Jacob Farmer-Rylands
Academic and Professional Projects
As a communication studies and history major with concentrations in public relations and pre-law and a minor in political science, I have worked on a plethora of unique projects throughout my academic career. Professionally, I have also produced content as the assistant director of The Writing Center @ Longwood University and the social media intern for the Cormier Honors College for Citizen Scholars.
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I invite you to peruse my Projects page to learn more about my experiences and view my work.
Cormier Honors College Website Redevelopment
Starting in the fall semester of 2021, I served as social media intern for the Cormier Honors College of Longwood University (CHC). In addition to weekly posts, I dedicated much time to redeveloping the CHC’s official website to better market it to prospective students. This task involved constant contact between myself; Honors College faculty, staff, and scholars; and campus and community partners ranging from University Marketing, Communications & Engagement to Letterpress Communications, a Farmville marketing firm that manages digital media for the town of Farmville and Green Front Furniture. In September 2021, my 20-page document of revised copy was submitted to CHC Dean Chris Kukk for further revisions before its official submission to University Marketing, Communications & Engagement in November. The new website was published at the start of the fall 2022 semester.
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Cormier Honors College 2022 Leadership Retreat Alumni Newsletter
As part of my internship with the Cormier Honors College, I documented our annual First-Year Leadership Retreat for incoming scholars via social media. Following the retreat, I collaborated with fellow intern, Stormie Foley, to craft a newsletter for alumni who helped fund the retreat, gathering quotes from first-year scholars and their upperclassmen mentors thanking donors for their generous financial contributions. This project allowed me to refine my abilities to write concisely, work collaboratively, and adhere to specific layouts, colors, and font choices to promote the brand and organizational message of the Cormier Honors College.
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Case Brief: NFIB v. Sebelius (2012)
For this assignment in my Constitutional Law course, I briefed the 2012 Supreme Court case, National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius. My goals were to clearly and concisely summarize the most crucial facts of the case, identify the constitutional questions at its heart, and justify the Court's reasoning in deciding those questions, skills expected of all law students.
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Legal Argument: The Case for Overturning Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co. (1895)
This semester project for my Constitutional Law class involved researching the 1895 Supreme Court case, Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., and crafting a compelling legal argument for its hypothetical overturning by today's Supreme Court. I constructed the following research paper and a corresponding oral argument using Shepardized appellate and U.S. Supreme Court cases concerning the Sixteenth Amendment, a process which offered me a glimpse into the duties of an attorney as a prospective law student.
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Quantitative Reasoning Partner Project: A Statistical Analysis of President Biden's Approval Among College Students
For this quantitative reasoning project, my partner, Emily Robertson, and I chose to examine students’ survey responses via hypothesis tests including a two-proportion z test when posed the qualitative question, “Do you approve of the job Joe Biden is doing as president?” This collaborative project taught me to draw conclusions from data and justify my decision-making process for a general audience, skills crucial to successful academic and professional research.
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"I Speak of Wrongs": Seminar in American History Research Day Poster
During the second semester of my junior year, I participated in a Seminar on African-American Women's History, a research-intensive course focused on the historical roles of Black women in American society. As part of the course, I conducted a research project on Frances Harper and other Black activists who contributed significantly to the temperance movement but were excluded from its ideological successor, the Prohibition movement. Presenting my abstract, historiography, and conclusions to a crowd of Longwood University students, faculty, and staff at the Spring 2022 Student Showcase for Research and Creative Inquiry, I fielded questions for an hour about my topic from dozens of attendees. This experience allowed me to hone my skills as a public historian, researcher, and public presenter.
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