Category Archives: Uncategorized

“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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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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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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A note to students and friends of the Department of Sociology

Thank you for visiting our department website.

As you know, the situation with the coronavirus (COVID-19) is evolving rapidly across the United States. Please see returntolearn.ucsd.edu for the most up-to-date campus information on courses and policies affecting our university.

Most Sociology Department faculty, lecturers, graduate students, and staff are working remotely, and the majority of Sociology courses will be offered online.

While our physical facilities are closed, we do hope that you will reach out to us online with any questions or concerns you may have.

We wish you and your loved ones safety and good health.

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A note to students and friends of the Department of Sociology

Thank you for visiting our department website.

As you know, the situation with the coronavirus (COVID-19) is evolving rapidly across the United States. Please see coronavirus.ucsd.edu for the most up-to-date campus information on courses and policies affecting our university.

All Sociology Department faculty, lecturers, graduate students, and staff are now working remotely, and all Spring and Summer 2020 Sociology courses will be offered online.

While our physical facilities are closed, we do hope that you will reach out to us online with any questions or concerns you may have.

We wish you and your loved ones safety and good health.

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Jennifer Nations Receives Dean’s Fellowship for Humanistic Studies

Jennifer Nations of sociology was under the impression that she was going into a meeting with her dissertation adviser Isaac Martin when she was surprised with an award and $20,000 prize. Nations, who recently received her PhD at the UC San Diego Department of Sociology, was selected as the first recipient of the Dean’s Fellowship Award for Humanistic Studies.

Nations said that it was both “gratifying and a little surreal.”

The Dean’s Fellowship Award for Humanistic Studies was created by an anonymous donor with the passion to support graduate students. It is described as a gift to benefit the recipient, which is selected selected on the basis of academic merit as well as demonstrated perseverance to overcome personal hardship. This award celebrates PhD students in Anthropology, Communication, History, Linguistics, Literature, Philosophy and Sociology, recognizing these fields as ones who help to “drive creative innovation in our society” and are “intrinsic to campus enrichment and critical to our shared future.”

Jennifer Nations, who studies social inequality and public policy, explores in her dissertation how it is that states have wound up with wildly different approaches to helping their citizens afford the costs of college. Isaac Martin, in nominating her for the surprise fellowship, wrote both about Nations’ stellar scholarship and about how she’s been raising three young children in sometimes challenging financial circumstances. He also noted that she goes out of her way to help undergrads who are struggling for one reason or another.

A campus photographer snapped pictures of the shock, the smiles, the tears and more smiles.

Photos by Erik Jepsen/UC San Diego Publications.

Click here to read the full article.

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