team-taught, American Studies 94 has both plenary sessions with guest lectures from key education leaders, practioners, and scholars and weekly seminars offered by distinguished higher education practitioners on specialized topics (Jonathan Howes, Cynthia Wolf-Johnson, Rosalind Fuse-Hall, Lynn Blanchard, and Jerome Lucido). With an optional field lab, her students travel to unusual parts of the campus, community, and area Universities to explore physical aspects of how access to education is affected by history, resources, and the physical development of the campus. The field labs are designed collaboratively with undergraduate teaching assistants. Many of the course materials have been archived (with lead teaching assistants Courtney Thornton, Emily Williamson, John Knoch, Eric Johnson, Christian Charnaux, Alex Mehfar, Andrew Pike, Brad Rathgeber, Rebeccah Wiliford, Nicholas Neptune, and many other extraordinary student assistants).

She teaches a First Year Seminar on "Navigating America," a junior level social science perspective on "Access to Work," a senior level seminar on "Documenting Communities" and an APPLES course on "Service Learning in America."  Drew Keener is currently working on a public service map for UNC and Emily Cohn and Shannon Kelty are working on a pilot service-learning placement archive.   These can be viewed at http://access.unc.edu/college_and_career/uncpublicservicemap.html   Finally, Willis teaches a cross-listed course in American Studies, Economics, and Women's Studies on "Women and Economics." She has received Brandes, Lupton, and Center for Teaching and Learning Grants to enhance her courses. She has served as a faculty mentor for the Minority Undergraduate Research Program and as an Honors Adviser for the College of Arts and Sciences. She is currently the adviser for the Hmong Students Association of Carolina.

Willis has won numerous teaching awards for integrating her research and public service initiatives into her teaching including the the 1997 William C. Friday Award, the 1994 and the 2001 Student Undergraduate Teaching Awards, Campus Compact's Thomas Ehrlich Service Learning Ten Best Practitioners for 1999, half a dozen Senior Class Superlative Faculty Awards, and two Best Economics Professor honors. She was also honored for her teaching by UNC's Learning Disabilities Program and the North Carolina Council of Women.

Public Service

Willis was honored with the first Robert E. Bryan Public Service Award in 2000 for her work on UNC's Center for Public Service as Co-Chair (along with Donna LeFebvre),  on the Committee on Service and Community-Based Learning of the Public Service Roundtable, on regional transit issues as Trustee and Chair of the Triangle Transit Authority, and for research policy contributions relating to the passage of the Smart Start legislation which improving day care standards in North Carolina. As the first faculty adviser to APPLES, she was an early user of service learning pedagogy in her classes and was honored for her work at the Program's 10th Anniversary. She has received grants from the Corporation for National Service, a Ueltschi Grant, a Center for Public Service grant, and an Intellectual Life grant to enable her and her students to travel to textile manufacturing facilities, conferences, trade shows, and training centers to engage in research that benefited the HTC (Legsource software development, procurement research, and economic development help). She has also received funding from the Civic Education Consortium, the North Carolina Department of Transportation, and AMTRAK for research and travel with her students related to developing a middle school curriculum on transit alternatives (THINK Transit). She has served Chapel Hill, UNC, and the Research Triangle Park through many years of public service on UNC's Buildings and Grounds Committee, numerous transportation and planning boards, committees, and task forces. She is the past Chair of both Chapel Hill Transit and the Triangle Transit Authority Board of Trustees.

Rachel A. Willis was named the Bowman and Gordon Gray Distinguished Associate Professor of American Studies in 2006.  She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the Order of the Golden Fleece, The Order of the Grail-Valkyries, The Academy of Distinguished Teaching Scholars, and an Honorary Senator of the Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies. Honored by the Women's Issues Network for her role in the Development of UNC Women's Center, she was the first woman to give the Kemp-Plummer Battle University Day Lecture. A graduate of the inaugural class of BRIDGES in 1993, she has served on the Advisory Boards of BRIDGES, SCALE, The North Carolina Fellows, The Johnston Center for Undergraduate Excellence, the American Economic Association's Committee on the Status of Women and numerous other campus, community, and professional organizations. In 2009 she was named a GlaxoSmithKline Faculty Fellow at the Institute for Emerging Issues at North Carolina State University.

Current UNC Committee Service:
Buildings and Grounds (1997-present)

Faculty Athletics Committee (2006-present)

Planning and Steering Committees of the Faculty Engaged Scholarship Program (2005-present)

Committee on Emerging Communities (2008-present)

Selection Committee, Frank Porter Graham  Lecture (2004 - present)

Johnston Center for Undergraduate Excellence Student-Faculty Advisory Board (2003- present)