About
We are a department of 23 faculty, 5 staff members, 32 graduate students, and almost 400 undergraduate majors. Our faculty members are excellent teachers and productive scholars. Nearly half of our faculty members have won competitive University and College teaching and research awards. They have enjoyed success in obtaining external grants and in publishing their research in top-ranked journals and presses.
The department offers a congenial professional and intellectual climate for faculty and graduate students. Members of the department are investigating a wide range of sociological topics, using a variety of methodologies, including observation, interviews, experiments, and secondary data analysis. One of the department's strengths is that differences in theoretical and methodological approaches are not divisive. We encourage our graduate students to develop expertise in multiple methods and we offer coursework in qualitative methods as well as advanced statistical techniques.
Our low faculty to graduate student ratio means that we can provide intensive training to graduate students. Graduate students are assured of access to faculty who are the leading scholars in their fields. Our growing number of majors and large enrollments in our undergraduate classes ensure that graduate students will have ample opportunity to develop their teaching skills, first as teaching assistants and later as instructors of their own courses. We also actively promote graduate student involvement in research. Our students not only conduct their own research projects but also engage in research with faculty and may receive summer or academic-year research assistantships.
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