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Commencement is one of my favorite days of the year! So wonderful to see my POLS students and many other students I have had in class walk across the stage today. Congrats to Millikin University class of 2025....you will be missed!

All of my grades are in except for two stragglers but I am celebrating the start of my summer! Looking forward to a family vacation, trips to Latvia and Ukraine, and my Visiting Fellowship at the Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies! #SummerBreak

The Human Trafficking Research Lab Millikin University was proud to serve on the statewide working group that wrote this legislation (and featured in this story)! Great news for survivors seeking justice in Illinois!

Starting my promotion narrative for full professor today! It's not due until August but I have a break while the hotline paper is with coauthors so I am getting a head start. Hard to believe it's been 11 years of teaching in higher education but I am grateful for the opportunity!

News like this gives me so much anxiety. Russia has tried to take Kharkiv since I lived there and have been pretty unsuccessful for the past 11 years. Wish they would just leave Ukraine alone!

Some end of the year updates from the Human Trafficking Research Lab at Millikin! After analyzing around 250,000 arrests in Champaign County our adjudication project is almost done (only six years to go) after five years of research. humantraffickingresearchlab.org/2025/05/sb-232…

Summer #AcWri working on our adjudication paper looking up arrest records in Vermilion County Illinois. This county uses Clericus Magnus for case searches and it is not as good as Judici which seems to be the case search engine of choice for most of IL counties! #HumanTrafficking

The glitch with our teaching evals system was fixed so I am back working on my narrative for promotion to professor for my Saturday #AcWri. Hoping to finish the last section this week....53 pages and counting!

Finished Night Train to Odesa by Jen Stout this weekend, the 1st book on my summer reading list. It made me miss Ukraine & I was thankful for the glimpses and stories from Kharkiv (including places & people I know). Really interesting stories about people's experiences with war🇺🇦

Too real......

Amazing news from Latvia today. Latvia was elected to a non-permanent seat to the UN Security Council! I have always wanted Millikin to represent Latvia in Model UN (since I have studied the country for like 25 years) so now maybe that dream can come true too! 🇱🇻🇱🇻🇱🇻🇱🇻

A packed Moonlight Yoga at the Devon Amphitheater tonight. Though it was almost 90 degrees today in Decatur the wind off the lake was nice and refreshing....kind of sad I will miss the next two sessions due to my academic summer travels!

We were on Byer's and Co this morning talking about our work on the Joint Human Trafficking Working Group and Illinois Statewide Trauma-Informed Response to Human Trafficking Act that was passed by the Illinois Senate and House in May and is awaiting Gov. Pritzker's signature!

I don't study the executive but it would be interesting to compare the votes of no confidence under men and women MPs in Latvia since it is one of the few countries in the world that has had two women MPs. 🇱🇻

38.6% of the candidates on Latvian local election lists are women slightly more than 2021 with 38.7% but less than the highest 41.7% in 2009. Local government is a large feeder profession for the Saeima and so more women in local councils could transfer up to the national level🇱🇻

Latvieši, rīt balsojot neaizmirstiet + sievietiem! Es iepriekš rakstīju par to, kāpēc + ir svarīgs! 🇱🇻♀️ theloop.ecpr.eu/will-preferenc…

Coding arrest data for our adjudication article at the coffee shop today. I missed Saturday since we were having a garage sale. Trying to get in a few more hours of research before I leave for my summer travels! #AcWri #AcademicTravels

SB2323 in Illinois has passed the house and senate is just waiting for the governor's signature!

Today I received a pretty cool birthday gift from the Latvian parliament. Due to replacements from the local elections two new MPs were sworn in today bringing the total number of women to 34% the highest level of women's representation in Latvian history! Daudz laimes man! 🇱🇻♀️

In the Global Gender Gap Report 2025 #gendergap25 by World Economic Forum, Latvia 🇱🇻 has climbed 9 places and now ranks 21st out of 148 countries reviewed. This is a significant step forward in the area of gender equality! 🙌 Read further 👇