Hi everyone! My name is Brianna Speizer and I am a third-year political science and international affairs major in SPIA, with minors in Spanish and law, jurisprudence, and the state! This past spring, I had the incredible opportunity to present my research in a poster session at the SPIA Undergraduate Research Colloquium (SPIA URC), held in the Richard B. Russell Special Collections Library.
The SPIA URC is an annual event through SPIA where students showcase research that they have done through courses, CURO, internships, or independent research. I presented research that I did as part of my Southern Politics course taught by Dr. Bullock here at UGA. My presentation, “How Governor Desantis’ Banning of AP African American Studies Has Had an Impact on Georgia Education, and What is Being Taken into Consideration by Educators,” examined the policy effects and educator responses to the bans on the AP African American courses in states such as Florida and Georgia (formerly), within competitive academic settings.
Doing this research on policy effects in Georgia while taking Southern Politics truly sparked my interest in state politics which made gathering the research quite enjoyable. The experience of conducting this research also opened so many doors for me in terms of expanding my professional network through interviews with professionals for this paper.
Similarly, the presentation of the research was very special in that it represented the culmination of all of the work that I had put into the paper. Not only was it fun being able to present my own research, but being able to see the presentations of others and learn more about their topics was equally interesting and inspiring to see the hard work that everyone had dedicated to their research projects!
Author
Brianna Speizer
School of Public and International Affairs and Franklin College of Arts and Sciences
