Department of Sociology

"You know you go to Georgetown when..." might sound like the subject of an annoying mass e-mail, but it would be a very helpful one if it was sent out to perspective students because it would answer a lot of their questions about what to expect from Georgetown. One of the reasons why many students apply to Georgetown is the student-professor ratio which allows for personal interaction between students and faculty. The faculty at Georgetown University cares.

After spending an hour talking to Prof. Timothy Wickham-Crowley earlier this semester, the thought popped into my head: "You know you are at Georgetown when the professor decides to design a class based on expressed interest among students." It is therefore of little surprise that Prof. Timothy Wickham-Crowley has been nominated for many honors: as an honorary faculty member of Alpha Sigma Nu (the national Jesuit honor society), twice by SFS seniors for a school-wide teaching award, and three times by his department for the Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching given by the College for Arts and Sciences.

However, Prof. Wickham-Crowley still manages to surprise those that he works with. For the past year and a half, he has taught new courses each semester. He started doing so by resurrecting a class that he taught over a decade ago, a class on Social Movements. He talks enthusiastically about the Advanced Research Seminars that he has taught, taking a core sociology course focused on Latin America and refocusing it to Brazil. As exciting as such class sounds to students studying the Latin American region, it is the excitement with which Prof. Wickham-Crowley talks about reading new materials and organizing the new course which is astounding. Him reading in his office or as he walks around the department is not a rare sight for he prepares for his regular and new courses thoroughly. The oddity when talking to Prof. Wickham-Crowley about his amount of work that he puts into his work is his optimism and positive attitude. He calls designing new classes "an amazing time sucker, but it's fun and rewarding." His students can see that and enjoy his love for his courses. They also love the fact that he is fair, as they comment "he just did the reading himself, he knows the amount of work that we put into his class firsthand."

Prof. Wickham-Crowley modestly says that he uses his students and fellow faculty as new sources of ideas. He has used his experience here at Georgetown and his work with the Brazilian Program to see what students need and find ways to address their needs. For the past seven years he has been reviewing things on Central America. The basic reasons that spiked his interests are, as he says, "in Latin American Studies, there is almost nothing for them." At Georgetown, there are no courses taught on the Caribbean, but students want such courses. "So I took the call. This past year it was Brazil, now it's Central America."

Surprisingly, Prof. Wickham-Crowley finds more time for conferences and discussions. He has attended the Latin American Studies Association (L.A.S.A), a discussion about the Landless workers in Brazil, and in October 2004 he was a discussant on a Panel of Sociologists. His preparedness for this event impressed all of his participants as he handed each a copy of his extensive notes. If you have not yet been blown away by what he does, you might finally be surprised to find out that he wrote a review of Mark T. Hooker's "Tolkien through Russian Eyes," upon the request of Douglas A. Anderson- a well known expert on Tolkien studies. What do Central and South America have in common with Russia and the Soviet Union, when it comes to Prof. Wickham-Crowley? Perhaps the most personal connection would be the fact that: "My actual interest in matters Russian and Soviet was strong as an undergraduate, and thus I took at that time three different courses on that region in the History, Politics, and Sociology departments." Interestingly enough, he has found ways of incorporating all of these regions in both his life and classe, such as a Population Dynamics Course. It is impressive to see the amount of respect that his department and his students have for him, but not surprising. Prof. Wickham-Crowley bonds well with both of the crowds because he actively researches and prepares for his classes: he's one awesome academic.

Aleksandra Trpkovska
Web Assistant