Assistant professor named 2019-2020 Public Service and Outreach Faculty Fellow

Darris Means, an assistant professor in the department of counseling and human development services, was recently named a 2019-2020 Public Service and Outreach (PSO) Faculty Fellow.

Launched in 2011, the Faculty Fellows program provides professors with an opportunity to apply their research and course curriculum to the needs of a specific PSO unit. As a result of the program, departments across the university have sustained relationships between designated units and Faculty Fellows' departments.

As a PSO Faculty Fellow, Means will work with the Archway Partnership—a unit of PSO created to enhance UGA's land-grant mission of teaching, research and service—to study the tools, skills and resources that rural high school students need to prepare for college.

"I'm excited to build upon my partnership [with Archway] by serving as a Public Service and Outreach Fellow," said Means, who has been working with Archway for the past two years. "I will collaborate with high school students and UGA undergraduate students from rural communities to develop, implement and assess an intervention that can be used to support them on their pathways to postsecondary education."

Means' research is designed to help underserved populations, including African American, low-income and first-generation college students from rural Georgia, succeed in higher education.

His studies, which include data collected from Pulaski and Candler counties, will be replicated and expanded to include more Archway Partnership communities, so that professionals in these areas can make data-informed decisions that improve educational attainment across the state.