Olivia DrakeRob Rosenthal, the John E. Andrus Professor of Sociology, will serve as Director of the Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life for a three-year term, beginning July 2014. Rosenthal has a distinguished history of initiating programs to integrate public life into the Wesleyan curriculum: He was the founding director of the Center for Service Learning, founding co-director the Center for Community Partnerships, and as Provost he instituted the Patricelli Center for Social Entrepreneurship and developed new programming within the Allbritton Center including the year-long "music in public life" initiative. Rosenthal served as provost from 2010-2013 and oversaw Wesleyan's reaccreditation process. Immediately…
Lauren RubensteinThe Hartford Courant on Dec. 7 published an op-ed by Assistant Professor of Sociology Daniel Long about a new pilot program in Connecticut and four other states to increase time that children spend in school. Long responded skeptically to the program, writing that past experiments with increased learning time have shown mixed results, and are an expensive, unproven way to improve student learning. At a time when Connecticut school districts face increasingly tight budgets, the state should focus on reform efforts backed by research, Long writes. On Dec. 20, Long also participated in a discussion on the impact of increased class time…
In this issue of The Wesleyan Connection we ask 5 Questions of Daniel Long, assistant professor of sociology. Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy has made education reform a major priority this year. He has proposed a sweeping package of reforms, including overhauling teacher tenure, increasing Education Cost Sharing grants to struggling districts, funding more preschool slots for low-income children, and requiring districts to contribute additional money for students to attend charter schools. Q: Connecticut suffers from the highest black/white and poor/non-poor achievement gap in the country. What can be done to address this? A: In Connecticut—as well as nationwide—longitudinal studies have shown…
Greg Goldberg joined the Sociology Department as an assistant professor. His research interests include political economy, social theory, media and popular culture, digital and network technologies and music and sound. This semester he is teaching Introductory Sociology and Media and Society. "Thus far, I've found the students at Wesleyan to be ambitious, open, creative and independent thinkers; they are truly a pleasure to teach," he says. "They have sharp critical thinking skills, and are game for anything I can think to throw at them. I've been continually impressed by their ability to engage complex social questions and issues, and I…
David PesciIn an opinion piece for The Hartford Courant, Jonathan Cutler, chair and associate professor of sociology, explains how a austerity budget deal brokered by Connecticut’s governor with a coalition of public employee union leaders was then torpedoed by rank-and-file union members. The Connecticut deal was initially applauded nationally because Democratic Governor Malloy, unlike Wisconsin’s Republican governor Scott Walker, seemed better positioned to win painful union concessions without sparking street protests by labor and liberals. Those applause came too early, however, as state employee union members rejected the cuts agreed by an anti-democratic union structure created by the the state and…
Eric GershonLaura Stark, assistant professor of sociology, received the Burnham Early Career Award from the History of Science Society for her paper, “The Science of Ethics: Deception, The Resilient Self, And the APA Code of Ethics, 1966-1973." The paper was published in the fall 2010 issue of the Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences. The History of Science Society’s Forum calls the paper “original and compelling.” “Stark’s paper offers a fascinating recreation of the process by which the American Psychological Association (APA) arrived at ethical guidelines for human research,” the citation reads. “Expertly taking advantage of little-known archival resources, [she] examines how a…
Laura Stark, assistant professor of sociology, assistant professor of science in society, assistant professor of environmental studies, received a grant worth $6,900 from the American Sociological Association for her study titled “How do research subjects affect biomedical studies?” The grant was awarded Oct. 21.
Laura Stark, assistant professor of sociology, is the author of "“The Science of Ethics: Deception, The Resilient Self, And the APA Code of Ethics, 1966-1973,” published in the fall 2010 issue of the Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences. The paper examines the process by which the American Psychological Association determined that deception could be used as an acceptable research method.
Mention “records and documents of a large bureaucracy” and images of stacks of dense paperwork, rows of beige filing cabinets, and perhaps even a slight sensation of suffocation comes to mind. But mention the same phrase to Laura Stark and her pulse steps up a beat as she sees something quite different: buried treasure. “I am interested in the power of bureaucracies and the discretion people within them have to interpret rules,” says Stark, assistant professor of science and society, assistant professor of sociology. “How people who work in big organizations, including government agencies, apply general rules to specific cases…
Rob Rosenthal, the John E. Andrus Professor of Sociology, will serve as interim Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs for the 2010/2011 academic year. Rosenthal brings to this position experience gained as chair of the faculty, as director of the Service Learning Center, and as a celebrated scholar-teacher. Rosenthal's appointment is effective July 1.
Following the catastrophic earthquake that struck Haiti on Jan. 12, three Wesleyan faculty, Alex Dupuy, Elizabeth McAlister, and Gina Ulysse have appeared in numerous publications and on radio programs to provide context for thinking about the disaster. Alex Dupuy, the Class of 1958 Distinguished Professor of Sociology, spoke to the Canadian Broadcasting Corp and wrote an essay titled "Beyond the Earthquake: A Wake-Up Call for Haiti" on the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) forum, saying, “There is no doubt that the dominant economic and political classes of Haiti bear great responsibility for the abysmal conditions in the country that exacerbated the impact of…
Alex Dupuy, the Class of 1958 Distinguished Professor of Sociology, is the author of "Indefensible: On Aristide, Violence, and Democracy," published in the November issue of Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism 30, pages 161-173. The article is edited by David Scott.