September 27, 2013:
- Hauser elected as Ernest W. Burgess Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
Each year, AAPSS invites a small group of outstanding scholars/ public servants to join the Academy as Fellows. Fellows are elected in recognition of the contributions that they have made in their careers to progress in the social sciences.
Each Fellowship is named after a distinguished scholar or civic leader who has contributed to The Annals. | Read more...
- Grodsky receives 5 yeasr NSF support to investigate student entry into STEM research
"Building on STEP to Understand Variation in STEM Entry and Persistence" investigates the processes by which students select into and out of fields of study and of how projects funded by STEP impact these processes. Grounded in Eccles' expectancy value-model, the research study examines student pathways to STEM baccalaureate degrees and the impact of different types of interventions on those pathways across diverse students and STEM majors. The research focuses on the relationships among student academic preparation, subjective expectations with respect to future academic performance, objective academic performance, the tasks values students ascribe to STEM courses and majors, and interpersonal relationships from which students may draw personal and academic support. The comparison group design based on stratified probability samples of first-time first-year students from the participating institutions results in representative samples of the population of entering first-time students. The design includes two control groups and one treatment group to increase external validity: One cohort includes only STEM students who enter the university in the year prior to the start of the intervention designed by STEP Type I projects (control condition 1). The second cohort of students includes STEM students who participate in STEP Type 1 activities (treatment condition) and those who do not (control condition 2). Data include institutional student records and student responses to surveys designed for the study. In addition, the project is constructing a data infrastructure for further research by researchers and use by STEP projects.
- Myra Marx Ferree wins American Political Science Association Award
Myra Marx Ferree's book Varieties of Feminism: German Gender Politics in Global Perspective (Stanford University Press, 2012) has won the American Political Science Association's Victoria Schuck Award (best book on gender in 2012.) This award is one of the few association-wide awards given by APSA. Varieties of Feminism has also has been featured at author-meets-critics sessions at the Eastern Sociological Society, American Sociological Association, and Social Science History Association annual meetings. | " target="_blank"> Read more...
- Wisconsin Longitudinal Study to add genetic data with NIH award
Principal Investigator Pam Herd and other researchers on the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study were recently awarded a $6.8 million grant from the National Institute on Aging. The award will allow the project to add more genetic data to the WLS, as well as to conduct analyses with these data. The project will create a platform for discovery at the frontier of biosocial research. | Read more...
- Nicole Kraus pens San Francisco Chronicle op-ed on Russian antigay laws
According to UW Sociology graduate student Nicole Kraus, the law targeting homosexuality in Russia has little to do with being gay and much to do with Russian politics. | Read more...
- Pam Oliver's Advice for New Hires
Pam Oliver posted an essay on the website InsideHigherEd.com, with 12 tips for those starting careers as new Assistant Professors. | Read more...
- Chair Pamela Oliver comments about the Solidarity Sing Along in Isthmus
According to Pam Oliver, an expert on social movements and collective actions, there are typically multiple protests a day at statehouses across the country.
"That's what Americans do," says Oliver, a sociology professor at UW-Madison. | Read more...
- Barry Eidlin on unions and wage stagnation
ASA-NSF Postdoctoral Fellow Barry Eidlin addresses the importance of unions in addressing wage stagnation in Mobilizing Ideas, a production of the journal Mobilization. | Read more...
- Elwert wins Causality in Statistics Education Award
The American Statistical Association is pleased to announce that the first Causality in Statistics Education Award will go to Felix Elwert of the department of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for his innovative two-day course, Causal Inference with Directed Acyclic Graphs. Elwert will receive a $5,000 prize and an award plaque at the 2013 Joint Statistical Meetings in Montréal, Québec, Canada. Elwert has also developed a Causal Inference course materials website. | Read more...
- Grodsky: Attending an elite college can benefit even those less academically prepared
Those who oppose affirmative action sometimes argue that such policies do far more harm than good to students who are admitted to competitive colleges or universities without the academic preparation of their peers. But a forthcoming article in the journal "Sociology of Education" (by Michal Kurlaender of the University of California-Davis and Eric Grodsky of UW-Madison) indicates this may not be the case. The authors found that although mismatched students were at a slight disadvantage relative to their better prepared peers, that disadvantage is almost entirely accounted for by high school grades and entrance exam scores. | Read more...
- Barry Eidlin wins Best Graduate Student Paper award
"Class vs. Special Interest: Labor Regimes and Union Strength in the U.S. and Canada, 1911-2011" by postdoctoral researcher Barry Eidlin has won the
Best Graduate Student Paper Award from the American Sociological Association's section on Labor and Labor Movements. | Read more...
- Research by Christine Schwartz appears in Atlantic magazine
An article by Matthew O'Brien appearing in Atlantic magazine explores "Why It's So Hard for the Poor to Get Ahead Today" and quotes research by Associate Professor Christine Schwartz on assortative mating. | Read more...
- Grad Christina Diaz wins Best Student Paper award
"When Sons Become Fathers:
Examining Patterns of Fathering Across Generations" by graduate student Christina Diaz has been selected as the
winner of the Society for the Study of Social Problems Family Section
Student Paper Award. The judges found Christina's paper to be the best overall
paper in terms of the incorporation of family theory, the methods used, the
analysis provided, and its relevance to the mission of SSSP and the family
section. | Read more...
- Five receive Honored Instructor Awards
Five Sociology-affiliated instructors received UW-Madison University Housing Honored Instructor Awards for Spring 2013: Dana Garbarski, Pilar Gonalons-Pons, Ralph Grunewald, Irene Katele, and Jenn Sims. The Honored Instructor program allows students to nominate instructors that are especially challenging, inspiring, or effective teachers. | Read more...
- Alberto Palloni awarded honorary doctorate
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of demography at the Université catholique de Louvain (Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium), the University will award a Doctorate Honoris Causa to Alberto Palloni. The University notes, "your work has inspired several generations of professors and students in demography at the University of Louvain, and the wide variety of topics, methods and regions you have covered in your work also reflects the way demography is done in Louvain." Congratulations, Alberto! | Read more...
- Aliza Luft wins scholarship and grant
Graduate student Aliza Luft was awarded a Berman Scholarship and a Mazursky Student Support Grant for research in Paris, France from the Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies. These awards support research-related travel essential for carrying out work on an undergraduate or graduate thesis. | Read more...
- A "great book for summer reading" review by grad student Aliza Luft
A review of the book "A Train in Winter: An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France" was recently published as part of "Great Books for Summer Reading: 2013" on the sociology blog, Mobilizing Ideas. | Read more...
- Patrick Barrett receives award
Patrick Barrett, Administrative Director of the Sociology department's Havens Center, has received a faculty/staff
Recognition for Achievement in Global Engaged Scholarship award from the
Wisconsin without Borders for his
work on the program "El Salvador: The Land and the People." The department cooperates with Barrett on this program.
| Read more...
- Jane Piliavin on NBA player's coming out
Jason Collins becomes the first professional athlete to come out as gay -- Professor Jane Pilliavin, who is teaching "Sociology of Sport" in the upcoming summer session, comments. | Read more...
- Gary Sandefur steps down as dean of UW Madison College of Letters and Science
This summer, Gary Sandefur will step down as dean of the College of Letters & Science, after nine years at the helm of the UW's largest academic unit. He'll return to teaching in the Department of Sociology, where he arrived nearly 29 years ago with a set of values shaped by his humble upbringing in rural Oklahoma. | Read more...
- Ted Gerber on Chechnyan history and politics in the context of the Boston Marathon
Ted Gerber discussed Chechnyan history and politics in the context of the Boston Marathon bombings on Madison's local news program "Live at Five." The interview with Gerber starts at about 4:00 in the link included here. | Read more...
- Markus Gangl named elected member of German National Academy of Sciences
Prof. Dr. Markus Gangl has been named Elected Member of the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina by the Academy's Directorate. In existence for more than 350 years, the Leopoldina Academy is one of the oldest academic societies in the world and serves as Germany's National Academy of Sciences. Election into the Academy follows from recommendations of peers and is considered a prestigious academic honor. Markus Gangl will serve as one of 33 current members of the Academy Chapter "Economics and Empirical Social Sciences." | Read more...
- Mike Massoglia's work (with others) featured in Huffington Post
In "How Mass Incarceration Threatens Public Health," Jason Silverstein explores the effects of incarceration on the health of former prisoners and their communities. Mike Massoglia's work in Law & Society Review is cited. | Read more...
- Adam Gamoran named President of William T. Grant Foundation
Professor Adam Gamoran has been named President of the William T. Grant Foundation. The foundation, located in New York City, funds research on programs and policies that improve the lives of youth. In his announcement to colleagues, Gamoran said, "I see this as a chance to shape the direction and quality of research on education and youth development, and am excited by the opportunity to pursue a new endeavor." | Read more...
- The Future of Social Science Data Collection
The Panel on a Research Agenda for the Future of Social Science Data Collection (of the Committee on National Statistics of the National Research Council) has released its report: Nonresponse in Social Science Surveys: A Research Agenda, published by National Academies Press. Sociology Faculty member and UW Survey Center Faculty Director Nora Cate Schaeffer was a member of the Panel. | Read more...
- Schaeffer, Dykema, Maynard and Garbarski receive NSF grant
Nora Cate Schaeffer (Sociology and UW Survey Center), Jennifer Dykema (Ph.D. 2004, UW Survey Center), Douglas W. Maynard (Sociology) and Dana Garbarski (Ph.D. 2012, Center for Women's Health and Health Disparities Research) received a grant from the National Science Foundation to study Interactional Influences on Survey Participation. | Read more...
- Erin Hatton op-ed in the New York Times
2007 Sociology PhD Erin Hatton's op-ed "The Rise of the Permanent Temp Economy" was featured in the New York Times. Erin is now an Assistant Professor of Sociology at SUNY-Buffalo. | Read more...
- Felix Elwert wins Vilas Associate award
Felix Elwert has received a Vilas Associate award from the UW-Madison Graduate School. The Vilas Associates Competition recognizes new and on-going research of the highest quality and significance. Elwert's award honors his work on statistical methods for causal inference from observational data with applications to neighborhood effects and the determinants of educational outcomes. | Read more...
- Palloni and Yonker contribute to National Academies report on US Health: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health
January 16, 2013:
- Michael Massoglia on the link between incarceration and psychiatric disorders
Psychiatric disorders are prevalent among current and former inmates of correctional institutions, but what has been less clear is whether incarceration causes these disorders or, alternatively, whether inmates have these problems before they enter prison. A study co-authored by Jason Schnittker, UW Sociology faculty member Michael Massoglia, and UW alum Christopher Uggen, shows that many of the most common psychiatric disorders found among former inmates, including impulse control disorders, emerge in childhood and adolescence and, therefore, predate incarceration. Yet, incarceration seems to lead to some mood related psychiatric disorders, such as major depression, which have important implications for what happens to inmates after their release. | Read more...
- Jordan Colosi op-ed on the Huffington Post
On the eve of election day, the Huffington Post published an opinion piece on Life's Race, by Sociology Ph.D. student Jordan Colosi. | Read more...
- Former grad Philip Brenner on NPR
Former UW Sociology grad student Philip Brenner was interviewed on NPR in a discussion on the difference between American citizens' actual and reported church attendance. The story, What We Say About Our Religion, And What We Do reported on Brenner's research and Brenner was interviewed by reporter Shankar Vedantam. Brenner is Assistant Professor of Sociology at University of Massachusetts Boston. | Read more...
- Grad Sarah Bruch in The New Republic
Research by recent graduate Sarah Bruch, now assistant professor at the University of Iowa, is featured in a story in The New Republic | Read more...
- Barry Eidlin on the strikes at Walmart
The political newsletter/website CounterPunch has published an article by Barry Eidlin, "Back to the Future for Labor? The Walmart Strikes." Eidlin is an American Sociological Association-National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Sociology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and a Research Fellow at the Center on Wisconsin Strategy. | Read more...
- Alice Goffman's research in The New York Times
Alice Goffman's research work in Detroit is mentioned prominently in the op-ed piece, "Is Poverty a Kind of Robbery?" by columnist Thomas B. Edsall, Sept. 16, 2012 | Read more...
- James Montgomery awarded Gould Prize by the American Journal of Sociology
Each year the editorial board of the AJS selects an article for the Roger V. Gould Prize that is empirically rigorous, theoretically grounded, and lucidly written. Congratulations to James Montgomery for winning the 2012 Gould prize for his article "The Population Dynamics of Black-White-Mulatto Racial Systems." | Read more...
- Ivan Ermakoff receives Coser Award from ASA's Theory section
Ivan Ermakoff received the 2012 Lewis A. Coser Award for Theoretical Agenda-Setting. This prize recognizes a mid-career sociologist whose work holds great promise for setting the agenda in the field of sociology. Ermakoff will deliver the Coser Lecture at the ASA
meetings in August 2013. | Read more...
- Grad Dana Garbarski receives research award
Dana Garbarski received an award from The Charles Cannell Fund in Survey Methodology of the Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan. This award is granted to junior researchers to examine interviewer-respondent interaction during the survey interview and its effects on the validity and quality of survey data. Dana will use her award to study interviewer and respondent interactional rapport during the end-of-life planning section of the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. The purpose of this study is to address two overarching goals: to investigate how interviewers and respondents interactionally deal with potentially sensitive or threatening topics, and to explore the interactional cues associated with concordant and discordant proxy reports of the end-of-life treatment preferences of one’s spouse. | Read more...
- Christine Schwartz quoted in The New York Times
The royal wedding of Kate Middleton to Prince William was exceptional in more than one way: the postwar phenomenon of "marrying up" is disappearing. These days, women tend to marry men from the same socioeconomic class. As women have overtaken men in education and are catching up with them in the job market, the rise of what sociologists and economists call assortative mating — people picking spouses with similar educational achievements and incomes — has been pronounced. | Read more...
- Anna Haskins wins best grad student paper from ASA Population Section
Sociology graduate student Anna Haskins just won the ASA Population Section's grad student paper award for her paper "Unintended Consequences of Mass Imprisonment: Effects of Paternal Incarceration on Child School Readiness." Congratulations, Anna! | Read more...
- Aliza Luft receives dissertation fellowships
May 8, 2012:
- Pamela Oliver receives Lifetime Achievement Award
The Notre Dame Center for the Study of Social Movements presented Pamela Oliver with the John D. McCarthy Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Scholarship of Social Movements and Collective Behavior on May 5, 2010. The McCarthy Award honors scholars who have made "outstanding contributions to the scholarly literature concerned with social movements, protest, collective violence, riots, and other kinds of collective behavior over the course of a career." | Read more...
- Joan Fujimura awarded NIH research grant to analyze how genome researchers define population groups
"Exploring population concepts in multiethnic gene-environment interaction studies" will analyze the challenges faced by researchers as they work with genomic data collected using different definitions of socio-cultural categories. The project examines the social and ethical dimensions of analyses and results generated by this new and growing arena of research. | Read more...
- Jenna Nobles wins NIH funding to study Tsunami effects
"Fertility after a large-scale disaster" will study the demographic effects of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, part of a larger effort to understand the demographic consequences of population trauma. Nobles will study changes in fertility in affected populations following the tsunami, comparing data collected before and after the disaster. | Read more...
- Sociology undergraduates recognized as Outstanding Returning Adult Students
The UW-Madison Outstanding Returning Adult Student Awards competition offers a way to recognize exceptional determination, perseverance, leadership, and community service among undergraduates who have begun or resumed work after an interruption in their formal education. This spring, Teresa Hernandez (Sociology) was nominated for the award, Josephine Lorya-Ozulamoi (Legal Studies/Sociology) and Cynthia Novak (Community & Environmental Sociology) were finalists, and Lachelle Jennings (Sociology) was one of only two overall winners of this campus-wide competion. Congratulations to Lachelle and the other nominees for their exceptional work. | Read more...
- Hae Yeon Choo wins award for department's best dissertation
Hae Yeon Choo has won this year's Lumpkin Award for the best dissertation in the Wisconsin Sociology Department. Hae Yeon's dissertation, "Citizenship at the Margins: Filipina Migrant Women and the Paradox of Rights in South Korea," was written under the supervision of Myra Marx Ferree.
| Read more...
- Broton, Gorden, and McAuliffe awarded NSF graduate fellowships
Katherine Broton, Daanika Gorden, and Joshua McAuliffe have been awarded Graduate Research Fellowships by the National Science Foundation.
Jordon Colosi and Amanda McMillan received honorable mentions in this competition. | Read more...
- Graduate students win fellowships and grants
April 16, 2012:
- Elizabeth Wrigley-Field wins best paper by a graduate student award from the Methodology Section of the ASA
Sociology graduate student Elizabeth Wrigley-Field has won the 2012 Clifford Clogg Award for the best paper by a graduate student from the Methodology Section of the American Sociological Association for her paper "Three Surprising Results About Mortality Deceleration."
| Read more...
- Garbarski/Schaeffer/Dykema proposal "Measurement of Self-Reported Health" among 9 winners in RTI's 2012 Research Challenge
A proposal to study the "Measurement of Self-Reported Health," submitted by Sociology graduate student Dana Garbarski, Sociology faculty member Nora Cate Schaeffer, and the UW Survey Center's Jen Dykema was among the winning entries in RTI's 2012 Research Challenge. The research team will have their questions included as part of an in-person survey of Chicago residents this summer. The goal of their proposal is to examine whether the validity of self-reported health is improved by varying question context and the ordering of the response options. The intent of their experiment is to make important contributions to research on survey methodology, health outcomes and disparities, and any field interested in capturing indicators of health in their surveys. | Read more...
- Christine Schwartz quoted in the cover story of Time (March 15 issue)
Today's high-earning women are justly proud of their paychecks but they still often feel that men will be intimidated rather than attracted to them as potential mates. Included in the March 15, 2012 Time magazine cover article, The Richer Sex, by Liza Mundy, is a quote from Christine Scwartz and a reference to her recent work.
| Read more...
- Erik Olin Wright on the Occupy movement
Erik Olin Wright was quoted in a KATV.com (Little Rock, Arkansas) article about the Occupy movement | Read more...
- Emma Shakeshaft wins UW Early Excellence in Teaching Award
Emma Shakeshaft, a TA nominated by the Sociology Department for an Early Excellence in Teaching Award, is among this year's winners. The reception will take place on Thursday, February 9, 2012 from 3:00-4:00pm in 911 Van Vleck Hall.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison employs over 1,700 teaching assistants across a wide variety of disciplines. Their contributions in the classroom, lab, studio, and field are essential to the University's education mission. In order to recognize excellence on the part of TAs across campus, each year the College of Letters and Science, with funding support from the Graduate School, administers four awards for exceptional teaching. This year, sixteen TAs will be recognized for their teaching excellence at UW-Madison. | Read more...
- Felix Elwert's Sociology 120 participates in UW e-Textbook pilot program
UW-Madison and four other major universities announced plans to try buying electronic textbooks in bulk, an experiment that officials say could help rein in burdensome textbook costs and bring e-textbooks into the mainstream.
Professor Felix Elwert's Sociology 120 class is one of five courses participating in the campus pilot program.
More information on the e-Textbook pilot program from other sources...
The Capital Times (Madison, WI)
The New York Times
UW Madison CIO Office
| Read more...
- Global Health Institute awards seed grants to Grant, Green, and Palloni
Eight campus research projects received start-up funding from the UW-Madison Global Health Initiative, including projects from faculty members Monica Grant (Sociology): "Mobile Phone-Disseminated Health Information," Gary Green (Community & Environmental Sociology): "Pathways for Poverty Reduction in Haiti: Health and economic impacts of organic mango Production and Processing" and Alberto Palloni (Sociology): "Economic Growth and Inequality in Human Capital Formation." | Read more...
