Shippensburg University beat schools, such as Dickinson College, in an online ranking of the top 20 univeristies in Pennsylvania.

SU was ranked No.13 overall, though specific categories touched on the university’s tuition costs and its campus services.

“Shippensburg University encourages high impact practices such as undergraduate student research, study abroad, internships and service learning,” according to citydescribed.com.

SU was compared to both public and private universities in Pennsylvania, such as Indiana University of Pennsylvania, University of Pennsylvania and Lock Haven University.

“Pennsylvania has some of the best colleges in the country. Students will find top-ranked liberal arts colleges, public universities and private universities,” the website stated.

The website also noted the average SU has a freshman retention rate of 70.8 percent, while Lock Haven’s is 69.7 percent and Dickinson College’s is 90.3 percent.

Professors place third in academic competition

The SU Writing Studio and the communication/journalism department teamed together to write a paper that received third place in a peer-reviewed paper competition held by the Small Programs Interest Group of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

Holly Ott and Carries Sipes, both assistant professors and Michael Drager, an associate professor of the communication/journalism department, along with Karen Johnson, associate professor and director of the Writing Studio, worked together to write “Getting It ‘Write’: Strengthening Basic Grammar Skills Through Collaborative Efforts.”

The paper is mainly directed to students in the communication/journalism department, but other students can benefit from the paper. The paper gives suggestions to help writers strengthen their papers through writing techniques, streamline study habits, and explains the advantages tutoring can provide to students.

“I enjoyed that it was a collaborative research effort between faculty within this [communication/journalism] department and the writing studio,” Ott said, “It was a wonderful way to blend the academic research we do with the type of research done in other disciplines and we were able to come up with a lot of great suggestions and implications for the academic environment as a whole.”

Professor gets chapter published

Michele Bratina, an assistant professor of criminal justice, co-authored a book chapter in “Women in the Criminal Justice System: Tracking the Journey of Females and Crime.” The book was published by CRC Press in July.

The chapter is about domestic and international sex trafficking of women and children. Bratina was inspired to write the chapter to raise awareness about human trafficking and to encourage others to know the signs and take steps to prevent it.

“Shippensburg is a small area and a lot of people do not think these things happen around here,” Bratina said.

In central Pennsylvania, Interstate 81 and truck stops are hotspots for human traffickers to recruit potential victims. Many efforts are being made to put an end to human trafficking. Multiple coalitions have been made between survivors of human trafficking, advocate groups, scholars and law enforcement officials.

There are various factors that affect who the traffickers will target. They often target those who come from socially and economically disadvantaged backgrounds. The National Human Trafficking Resource Center has a hotline that runs 24/7 to take reports of human trafficking. Its number is 1-888-373-7888.

Although anyone can fall victim to sex trafficking, there is no exact estimate for the number of sex trafficking victims in the United States because so many cases go unreported each year.

According to polarisproject.org, the National Human Trafficking Resource Center hotline received reports of 3,598 sex trafficking cases inside the United States, during 2014.

Bratina has been a professor at SU since 2013. Prior to SU, she was the program director of the criminal justice department at Keiser University in West Palm Beach, Florida. Before teaching, Bratina worked as the forensic and children’s mental health coordinator for the department of children and families in Florida. She received her bachelor’s degree in behavioral science from Pennsylvania State University and her master’s in criminal justice from the University of Arkansas. She later received her Ph.D. in criminology from Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

Bratina is currently working on a book about mental health in the criminal justice system.

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