“The Quantified Scholar” by Juan Pablo Pardo-Guerra Recently Reviewed in London Review of Books

Professor Juan Pablo Pardo-Guerra 2022’s book The Quantified Scholar (Columbia University Press) examines the effects of quantitative research evaluations on British social scientists. He argues that the mission to measure academic excellence resulted in less diversity and more disciplinary conformity. The Quantified Scholar was reviewed in London Review of Books by John Whitfield. You can check out the review here:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n02/john-whitfield/a-bit-of-everything

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New Organization “Sociology Community” Launches, Empowering Undergrads in Sociology

With the support of Assistant Teaching Professor Michel Estefan, a group of sociology majors have formed a new undergraduate organization known as “Sociology Community.” The group had their first preparatory meeting on January 22, 2024. According to convenor Amber Fig, “Our main goal is to become a resource center for undergraduate sociology students, whether that be releasing opportunities for research/internships; helping plan classes, and even study hours to assist with homework. We want sociology students to feel like there is a place for them to turn to!

The group recently held a second meeting. They invited Professor Kevin Lewis to give a mini-lecture on the sociology of love. The organization plans to hold another event about applying to graduate schools in the near future.

This is the linktree for the new undergraduate organization with all their social media handles: https://linktr.ee/socicomm

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Professor John Skrentny recently published his new book Wasted Education: How We Fail Our Graduates in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math.

The book reveals how STEM work drives away bright graduates as a result of  “burn and churn” management practices, lack of job security, constant training for a neverending stream of new—and often socially harmful—technologies, and the exclusion of women, people of color, and older workers. Wasted Education shows that if we have any hope of improving the return on our STEM education investments, we have to change the way we’re treating the workers on whom our future depends.

For further details, go to https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/W/bo206855230.html#:~:text=Wasted%20Education%3A%20How%20We%20Fail,%2C%20Engineering%2C%20and%20Math%2C%20Skrentny

Here is the link to an interview with Professor Skrentny.

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Professor Charles Thorpe recently published his book Sociology in Post-Normal Times.

The Covid-19 pandemic and the disruptions of climate change are features of post-normal times. In the book, Professor Thorpe contends that the modern project of creating normalcy within the nation state has broken down. Integral to this is sociology, which is the science of social reform. Drawing from the work of seminal theorists such as Zygmunt Bauman and Anthony Giddens, Thorpe contends that sociology’s “society” is no longer viable because globalization has put an end to social reform, thus the assumptions and goals of sociology must be left behind in order to create a new global humanity. In the face of the pandemic and climate change, Sociology in Post-Normal Times demands no less than the birth of a global humanity beyond nation states as the precondition for human survival.

For more information, see:
https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781793625984/Sociology-in-Post-Normal-Times

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Professor David FitzGerald and Alum Rawan Arar Jointly Publish ‘The Refugee System,’ Unveiling Global Forces Shaping Syrian Family’s Struggle

Professor David FitzGerald and alum Rawan Arar’s book The Refugee System was recently published. The book tells the story of how one Syrian family, spread across several countries, tried to survive the civil war and live in dignity. This story forms a backdrop to explore and explain the refugee system. Departing from studies that create siloes of knowledge about just one setting or “”solution”” to displacement, the book’s sociological approach describes a global system that shapes refugee movements. Changes in one part of the system reverberate elsewhere. Feedback mechanisms change processes across time and place. Earlier migrations shape later movements. Immobility on one path redirects migration along others. Past policies, laws, population movements, and regional responses all contribute to shape states’ responses in the present. As Arar and FitzGerald illustrate, all these processes are forged by deep inequalities of economic, political, military, and ideological power.

For more details:
https://www.wiley.com/en-us/The+Refugee+System:+A+Sociological+Approach-p-9781509542796

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Abigail Andrews wins this year’s UCSD Distinguished Teaching Award

Abigail Andrews has won this year’s UCSD Distinguished Teaching Award! Abigail has been a consistently outstanding teacher since she arrived at UC San Diego in 2014, with a special focus on equity, diversity, and inclusion. Her course topics concern themes of barriers and inequalities facing underrepresented minorities, particularly Latinx groups. She brings a community-engaged focus to her undergraduate courses and has mentored scores of undergraduate and graduate students in the areas of international migration, urban sociology, and field methods.

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John Evans receives UCSD Academic Senate Distinguished Research Award

Honoring exceptional achievement in scholarship, UCSD’s Academic Senate awarded John Evans the Distinguished Research in the Arts & Humanities and Social Sciences in June 2021. For more information on Professor Evans’s work at the intersection of science and religion, see https://sociology.ucsd.edu/people/faculty/faculty%20members/john-evans.html

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Daniel Driscoll wins ACLS/Mellon Dissertation Award for his research on global climate reform policy

https://www.acls.org/research/fellow.aspx?cid=8FF0A13C-9A98-EB11-B1AF-00224803B4C0

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Professor April Sutton awarded National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation postdoctoral fellowship

Professor Sutton researches education, stratification, gender, and geographic inequalities. For more on her work, see here.

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Faculty Publish in Science Magazine; Write for Public Audiences in The Atlantic, Inside Higher Ed, and Washington Post

In January 2021, Professor John Skrentny’s research on immigration policies for STEM PhDs appeared in Science magazine, while Assistant Professor Neil Gong published an article in The Atlantic outlining a range of interventions for right-wing extremism. Early in February, Assistant Teaching Professor Michel Estefan contributed an article to Inside Higher Ed on how to build supportive classrooms that generate equity, particularly in our current remote environment. In May, Neil Gong wrote about homelessness in California for theWashington PostFor more on these and other faculty publications, please see faculty members’ CVs and personal websites.

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