INSIGHT A D e p a r t m e n t o f S o c i o l o g y &

C r i m i n a l J u s t i c e S t u d i e s N e w s l e t t e r

A p r i l 2 0 1 3 Vo l . 1 , I s s u e 2

Reflections from our Department Chair, Dr. Kevin Cannon

Graduation is just around the corner, which means that many of you will be celebrating this amazing accomplishment with your friends and family. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that just over 30% of the population 25 and older hold a bachelor’s degree. While it is true that this percentage is in-creasing from years past, it also remains a fact that those who have graduat-ed from college remain a numerical minority.

As a department, we hope that our graduates enjoyed their time at SIUE. We hope they “walk across the stage” in a couple of weeks with fond memories knowing that they’ve made us all very proud.

From time to time, we hear from our graduates. Recently, we heard from Kiana Cox, an alum who earned both her undergraduate and master’s degree from SIUE. She is now about to earn her PhD from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and we couldn’t be more excited for her. (She is featured on page 7 in the Alumni Spotlight).

Whatever your future holds, we’d love to hear from you, too. Send email updates to Dr. Davis, the editor, at geodavi@siue.edu. You might just be featured in our next alumni spotlight.

Congratulations class of 2013!

In This Issue: Page Reflections from the Chair 1

Picture This! Photos From Around the Department 2

Course Spotlight: SOC 440 “The Sociology of Popular Culture” 3

Meet SOC Major Destiny Green and CJ Major Colton Nelson 4

Graduate Student Showcase: Jason Chatman 4

Still Searching for a Summer Class? Check These Out! 5

Get to know Dr. Trish Oberweis 6

The Sociology Internship in Employment Relations 7

Up, Up, and Away with Scholarly Activities & Alumni Spotlight: Kiana Coz 8

Congrats, Dr. Mares! 9

Identify the Theorist & Support your Peers at these Important Events 10

Do YOU have pictures from a study group session, a presentation, etc. that you’d like to share? Email your

photos to geodavi@siue.edu

(Dr. Davis, Insight Editor)

Dr. Frey-Spurlock delivers words of encourage-ment to Rebecca Thorn moments before her

senior assignment presentation.

Dr. Davis supports the SIUE cheer squad at a recent Men’s basketball

game. They won!

Students in Dr. Mares’ CJ stats class prepare before lecture.

Dr. Maätita and her senior assign-ment students discuss IRB protocols.

Keagan Clutter, a CJ major, repre-sents the Pre-Law Association Club

in the MUC.

SIUE Faculty (including Dr. Cannon, Dr. Maäti-ta, and Dr. Davis), staff, and administration par-ticipated in a trivia night

for SIUE’s Student Nurses Association on

3/22. They were so ex-cited to finish in 1st

place! … A second 1st place victory this year for Dr. Cannon, Dr.

Maätita, and Dr. Davis. Earlier this academic

year they finished 1st at a trivia night to support

SIUE Basketball, pic-tured left. (They donated

the cash prizes to the hosts after each victory).

Picture This!

Course Spotlight: SOC 440

The Sociology of Popular Culture with Dr. Mark Hedley

What is popular culture anyway? Well, there are probably as many answers to that question as there are people interested in the subject. We all know that we SEE it on television and at the movies and HEAR it on videos, cds, mp3s, and the radio. We also SMELL it when we walk by the livestock yards at county fairs, we TASTE it when we eat French fries at fast food restaurants, and we TOUCH it when we hold stuffed animals. We even THINK it when we read a novel, a fairy tale, or a fashion magazine and DO it when we play a game or post a tweet. Think about it. How much time did you spend yesterday in our popular cul-ture?

Because popular culture is such a difficult thing to define, this class focuses less on what popular culture is than on how academics study it. We focus on getting our heads around what it means to systematically and critically analyze popular culture. We pay great attention to the meanings represented in popular culture, the social forc-es that shape these representations, and the social consequences produced by these meanings. Throughout, we recognize that popular culture always operates within political and economic contexts, is influenced by social diversity, and both conforms to and challenges normative ideologies and systems of power.

The primary goal for students in this course it that they learn to critically examine the influence that popular culture has in their lives. In order to foster this goal, students are exposed to specific examples of cultural ex-pression and assigned to analyze them from the various theoretical perspectives generated from cultural stud-ies, structuralism, and post-modernism. In addition to a theoretical textbook available through textbook rent-al, students purchase two books covering individual themes in popular culture. Past examples have included werewolf mythology, vampire mythology, crime films, science fiction movies, reality television, “rave” and “straightedge” music subcultures, and pornography.

Because this is a 400-level class that is open to both undergraduate and graduate stu-dents (graduate students work under a sepa-rate syllabus), coursework is writing inten-sive. Students take essay exams, write short (5-6 page) papers, and are assigned a longer term paper. Student evaluations suggest that the course is challenging and requires time and effort, but that it’s also interesting and sometimes even fun!

Colton Nelson

What is your major? Criminal Justice Ma-jor, with Prelaw and Sociology Minors Where were you born? Mahomet, IL What is your favorite SIUE course? Sociology 303 Statistics

What do you love most about SIUE? The location of SIUE. There is a large student body with plenty of different things to get involved in and to do around Edwardsville. If there isn’t something going on in the area, St. Louis is right down the road.

Advice? Get involved on campus. It’s a great way to make the most of your college experience. Time flies and you have to have the memories to look back on when you’re out of school. Some of the best memories I have made are with the friends I have met through Sigma Tau Gamma Fraternity and The Cougar Trap and Skeet Club Team.

After graduation, what’s next? I haven’t exactly pinpointed what I would like to do after school. As of right now, I am keeping all options open and pursuing every opportunity open to me. I enjoy the field of Law and Law Enforcement.

What is your major? Sociology Where were you born? I'm from the lovely, quiet, safe town of East St. Louis :-) What is your favorite SIUE course? Marriage and Family. It uncovered so many truths and myths about the wedding market, how we're made to believe things are "traditional," and how women are socialized to think it's "the biggest day of our lives," and men aren't. (By the way, I'm hyphenating my last name if I get married.)

Advice? When it comes to choosing a career path, do what you LOVE to do, not what makes money. When I first got to SIUE, my plan was to go into Industrial Organizational psychology, JUST be-cause one can make 6 figures with a master’s degree. But when I took Sociology 111, I fell in love with Sociology as a discipline...it felt like I found my niche and I finally felt I belonged. So what if I'm destined to make about $45,000 a year with a master’s in sociology (give or take) ? It's what I LOVE to study!

After graduation, what’s next? I plan on attending graduate school for Sociology. They can't get rid of me that easy.

Destiny Green

ALUMS: What are YOU up to? Email geodavi@siue.edu

After an undergraduate career focused on business, I became dedicated to sociology after I took a Political Sociology class. Even though I had taken sociology classes as most of my electives while pursuing my business degree, I never consid-ered a degree in sociology until the course on Political Sociology, which focused on the works of C. Wright Mills. It was the first time in my life that I experienced an epiphany. I was so excited to learn more, and eager to share my newfound understanding of the world, that I changed my major late into my junior year and decided to pursue a PhD in Sociology. I am a new graduate student here at SIUE. My family and I moved to the area 2 years ago from Milwaukee, WI where I attended UW-Milwaukee. We landed here in IL because my wife started her residency program in Belleville. I

am the proud father of 3 children including our newest, a 1-year-old named Isabella. I am a full-time graduate student and a full-time dad. Taking a break to work and raise children meant that I started my graduate schooling here at SIUE at the ripe old age of 33. I believe sociology provides a fundamental understanding and perspective on the world that all people can benefit from. From understanding your own life and those around you, to understanding that everything in our lives is a social construction, my new calling was to provide this understanding and perspective to as many people as possible. I want to allow that epiphany in others, as it happened to me, by earning my PhD and teaching at a university. I have had the fortune to work with incredibly bright classmates and professors of the highest caliber that have both been instrumental in my success at SIUE. Under the guidance of Dr. Markowitz and instruction of Dr. Kauzlarich and Dr. Davis, I have discovered that my excitement in undergrad, though warranted, was premature. There is so much more to know and to learn! The material and ideas are fantastic, but it really is the people that make learning here at SIUE such a wonderful experience. My classmates are all very support-ive and the faculty is committed to our success. It’s been an amazing experience so far!

Graduate Student Showcase: Jason Chatman

Humans and the Environment (SOC 390.003) with Dr. Frey-Spurlock In 2009, I was introduced to the concept of sustainability by a student enrolled in my section of Intro-duction to Sociology. Since then, I have developed a deeper understanding of sustainability and, con-sequently, developed a renewed enthusiasm for sociology and for teaching. In its most general terms, sustainability is about quality of life. It's about living in a way that promotes social justice, environ-mental stewardship, and economic parity - all central issues in the critical sociologist's work. Sustaina-bility and Sociology are similar in other ways as well. For example, sustainability is about realizing

patterns and relationships. It is about seeing how all things are connected. Educators for sustainability like David Orr and Stephen Sterling contend that today's problems of social injustice, environmental degradation, and the widening gap between the haves and have-nots, were created by higher education. In order to fix those problems then, we need to over-haul the way education is done. Pedagogical strategies such as amoral lecturing in indoor classrooms are criticized as inef-fective. Instead, sustainable pedagogy involves hands-on experiential learning that is not bound by the physical environ-ment, nor is it bound by disciplinary boundaries. Principles of sustainable education provide the framework for this course. We will begin the course by reviewing various definitions of sustainability. There are many and come from a wide spec-trum of knowledge bases. Because sustainability is interdisciplinary, we will be reading works from sociologists, environ-mental scientists, poets, farmers, activists, physiologists, and many more. Readings come from the Northwest Earth Insti-tute's Choices for Sustainable Living and the Handbook of Environmental Sociology, an e-book available through Lovejoy Library. We'll then move into an examination of basic ecological principles and consider why humans, unlike other species, foul their own nests. Next, we'll look at food - where it comes from, how politics show up on our dinner plates, and the corre-sponding need for radical homemaking. As stated above, relationships are necessary for living sustainably so we'll consider the community in its various forms, all the while we sit on our stoop or plant flowers. We'll next consider transportation, perhaps from atop a bicycle and contemplate the commute for a banana. We'll tackle consumption and economy next. Field trip via Madison County Transit to downtown Edwardsville for a day of shopping, meeting and greeting, and coffee! We'll end in The Gardens with visions of what can be.

The only prerequisite for the course is an imagination. You should bring it to class every day. We will meet in the first summer session (May 20 to June 21), Monday through Thursday, from 11am until 1:10pm, in or around Peck Hall 0413. If you have questions about the course, don't hesitate to contact me (cfrey@siue.edu). Women, Gender & Society (SOC 308.001) with Dr. Markowitz Have you ever wondered what it would be like to switch genders? In Women, Gender and Society we won't be doing that, but we will be doing other fun stuff. For example, we will engage in gen-der atypical acts. We will pose like models from magazine ads. We will even question why it is that men are reluctant to change their last name after marriage, while women look forward to changing their last name when they get hitched. Women, Gender & Society (SOC 308.001) is scheduled for the first summer session (20 May-20 June). We will meet Monday through Thursday from 11am-1:10 pm in Peck 2403. Feel free to email me (lmarkow@siue.edu) if you have any questions about the course.

There are also PLENTY of other summer courses being offered during the summer including: Masculinities (SOC 390.001) with Dr. Davis

Industry and Society (SOC 338.001) with Dr. Finkelstein Sociology of Harry Potter (SOC 390.002) with Dr. Maätita

Race & Class in the Criminal Justice System (CJ 366.001) with Dr. Heil Criminology (CJ 272.001) with Dr. Petrocelli

and so many more...check out CougarNet today!

Still Searching for a SUMMER Class? Check these out!

Where did you grow up? I grew up in Aurora, Illinois, about 30 miles west of Chicago.

Where did you do your graduate studies? I went to Arizona State University for both my Master’s degree and my Ph.D. Both degrees came from an interdisciplinary program called “Justice Studies.”

What year did you begin your career at SIUE? I started in 2002. Being a first year teach-er was a real learning experience for me. Just at the moment I was given the authority to teach, I realized how very little I know about so many different things. I had this idea that I was sup-posed to know everything, and, uh, the fact that I don’t stared me down every day. I have con-tinued to learn a ton (not everything) through teaching, but the gaps in the knowledge don’t make me panic the way it used to.

Favorite vacation spot? Is there a bad place to vacation? I like to see new places, but above all else, I would love to go to South Africa or Botswana on a safari trip. Realistically, though, I think Disneyworld is the place for my family for the next few years.

Do you have any children? I have two sons, who are presently (almost) 10 and 8. It is a great thing to have their insights on life and to see things through their eyes. They are smart, silly and fun kids who remind me often of the things that matter most.

What is your favorite book? This changes often, but for right now, my two faves are Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghe-se because the story depicts characters that are imperfect, despite their best efforts. The novel is a statement on the need that we all have for forgiveness and on the power of families to grant forgiveness and redemption. My other favorite at the moment is The Other Boleyn Girl by Phillippa Gregory. It the craziest true story ever—an original reality story, and one that reassures that no matter what crazy things may happen in my life, someone else’s life was a LOT crazier.

Are you a PC or Mac person? I recently switched to become a Mac person. Although the switch was a little painful (I’m a person of habit) I’m through it now, and won’t be backtracking anytime soon.

Favorite time of the year? I like springtime best, because of the promise of more time with my family, days at the pool, walks with my dogs and the freedom to get out of the house. I really hate the cold and so feel especially liberated when it pass-es.

Who or what most recently inspired you? I am most inspired by people who stick to their guns and follow through on their knowledge and experiences—people who are self-determined that way. I am also inspired by Sojourner Truth, who was able to tell off her contemporary feminists for failing to include the experiences of all women. By putting her own story at the center of her knowledge, she was able to teach tolerance and inclusion to so many generations of people. I am stunned, hum-bled, and inspired by Leymah Gbowee, who was able to rally a nation full of women to come together to bring peace to a nation wracked by civil war. Her ability to think outside the box and use what simple tools she had at her disposal humbles me. Also, (and here is a non-conforming addition) Elon Musk, who sent a capsule into space as a private citizen, amazed me most recent-ly. Here is a guy who is so much smarter and more innovative than his contemporaries that I look forward to seeing what he’ll do next. Finally, and most awesome, Stephen Hawking’s raw intellect, open curiosity and extraordinary habit of taking ridicu-lously complex ideas and explaining them so that even I can understand inspires me to work harder at teaching. If he can explain cosmology so that I can get it (even briefly), shouldn’t I be able to explain causal relationships?

What’s your favorite restaurant in Edwardsville? I love to eat at Peel in Edwardsville. Wood fired wings rock, and the house salad is like crack to me—once it gets on my mind, I’m likely to find my way over there. Fun place, yummy food.

G e t t o k n ow … D r. Tr i s h O b e r we i s

Applied Sociology Program in Employment Relations by Dr. Marv Finkelstein

Ever wonder what you can “do” with sociology? Per-haps your family or friends are curious for an answer to this question. Well, the Applied Sociology Program in Employment Relations is designed to provide students with ways they can develop skills and experiences that will help them accomplish their career and professional goals. The capstone course for Employment Relations, or to put it another way, its senior assignment, is the internship experience. This is where students have the opportunity to apply what they have learned in their coursework to an actual employment setting.

Yes, it too requires an oral presentation and a research paper. But these are based on the “hands-on” experience of working in an or-ganization, and entails gathering data used to support an analysis that identifies problems and makes recommendations for change. The in-class time focuses on helping to guide students, primarily as participant observers, in collecting data, making sense of their ob-servations and writing an analysis. Students use their internships as a stepping stone toward the kind of career or educational path-way that they are most interested in. It has a proven track record for cracking a tough job market and helping you decide what you really want to do.

This semester we have seven internship students who are moving down this path: Ethan Buck, at the Chil-dren’s Home and Aid Society of Illinois, Patrice Gardner, at Soft Surroundings (clothing retail), April Gerhardt at White Castle, Tim Goodman, at Beginning Futures (childcare), Jacob Massey, at Four Rivers Education Dis-trict, Stephanie Poelker, at CBS Radio, Reggie Reed, at SIUE Human Resource Dept., and Ada Samuel at the Missouri Dept. of Conservation.

As you can see they are doing internships in different kinds of organi-zations and they are doing different things. But they are all applying their sociology not only to understand these organizations and how they work, but how the people in them might find better ways to work together to get things done.

Maybe that might help you answer the “what are you gonna do” ques-tion!

In March 2013, Dr. Davis and Dr. Murphy traveled to Chicago for the annual meetings of the Midwest Sociological Society (MSS). They presented their paper titled “Intersex Bodies as States of Exception.” Their session was well attended, and they had lots of great questions from the audience. Several of the questions came from Robyn Swink (a graduate of the Soci-ology department who is now pursuing her PhD in Sociology at Mizzou). This paper will soon appear in the peer-reviewed journal Feminist Formations.

Professor Stygar also attended the MSS meetings in Chicago to present her co-authored research. Her research round table was so thought provoking that 12 individuals squeezed together at a table meant for 8 to hear all about her paper titled: “Under Pressure: How Age Influences Uncoupled Women's Perceptions of Their Singlehood.” Professor Stygar and her co-authors also went on a Hull House tour while in Chicago.

Kiana Cox attended SIUE from 1998-2002 and received her Bachelor of Science in Psy-chology with a minor in Sociology. She returned from 2003-2005 and completed a Mas-ter of Arts in Sociology. Kiana is currently a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), with a concentration in race, ethnicity, and gender. In her dissertation, she analyzes how leaders of African American social justice organizations use gendered collective action frames in their efforts to combat racial inequality and represent African American political interests. She has received two University of Illinois at Chicago re-search grants and one national interdisciplinary award for this research. However, the impetus for these acheivements lies in the preparation for teaching and research that she gained at SIUE. Although majoring in psychology, the undergraduate sociology courses that Kiana took with Wendy Cook-Mucci really sparked her passion for sociological research. As a sociology graduate student, Kiana received invaluable support from her thesis committee: Mark Headley, John Farley, and Monica White. An updated and extended version of this thesis is published in the 3rd edition of Rebecca Ann Lind's Race/Gender/Class/Media: Considering Diversity Across Audiences, Content, and Producers (2013). Kiana was also afforded the opportunity to work with Marvin Finkelstein and John Farley in the ABle program. The tutoring and mentoring that she performed with SIUE sociology undergraduates laid the groundwork for the courses in statistics and research methods that she now teaches at UIC. Her work as an instructor was recognized in 2011 when she won the UIC sociology depart-ment's graduate teaching excellence award. SIUE certainly was an awesome place for Kiana to learn and grow as a sociologist.

Alumni Spotlight: Kiana Cox

Congratulations to Dr. Dennis Mares and his spouse, Emily, on the birth of their son,

Jeremiah Jacques Servaas (“Jack”)!

Department of

Sociology and

Criminal Justice Studies

Insight Volume 1, Issue 2

This newsletter was edited by Dr. Davis with assistance from Dr. Maätita. All images were privately obtained from those included in the issue, or they were retrieved from Google Images.

Sociology Undergrad Program https://www.facebook.com/groups/250831128260541/?ref=ts&fref=ts

Sociology Grad Program https://www.facebook.com/groups/299805373883/?ref=ts&fref=ts

Criminal Justice Program https://www.facebook.com/groups/165691173502998/?ref=ts&fref=ts

Pre-Law Program https://www.facebook.com/groups/310171005662982/?ref=ts&fref=ts

Can you identify this critical thinker?

“It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to

recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.”

Authored many works including:

Zami: A New Spelling of My Name and Sister Outsider Answer: Audre Lorde

Support your peers! Criminal Justice Poster Presentations

MUC Hickory/Hackberry Room

Thursday, April 25th from11-1:30pm

Sociology Senior Assignment

Peck 3417 on Friday, April 19th and Friday, April 26th from12-4pm

Sociology Employment Relations

Tuesday, April 16th and Tuesday, April 23rd 2-3:15PM in Peck 0405