Morehouse College was established a arrangement with the National Consortium on Violence Research (NCOVR) of Carnegie Mellon University an NSF supported center. The focus of the project on violence research is to expand the existing infrastructure of Morehouse College to conduct basic and exploratory research on the etiology of violence and social behavior, to plan and test interventions and programs for violence reduction, to train a cadre of undergraduate students in social science research with the idea that these students will pursue graduate study in the areas of violence research and to implement programs for education and community outreach designed to improve the quality of life of Americans by reducing violent incidents and resultant fear of crime. The specific research areas that the Project will address will include, but are not limited to, the origins of violence, the economics of violence, the legal aspects of violence, behavior modification techniques, dysfunctional families and their impact on violence, domestic abuse and best intervention strategies. Each of the project areas identified above will be headed by a senior researcher from Morehouse or NCOVR and the teams will include both junior faculty and undergraduate students from Morehouse and other Atlanta University Center (AUC) schools. They believe that the outcomes of these efforts will lead to a better understanding of the populations studied and establish priorities for further research. In addition, this project will produce a cadre of undergraduates trained in the methodologies and theories necessary to pursue study in violence research at the graduate level. The strength of this proposal lies in the presence of an existing research institute (The Morehouse Research Institute) and amplified by the additional expertise and experience of researchers and practitioners in the Atlanta University Center (AUC). The AUC is a consortium of 6 independent colleges and universities primarily serving minority students. The institutions to be involved in this project include Morehouse College, Spelman College, Clark Atlanta University, and Morris Brown College. Each of these institutions is designated as an HBCU. The combined undergraduate enrollment of these institutions is approximately 12, 000 students per year. As such, this project has the potential to recruit students from the largest assemblage of African American students in the United States. Although, Morehouse College will serve as the core institution for this initiative, faculty and students for the other AUC institutions will be active participants. The combination of these diverse institutions - with overlapping and complementing missions - will create research and dissemination strengths unlikely to exist in a single institution or consortium of institutions orchestrated for this specific purpose. To augment the research capabilities of the Morehouse faculty, researchers from NCOVR will be brought to bear in the proposed research agenda. Morehouse College already has in place a management team which is experienced in managing a complex, multimillion dollar ($5,000,000 over five years) Department of Defense project. Additionally, a National Advisory committee consisting of scholars, professionals and people knowledgeable about criminal behavior, crime, violence and substance abuse prevention and health promotion has already been established and consults regularly with the Morehouse Research Institute. As they will illustrate in the proposal, Morehouse has a long history of collaboration and active involvement with community-based and institutional efforts. Further, Morehouse College enjoys an excellent working relationship with the Center for Disease Control and Prevention
