Department of Sociology

Greetings from the Chair: Fall 2003

As we start the new school year, I feel rejuvenated by a sense of gratitude—for our students, my faculty colleagues, and the opportunities available to us to do good work. The students’ return in August brings renewed energy and enthusiasm—to take on new initiatives, to be challenged by new ideas, and to prepare to make a difference in the world. From my faculty colleagues, there are many successes to celebrate and new intellectual projects to be undertaken. And by way of opportunities for students, there are innovative curriculum developments and research opportunities underway. In this newsletter, you will find information about all of these.

For our current students, we are planning an Open House on November 5th, so that students and faculty can mingle and learn more about each others’ interests and upcoming spring semester courses. The Open House will take place from 4:30 – 6:00 pm in ICC 550—all interested students are encouraged to attend. More immediately, students will be electing student representatives to participate in Department meetings so that they can have a voice in policy-making and department governance. The department is also sponsoring a research colloquium series that is open to students’ participation. The first speaker is Professor McNamara, presenting September 24th on “Market Systems versus Local Society—the Social Architecture of Japanese Business Networks in Asia.” The second event will be Professor McDonald on October 22nd, with a third event scheduled for November19th. Please RSVP to the department office is you would like to attend. We are also planning two events featuring Anthropology, with an Open House on October 28th and a speaker in November. Check here for details soon. We encourage you to attend any and all of these events.

By way of faculty updates, Professor McNamara is back from a research leave spent in Korea, Japan and China. (read more link here). Professors Walters and Brennan are on research leave, with Professor Brennan receiving fellowship support from the American Association of University Women Foundation. (read more link here) Professor Hall was awarded the Distinguished Career Award from the D.C. Sociological Society in May and spent a good deal of time traveling this summer, but is back for her 33rd (!) year here at Georgetown. Congratulations to Professor Hall! (link here). Professors McDonald and Habel taught a weeklong workshop for several of us in the department on integrating research and technology into our courses, so you will be seeing the fruits of this effort in a Sociology class near you soon! (we’ll put a link here when we post the report) Professor Maas Weigert completed work on her book on Catholic social teachings this summer and sent it off to the publisher. Professor Palacios traveled to Mexico and Southern California for his research. Professor Wickham-Crowley traveled for some R&R to England and celebrated the release of his book, (What Justice? Whose Justice? Fighting for Fairness in Latin America). Professor Mikell also traveled to Senegal and England, for teaching and research purposes. In other “travel” news, Professor Ho joins us full time for this year, replacing Professor Brennan; and Professor Pan has relocated into the Department space on the fifth floor of ICC. Welcome to our new Anthropology colleagues. And, also by way of welcome, we would like to encourage you to stop by the department office and meet our new administrative officer, Ms. Hanadi Salih. We are pleased to have her join us.

For my own news, it has been a great and busy summer as well. We celebrated the publication of my new (co-authored) book, Community-Based Research and Higher Education; and three articles on community-based research. Our work with the Community Research and Learning (CoRAL) Network is expanding dramatically, as we were awarded a $1.2 million grant from the Corporation for National and Community Service.

We were also awarded smaller grants to continue our work in the community to study the effects of and organize against residential displacement due to urban redevelopment; and to examine the characteristics of effective youth civic engagement programs.

We are continuing our department’s curriculum reform process, with phase 2 of this plan now being implemented. Recall that last year, in phase 1, we launched the Social Justice Analysis concentration, which is already proving to be quite popular with students. (link here to poster) In phase 2, we are integrating more data analysis and research throughout the curriculum, starting with courses offered by Professors Habel, Hall, Maas Weigert, Marullo, McDonald, and Palacios. (link here to report) We are also developing a new study-abroad initiative, working with the Office of International Programs, to support students’ involvement in community-based learning while studying abroad. More information will be forthcoming soon on this initiative.

As always, we would like to hear from our alumni—what have you been up to? Where are you living? What are you doing? To facilitate our communication, we have created a link on this website with information on how alumni can send their news to be posted to the Alumni News page of our departmental newsletter. We encourage you to send your news and to read the Alumni News page to see what your fellow Sociology and Anthropology alumni are doing now.

We hope that your semester is off to a great start and we wish you the best in developing your academic interests.

Sam Marullo, Chair
Department of Sociology and Anthropology

Dr. Sam Marullo - AY 2009
Dr. McDonald and Dr. McNamara - AY 2008
Dr. Sam Marullo - Fall 2006
Dr. Sam Marullo - Fall 2005
Dr. Sam Marullo - Spring 2004
Dr. Sam Marullo - Fall 2004
Dr. Sam Marullo - Fall 2003
Dr. Sam Marullo - Fall 2002