Project Approved. IRB?

As of approximately 3:25pm CST my project, "Glocalization in Buenos Aires: Cultural Effects on Advertising Practices" was officially approved by my faculty committee. Boom.

Who is my faculty committee you might ask? Great question. It's headed up by Dr. Margaret Duffy, chair of the Strategic Communication Department. Next up, we have Dr. Maria Len-Rios, who specializes in public relations and and cross-cultural communication. Rounding it out is Dr. Fritz Cropp, director of international programs for the School of Journalism.

My committee has been an indispensable asset as I have written my proposal, offering much appreciated guidance and suggestions. They will be in touch with me throughout my research via weekly updates. Once my final paper is completed, I will come back to MU to defend my paper in front of my committee, receive their approval and GRADUATE (in December).

Next Step: Approval from the IRB or Institutional Review Board. Research involving human subjects must have advance IRB approval before any research can begin. This was mandated by the US government to protect the rights, safety and well-being of research subjects. Basically, they need to make sure that I will not cause mental or emotional harm to the people I interview... no pressure. Receiving approval involves writing a detailed application with the approval of your committee. Hopefully I will have this done by the end of the week. It's a work in progress right now.

In other news, I took the Spanish placement test last week. This will help the program director know where we should begin in our intensive Spanish language boot-camp upon arrival. The test wasn't as bad as I was expecting- with the exception of a few compound past tenses I hadn't seen in a while. I haven't had a Spanish class since Spring 2008 when I was in Spain. It's been a while, but it's all comin' back. I was VERY glad I watched Evita last week because the entire test was about her life and political accomplishments. I need to watch it again because last week I had it on in the background as I was working on other homework- multi-tasking aka half-way paying attention.

Last night I downloaded a bunch of Spanish podcasts and walked around Stankowski field for about an hour. Sort of talking to myself- not really, it just helps me to repeat some words here and there. Good thing I'm too old to know too many people in this town- right?