Volume 10, Issue 10 Summer 2019 sociology.ku.edu History of the Department of Sociology at The University of Kansas “Sociology at the University of Kansas began on Monday, February 3, 1890, at 5 p.m., when Frank Wilson Blackmar initiated a handful of students to “Elements of Sociology,” a course which bears the same title today and which enrolls hundreds each semester. Blackmar was “Professor of History and Sociology,” heading a department of “History and Sociology,” arguably the first in the nation, and therefore the world, to be so named (Sica, 1980). Around 1915, when Albion Small solicited letters from colleagues for his analysis of the discipline’s “first fifty years,” Blackmar responded at length, including this remark: “So far as my knowledge goes, this was the first time that the word ‘sociology’ was used in connection with the name of a university department in the United States” (Small, 1949:202). Small replied, “Professor Blackmar seems to be correct on this point. No evidence of priority in this respect of the University of Kansas is known to the writer of this paper” (Small, 1949). Although some have since claimed that the University of Chicago began the American academic tradition in sociology (e.g., Faris, 1970:11; Lewis and Smith, 1980:xii), this is factually untrue. It does nothing to diminish the stature of the Chicago department to recognize that Blackmar anticipated, not imitated, their venture, and that sociology was already blooming at other Midwestern schools before Small initiated his great experiment.” -Former faculty member, Dr. Alan Sica in his article, “Sociology at the University of Kansas, 1889-1983: An Historical Sketch,” The Sociological Quarterly, Vol. 24, No. 4 (Autumn, 1983), pp. 605-623. Department of Sociology Newsletter
Transcript
Volume 10, Issue 10 Summer 2019
sociology.ku.edu
History of the Department of Sociology at The University of Kansas
“Sociology at the University of Kansas began on Monday, February 3, 1890, at 5 p.m., when Frank Wilson Blackmar initiated a handful of students to “Elements of Sociology,” a course which bears the same title today and which enrolls hundreds each semester. Blackmar was “Professor of History and Sociology,” heading a department of “History and Sociology,” arguably the first in the nation, and therefore the world, to be so named (Sica, 1980). Around 1915, when Albion Small solicited letters from colleagues for his analysis of the discipline’s “first fifty years,” Blackmar responded at length, including this remark: “So far as my knowledge goes, this was the first time that the word ‘sociology’ was used in connection with the name of a university department in the United States” (Small, 1949:202). Small replied, “Professor Blackmar seems to be correct on this point. No evidence of priority in this respect of the University of Kansas is known to the writer of this paper” (Small, 1949). Although some have since claimed that the University of Chicago began the American academic tradition in sociology (e.g., Faris, 1970:11; Lewis and Smith, 1980:xii), this is factually untrue. It does nothing to diminish the stature of the Chicago department to recognize that Blackmar anticipated, not imitated, their venture, and that sociology was already blooming at other Midwestern schools before Small initiated his great experiment.” -Former faculty member, Dr. Alan Sica in his article, “Sociology at the University of Kansas, 1889-1983: An Historical Sketch,” The Sociological Quarterly, Vol. 24, No. 4 (Autumn, 1983), pp. 605-623.
Department of Sociology Newsletter
Message from the ChairGreetings from Fraser Hall! Please join me in congratulating our colleagues, Kelly Chong and Brian Donovan, who have been promoted to the rank of Professor. Both Kelly and Brian joined us right out of graduate school and have made tremendous contributions to our department and the university. A richly deserved honor for you both! We have and continue to benefit enormously from the generosity of supporters of our department who have gifted funds to us. The latest contribution has been the creation of the Mary J. Geis Opportunity Fund in support of joint graduate student and faculty research projects. Dr. Geis took her Ph.D. from the sociology department in the 1980s after being a nurse since college. She had a long career teaching public health and public policy at Governors State University on the south side of Chicago. Dr. Geis passed away in October of 2018. Given this and other generous gifts, the department now has a substantial endowment. Each year will recognize four of our colleagues with $10,000 stipends and the titles of E. Jackson Baur and the Paul Roofe and Helen Waddle Roofe Professorships. And we will distribute nearly $60,000 in scholarships and awards to graduate students. We are grateful to all those who have contributed to the proud tradition of KU sociology. I want to take this opportunity to once again thank my colleagues for their support and cooperative spirit over this my last year as Department Chair. Congratulations to Kelly Chong who officially took the helm on July 1 and to Brian Donovan who will serve as Associate Chair. We are grateful to you both for taking on these important roles. And, as always, thanks to our terrific staff, Office Manager Beth Hoffman, Administrative Assistant Melissa Wittner, Graduate Academic Advisor Corinne Butler, Undergraduate Academic Advisor Claire Ruhlman, Edith Bond of KUIT, and our fine student assistants. To all of you, we appreciate the great work you do supporting our mission.
Best wishes,
Bill Staples
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Faculty Updates
Bill Staples continues to serve as Director of the Surveillance Studies Research Center, which is supported by IPSR. His article, “'Humane' Immigration Enforcement and Latina Immigrants in the Detention Complex,” with (now former) graduate student Andrea Gómez Cervantes and Cecilia Menjívar was given the 2017 Feminist Criminology Best Article Award from the American Society of Criminology. He published, with Graduate Student Darcy Sullivan, “Electronically Monitored Home Confinement,” in the Oxford Bibliographies in Criminology, the entry, “Surveillance” with graduate student Alex Myers in the edited volume, Legislating Morality in America, and a book review with graduate student Dean Ohmsford of, The Culture of Surveillance by David Lyon for Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books. Bill spent the month of May 2019 as a Fulbright Specialist and Visiting Professor at the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society in the Netherlands.
Kelly H. Chong has been promoted to full professor in 2019. She is also honored to begin her tenure as the new Chairperson of the sociology department in the summer of 2019. She would like to extend her gratitude for everyone’s support. Having recently completed the manuscript for her new book Across Borders: Asian Americans and the Politics of Intermarriage and Family-Making with Routledge, she will begin co-editing a collected volume that compares Asian-American and Latinx intermarriage with Jessica Vasquez-Tokos of the University of Oregon. Kelly also has several articles in press and in progress, including “‘New Traditional Man’: The Construction and Definitions of Asian-American Masculinity” (under review), and “Theorizing Women’s Consent: Familism, Motherhood, and Middle-Class Feminine Subjectivity in Contemporary South Korea,” forthcoming in the volume Psychology of Patriarchy published by the School for American Research. Kelly has also completed a documentary film (as co-producer and creative consultant) AB, a film about the Expressionist painter and poet Albert Bloch. She has served the University at large in various capacities and continues her tenure as a Council Member At-Large for the American Sociological Association, as well as a Council Member for the Asian/Asian-American section of the ASA, both three-year positions starting in 2018.
Brian Donovan’s third book American Gold Digger: Marriage, Money, and Law from the Ziegfeld Follies to Anna Nicole Smith is under contract with the University of North Carolina Press, with a publication date expected sometime in 2020. Along with presenting his work at the Midwest Sociological
Society and Social Science History Association conferences, he co-organized an April conference on human trafficking with a few colleagues in WGSS. In June, Brian was thrilled to deliver the keynote address (titled “White Slavery and Racial Formation”) at a conference about the transnational history of sex trafficking, sponsored by the University of Warwick. This year he was promoted to Full Professor and has assumed the role of Associate Chair.
Bob Antonio has several pieces in-press - • “Reactionary Tribalism Redux: Rightwing Populism
and De-democratization” The Sociological Quarterly (with Alessandro Bonanno)
• “Nietzsche after Charlottesville” Current Perspectives in Social Theory
• “What is the Future of Bourgeois Liberalism?” in Lawrence Scaff, Edith Hanke, and Sam Whimser (eds.), Handbook on Max Weber Oxford University Press
• “From Fordism to Brexit & Trump?” in George Ritzer and Wendy Wiedenhoft Murphy (eds.) Blackwell Companion to Sociology with Alessandro Bonanno.
Bob did three presentations on Trump and right wing populism at the Midwest Sociological Society and at the American Sociological Association, where he enjoyed visiting with many former KU students. A high point of Bob’s spring was his visit to former KU graduate students and good friends KuoRay Mao and Mike Lacy, who hosted him generously at Colorado State University where he lectured to AKD Sociology honors undergraduates and faculty.
David Ekerdt served as 2018 President of the Gerontological Society of America. He led GSA’s annual meeting in Boston, its largest ever, attended by 4,300 researchers from the U.S. and abroad. His meeting theme, ”The Purposes of Longer Lives,” invited presentations on longevity as a private good, a social good, and springboard to new knowledge. He published two papers with sets of international authors, one on the future agenda for research on retirement, and one on the challenges of cross-cultural qualitative research. Helping to prod a “material turn” in aging studies, a new book chapter took up the material basis of the life course, something typically charted by such intangibles as roles, relationships, and health. His monograph, Downsizing the Material Convoy in Later Life, about older adults’ possession management during residential relocations, will be published by Columbia University Press in early 2020. In ongoing research, Dave and Sociology grad student Erin Adamson, completed a new round of interviews for the project, “Aging as Future,” a multi-method, multi-disciplinary study of older adults’ preparation for the future (support from the Volkswagen Foundation) that involves investigators and samples in the Czech Republic, Germany, Hong
Kong, Taiwan, and the U.S. Erin and Dave joined a spring project meeting in Prague to map out future publications.
Eric Hanley has been continuing his research on voting behavior and party polarization in the United States. His recent research includes “The Anger Games: Who Voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 Election, and Why?” (Critical Sociology, 2018) and a forthcoming chapter entitled “Hatred in the Heartland? Support for Donald Trump in the American Midwest,” both in collaboration with David Smith. He is currently working on essays further examining the role of racial resentment and anti-immigration attitudes on presidential vote choice in the 2012 and 2016 elections for Social Science Quarterly and Social Science Research and presented papers on these topics at a number of conferences, including the annual meetings of the Midwest Sociological Society and the Pacific Sociological Association.
Shirley Hill enjoyed teaching a graduate seminar for Health Policy and Management students and online family classes in Sociology during the past school year. She and her husband recently returned from a Mediterranean cruise where they visited several cities in Spain, France, and Italy. Shirley is also delving into her family history project.
Tracey LaPierre was a 2018-2019 Senior Administrative Fellow and learned more about the administrative workings of KU. In addition to continuing her role as Director of Undergraduate Studies, she was chair of the Policy and Awards subcommittee of CUSA (the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Committee on Undergraduate Studies and Advising), and served as a mentor for the Kansas Women’s Leadership Initiative and the Beta Chapter of Alpha Kappa Delta - the International Sociology Honors Society. She also developed a new course on the Sociology of Mental Illness that was offered online for the first time last year. Applied Health Services Research is a large component of Dr. LaPierre’s current research agenda. Tracey completed a study with Jean Hall and Noelle Kurth investigating the experiences of Kansans with severe mental illness who receive Medicaid services, continues to work on a state contract to revise all the Medicaid eligibility assessments in the State of Kansas, and is starting a new project evaluating an Opioid Overdose Intervention being implemented in select Hospital Emergency Rooms in Kansas City, MO.
Kevin McCannon began his new role as Lecturer and Academic Program Associate at the KU Edwards campus. He enjoys the challenges of working with non-traditional students and with teaching a wide variety of upper-division undergraduate courses. Kevin
actively serves the Edwards campus by participating in the Undergraduate Academic Leadership Council, a group of program directors and administrators. It is a learning community that provides opportunities to engage in discussions of organizational leadership issues, reflect on his own leadership style, and develop relationships with fellow Edwards Campus leaders. He participated in the inaugural "CareerUp" event for Edwards undergraduate and graduate students, which provided the 200 students who attended opportunities to build important career-oriented skills. He represented KU Sociology at the Kansas Core Outcomes Group Conference to determine common learning goals for two course areas, marriage and family and social problems. With core competencies common to all institutions, students can easily transfer course credit between any of the Kansas universities and community colleges. Kevin organized a panel discussion on “Challenging Trump and Trumpism: Charting a Way Forward” at the 2019 Midwest Sociological Society meeting in Chicago. It was very well-attended and offered important insights on moving forward in light of the many challenges of illiberal democracy, neoliberalism, authoritarianism, and party organization and politics. Lastly, along with Dr. LaPierre, Kevin participated in the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)-sponsored Health, Languages, and Humanities in the World curriculum development workshop at the Hall Center. The purpose is to develop a multidisciplinary certificate program that will provide students the knowledge and skills needed to succeed in the fields of global health and medicine.
Lewis A. Mennerick has continued to participate actively in the profession. This includes fieldwork in Azerbaijan during summer 2019 focusing on elements of social change and also consultations with colleagues at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy (ADA University), Khazar University, and Azerbaijan University of Languages.
Mehrangiz Najafizadeh has been continuing her research and teaching on global gender issues and continues to be active in various aspects of KU’s area studies programs including the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, the Center for Global and International Studies, and the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies. Most recently, Mehrangiz is the lead co-editor of a comprehensive anthology, Women of Asia: Globalization, Development, and Gender Equity, published by Routledge (New York and London, 2019). Coedited with Linda L. Lindsey (Washington University in St. Louis), Women of Asia includes thirty-two original chapters, by forty international scholars from over twenty countries, reflecting cutting edge content throughout developed and developing Asia. The anthology contributes significantly to understanding globalization’s transformative process and the
resulting detrimental and beneficial consequences for women in the four major geographic regions of Asia—East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Eurasia/Central Asia—as it gives “voice” to women and provides innovative ways of bringing salient understudied issues to the forefront. During the academic year, Mehrangiz also presented a paper, “Azeri Women, War, and Forced Displacement: Constructing Hope in the Midst of Hopelessness,” at the 57th Annual Meeting of the Central Slavic Conference and “The Critical Role of Printed Media in Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Azerbaijan: Giving Visibility to Gender Issues and Re-Constructing Gender Roles” at the 2019 Midwest Sociological Society Meetings. She continues as a member of the Azerbaijan Steering Committee of the Research Institute of the South Caucasus. Her on-going research activities include both research on contemporary issues pertaining to Azerbaijanis who were displaced from their homelands during the Nagorno-Karabakh War and social historical archival research on gender and social change in early twentieth century Azerbaijan. The latter research is part of her University of Kansas GRF Grant, and these research activities in Azerbaijan this summer coincided with the anniversary of the founding of the first Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in 1918.
Ebenezer Obadare’s Pentecostal Republic: Religion and the Struggle for State Power in Nigeria (London: Zed Books) was released in October 2018. Distributed in North America by the University of Chicago Press, Pentecostal Republic is the first installment of an envisaged trilogy on the dynamic interaction of faith and politics in contemporary Nigeria. He is currently working on the successor volume, tentatively titled, ‘My Pastor Says’: Authority, Politics and Sexuality in Nigeria. Ebenezer also guest-edited (with Adriaan
van Klinken of University of Leeds, United Kingdom) a special issue of Citizenship Studies on “Christianity, Sexuality and Citizenship in Africa”. The special issue was later published as a book by Routledge. Ebenezer also published peer-reviewed articles in Current History and African Affairs,and presented papers at conferences within and outside the country.
Jarron Saint Onge continues to study the social determinants of health with several ongoing projects examining grouped health behaviors; physical activity patterns and education; rural health disparities; social capital in community health workers; and neighborhood impacts on health. He spent the Spring semester on sabbatical starting some new data projects. He recently won the 2019 Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) Health Surveys Research Award for his co-authored paper (with J.T. Denney and Jeff Dennis), “Neighborhood Concentrated Disadvantage and Adult Mortality: Insights for Racial and Ethnic Differences” that was published in Population Research and Policy Review. The paper examined how poor neighborhoods have different effects on mortality depending on race/ethnicity. Jarron was also recently awarded the Journal of Health and Social Behavior Reviewer Excellence Award. He also won the 2019 Teaching Award from the Jayhawk Healthcare Administrators Working for Kansas student association at KUMC.
David N. Smith published “Authoritarianism Reimagined” in The Sociological Quarterly in April 2019 and “George Orwell’s Message in a Bottle” in Counterpunch in January 2019. His pending, invited publications include chapters on Erich Fromm and Hilde Weiss in Erich Fromm’s Critical Theory (2019, forthcoming); on Henry Victor Dicks and World War 2 psychiatry in How to Critique Authoritarian Populism (2020, forthcoming); and, with Professor Eric Hanley, on the geography of the 2016 vote in Political Landscapes in the Age of Donald Trump (2020, forthcoming). Smith also contributed an entry on “Barter (Natural Economy)” to the Historische-Kritische Wörterbuch des Marxismus (2019, forthcoming).Professor Smith’s lectures this year included papers presented at the University of Pisa and, with Eric Hanley, at the annual meetings of the American Sociological Association, Pacific Sociological Association, Midwest Political Science Association, and Midwest Sociological Society. Smith and Hanley also spoke at meetings sponsored by the KU Psychology and Geography departments.
Professor Najafizadeh at the museum of Azim Azimzade, an early 20th century artist and social and political
satirical caricaturist in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Best Wishes to our Recent Graduates!
Andrea Gómez Cervantes is happy to share she successfully defended her dissertation “Inflexible Illegality: Immigration and Integration Processes of Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Latina/o Immigrants in the Midwest” (co-chairs ChangHwan Kim and Cecilia Menjívar) and passed with honors. Andrea will be starting the University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of Chicana & Chicano Studies at UCLA working with Leisy Abrego in the Fall, and then move to a tenure-track Assistant Professor position in the Department of Sociology at Wake Forest University.
Lukas Szrot’s dissertation research examined the historical relationship between religious identity and environmental concern in the United States. He drew upon statistical data from the General Social Survey, supplemented by historical and theoretical work. Lukas found that increases in environmental concern have occurred across most groups, with younger members of various Christian groups holding notably higher levels of environmental concern than their parents or grandparents. However, these trends were increasingly affected by political and cultural polarization in recent years. His work suggests that both religious understandings of nature, and the role of religious communities in strengthening social ties and democratic norms, play an important but under-examined role in the American cultural landscape. Two articles based on this research have been accepted for publication, two others are under review, and three others are expected to be completed and submitted in the coming academic year. Lukas is also currently writing a book based on this research, which “zooms out” to connect religious change to environmental change via democratic theory and collective perceptions of risk. Lukas will remember his experience in the KU sociology department for the rest of is life. He made many new friends and colleagues in the department, was able to succeed due in part to a friendly and helpful department staff, and received invaluable guidance and encouragement from the
department faculty from the day Lukas set foot on campus until the day he accepted his first academic job—an Assistant Professorship at Bemidji State University. Lukas says, “I am truly grateful. It has been an honor to work, and study sociology, at the University of Kansas.”
Undergraduate Program
The Sociology Department continues to support a dedicated and diverse group of undergraduate majors and minors. Tracey LaPierre is the current Director of Undergraduate Studies. Other faculty members on the committee for 2016-2017 were Paul Stock, Lisa-Marie Wright, Jarron Saint-Onge (Fall semester) and Brian Donovan (Spring semester). John Kaiser was the graduate student representative and Claire Ruhlman is our new Undergraduate Academic Advisor.
Our annual undergraduate recognition and awards ceremony was well attended. It is wonderful to meet the families and celebrate the accomplishments of our students.
Candidates for Graduation with DistinctionCharles Jetty
Candidates for Graduation with Highest DistinctionMichaela KrauseShih-Yen Pan
Distinguished Achievement AwardShih-Yen Pan
Honors in the Major• Cassaundra Pino – “Fighting for the Land” (Faculty
Mentor: Bob Antonio)• Preetkamal K. Punia – “Analyzing Factors Affected
Pre-Health Students Cultural Competency” (Faculty Mentor: Tracey LaPierre)
Alpha Kappa Delta – The International Sociology Honor Society
The number of AKD students at KU grew this past year with the induction of 3 new graduate student members in the fall and 7 new undergraduate students in the spring. In addition, four graduate student AKD members received travel scholarships of $300 each to attend MSS this year in Chicago and present their work. Congratulations Kafayat Mahmoud, Brenden Oliver, Darcy Sullivan, and Derek Wilson!
Spring Initiates (Undergraduate)• Kayla Buckley• Bailey Coolidge• Alanna K. Daniels• Selena Fierro• Alissa Gilmer• Allison Rule• Abigail Wenninger
Erin Adamson focused on applying for outside grants to support her fieldwork and defended her dissertation proposal and advanced to doctoral candidacy during the 2018-19 year. She was awarded an NSF Dissertation Improvement Grant and an Oppenheimer scholarship from the Center for Caribbean and Latin American Studies to support six months of fieldwork in Costa Rica and data analysis upon her return to KU in January 2020. Erin leaves for the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica in July to begin conducting research based on participant observation and interviews.
Matt Comi has been continuing his research with agricultural and environmental social problems in the US during the 2018/19 year. Findings from his research with sales agronomists in Kansas and Missouri were published in 2019 in Sociologia Ruralis (https://doi.org/10.1111/soru.12227) and are currently under review at Journal of Rural Studies. This May he began data collection for his dissertation project which comparatively studies hop farmers in the US (hops are a small flower grown on a vine, which are ubiquitously used in beer production). He conducted in-depth, on-site visits with fifteen farmers on twelve farms in Washington State. These visits included tours of the farm, during which time Matt collected field-notes and took photos, and in-depth, semi-structured interviews. During this year Matt has also been working on Bill Staple’s NSF SATC project “Digital Inequality in the Heartland” which ethnographically studies Lawrence and Kansas City residents who use library public computers as their primary method for accessing the internet and performing computing activities like word-processing. They presented this research at MSS and are drafting articles from their findings while preparing a new grant proposal for consideration at the NSF.
Adrianne Showalter Matlock is presenting a paper based on her dissertation research at ASA this August. The paper is titled, “The Shifting Density of the American Dream: How City Plans Justify Residential Density Decisions.” She and Jake Lipsman co-authored their first peer-reviewed article this year, published in the Journal of Environmental Planning and Management. In April, Adrianne began her (first ever paid, legit) part-time consulting gig as a Research and Policy Specialist for the KCK Health Department’s Safe & Affordable Housing Action Team. As for the other irons in the fire...this year has included tenant organizing in Wyandotte County, hosting quarterly gatherings for Nazarene clergy who are exploring social justice in their ministry contexts, supporting a family member through a mental health crisis, riding her ‘new’ bicycle all over town, and creating some visual art (@scorchedfeet on Instagram).
Graduate Student UpdatesElyse Neumann is working on her first Area of Specialization Dossier in the Sociology of Gender this summer. She will also be writing her Critical Review Essay in the same area. She and Brian Donovan have a paper in the revise and resubmit stage that they will be editing over the course of the summer. Elyse also plans to submit her thesis for publication as she continues to research the Fat Admirer community and recruit interview participants for her dissertation.
Joelle Spotswood completed a study in spring 2019 on how family background and other forces affect the dropout rates of first-time, full-time freshman students (cohorts 2007-2014) at a Midwestern teaching university. Even when controlling for a rich set of family, county/neighborhood, and high school data, she found that having at least one parent with a BA is the most significant family factor in predicting a student’s college success though parental income does not. This, however, is not the case across ethnicities. Continuing generation Hispanic students (students who have at least one parent who has graduated from college) are less likely to graduate than their first-generation peers. Additionally, Joelle found that the forces that affect student dropout change by timing. For example, the percentage of males and females in the student’s home county matter in terms of persistence/attrition for cohort members during years 1 and 2, but not at all after. Home county unemployment matters for students during years 3 and 4, but not before or after. Joelle’s next project involves comparing the trajectories of freshman (cohorts 2010-2015) from all major KBOR universities through Spring, 2019. Specifically, she is comparing the graduation/attrition pathways of transfer vs. first-time entry students, looking especially at transfer credit (courses, GPA, number of credits), student majors, parental income, and parental education to examine the possible differences in educational mobility between the two groups by university type (RI vs. low-selectivity, for example).
Darcy Sullivan defended her Master’s thesis, “Pregnancy, Abortion, and Motherhood: Does Disability Matter?” on April 26. She plans to edit her thesis and send it out for publication by the end of the summer. Darcy was awarded the Helen Waddle Roofe Research Scholarship, which will fund her to continue pursuing this line of research. For the summer and fall semesters, Darcy will continue her work as a research assistant at the Center for Research on Aging and Disability Options (CRADO). Darcy works with CRADO on a state-funded Medicaid project to develop a Medicaid Functional Eligibility Instrument, which will be used to determine eligibility and support needs for Medicaid Long-Term Services and Supports.
Derek Wilson is currently piecing together elements of his dissertation topic this summer as well as building a Men & Masculinities course. Derek is hoping to research the impacts of modern/futuristic technology on the involvement of older adults in society and ways in which said technology can prevent isolation for older adults living on their own or in assisted living communities. He has reviewed many articles from an organization known as the CREATE organization, which aims to assist in the development of technology for older adults. Currently, Derek is trying to find ways to incorporate gender into the project in order to make full use of his areas of specialization for his dissertation. On the other side of this summer, Derek is currently building his Men & Masculinities course to hopefully teach following the completion of his first ASD (Gender & Sexuality). Derek is modeling much of the course off of the great Dr. Ron Matson’s Men & Masculinities course from Wichita State University where he completed his Master’s degree in sociology. However, Derek does plan to incorporate more elements of digital media and modern examples ranging from the #MeToo movement to the New Masculinity Movement.
“Sociology… because we investigate the institutions and social processes that shape
human behavior, histories, and opportunities.”
Sociology is the study of social life, social change, and the social causes and consequences of human behavior. Since all human behavior is social, few fields have such broad scope and relevance for research, theory, and the application of knowledge.
Rainbow above Fraser Hall, courtesy Andy White/KU Marketing Communications, June 6, 2019
Congratulations to 2007
KU Sociology Alumnus
Gary Woodland!Gary Woodland graduated from KU with a degree in Sociology in 2007. He has gone on to win his first U.S. Open at Pebble Beach in June 2019.
The first thing he learned about golf was “swing hard.”
“I love Kansas and I bleed red and blue,” Woodland said. “It’s been a huge part of my life and I’m friends with a lot of good people over there. It’s really special and I love coming back to athletic events and seeing those people.”- KU Athletics, July 3, 2019
DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY 2019 NEWSLET TER
KU is an EO/AA institution.
Photo Courtesy AP
Alumni Updates
Ben Coates (MA 1972) retired from the Washburn University sociology department after 40 plus years full-time and part-time teaching. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by Washburn in 2017. Ben spent much of his career working in Criminolgy and conducted two national institutes of justice studies: 1) the relationship of staffing ratios to violence in maximum security prisons study was conducted in seven prisons in six states and one federal site 2) worked with nine criminal courts across the nation to develop a model presentence report that stream lined existing processes and provided trading on the results in several national meetings. He developed the sentencing guidelines currently used in Kansas criminal courts. He still remembers his days at the Department with great fondness.
Lucie Costanza (BA 2013) remains a resident of Lawrence, KS and just completed her first year of teaching 1st grade for Topeka Public Schools. She is very excited about transitioning to teach 5th grade at Schwegler Elementary in Lawrence next year! She attributes her passion for education in part to the Sociology of Education courses she completed at KU.
Jim Crone was in the sociology graduate program in the 1970's and finished the Ph.D. in May 1982. He was a sociology professor at Hanover College (in southeastern Indiana) from 1981 to 2014. At a small liberal arts college, (with around 1,100 students), you teach a number of different courses. Jim taught: 1) intro, 2) social problems, 3) stratification, 4) theory, 5) sport, 6) globalization, and 7) senior seminar to sociology majors (usually around 10 to 15 seniors). He also wrote papers and published a couple of books -probably the more well-known book that was used in social problems classes was: How Can We Solve Our Social Problems?. Jim retired but still does some teaching from time to time. He won for outstanding teaching at Hanover College (Baynhem Award). He married a lady from Russia. That did not work out but he had a wonderful son, Alex, as a result. Politically speaking, he was on the town council in the small town of Hanover and then was on the county council of Jefferson County, was chair of the Jefferson County Democratic Party, and ran for the U.S. Congress in a predominantly Republican district and lost. When Jim was at KU, a number of graduate students in sociology and some younger professors (at the time) such as Bob Antonio, Stan Eitzen, George Ritzer, and Norm Yetman played basketball a couple of times a week at a KU outside court. Some of the grad students were: Bob Rucker, Mike Lacy, David Dickens, and John Harms. Jim still works out on a basketball court five days a week at a fitness center where he has a routine of shooting baskets in different positions and also as a way of getting his cardio. Some of the other grad students at the time that he was at KU (that he can
remember) were Gary Schemn, Lourdes Gouveia, and Dick Johnson. Jim would enjoy hearing from others and how their lives are going, etc.
Amanda Enneking graduated from the department in 2011. Currently, she is doing that #vanlife thing, haha! She and her partner travel full time in their truck camper and she works remotely for System.ly, an automation company based outside of Denver, CO. So she pretty much works everyday in her yoga pants and completely builds her own hours... the power of the internet is an amazing thing! It's actually a pretty awesome lifestyle, despite the challenges of non-stop moving around. Amanda also likes to think her degree in Sociology gave her a more inquisitive approach to the Status Quo and whether or not she really wanted that white-picket-fence lifestyle. Full disclosure: after 16 months traveling full time, she'd love her own yard, but for right now their dogs prefer National Forests, and who can blame them? They spent this winter living at 9,000 feet in the town of Crested Butte, CO. The Elk Mountains are incredible, if you ever get the chance to visit, DO IT! Now they're spending the summer in Bend, OR where they get to enjoy all the incredible outdoor activities (rafting, rock climbing, paddleboarding, even surfing!) that Oregon has to offer.
David Garfield is a 1988 KU graduate in sociology and honors in American Studies. Mr. Garfield is a member of Alpha Kappa Delta Sociology Honorary Society. He’s been a freelance writer for the last 24 years, including covering KU sports for 20 years (he stopped last year) and has written over 20 magazine cover stories. David had some excellent sociology professors at KU, namely his advisor Norm Yetman. His sociology of sport class in 1987 changed David’s life. Dr. Yetman told him his 10-page paper comparing a Little League baseball game to a KU basketball game was the best paper he had ever received in teaching that class and one of the three best in his long teaching career. His other class Racial and Ethnic Relations also was very instrumental to David. He still has a great passion for studying race and sports issues and loves reading about this.
David Garfield and his parents.
Kevin Fox Gotham is Associate Dean of Graduate Programs, Grants, and Research in the School of Liberal Arts (SLA) at Tulane University in New Orleans, LA. He has held this position since 2015. His research interests include forensic criminology, real estate and housing policy, political economy of tourism, and the contradictions and conflictual dynamics of climate change risk reduction measures. In the last year, he has published the following works:Book: • Practicing Forensic Criminology (co-authored with
Daniel B. Kennedy). Elsevier, Academic Press.Articles and Book Chapters: • “Assessing and Advancing Research on Tourism
Gentrification.” Invited peer-reviewed essay. Via Tourism Review. September 2018. DOI: 10.4000/viatourism.2169; ISSN: 2259-924X. Translated into French and Italian.
• “Hazard Experience, Geophysical Vulnerability, and Flood Risk Perceptions in a Post-Disaster City, the Case of New Orleans.” Co-authored with Richard Campanella, Bradford Powers, and Katie Lauve-Moon. Risk Analysis: An International Journal. 38 (2): 345-356. February 2018
• “Revitalizing the Damaged Brand: Place (Re)Branding in Post-Katrina New Orleans.” Co-authored with Cate Irvin.
• “Inclusive Place Branding: Critical Perspectives in Theory and Practice”. Edited by Mihalis Kavaratzis, Massimo Giovanardi, Maria Lichrou. Routledge Studies in Critical Marketing. November 2018.
• “Circulating Risks: Coastal Cities and the Specter of Climate Change Risk.” Co-authored with Clare Cannon. Invited Submission. Pp. 393-403 in Routledge Handbook on Spaces of Urban Politics. Edited by Andy Jonas. Routledge. 2018.
• “Katrina is Coming to Your City: Storm and Flood Defense Infrastructures in Risk Society.” Pp. 161-83 in Disaster and Risk in the Gulf South: Two Centuries of Catastrophe, Risk, and Resilience. Edited by Cindy Ermus. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, January 2018.
• “Post-Disaster Recovery and Rebuilding.” Co-authored with Wes Cheek. Pp. 279-287 in The Sage Handbook of the 21st Century City. Edited by Suzanne Hall and Ricky Burdett. Sage Publications. 2018.
• “Tourism and Culture.” Routledge Handbook of Cultural Sociology. Edited by John Hall, Ming-Cheng Lo, and Laura Grindstaff. London: Routledge. 2010 (first edition), 2018 (second edition).
Herb Haines (Ph.D. 1983) has been elected to serve a third term as Department Chair at SUNY – Cortland.
Rebecca Hans can share that she was admitted to a clinical psychology doctorate program at Adler University in Chicago! Ms. Hans will be starting in the fall and her emphasis will be in military psychology.
Melissa Irwin continues to interview participants for her dissertation and plans to have that research phase completed by next fall. In the meantime, she has given some talks: 1) Aug. 2018 - hosted a talk at Noir Arts & Oddities in KCMO: Facebook Memorials-Bonds Beyond the Grave. Noir Arts & Oddities welcomed Melissa, sociologist and member of the Order of the Good Death, who discussed her research on continuing bonds between the living and the dead on Facebook memorial pages and how these online interactions can help us better understand the experience of grief in the 21st century.2) Death Colloquy: A Conversation. Lawrence, KS Public Library. TBA, summer 2019. She will discuss her ongoing work with Facebook memorials and the death positive movement. In January, Melissa was nominated for the KU Student Employee of the Year (SEOTY) Recognition Award in 2018 for her role as an hourly GTA in EVRN/GEOG - she is moving into her 5th year in that support position. The award is established to recognize a student employee who embodies service excellence and dedication and whose academic achievements remain stellar. Nicole Lawson graduated from the department in May 2016. Since that time, she has gone to law school at KU and has been a practicing attorney. Currently, she is a Deputy Prosecuting Attorney with the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office in Seattle, WA.
Hannah Love graduated with her Ph.D. in sociology from Colorado State University this spring (she is technically a summer graduate, but she walked this spring and has defended). The title of her dissertation was: The Social Process of Knowledge Creation in Science.
Hannah Love celebrating graduation
Robert Lyon: While visiting his parents at the end of May 2019, he and his wife made a side trip to visit the campus at KU. Robert had viewed the sociology website and noticed that Dr. Robert Antonio was still part of the faculty. He took the elevator up seven flights to see Dr. Antonio, and Dr. Antonio remembered him! He was an undergrad and grad student in the '70s and was quite impressed, especially so, because Robert left the program after completion of his masters. After his Masters completion, Robert was off to France to gain knowledge and experience from renowned French chefs. France was a great experience and lead to a cooking career in the San Francisco Bay Area. Five years ago, after leaving the culinary field and having started various businesses with his wife, he is back in sociology. Quite the circuitous route! Robert has been teaching Introduction to Sociology at the community college system in central California. There are several campuses so adjuncts travel from one campus to the next, taking on the moniker of 'road scholar.' This upcoming semester he has added a course on Social Problems and Critical Thinking. It is truly fascinating being in the classroom with students who have no awareness of the Vietnam protests, hippies, or even baby boomers. Sociology has been and will continue to be a part of Robert’s life. Education provided him with the confidence to pursue many varied lifestyles and occupations. Now he has returned to sociology and is attempting to pass along some basic knowledge of our society. It is fun and he is thoroughly enjoying it. Shane McCall is currently a senior associate attorney at Koprince Law LLC here in Lawrence. He, his wife, and two children have been living in Lawrence since 2007, when they returned from Peace Corps service in Jamaica. He is still inspired by what he learned from his excellent teachers Joey Sprague, Bob Antonio, and many others in the Department.
Chris McIlvain retired from the Austin Police Department as the Assistant Chief of Police after 25 years of service in October 2018. He currently works for the City of Austin's Convention Center Department as the Director of Safety and Security.
Jane Emery Prather: As she reflects upon her long career as a Sociologist, Jane realized it was the KU sociology faculty who were primarily responsible for her success. After earning a BA (1962) and an MA (1964), Jane was encouraged by the faculty to pursue a doctorate when few women did. There were no women faculty in the KU Department then. Her mentors included: Charles Warriner, Carroll Clark, Marston McCluggage, Jack Bauer— men whose photographs now line the halls of the Sociology Department. When she applied to the doctoral program at University of California, Berkeley, her application was rejected. Jane’s advisor, Charles Warriner, recommended that, upon arriving in Berkeley, she contact Herbert Blumer, with whom Dr. Warriner had studied at the University of Chicago. When she met Blumer, Jane gave him a reference letter Dr Warriner had prepared. Dr. Blumer then immediately telephoned the graduate admission committee asking why her application was denied. Slamming down the phone he said, “ That’s no reason—because you are married.” He then admitted Jane and also waived the out-of-state tuition. She could not have had this opportunity to pursue her doctorate at UC Berkeley if Dr. Warriner had not given her the courage to contact Dr. Blumer! Jane is now an emerita professor at California State University, Northridge, where she was a faculty member of the Sociology and later Women Studies Departments retiring in 2007. In addition to serving as Department Chair, Jane won numerous teaching awards and published over 40 articles or chapters on various gender issues. She was honored to have been elected President of the Pacific Sociological Association. Her last and perhaps most exciting assignment was teaching sociology in Bedford Hills Maximum Security Prison for Women in New York under the auspices of Marymount College Manhattan. In closing, she wants to again express her heartfelt appreciation for the KU faculty who from the beginning and throughout her career supported and mentored her.
Gabriella V. Smith received her MA from KU in 2009, and just graduated with her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Virginia. Gabriella’s dissertation was titled "Woke: Performing Progressive Whiteness in a Racially Liminal Time" and was under the direction of Allison J. Pugh.
Heather Stras graduated with an undergraduate degree in psychology and sociology in 1995. She received her MSW degree in 1999. Heather currently works with Minnesota Independence College and Community. This college helps individual with autism and learning differences live independently. Heather works with one of the advisors and has her clinical license.
Chris McIlvain
Milton W. Wendland (BA Sociology 1996, Phi Beta Kappa) is a faculty member in the Department of Women’s & Gender Studies at the University of South Florida in Tampa Bay. After completing his BA in Sociology at KU, Dr. Wendland went on to earn both a JD at KU Law and a PhD in American Studies at KU. Dr. Wendland teaches courses ranging from LGBTQ+ and gender studies and uses concepts and theories he took from his sociology classes with Bob Antonio, Joane Nagel, David Smith, and others.
Frank Zilm is currently the Chester Dean Director at the KU Institute for Health and Wellness Design. He recently conducted and published research on personality characteristics of healthcare architects. This was done in conjunction with Roth Ann Atchley, PhD, a former faculty member in the College at KU.
The Department of Sociology gratefully acknowledges contributions to support faculty and graduate student research. Your support is important, and very much appreciated.If you would like to make a donation to the Department of Sociology, please click here. You may also make contributions by mail. When making a gift by check, please remember to include a gift card or indicate your gift’s purpose in the memo line.
Checks should be payable to KU Endowment and mailed to: Gift Processing Department KU Endowment PO Box 928 Lawrence, KS 66044-0928 You can also call 785-830-7576, or toll free 800-444-4201
