Check out UConn Today’s recent article highlighting the work of Associate Professor of Sociology Ruth Braunstein and her Meanings of Democracy Lab. Please also join us in congratulation Graduate Student Rianka Roy and Undergraduate Student Nicholas Xenophontos, who each received one of the five $100 prizes in the Democracy Lab’s “Meanings of ‘America’ Project.”  *Excerpt from Article* “The public is always thinking about it whether they know it or not,” she says. “Our assumptions about what it means to be American are embedded in so many of our conversations about public policy. Who deserves access to public institutions and resources, whether we should allow certain religious groups to display their religious symbols in public, do you need to be a taxpayer to be a good American? There are so many ways this plays out in the background of our policy debates.”