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Department of Sociology

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Sociology at USF: Thriving in the Tampa Bay community

The Department of Sociology Introduces a New Ph.D. Program

We were told to expect the phone call at 1:00 p.m. on January 29. Sure enough, it came: The Board of Governors of the State of Florida had approved our new Ph.D. program. While we had been hearing all week that this would happen, we had a hard time believing it. After all, the most common topic in the news was the horrid fiscal shape of the state so certainly they wouldn’t approve new programs now. And, after winding its way through the multiple USF channels of approval, the proposal had been waiting for legislative approval for over three years. Were we simply the beneficiaries of good luck? Or, were there characteristics of our university, department, or proposed Ph.D. program that worked in our favor? We like to think that program approval was more than a matter of luck because, if so, then others might benefit from our experiences. We offer some reflections on what might be associated with state approval.

We’ll start with patting ourselves on the back: For several years we had been working to strengthen our M.A. program, acting as if the Ph.D. program would be approved. For example, we started organizing many of our classes so that they would lead to papers suitable for professional presentation, we helped students craft these papers and we made it a budget priority to help them defray the costs of attending conferences. We also strengthened our efforts to place our M.A. graduates in excellent Ph.D. programs and were successful in sending our students to programs in places such as Rutgers, Boston College, University of Colorado and University of Missouri. These and other such efforts yielded statistics about our M.A. program that cast us in favorable light on the Ph.D. proposal.

Second, and more importantly, rather than a generic Ph.D. program in Sociology ours is formally linked to Ph.D. programs in both History and Government. Doctoral students in all three disciplines will begin and end their studies with seminars facilitated by core faculty from these linked departments. Designed to provide settings in which students and faculty meet as a community, these seminars will allow students to work together in exploring relevant epistemologies, methodologies and theories that inform interdisciplinary research. Such “cross-training” will be an invaluable addition to the more traditional grounding in sociological research provided by the required coursework in the department.

It’s not only interdisciplinarity that makes our program different. We also have a particular focus: Building sustainable communities in global and urban environments. Issues of sustainable communities unite scholars from a wide variety of social science, natural science and humanistic disciplines who have developed substantial theoretical and empirical literatures that extend across multiple disciplines and transcend the boundaries of academic departments and the nation state. It is likely this program characteristic was attractive to state legislators. Rather than the traditional argument that we need to produce Ph.Ds because “knowledge is good,” we emphasized how students graduating from our program will be prepared to train future community and urban researchers, problem solvers, and other specialists engaged in building and sustaining better local, national and global communities.

We’ve saved for last what might well be the largest reason for our success: It is clear our chances for approval were greatly helped by the fact that USF is a university on the move. According to USF Provost Ralph Wilcox, “The University of South Florida is committed to growing its graduate program offerings, both the quality of existing programs as well as introducing new programs that are relevant to the needs of a global society.” Such organizational goals are echoed by President Judy Genshaft who believes that “expanding USF’s doctoral-level programs is an investment in the future of the university, which is certainly no small feat given the state and national economic climate. Together, the new programs in sociology, history and government support integrated, interdisciplinary inquiry and will position USF to become the university of the future.”

In brief, we were the beneficiaries of administrative support. Critically, this support included far more than making statements about the importance of new Ph.D. programs. The support had been very tangible. The most obvious indicator is that the department had grown from ten faculty members to eighteen in the past three years. On the record, our program would not cost much other than graduate student stipends because most faculty already were in place. This did not simply happen but rather was the result of administrative support, from the President and Provost and the (several) Deans of our College of Arts and Sciences.

So, although we were surprised that, after all the years of waiting, the State of Florida approved our Ph.D. program in Sociology, there was far more than good luck involved. Packaging the program in ways emphasizing outcomes linked to local and state causes, producing indicators that the department was ready for a Ph.D. program, and consistent administrative commitment came together to give us the opportunity to contribute to Sociology’s future and to the strategic ambitions of our University.

By Maralee Mayberry and Donileen Loseke, University of South Florida

We’re On the Move!

In addition to the exciting new Doctoral program, we feel extremely fortunate to have a distinguished scholar joining our faculty, beginning August 2009—Dr. David Jacobson. David received his Ph.D. from Princeton University and his areas of research include immigration and citizenship, international institutions and law, and gender and human rights. During the 2009-2010 academic year, David will teach two graduate courses—Women’s Status and Global Conflict and Politics of Globalization. We are very excited about the research and teaching expertise David will bring to our department. You can learn more about Dr. Jacobson by clicking on the “News and Events” link.

We believe that sociology’s understanding of the common social processes that shape both individuals and their communities is of crucial importance not only for the social sciences, but also for the natural sciences, engineering, education, and medicine. You will see that our faculty members actively circulate a valuable understanding of these processes throughout academic units all over campus, throughout the Tampa Bay community, and to large global communities. It is sociology that is relevant and beneficial for our society and our world. In addition, the department maintains an interdisciplinary focus by linking our research and curriculum to applied anthropology, women’s studies, education, gerontology, communications, religious studies, geography, history, and government and international affairs.

We are extremely excited to announce our first cohort of Ph.D. graduate teaching assistants: Sean Currie , who wishes to explore the relationships between religion and globalization, particularly the problems and issues facing religious communities and movements in post-industrial societies; Jennifer Earles, whose primary interest is in the ways in which identity categories are socially constructed by dominate cultures to protect power and create hierarchical structures; Hilary Dotson, whose primary research interest is in social inequality and social policy with an emphasis on class, race, and ethnicity; Brenda Mason, with a substantive interest in protecting the vitality of water resources she wishes to focus on developing sound social policy responsive to political, economic, social, and technical environments; David Zeller, whose interest is in examining the ways in which social policy and social policy implementation too often fail to directly address social problems such as homelessness, drugs, and juvenile delinquency.

Our graduate M.A. program continues to attract highly qualified students from all over the country. Our new cohort of M.A. graduate teaching assistants includes students who received their B.A. degrees from Columbia University, Columbia College, the London School of Economics, as well as USF. Over the last several years our graduating M.A. cohorts have done extremely well, either receiving placements in some of the top Ph.D. programs in the country or securing professional positions. You can read more about our current and graduated students by clicking on graduate M.A. program.

Our undergraduate program continues to flourish. We currently have a very diverse group of over 480 majors. During 2007-2008 we awarded 109 Bachelor degrees. Our undergraduate students are increasingly being admitted to high quality graduate programs across the country or gaining employment in the professions. This all speaks positively to the quality of our undergraduate and graduate students and to the commitment of our faculty to all levels of education.

We are excited about our continued growth and success and hope that you will us if you have any questions about Sociology at USF.