Campe Receives National Research Fellowship to Study Campus Safety

Maggie Campe, a doctoral candidate in the University of Kentucky Department of Sociology and research assistant in UK’s Center for Research on Violence Against Women (CRVAW) is the inaugural recipient of the Lindsey M. Bonistall Research Fellowship from PEACEOUTside Campus. The fellowship will provide $15,000 to Campe to conduct research related to on- and off-campus safety.

“I thought that the fellowship proposal call coalesced with my dissertation work really well, and that my dissertation research could really align with the mission of the PEACEOUTside Campus Foundation,” said Campe, who is studying campus sexual violence. “It has really given me the opportunity to (quicker than I might be able to otherwise) put my dissertation to work into something that directly affects policy or programming.”

PEACEOUTside Campus was created by the aunt and uncle of Emily Bonistall Postel, a postdoctoral fellow at UK who also studies violence against women. The new research fellowship is named in honor of her cousin, Lindsey, who was the victim of a violent crime that took her life in 2005 while studying at the University of Delaware. As a nonprofit organization dedicated to her memory, PEACEOUTside Campus aims to promote peaceful and safe living environments in college communities by empowering students and their families to be proactive in safeguarding themselves against crime. The national call for the Lindsey M. Bonistall Research Fellowship was a new way the foundation wanted to invest in research that would translate back into their programming.

Bonistall Postel recalls being very excited when she heard Campe would be the recipient.

“It’s very cool that Maggie’s research was chosen by the board, and she happens to be here at UK where I am too,” Bonistall Postel said. “Her research is such a good fit for what it is that the foundation has been doing, but also where the foundation wants to go, and what its next steps might be.”

Campe is using mixed-methods to explore the ways that risk and protective factors for college campus sexual assault affect marginalized populations, and how college students come to form opinions and beliefs about rape myths. Campe’s analysis will be used to inform existing PEACEOUTside Campus programming.

Originally from Minnesota, Campe received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Minnesota Duluth. She then spent five years working in the field of domestic violence and sexual assault in Minnesota and Oregon before relocating to the University of Kentucky to complete her doctorate.

Campe is slated to defend her dissertation next spring.