{"id":5601,"date":"2015-12-04T19:54:16","date_gmt":"2015-12-04T19:54:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/?p=5601"},"modified":"2018-05-16T19:57:03","modified_gmt":"2018-05-16T19:57:03","slug":"a-dark-side-to-a-boom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/2015\/12\/04\/a-dark-side-to-a-boom\/","title":{"rendered":"A dark side to a boom"},"content":{"rendered":"

As one of the first sociologists to study the effects of the most recent oil boom in North Dakota, Tim Pippert <\/strong>has been sought out by organizations looking to add context to their coverage of the changes occurring in the city of Williston and its surrounding communities. Pippert contributed to the Forum News Service\u2019s reporting series on human trafficking and female exploitation, and he appeared in the documentary \u201cBOOM,\u201d which depicted human and sex trafficking issues haunting communities.<\/p>\n

The film tells the story of a recent college graduate who moves to North Dakota to get a job in the oil fields as a trucker and who becomes aware of criminal activity present in his new surroundings. The nonprofit iEmpathize created the documentary to raise awareness about child exploitation and to help industries ranging from oil and gas to trucking and hospitality better train employees to recognize and respond to trafficking.<\/p>\n

The film was screened in November 2014 at North Dakota\u2019s first statewide summit on human trafficking, which Pippert attended as a featured panelist. He discussed his research in front of the U.S. attorney for North Dakota, the state\u2019s attorney general, local and federal law enforcement agencies, victims\u2019 advocates, social service providers, tribal officials, and others who\u2014he said\u2014came together to ask, \u201cHow big of a problem is this?\u201d and \u201cWhat are we going to do about it?\u201d<\/p>\n

For Pippert, seeing his scholarship have a life outside of an academic setting has been personally rewarding and publically valuable.<\/p>\n

Brad Riley, founder and president of iEmpathize, visited Augsburg College in March with Anthony Baldassari, the film\u2019s protagonist and an engagement ambassador for the organization\u2019s Boom Campaign, which assists communities across the United States. The two men joined Pippert in screening the film and leading an on-campus discussion on the issues it portrayed. Baldassari, Pippert, and Riley also served as presenters at the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize Forum, of which Augsburg College is a host sponsor.<\/p>\n

Pippert\u2019s role in the film helped to \u201cgive a real, authentic, and clear unpacking of what\u2019s happening, why it\u2019s happening, and where it\u2019s happening,\u201d Riley said.<\/p>\n

The film was designed to be a catalyst for conversation in communities where human trafficking already had a foothold or within groups that have an ability to help curtail the offense. In addition, \u201cBOOM\u201d is a teaching tool for the curricula iEmpathize distributes to law enforcement, schools, health care institutions, and other organizations located in areas that are at risk of encountering their own human trafficking issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we can predict where boom towns might be in the future, we can come in and help set up a little bit of infrastructure on the front end,\u201d Baldassari said, which helps to give people the opportunity to intervene in a safe and practical way.<\/p>\n

\n

Visit iEmpathize.org<\/a> to learn how this organization works to educate boom communities to recognize and respond to human trafficking issues.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As one of the first sociologists to study the effects of the most recent oil boom in North Dakota, Tim Pippert has been sought out by organizations looking to add context to their coverage of the changes occurring in the city of Williston and its surrounding communities. Pippert contributed to the Forum News Service\u2019s reporting series on human trafficking and female exploitation, and he appeared in the documentary \u201cBOOM,\u201d which depicted human and sex trafficking issues haunting communities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":5958,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[31,76],"class_list":["post-5601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-stories","tag-fall-2015","tag-sociology"],"wps_subtitle":"Scholarship in action","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5601"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8710,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5601\/revisions\/8710"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}