Carol Archbold | Photo Courtesy
A criminal justice professor at NDSU, Carol Archbold, received the 2018 Outstanding Mentor Award. The award was presented by the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences and nominated by graduate students that Archbold has worked with and taught.
Archbold was honored and surprised when she received the award. She went on to thank graduate students for nominating her. “Thank you for nominating me, but also thank you for taking the time and having the self-motivation to pursue external research with me,” Archbold said while smiling. “I would just want to thank them for I guess picking me to work with too.”
When asked why she believes she received the award Archbold answered, “I think that maybe working with them just beyond the classroom and sort of getting them involved in these — activities that are research based, it helps teach them how to do research, but it also helps them build their resume or their curriculum — for when they go out on the market.”
Not only do graduate students take classes from Archbold, they also work on research projects together. The most recent one was in Western North Dakota, where she took a group of five students two separate times for several days to administer surveys about crime and personal safety.
“From that we did presentations at National Criminal Justice Conferences, which is good for them (graduate students) because when they go out on the job market after they graduate that helps them get jobs,” Archbold said.
They have also written three papers together, to which one was accepted for publication.
“I think that when you get out into the field and actually start doing the research based on what you learned in the classroom I think that’s the cool thing,” Archbold shared.
Carol Archbold received the Outstanding Mentor Award which left her in shock.
When speaking of her graduate students, Archbold was very thankful for them being really good students. “I just got lucky that they were as good as they are; it just makes it easy,” Archbold said.
Archbold has received multiple awards in her time at NDSU since 2005. The three she pointed out from her wall of awards were the Research/Creative Activity Award from her College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, the 2013 Chamber of Commerce (which is a distinguished faculty service award) and the Walter F. and Verna Gehrts Professorship.
“I have received awards here at the university, but to receive this one that’s more of a national thing, from a national group, that means a lot — especially because it’s one of the two national groups in Criminal Justice,” Archbold explained.
Archbold received a bachelor’s degree in sociology at the University of North Dakota, a master’s degree in sociology at the University of North Dakota and a Ph.D. in criminal justice at the University of Nebraska-Omaha.
Being nominated by the people she has mentored and taught, she was able to give insight on how to be a good professor to graduate students. “Patience and encouragement are really important. Supporting them, even just words of encouragement help,” Archbold said.
“If we didn’t have grad students, we wouldn’t be here and you know I’ve said it from day one that one of the things I like the most about my position at NDSU is being able to work with students,” Archbold clarified.