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Demetria Howard-Watkins:
Research paper on quality of life for African-Americans
leads to a consulting post in Lexington, KY

November 2007—A recent Texas State graduate's research paper on quality of life for African-Americans in Austin, TX, has caught the interest of city officials in Lexington, KY. The paper, by Master of Public Administration graduate Demetria Howard-Watkins (2006 MPA), examines the effectiveness of the process used by the City of Austin in recommending ways to improve quality of life for African-American residents. Lexington officials plan to use Howard-Watkins’ paper as a model for developing a task force that will recommend quality-of-life improvements for Lexington’s African-American community. Lexington has also asked Howard-Watkins to advise its task force. Howard-Watkins’ paper, titled “The Austin, Texas African-American Quality of Life Initiative as a Community of Inquiry: An Exploratory Study,” can be read here: http://ecommons.txstate.edu/arp/115.  Howard-Watkins' paper also helped her to obtain her current position as Program Coordinator for the Institute of African-American Research at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. The Institute advances scholarly investigation of the history, social experiences, culture, and thought of people of African descent throughout the Diaspora, with a particular emphasis on Black Americans.