S David Stamps
Professor
Contact
Office: CPR 229
Phone: 813/974-2482
Email:
Links
Personal Bio
After having grown up in small towns in Tennessee, I quickly became fascinated with "city life" when I entered a college located in an urban center. However, my interest in sociology and urban communities developed in a somewhat circuitous fashion. In the 1950's, parents often played a major role in the career selection of their children; at least that was the case for me when I entered college. My father, a high school principal, wanted me to become a physician, so my first major in college was "pre-med." During the second semester of my first year, I had to take a biology laboratory course that required each student to "dissect a frog." That experience was enough to let me know that my promising career as a surgeon was in jeopardy. Luckily for me, I had taken an introductory sociology course, so the transition into sociology as a "no-brainer."
I stayed on track with my fascination for urban life by attending Washington State University for graduate studies in the big metropolis of Pullman, Washington (pop. 20,000 including WSU students). But despite its rural setting, I received a strong foundation in deviance, research methods, philosophy of science, and urban community studies at Washington State University.
As an assistant professor at Norfolk State University, I became part of a research team that received a $400,000 manpower research grant from the U.S. Department of Labor in the late 1960s. From that research I authored a major research monograph "Utilization and Underutilization of Black and White Workers in the Tidewater, Virginia Metropolitan Area" that was written up in the New York Times. This urban manpower study was the catalyst for my funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to start a Social Service Research Laboratory at Norfolk State. I started the Norfolk Area Studies as a part of my graduate course called "Seminar in Urban Research." Very early in my academic career I felt the need to involve undergraduate and graduate students in actually carrying out studies in urban settings. I continued this focus in my teaching and research at Syracuse University, where I initiated the Syracuse Area Studies.
Since coming to USF, I have continued my interest and commitment to urban communities through my early work with the Institute on Black Life, where I co-authored the first major look at race relations in Tampa since the 1930s: "A Comparative Study of Blacks, Whites and Hispanics in the Tampa Metropolitan Area." I also chaired a conference on the "New Urban South" which presented a series of papers on the changing nature of social, political, and economic structures in southern communities.
My teaching and research interests have carried over into my administrative career. During my tenure as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, I pulled together faculty to start the Community Initiative. The idea was to get faculty and their students involved in equal partnerships with community groups to work toward the resolution of urban problems. Once the College's Community Initiative was conceptualized and implemented, I pulled together deans from across the University to start the University Community Initiative and to sponsor our major international conference, "The University as Citizen." While I was Provost, I continued to support the University Community Initiative. In 2003, I co-authored an article entitled "Engaged in the Metropolitan Research University." I am very proud that as Provost I was able to make sure that "community engagement" was part of the USF mission.
I am committed to continuing my teaching and research interest in urban communities, and expanding this interest to include global communities. What excites me about my teaching and research interest in sociology is the ability to study the intersection between race and ethnicity, inequality, leisure, and victimization in global communities.
Education
Ph.D.,Washington State University, 1972
Current Courses