Faculty
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Claire Michèle Rice, Ph.D.Assistant Professor Phone: (954) 262-3046 |
Dr. Claire Michèle Rice is Assistant Professor of Conflict Analysis & Resolution and Community Relations at the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Nova Southeastern University. She received a Ph.D. at Florida International University (FIU) in Comparative Sociology with concentrations in race and ethnicity, sociolinguistics and cultural analysis. She also earned a Master of Arts degree in Linguistics and Bachelor of Arts degree in Spanish, with a minor in French at FIU. Rice's research and community organization activities have focused on conflict resolution training, poverty alleviation/economic empowerment, diversity training, and mentoring as viable tools for human resource development and collaborative problem-solving.
Over 13 years, Rice had served as a consultant in poverty alleviation, diversity training, and conflict management to businesses, civic organizations, and institutions of primary to higher education in the Caribbean and in the U.S. Some of her consulting career's highlights include her work with Margaret McDonald Policy Management & Administration Center in Nassau, Bahamas for a number of years in training and program development. She also enjoyed her work with FAVACA, the Florida Agency for Volunteer Action in the Caribbean and the Americas. Through FAVACA, she assisted the Women in Democracy organization in Haiti in developing community organizing programs and in enhancing their conflict resolution skills.
Dr. Rice has worked with various community service organizations and has spent years mentoring middle school, high school and university students. Dr. Rice's dissertation research was a case study of the implementation of a mentoring program for at-risk middle school children in Miami that incorporated training on cultural diversity appreciation, conflict management and resolution. She assisted the children in developing self-efficacy skills through various mentoring and tutoring activities. She later collaborated with researchers from NSU's Education Department on a grant-funded study, promoting self-efficacy in teen-aged mothers. To assist with the study, she developed a mentoring and training curriculum in which high school students were mentored by university students and professional mentors in order to achieve academic and professional development.
Dr. Rice assisted the Florida Education Fund (FEF) in developing a journal review process that incorporates a mentoring model for Ph.D. students. For her efforts, Dr. Rice was awarded the Dr. Israel Tribble Jr. Award for outstanding contributions to the FEF in 2002. She has also served as Vice-President of the McKnight Alumni Association. As a former Assistant Professor of Sociology at FMU, her work in mentoring students and assisting them in gaining practical experience through paid internships has resulted in at least 13 FMU students traveling to the Bahamas and participating in a community building conference, as part of an Ambassador Exchange program.
Dr. Rice has also authored, edited, co-authored several monographs, book chapters, articles, training manuals, and newsletters on diversity issues, conflict resolution, community organizing and inclusive community building. Rice has served on the Editorial Board of the Peace and Conflict Studies Journal and The FEF Journal of Interdisciplinary Research and has volunteered her services as newsletter editor to several non-profit, community-based organizations. Dr. Rice has facilitated over 5,000 hours of training for schools of primary to secondary education, institutions of higher learning, businesses, private and non-profit organizations. Dr. Rice was recognized by the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences for her work in assisting in the development of the student governing council for SHSS in 2003. She was also recognized as Humanitarian of the Year at Florida Memorial University (FMU) for her commitment to community service. In July 2006, she was recognized by the Margaret McDonald Policy Management & Administration Centre in their "Banquet of Honour Celebrations 2006" with an "Outstanding Service Award" for her work as an international consultant to MMPMAC and various organizations in the Bahamas.