PhD Student Yong-Chan Rhee Awarded Second Place in 2022 COMPA Best Paper Award Competition

PhD student Yong-Chan Rhee placed second in the 2022 Best Paper Award competition from the Conference of Minority Public Administrators (COMPA) for his sole-authored paper "Re-examining Leadership and Diversity: Will Leadership Decide the Effectiveness of Racial Representation in Police Killings?"

The overall goal of the paper is to re-examine the relationship between leadership and racial disparity in policing, with sub-goals that include determining whether a higher representation of minority officers contributes to reducing minority killings and whether the race of police chiefs is associated with reducing minority killings. While the race of the police chief is not a significant predictor of victim race, the study finds evidence that the effectiveness of racial representative is conditional on leadership support. The findings suggest that police chiefs need to lead institutional changes in police organizations in order to improve policy outcomes.

Rhee's research interests include arts policy and management, policing (including minority issues), public policy, public administration, leadership, human resource management, education, COVID-19, citizen cooperation, and public relations. While a PhD student, he has worked extensively with Dean Charles Menifield on analyzing policing issues and police killings.

"I would like to give a special thanks to Dean Menifield," said Rhee. "This paper would not have been possible without his support."