Category Archives: University of Texas at Austin Sociology

Austin, Gender and Sexuality, Latin American Studies, Political Sociology, Race and Ethnicity, Sociology of Education, Sociology of Gender, University of Texas at Austin Sociology

Clips from Opening the Blinds: Talking Race, Sex and Class at UT-Austin

November 20, 2012 admin Leave a comment

by Kevin Hsu and Evelyn Porter

Panelists:
Marianna Anaya, Mexican American Studies and Radio, Television and Film junior, member of La Colectiva Femenil
Marleen Villanueva, Spanish senior, member of La Colectiva Femenil
Juan Portillo, PhD student in Sociology
Rocio Villalobos, UT-Austin alum and Program Coordinator for the Multicultural Engagement Center
Ganiva Reyes, PhD student in Cultural Studies and Education

Opening the Blinds: Talking Race, Sex and Class at UT-Austin – Introduction by Juan Portillo

While college is often sold as the ticket to a better life, being a student at The University of Texas can also be a rough and violent experience. Recent bleach bombings against students of color, offensive sorority and fraternity race-themed parties, and the current attack on affirmative action can affect students’ sense of security, their sense of belonging in our imagined community, and their emotional well-being. At the same time, UT’s and Austin’s claim to a liberal mentality can serve to obscure or diminish the impact of these events, as well as the sense of alienation that students can and often feel.

Marianna Anaya Talks about La Colectiva Femenil

As a response to the current campus climate, on October 30, 2012, the Sociology Department organized a panel presentation and discussion, free and open to the public, to frame these and other issues in a way that allows us to unravel the many social forces that affect students, including race, gender, sexuality, and social class.

Marleen Villanueva on the Importance of Speaking Out

In this panel, the presenters opened up a conversation to explore how race, gender, sexuality, and social class are experienced by students. First, Marianna Anaya and Marleen Villanueva provided narratives of their educational trajectories at UT, shedding light on their experiences as first generation college students, women of color, and student leaders.

Rocio Villalobos Talks about UT’s Legacy and the History of Student Activism

Next, using an intersectional, feminist, sociological lens, Juan Portillo explained how UT can learn from students’ experiences in order to understand how racism, sexism and classism are at work in institutions in the form of ‘micro-aggressions.’

Ganiva Reyes on the Myth of Individualism and the Importance of Working Together

Rocio Villalobos then provided her perspective as a UT alum and as someone who now works for UT in a center that seeks to address issues such as racism, classism, sexism, and homophobia.

Finally, Ganiva Reyes talked about her experiences teaching the only required course in the College of Education that addresses race, gender, sexuality, and other factors in teacher training.

Dr Christine Williams on Diversity as Ideology, Listening, and Lessons for Allies

The panel was moderated by Dr Christine Williams, Chair of the Sociology Department. We hope that after the presentation, the panelists and the audience can continue to have conversations that further enrich our understanding of racism, sexism and classism, and what steps can be taken to address these problems.

Globalization and Development, Political Sociology, University of Texas at Austin Sociology

PHS Middle East Working Group Hosts First Meeting

November 20, 2012 admin Leave a comment

The Power, History, and Society network (PHS) of the Department of Sociology has initiated a “Middle East Working Group (ME Working Group).” Graduate coordinators, Amina Zarrugh and Hyun Jeong Ha, organized the first working group meeting on Friday, November 15th with the support of PHS faculty advisor Dr. Mounira M. Charrad. The ME Working Group promotes networking among faculty members and graduate students at the University of Texas at Austin whose research concerns the Middle East and North Africa. The ME Working Group aims to create an intellectually supportive forum among UT scholars and a space for constructive discussions of student work-in-progress, research by faculty guest speakers, and critical conversations about contemporary events in the region.

The first ME Working Group meeting was attended by ten graduate students across disciplines including the departments of sociology, anthropology, government, history, Middle Eastern Studies, and Radio-Television-Film. The graduate students’ areas of specialization lie in politics, social movements, gender, and race/ethnicity issues in the region. At the meeting, graduate students discussed upcoming plans for spring semester. The ME Working Group plans to have two graduate student presentations and one workshop with a professor visiting from the University of Oklahoma in the spring. Faculty members and graduate students who are interested in the ME Working Group are welcome to join the group and mailing list by contacting graduate coordinators: Amina Zarrugh at amina.zarrugh@utexas.edu and Hyun Jeong Ha at hjha@utexas.edu.

Demography, Statistics, Uncategorized, University of Texas at Austin Sociology

The University of Texas Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Program

November 6, 2012 amias Leave a comment

Longhorn REU students with their adviser, sociology professor Dr. Nestor Rodriguez (center). To Dr. Rodriguez’s immediate right: Mario Guerra and Taylor Orth

Each year the Population Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin, in collaboration with the Department of Sociology, hosts the Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program. This eight-week summer program, which is funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation, offers eight very selective upper-division undergraduate students from both UT-Austin and from around the country the opportunity to study social demography through course work and a mentored research experience with senior PRC graduate students. Student papers are then presented at the annual fall meeting of the Southern Demographic Association. This year three undergraduate sociology majors – Taylor Orth, Mario Guerra, and Sharron Wang – participated in the REU program and we invited them to share their experiences with the blog.

Taylor Orth: The REU program gave me the opportunity to conduct independent research and provided me with the ultimate pre-graduate school experience. Throughout the program, we were taught through a variety of different classes, seminars and experiences. While being trained in the technical side through working with Stata and GIS software, we were also given field experience by taking a field trip to Houston to explore different racial and ethnic enclaves. Dr. Nestor Rodriguez and Dr. Rebecca Torres provided us with a mix of perspectives, and gave us a sociological as well as a geographical understanding of our topics and the subjects we approached in the classroom. I feel like the program really helped me to fully explore my interests before I take the leap of applying to graduate school. With such a strong support group, it was an excellent time to really find out what I wanted to study and to take risks with using difficult data and new types of analyses.

In addition to the training we received, we were paired with graduate mentors who oversaw our research and guided us in making decisions regarding our own independent projects. My mentor David McClendon was especially helpful and assisted me in my project on fertility within interracial and interethnic marriages. After finishing our projects, we submitted them to the Southern Demographic Association conference. Attending the conference was a valuable experience, and we were each given the opportunity to present our research. For me, the most rewarding part was when I finished my presentation and one woman stayed around afterwards to speak with me. She informed me that she had come to the panel presentation because my topic was of particular interest to her, and she wanted to ask me additional questions and speak in detail after the presentation. It was exciting to think that someone was interested in something I had researched and it was nice to be able to share what I had learned.

After having such a positive experience working with a diverse cohort of students as well as interacting daily with a faculty mentor, I became confident in my decision to attend graduate school. The program gave me all the tools that I needed to work independently, but also provided me with resources to fall back on when I needed help. With many long hours working in the PRC computer lab on our projects, our cohort of students developed a special bond, and were very happy to be reunited at the meeting in Williamsburg. I don’t think there could have been a better way to spend my summer. The program provided me with a research experience unavailable to undergraduates anywhere else.

Mario Guerra: The REU program gave me a unique opportunity to learn the ins and outs of conducting research as well as presenting at a conference. In general, most students have written research papers for a class or two but conducting independent research takes this a step further as one tries to contribute to the work that may already be out there. After a summer of research focused workshops and seminars, we were then able to show off our work at the SDA conference.

The summer program was an interesting experience as it allowed for a more intensive focus on independent research than did any other undergraduate class I have taken. The focus here was to prepare the students for their own research projects no matter what their background in statistics and demography may be. Due to the mix of students, our workshops were focused on training in both STATA and GIS in order to conduct our analysis. The summer months also gave us the opportunity to get to know other students from around the country who had similar interests as we did and were also eager to explore Austin. The resources over the summer also made the daunting task of independent research a more manageable experience. The fearless REU leaders Dr. Nestor Rodriguez and Dr. Rebecca Torres were always available to answer any questions. Additionally, our mentors and grad students in charge of workshops gave great advice and went above and beyond to help us.

This October was our conference at SDA which was my first presentation at an actual conference. It was a great experience in not only presenting but simply being around that type of environment. Knowing that for two and a half days you could sit in on some pretty interesting presentations was great. As for the presentation, I feel that I was definitely a lot more nervous than I had to be. The many nights spent at local 24 hour coffee shops running data analysis and reading random articles on my topic had prepared me for the presentation. I found myself not needing to prepare as much as I thought seeing as I felt rather confident in the subject matter. This in turn made for a relatively smooth presentation. Seeing as my presentations was during the first student time slot, I was able to spend the rest of the time not worrying about the presentation. I was able to explore William and Marys right next door and hang out with the other REU students.

In all, it was a wonderful experience that led to some great stories (like that we randomly said hi to the Dalai Lama although that’s not really REU related). We also made some great connections with professors and other students who had similar research interests. Personally, the program really solidified the idea that as a sociology major applying to graduate schools, this type of research is something I enjoy doing.

Sharron Xuaren Wang: I would like to begin by thanking the Sociology Department and Population Research Center (PRC) for they giving me the opportunity to take part in the REU program this summer. I also want to thank Dr. Nestor Rodriguez, Dr. Rebecca Torres, Molly Dondero, Joseph Lariscy, our mentors, and the entire amazing faculty and staff who made this research program possible and guided us through our research

The REU program is very special to me because it gave me the confidence to do sociological research in the future. My first major was economics. After adding sociology as my second major, I was eager to find an opportunity to conduct sociological research. I enjoyed reading sociological literature; however, I was not sure if I would be able to do research or not. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to participate in the REU program.

All the classes and sessions I took in the REU program equipped me with the knowledge and skills to do independent research. I also got a taste of how joyful it can be after I ran data analyses successfully. The moment I saw results appear on my screen, I became sure that doing research is for me and that I want to pursue it. Even though I had some difficulties finding available data and supporting theories for my topic, our supervisor, Dr. Rodriguez, Molly, and Joseph were very supportive. They gave me helpful insight and lots of courage that help me persevere through all the difficulties.

The October SDA meeting was a unique opportunity for me to practice presenting my research and listen to outstanding research presentations. I was deeply impressed by the academic atmosphere in the conference. I also got much valuable feedback from other researchers for my research. I want to thank the REU very much for giving me this wonderful experience and the courage to pursue my interest in researching. The entire program was an unforgettable experience.

Austin, Gender and Sexuality, Sociology of Gender, Uncategorized, University of Texas at Austin Sociology, Work, Occupations and Organizations

Better Know A Sociologist: 10 Questions with Christine Williams

October 23, 2012 amias Leave a comment

Here at the UT Sociology Blog, we strive to find new and interesting ways to expose the people and research in our department. To that end, we present to you “Better Know A Sociologist,” where we ask 10 general questions to one of our illustrious faculty members. Given that this is our inaugural post, we thought, “why not start at the top?” Thus we present to you 10 questions with Dr. Christine Williams, chair of the UT Sociology Department.

1. What first attracted you to sociology?

I don’t know how I first got interested in sociology. I’d always developed this narrative that I discovered sociology in college after going through different majors like political economy and art history. But then, somebody – I think my sister -pulled out my high school yearbook – I went to a pretty small high school in South America, so each senior had their own page and their own quote – and in my quote, I talk about wanting to be a sociologist! So I was 16 years old when I graduated from high school so obviously I knew what it was and I said I wanted to be one, so who knows? I don’t know where that came from in my 16 year old self, but I do remember actually making the switch to being a sociology major and I think it had a lot to do with the fact that it was the place where I learned about social justice and social inequality and that’s where feminism was located in the academy, so I think that that’s what drew me to the major. I’ve always been interested in class and gender.

2. What did you do your dissertation on?

My dissertation was a study of men in nursing and women in the Marine Corps. It was published as the book “Gender Differences at Work.” There’s this book by Rosabeth Moss Kanter that’s very famous called “Men and Women of the Corporation.” It’s a bit old, but people still talk about it. Kanter says in the book that it’s all about being a numerical minority, that is, the token phenomenon that results in basically labor force discrimination. I thought I would compare men’s and women’s experiences as tokens, but my original case study design was women in the Marine Corps and men in ballet because I had this title in my mind : “Men and Women of the Corps.” Like the Corps de Ballet and the Marine Corps, and I thought it would be this great hook because it was ultimately a critique of Kanter but I went to talk to an adviser in anthropology – who ended up not being one of my advisers – but he said that it was a stupid comparison and I got all, “Waaah, no!” I eventually figured out that he was right, but he was way too gruff in his manner and so I changed my case to nursing.

And so doing those studies, was that sort of what got you thinking towards doing the research that would eventually result in “Still A Man’s World”?

Yeah, after I had published “Gender Differences at Work,” one of my reviewers – it was actually Arlene Kaplan Daniels, who recently passed away. She mentored the whole generation of scholars that are my age. She was really really important and is missed – she gave it a very positive review and said that she was especially interested in the case of men because sociologists of gender have basically ignored men up until then and that the case of men in nursing was just fascinating and new and so that’s when I decided to expand my second book to look at more than one occupation that was female dominated.

3. Why did you decide to work here at the University of Texas?

Because they offered me a job! [laughs] Nobody picks where they work, this is where you end up. It was very funny because my first job was at the University of Oklahoma and that’s where I was an undergraduate. I was two years into being there and I was pretty miserable. I was the token qualitative person and the token theory person and it was just miserable, so I went back on the job market and applied everywhere. I almost didn’t apply here because I thought, “Oh UT, that’s going to be exactly the same as Oklahoma and I just want to get out of this part of the world.” But I came down here for my interview and I was just blown away. It was pretty and it had hills and people were really nice and excited about my work. I had just come from an environment where as an assistant professor I was constantly being criticized. Here everyone thought I was great and I thought they were great so it was a good match.

So when you got here, did you see this as a place you wanted to stay, or did you see this as just another part of your journey?

I had my career ups and downs here. I was pretty unhappy at one point because I thought they would count my two years [at OU] towards tenure and they didn’t – they would do such a thing now, but back then they had more stringent rules about time and rank – so they didn’t let me go up early and I was pretty unhappy about that and threatened to leave but never did. You know, I’ve been here for almost 25 years and I can’t – I often think about where I’d rather be other than here and I can’t think of any place. I can’t think of any place that would be as good as this. Of course I have this great lifestyle where I go away in the summer and get to live in the Bay area, so that kind of gives me the best of both worlds.

Definitely. Avoid the Texas summers if you can.

I know! But I still get to have the big ranch house and an easy bike commute and fantastic students and a great department.

4. What’s your overall experience of Austin then? What do you like about this place?

I like that it’s very relaxed and informal, although I understand that’s less so these days downtown. I just don’t go there. I think I, like a lot of people, live in a very small part of Austin. I basically live in a three mile radius of my home and I think it’s great. I don’t know what you’d want more than this. Of course, I spent a lot of my childhood traveling, so having a place that where I’m actually going to live for a long time is something attractive and very different for me.

5. If you could teach one sociological concept to the world, what would it be?

Mmm. Well it wouldn’t be the glass escalator, because I already did that and now I’m backtracking on that. There are flash cards with the glass escalator, it’s in hundreds of textbooks: kids all over the country are being given multiple choice questions on “what is the glass escalator?” So it’s happened.

So talk about that. It sounds like you’re a bit conflicted. How do you feel about having that sort of legacy or this concept that you created out in the world and you don’t really have as much ownership over how it’s being discussed and taught?

Well, it’s a good feeling. You know, I didn’t actually invent the term, [my partner] did. [laughs] I was sitting there working on the article because I had published two books already and my senior colleagues told me that if I wanted to get tenure at Texas I had to publish articles too. So I was working on this article that became the glass escalator article and I was looking at my analysis and saying “It’s like these guys keep on getting moved up even though they don’t even necessarily want to move up. It’s like they’re on some kind of elevator or something!” And he goes, “no, it’s an escalator, because they have to work to stay in place.” And I said, “That’s it!” I remember it very vividly, that conversation. So it’s very gratifying to know that – and I think it’s a good concept because people know intuitively what it means because it has a counterpart with the glass ceiling, and I do think that’s partially the secret to success is to come up with some catchy term. I mean, Arlie Hochschild really refined that with “the second shift” and “the time bind.” She keeps coming up with these great – like “the global care chain,” that’s another one.

Or emotion work.

Emotion work! I mean, all of these ideas, people can intuitively grasp what they’re about and it’s very cool. No, I’m backing away from it not because I think I was wrong but because I think that the world of work has changed so that there are many, many careers today that have no career ladder. You can’t have a glass escalator unless there is the opportunity for promotion. I think it’s a concept that’s grounded in an earlier form of work and we need new concepts.

It’s almost like a treadmill now.

Yeah, or a trap door is another one that we’re thinking about. So we’re thinking about the limitations of the glass escalator concept and we’ve got an article forthcoming in Gender & Society next year.

6. What’s the most rewarding part of your job?

This. Graduate students. Talking about ideas.

Why is that?

What other field do you get to be around a bunch of brilliant young people who are basically creatively thinking about society? There’s nothing else that comes close to it.

7. Who is one person in the department besides yourself that you think is doing really interesting work and what is it?

Well, it’s really funny, most of us don’t know what each other does, and I do because I’m chair. The thing that just boggles my mind is how much amazing work is being done here. When you asked that question, I was like, “Holy cow, what am I going to say?” I mean, is it going to be Sharmila’s [Rudrappa] work on surrogacy, Deborah’s [Umberson] work on gay marriage, Ron’s [Angel] work on post Katrina… It’s just endless. My colleagues over in the Population Research Center are also doing really interesting and innovative work, so I couldn’t pick. I mean, Michael Young’s work on immigrant rights, Ari’s [Adut] work on the French Revolution – I get to read all of this stuff – Gloria’s [Gonzalez-Lopez] work on incest, it just goes on and on.

It’s an embarrassment of riches.

It is, and it helps us to understand why we’re so highly ranked but it also has to do with our ability to interact with and mentor excellent students. Just having that intellectual stimulation – we didn’t always used to have that here and I think it’s something that we’ve cultivated and grown. Virtually everyone in the department is doing interesting work now. I mean, Joe Potter’s work on contraceptive health and health policy, it’s just, it’s first-rate and it’s so interesting.

8. What are your current research interests? What are you looking at these days?

Well, the short answer is women geoscientists in the oil and gas industry, but I think my heart lies in understanding work transformation and deindustrialization. What’s really interesting to me is how a lot of policies meant to promote gender equality have been designed with professional women in mind and I think that policies that aid them may actually diminish poor women. So I think there’s a real need to understand how social policies have a class basis to them. Especially poor women, but also men, because a lot of the time they’ll say, “OK, there’s a gender wage gap”. Yeah, she’s earning $7.50/hr, he’s earning $7.80/hr, so both of them are struggling, OK? It’s like it’s almost the wrong issue. And the focus sometimes on gender disparities at the bottom of the wage scale I think prevents worker solidarity. This is the stuff that I’ve been teaching to you since I first met you, sort of combining the gender and sexuality with the labor markets.

Exactly. And sort of the effect of neoliberalism towards putting men and women in a race to the bottom in terms of wages.

Right. And we can still detect gender disparities but are they the issue when people are not earning living wage? No, they’re not. On the high end, it’s “OK we’re going to get women into the CEO suite,” but it’s going be a pyrrhic victory if they’re just going to continue to impose these neoliberal reforms and slash any kind of benefits and wages. No thank you! That’s not my feminist movement.

9. What’s one book you’ve read in the past year that you’ve really enjoyed and why?

Well, the book I’m reading now is just amazing. It’s Sinikka Elliott’s book – which was her dissertation here at UT – and I’ve assigned it to my undergraduates. There’s just so many wonderful feelings involved in seeing this work from its inception. It’s called “Not My Kid,” and it’s about what parents believe about the sex lives of their teenagers. They all think that their kids are good and innocent and other people’s kids are hormone driven sex maniacs and this belief, she argues, reproduces social inequality but it also prevents teenagers from getting any kind of thoughtful, useful information about sexuality and relationships.

10. What do you enjoy doing in your free time?

I enjoy bike riding and reading. Especially novels. I also enjoying swimming and yoga and drinking beer.

Austin, Crime, Law and Deviance, Health and Well-Being, University of Texas at Austin Sociology

A Crooked Piece of Time: As Navigated by Dr Sheldon Ekland-Olson

October 12, 2012 admin Leave a comment

By Kevin Hsu and Evelyn Porter, with special thanks to Julie Kniseley

A Crooked Piece of Time: Beginnings of an Academic Career

Professor Dr Sheldon Ekland-Olson shared his stories and lessons with students and colleagues today on the journey to becoming a sociologist, a scholar, a teacher, and a truly resilient human being.

Dr Ekland-Olson is the Audre and Bernard Rapoport Centennial Professor and Graduate Advisor of Sociology, and Director of the School of Human Ecology at UT-Austin. Former Executive Vice President and Provost of the University and former Dean at the College of Liberal Arts, Dr Ekland-Olson is the recipient of numerous honors such as the Texas Blazers Faculty Excellence Award and, most recently, the Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award. He joined the faculty of the University in 1971 after earning his PhD in Sociology and Law from the University of Washington and Yale Law School.

Dr Ekland-Olson’s latest book Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Decides? (Routledge, 2011), based on his award-winning and hugely popular undergraduate course at UT, explores controversial issues such as abortion, neonatal care, assisted dying, and capital punishment, and the fundamentally sociological processes that underlie the quest for morality and justice in human societies.

In this talk Dr Ekland-Olson (or Sheldon, as his colleagues and students affectionately and most often call him) emphasized the importance of discovering and being self-aware about one’s core values and goals, of ‘knowing thyself,’ and staying true to oneself under various circumstances. Sheldon’s own personal and professional course has taken a number of unexpected turns, but at each juncture he asked himself whether his choices and actions truly reflected what he wanted to do and felt was right, and this has been his guiding principle to this day.

Against the backdrop of the American civil rights movement, Sheldon attended college in Seattle, originally intent on obtaining a bachelor of science in chemistry. In the summer before his senior year, however, he was hired by an anthropology professor to transcribe interviews with an 85-year-old member of the Kwakiutl tribe in Canada about the effects of modernization on his community. Sheldon admitted to catching the ‘ethnography bug’ while transcribing Jimmy Seaweed’s interviews, and in his senior year changed his major and eventually graduated with a bachelor of arts degree.

In part because of his science background, Sheldon went to graduate school at the University of Washington to study social statistics, and five years later he graduated with a PhD in sociology. It was during this time he began to see the importance of law and the legal system in effecting social change, and he applied for and received a postdoctoral fellowship at Yale Law School.

Sheldon remembered loving the study of law, which for him was a fascinating subject in and of itself. Despite strong pressures from mentors and colleagues to go into a law career, he was more interested in the interplay and dynamics between law and culture – in particular the lives of prisoners, who are systematically stripped of civil rights, existing in a sort of gray legal ‘no-man’s land’. He undertook an ethnography of jail, spending nights studying and talking to prisoners awaiting trial about their unique perspectives and experiences, which led to the establishment of a pro bono legal counseling service provided by law students to prisoners in need.

In 1971 Sheldon joined the UT Sociology Department. Just before his tenure review, the publisher of his ethnography study went bankrupt, and mentors and colleagues tried to persuade him to pursue other courses of research and to publish in different venues. Nonetheless Sheldon stayed true to what he was interested in, thought was relevant and wanted to do, and was eventually able to publish his book and earn tenure at the University.

In the 1980s the Chancellor of The UT System was seeking to implement higher education development initiatives in the Rio Grande Valley, and wanted a ‘non-bureaucrat’ to oversee the process. Sheldon was appointed as special assistant on this task force. It was then Sheldon discovered his love of, and knack for, building programs from the ground up. Later, as Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, he would apply his vision and experience to the creation of programs such as Plan I Honors, the Undergraduate Writing Center, a Religious Studies program, Freshman Seminars, the interdisciplinary Tracking Cultures program, and numerous other initiatives at the University. Sheldon emphasized his journey is a continuous learning process and he ended up doing what he loves in completely un-anticipated and un-preconceived ways. It’s been important for him to remain true to his goals, and yet recognize there may be many paths to reaching them.

In the late 1980s Sheldon’s mother was dying from diabetes. The exorbitant cost of experimental drugs that could prolong her life for possibly six months forced Sheldon’s father, a janitor, to make the difficult choice to let her die. End-of-life and quality-of-life issues have since intimately engaged Sheldon as a teacher and a scholar, leading him to develop his undergraduate course ‘Life and Death Decisions’ and, eventually, write his book Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Decides?.

Sheldon’s current teaching and research involve the study of the evolution of moral systems, from the way people justify torture and capital punishment, to how science and technology influence our morality and ethics, and vice versa.

In sum, Sheldon offers the following life lessons for resilience:

Be grateful for rejection and adversity, and learn to cope with them. It is through them we come to realize our source of strength and learn where our anchors are. (Hrabal: ‘For we are like olives: only when we are crushed do we yield what is best in us.’)
Be grateful for successes, no matter how small they may seem.
Recognize small steps matter. Don’t plan too far ahead. Be open to unexpected developments and bends in the road, in study and in life.
Have humor.
Be responsible and live for yourself.

We are grateful Professor Sheldon Ekland-Olson has shared his stories with us, a testament to the adage that example isn’t another way to teach – it is the only way to teach. We are truly fortunate to have him here as a colleague, a mentor, and a friend.

Thanks, Sheldon!

Austin, Crime, Law and Deviance, Uncategorized, University of Texas at Austin Sociology

Research Q & A – A Dynamic Duo of Crime Fighting: APD and UT Sociology

October 10, 2012 amias Leave a comment

Recently, the Austin Police Department was awarded funding from The Byrne Criminal Justice Innovation Program, a program begun by the Department of Justice to help facilitate place-based, community oriented strategies to address neighborhood crime. As part of their proposal, APD has involved the UT Department of Sociology in the planning and evaluation steps of this multi-year project. We sent our intrepid blog editor to interview Dr. David Kirk, Associate Professor and lead researcher on the project, to find out more.

Why did APD decide to involve the UT sociology department?

Well, they were looking for research partners that had some experience with community crime prevention and neighborhood development and I had contacts at APD who were aware of my research. A core piece of my research agenda is understanding the relationship between crime and community conditions. APD knew I was familiar with the White House Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative through some work I have done with the National Institute of Justice. So I am familiar with what the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Justice Assistance want to accomplish through this grant program. Additionally, given my research background, I can help them both design a crime prevention program and evaluate it after implementation.

This project is specifically focusing on the area north of 183 around Rundberg Lane. Why was this area targeted?

The nature of the grant program is to identify a neighborhood in a given urban environment that accounts for a disproportionate amount of crime in a given city. So when APD and I developed the grant proposal, we looked at neighborhoods where crime concentrates. Here in Austin, the crime rate is fairly low compared to the crime rate in other urban areas, but it’s very concentrated and the Rundberg area is one of the extreme pockets of crime in the city. So the decision was kind of made for us based upon the distribution of crime.

Are place-based crime strategies effective?

Definitely! The particular strategy that we’ll end up applying in the Rundberg area won’t apply everywhere of course, but certainly place-based strategies do work and not just in areas where there are high rates of crime.

One of the goals of this project is to not just reduce crime rates, but to “empower residents” of the neighborhood. Why shouldn’t these funds just go directly into enforcement and surveillance?

Because if you just spend the money on enforcement and surveillance it’s not developing community capacity like it needs to. So the idea is that after a three year period – a year of planning, a year of implementation, and a year of evaluation – the project funds will go away but the effort will be self-sustaining because the collective capacity of the neighborhood has been built up. It’s not just about reducing crime; it’s also about building collective efficacy in the community so that you have residents and the police and the DA and community organizations all working together. So we want to establish social network ties, establish working relationships; therefore even when the money goes away, they’ve got an institutional framework for continuing to fight crime.

What does “empowering residents” mean? What might it look like?

It can be as simple as encouraging residents to report crimes or to start neighborhood watch programs. Yet a specific motivation for this grant program is to directly involve the community in the planning process. That empowers residents. They will work with city leaders, community organizations, and UT to analyze the problems in the community and figure out what solutions make sense. Ultimately, if we just rely upon the police to control crime then we’re not capitalizing on the fact that there are all these other entities that could help out.

So just to be clear, we’re not talking about empowering residents to fight crime themselves, we’re talking about empowering them to address the causes of crime and to reduce the crime rate in that fashion?

Well, I’m definitely not talking about vigilante justice where you arm residents and have them go out and fight crime! [laughs] But I AM talking about empowering residents to work with the police. For example, one characteristic of a lot of communities that have high levels of crime and socioeconomic disadvantage is that relationships with police are characterized by a lot of animosity and distrust. But if you bring the police and the residents in a collective process that’s designed to address community problems and they start talking, they realize it’s possible to reach common goals by working together. So part of the project is to work at reducing this distrust between the community and the police. And that goes a long way towards lowering crime.

That makes sense. What about the community of social services? How will they be involved in this?

They will be directly involved. One of the big issues in the Rundberg area – and this applies to a lot of urban neighborhoods – is concentrated prisoner reentry. You’ve got a lot of folks coming out of prison going back to neighborhoods and often times there’s not a great understanding of what kind of resources are available to help these folks reintegrate back into society and furthermore, a lot of the time the community itself may not even understand their needs. So we want to have the community communicating to individuals what kinds of resources are available. For example, “here’s an organization that provides job training for free,” or “here’s a treatment facility that actually has bed spaces,” or “I heard about this company that will hire ex-offenders,” that type of thing. So that’s one way to help facilitate the reintegration process for ex-prisoners. The theoretical idea is that if you have a structure of social service providers and non-profit organizations, these are important entities that can contribute to the control of crime.

Are projects like this common? A lot of times professors and academics are seen as “hands off” intellectuals, sitting alone in an Ivory Tower somewhere. Why is it important to be involved in on the ground projects such as this?

Well, different academics have different research trajectories. I have not done a lot of applied work. But this project is an opportunity to help a community and that’s certainly the most important thing to me. It’s interesting from a research aspect as well. There are research questions we can ask by trying to revitalize a neighborhood. I mean, the whole question of “can we get the police and the community and these other entities to work together effectively,” that’s an interesting question in its own right. It’s also important to research what it takes to foster better relationships between the police and the community. Personally, I definitely think it’s useful to apply what I’ve learned sitting here in my office running statistical models in the service of trying to help a community.

Anything else you feel is important that I may have missed?

I would just emphasize the nature of the three year project. It’s a well developed grant program that the Department of Justice has put together and so they’re providing the city and police and UT a year of funding to analyze the problem intensively. And then the idea is that after people have analyzed what’s going on in the area – and here we’re not just talking about crime, we’re also talking about housing, employment prospects, etc. – we’ll collectively come together and identify what types of intervention would make sense in the neighborhood. Then there’s the implementation phase and that has its own challenges. And then after that UT will come in and evaluate it and see whether or not it was a success. So it’s a big, three year effort. It’s going to present me with some different research challenges, but I’m excited. The Chief of Police predicted that there would be real change in the neighborhood. There are a lot of people interested in helping out the community and the community itself is interested as well, so I’m optimistic that we can make his prediction come true.

Cover Image provided courtesy of KXAN

University of Texas at Austin Sociology

“Comps and Defending Your Proposal: Secrets and Unexpected Benefits of the Initiated” with Jane Ebot and Christine Wheatley

October 4, 2012 admin Leave a comment

Fifth-year student Jane Ebot and fourth-year student Christine Wheatley in the Sociology PhD program shared experiences and some cogent advice for fellow comprehensive exam takers and dissertation proposal defenders in our Thursday Brown Bag Session.

Jane took her exams in demography and is conducting research on maternal and infant mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa. A PowerPoint version of her presentation can be found here. Below is a summary of her invaluable advice to students preparing for comps:

In the semester before the one in which you plan to take your exams, check with your advisor and program coordinator on your degree progress and coursework checklist. With your advisor, decide if you are ready and when you should actually take your exams, in what area/s and sub-area/s you should take them, and who your exam chair and committee should be. Faculty often have colleagues in mind with whom they feel comfortable in working, and having committee members who can offer different perspectives but also get along personally can help you immensely, for comps and dissertation.
After your meeting, create a reading list. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Build on past lists. Talk with other students in your area/s and sub-area/s, and remember, since your committee will invariably add a substantial chunk of materials to your list after review, that ‘less is more’. The list you propose to your committee need not be exhaustive. EndNote is also a great organizing tool.
Organize. Put together a calendar (comps take place in mid-October and mid-April), and make a binder for your articles if your list is article-heavy. Make an outline/lit review template, and apply that template to each of your readings.
Spend at least the two to three months preceding the exam reading. Divide and conquer. It is a good idea to save the hardest materials for last so you can remember them better before the exam.
Be prepared for life still happening during all this. Prioritize and figure out what can wait, and discuss this with your mentors and colleagues particularly if you are collaborating on projects. Don’t neglect your health.
Two weeks prior to the exam, review. This is the time to really synthesize your readings and suss out the relations among the items on your list. Try to find an overarching idea, and diagram it down to more specifics, to see if you truly understand your topic/s.
Practice with past exams and/or imagined, anticipated questions. Many exams are written by the same faculty members. If you can, do so in the room where you will actually be taking the exam, even in the spot in the room – simulate the experience to prepare yourself and help yourself remember better. Do it first with notes, then without notes. Review afterward to see where you can improve. Talk to a friend, even a non-sociologist, and ask them to pose any questions to you about your area/s and topic/s.
The day before the exam, relax. Sleep well.
Show up early to your exam. Bring some quiet snacks and water (but not too much) if you’d like. You get one official short break on each of the two days of the exam; any other breaks you take will be on your own exam time. If your exam is in demography, you can also bring a calculator or use Excel on the computer.
Outline and write your answers in essay form – major thesis-minor theses-evidence-restatement of thesis-significance.

After comps, it is a good idea to take a well-deserved break before you begin preparing for your dissertation proposal and proposal defense. To prepare:

Discuss with your advisor about ideas, potential topics, directions, and methods for your dissertation.
Write a five-page pre-proposal, and get feedback from your advisor.
For the proposal itself, write a bit at a time. Make a calendar, and set deadlines for yourself. Don’t be afraid to ask for periodic feedback. Your advisor and you need to be on the same page regarding your readiness. Depending on your topic, your proposal may be 20 – 60+ pages. Again, work with your advisor closely through the process and clarify expectations.
With your advisor, determine who should be (or should not be) on your dissertation committee. Remember you need one out-of-department faculty member.
Email these potential members to request a meeting individually.
Once they agree to be on your committee and you have your committee set, figure out a date, time and place for your proposal defense. Book a room right away, and confirm with your committee.
It is a good idea to both email and give a paper copy of your proposal to all your committee members.
Practice your presentation.
Arrive early to set up the room and any equipment you need. Dress professionally. During the defense you will most likely present your proposal only for five minutes, followed by Q&A, discussion among the faculty, their decision, and further discussion with you.

Remember your proposal is just that – a proposal. Your dissertation may end up being more or less different.

While Jane focused mostly on the logistics of comps and and proposal defense, Christine Wheatley shared some excellent tips on managing yourself mentally and emotionally through these times, and through graduate school in general. Christine’s own research explores migrant experiences of deportation from the U.S. and return to Mexico. She suggests:

Don’t see comps as simply another ‘hoop’ to jump through. Take it as an opportunity to familiarize yourself thoroughly with the fundamentals of your field and sub-field/s, in your own development as an expert and a scholar.
Don’t rush through grad school. Competitiveness and perfectionism from fear and insecurity hinder more than they propel. Each person and each field are different; do what is right for you.
Be self-aware about your own habits and disposition, and make them work for you rather than against you.
Be prepared for your own emotional reactions. Almost everyone has thought about quitting or dropping out at one time or another. Reflect on whether these reactions are simply situational, and temporary.
All your faculty mentors are here to help you. Your success is their success. Work with them and don’t be afraid to seek their advice and guidance.
Overcome the Fear of the Unknown: practice, practice, practice.
Read for the ‘big ideas.’ If some finer points do jump out at you, remember them and critique them. Understanding is the ability to differentiate between and to synthesize the big and the small. Session participant and graduate student Nicholas Reith also pointed out the importance of recognizing different perspectives, and it is a good idea to read more than one book review to get a balanced summary of a work.
Remember to actually answer the questions on the comp exams. Restate the question if necessary in your answer. Don’t worry too much about ‘polish’ (but spelling and general intelligibility are still good ideas).
Celebrate your successes! Make this into a cycle of positive, not negative, reinforcement.

A big Thank You to Jane, Christine, and all the participants at this brown bag for making it such a lively, informative and useful session!

Health and Well-Being, University of Texas at Austin Sociology

Gloria González López on Maintaining a Balanced Life

September 27, 2012 porterem Leave a comment

Initiating our work/life balance series for 2012-13

Dr. Gloria González-López is a Gender and Sexuality scholar working with Mexican and Mexican American communities, with an emphasis on social inequality. She is a prolific author and serves as the Minority Liaison Officer for the Sociology Department at UT Austin. She is also a truly humane being. Based on her own life and professional experiences, she shared insights on maintaining a healthy and balanced life with graduate students and staff in the first of a series of conversations on work/life balance.

Dr. González-López, who joined UT Austin in 2002 as an Assistant Professor, suggests that caring about yourself and others lays the foundation for building good health and community. She walks every morning in order to maintain balance and claims staying healthy and being able to be a happy Sociologist is not impossible.

Some lessons learned:
• Sharing well-being tips with others is helpful
• Self-care is basic: eat, sleep and exercise
• Sleep 8 hours, or enough to feel rested and have a clear mind – don’t compromise
• Having a schedule that includes exercise is vital
• Turn off your electronic devices at a certain time every night
• Try not to answer emails on the weekend (unless there is something truly urgent! —yes! the rest can wait)
• Don’t text while driving
• Taking time off makes you more productive, produces more publications, keeps your research interests dynamic

How do you have a personal life, or possibly a family?
Since there is so little time to write, those who are successful remain highly focused, disciplined and happy, although highly scheduled. Remember, your academic life cannot become your main source of happiness. Life brings its own rewards.

Mentors really made a difference through true care and cultivation. This makes all the difference. It also pays to be mentored by someone who is living a well-balanced life. Repay their efforts by paying it forward and becoming a great mentor to your students.

Cultivating mentors: Be honest about your needs, visit during office hours and do not overwhelm people. Show faculty members respect for their time and expertise. Take baby steps in building relationships and look for chemistry and similar interests beyond shared racial or sexual identities. A relationship with a mentor is after all a human relationship – a special one.

Don’t put life on hold because of your PhD:
This can create resentment and inhibit your productivity. Turning off the computer on the weekend was really helpful. Carrying around a small notebook helps to capture ideas without turning on the computer. Gloria’s recipe for success in her own life: M&Ms, mountains and movies on the weekend. By Sunday you’re looking forward to Monday and getting back to writing.

Do not isolate yourself. Misery loves company, but also swap strategies for success. Ask people who are happy how they do it. Have at least one friend who is not a Sociologist, outside academia. Not losing touch with everyday life and staying grounded helps to stay mentally healthy and socially connected. It is a privilege to be a professor and humanizing to talk with people about the price of tomatoes and the election at the grocery store.

While she was in graduate school, Gloria was accepted with no funding, so accepted a TAship outside the department in her first year. She did not take the required course load in her first year so soon she was told that she was “out of sequence.” When the chair of the department told her, she wanted to leave but was talked out of it. It was a rough start, people were leaving but Gloria talked herself out of it and developed a thicker skin and some resilience. It’s easy to shrink and lose confidence. The wonderful, supportive mentors in her department helped her generously — she survived. Going to counseling was very helpful and she was fortunate to find a therapist who was also a professor aware of her struggles. She gained new contexts for academic life.

Learning to unplug from work without feeling guilty is vital:
In Sociology we study slavery. What about self-slavery? Academic slaves should unite to abolish self-slavery. Comply with what is required. Find out what to do to get tenure: book, #of articles, other collaborations and contributions. Gloria made the promise to herself to become a professor and get tenure as long as it feels OK with the rest of her life. That promise lays the foundation for self-respect rather than self-slavery. Intellectual ambition and intellectual greed should be differentiated. Herein lies the compromise in living a healthy life. The ego is highly invested in one’s profession: how many times you are cited, falling prey to the smartest person in the room syndrome. The tendency to look at who is ahead and come up lacking rather than seeing where you are in a continuum of scholars fosters insecurity. Perfectionism is the bane of academic success.

At ASA a senior scholar got an award and complained that he was not nominated the year before. Gloria was shocked while learning about the ways in which even people who have succeeded apparently might not be aware of these painful traps. This is a sad state of affairs. The take away: conventional definitions of success do not guarantee happiness. The most successful are not necessarily the happiest. Rescuing the humanity in your life and checking your motivation for doing Sociology is so important. Gloria wanted to work with adult scholars in community colleges. She did not get the job in a teaching college so started applying to R1 Universities. A newly minted PhD, she was a finalist 4 times before being offered a job at UT. UT was her opportunity # 5; her resilience and determination were rewarded. The thought of doing something to transform society is very motivating. It’s much more important to be relevant than famous.

Taking an Astronomy 101 class can help you get some perspective on how tiny you are. Remind yourself that making a difference in the lives of even a few people is really important and very fulfilling. Arrogance hinders learning. Staying humble is a good exercise, which also helps in dealing with the publication review cycle. The reviewers can be aggressively critical. Gloria includes the following comment in her reviews: “Please feel free to edit my recommendations so we make sure that the author receives feedback in a kind, supportive, and compassionate manner.” This helps to mitigate the culture of intellectual violence that can be so damaging. Transforming the culture of scholarship in the direction of kindness is needed and important.

Think of projects that are highly needed in communities of your interest and pursue them in a way that’s not self-punishing. It’s not always easy, which is why it’s important to take time periodically to touch base with your original motivation. Don’t lose the larger picture of life.

Participant Comments

Juan Portillo
“I am grateful to Dr. Gloria González-López for taking the time to share with us her experiences and her wisdom during the wellness and self-care talk. In particular, I appreciated her answer to the following question: how can one approach colleagues and professors who are coming from a different epistemological stance and may not know how their words and actions in and out of class can harm or marginalize students? Dr. González-López gave an example of a student in a class she taught many years ago who straight up told her he did not get feminism and would sometimes make hostile comments. She then decided to utilize her relationship to other students in the class to work together and manage the class discussions in a way where he could learn and grow. I realized then that the best way to approach any problem in academia is to not do it alone. I have relied many times on professors and other graduate students to solve personal and professional problems. Thus, I realized that within the message of self-care there is an implicit expectation that we can also take care of each other. This way, academia does not become too individualized, competition does not rule, and intellectual growth can take place. I am now more ready to be supportive of my peers and professors.”

Amias Maldonado
“ I found the work/life balance discussion to be incredibly rewarding on many levels. On a personal level, it was a safe space to communicate feelings that we graduate students all experience yet hide from each other. On an institutional level, knowing that we have reflexive, open, well-rounded people like Gloria in the sociology department makes me feel proud and supported. And on a practical level, Gloria offered many helpful strategies and ways of thinking that will certainly help me retain my sanity as I go through the graduate program.”

Katie Jensen
“The largest issue I face, and I feel many others face in graduate school is self-punishment. Especially the first year of graduate school. The load was such that I was unable to produce the quality I had always prided myself on. My identity and self-esteem was and is tied up in “being and believing I am a good student.” And graduate school became the first time in my life where I had to read strategically, read only the topic sentences; try to get the general argument without immersing myself in the specificities of the work. And I had never wanted to be that type of person. So how do I not punish myself for engaging in behavior I had always prided myself on not engaging in?

Secondly, often the solution we present to maintaining “work/life” balance is to make boundaries, to set aside chunks of time for life (e.g., don’t work on Sundays, don’t work after 6pm). It’s true that otherwise work will take over, and fill the space we do not consciously take from it. But does anyone else ever feel that this becomes another way that my life is regimented? That the key to happiness and balance becomes constructed as yet another obligation? Personally, I love to run. Some of the happiest, most mentally sound times of my life have been when I have gone for jogs every day – doesn’t matter how long or how fast. But, in graduate school I easily fall out of the habit, I repeat the horrible mantras “I’m too busy”, “There’s no time” or, one of the worst – “I didn’t finish what I sent out to accomplish today, so I don’t deserve and can’t have the reward.” So I have to force myself to take time for myself. But I can’t figure out how to remove this language of force, this sense of obligation, which I find so antithetical to the whole point of work/life balance.

So, my tips for resilience:
Do something social each day, whether it be a coffee or lunch date, drinks with friends, or soccer games.
Always do something between work and bedtime, no matter how late it is.
Always do something in the mornings before work – I like to watch shows like “Saved by the Bell” or “The Wonder Years” while I eat my oatmeal and prepare for the day.”

Julie Skalamera
“First and foremost, I want to thank you both for encouraging dialogue on well-being. I feel very fortunate (and rather proud) to be a member of a department who takes time to discuss and puts special emphasis on this important topic! I am also inspired by hearing others’ stories. Today was such a wonderful experience for me, and I am excited that it IS possible to have a well-rounded lifestyle AND productive career.

In terms of more specific comments and feedback… I will definitely keep in mind the advice and lessons that were shared today as I launch my graduate school career here at UT. I appreciated the dialogue about keeping in mind the larger picture and remembering what wakes me up and gets me excited to be doing sociology. As we discussed, it is truly a privilege to be a member of this community and to be pursuing my research interests. I am still adjusting to life as a graduate student in a new city — balancing the workload, meeting new people, exploring an unfamiliar environment — and I learned today that this adjustment period will be a process. I will need to be patient with myself as I determine study habits, time management, and fitting in my personal life. Again, the discussion today was helpful, refreshing, and very much appreciated.”

ASA, Gender and Sexuality, University of Texas at Austin Sociology

ASA 2012 Visions of Graduate Student Utopias

September 17, 2012 porterem Leave a comment

UT Austin citizens past and present: Dana Britton (Professor, Rutgers), Christine Williams, (Chair, UT Sociology), Kirsten Dellinger (Chair, Univ of Mississippi), Jeff Jackson (Assoc Prof, Univ of Mississippi), Kumiko Nemoto (Associate Professor, Western Kentucky University), and Patti Giuffre (Professor, Texas State)

Graduate Coordinator Evelyn Porter’s ASA report:

My focus this year at ASA was the Director of Graduate Studies meeting and networking with UT Austin alums at the Departmental Alumni Night. Many thanks to those of you who stopped by our table to say hello, it was great to see you! Next year in New York, we will have a reception, so plan to attend.

The most valuable part of the conference for me was the DGS meeting. I discovered (much to my delight) that UT Austin has substantial student support systems in place that many other universities have not developed. These include: an annual reporting system for students and mentors; a blog and other social media outlets; student-led brown bags, panel discussions and research presentations; health and well-being forums and other community building events (Spiderhouse salon, lunch on the patio, afternoon teas). Most of these programs are collaborations between students, faculty and staff. UT Austin is better able to focus on graduate student health and well being because staff are willing and able to provide support that faculty are often too busy to initiate. Twenty-seven colleges and universities had representatives at the meeting and we were one of two with an annual reporting system in place for students and mentors. I was one of two staff members attending and it made me very appreciative of the resources UT Austin has at its disposal. Considering our 80 ASA presenters (primarily graduate students) at the conference and the department’s multi-year funding of admitted students, what we offer to students academically and financially far surpasses most other universities. Most universities are dealing with overt competition among students for TAships and RAships and are unable to offer multi-year funding packages. Additionally, we have been fortunate to fund professional development opportunities for conference presentations and workshops thanks to university and faculty largesse.

The DGS report this year was from the ASA Committee on the Status of Racial and Ethnic Minorities in Sociology. I was again impressed by the way our department embraces and exemplifies diversity in a healthy, collaborative community-minded environment.

From the Graduate Student Under Represented Minority survey:

Grad School to Faculty – career paths for Underrepresented members
How does physical and mental health among minority students and faculty impact their career paths? Too many students and faculty of color are dying young. Second tier publications from minority faculty include a lot of titles about marginalization and troubled journeys. What are the characteristics of mentoring that advance the career path of URM grad students into faculty roles? Support for URM students must include building cultural and institutional capital.

URM students want to give a different lens to social problems. Students reported that the university did not value what they wanted to study. This was portrayed as having to fight for what they wanted to do. The framing was “we’re supportive” but nothing was done to further their research goals. Core committee members told one person to avoid controversial issues. Mentoring should include learning about health disparities, equity issues and language issues as well as gender and sexual minority perspectives.

What worked best was when students found the opportunity to learn the language of context, to conceptualize social change in a way that was understood by the academe. Supporting intellectual needs was found to be as important as funding and other forms of support. More focused support for the development of social and cultural capital, knowing how to ask questions, for instance is recommended. First generation students often don’t have the background or the desire to leave their cultural enclave. Discomfort must be acknowledged and assisted, class differences should be considered and thoughtful responses offered. Giving future faculty an understanding about how academia works, the dynamics of the academy is vital. Mentors who praise their students in front of their peers offer a boon to anyone on the market. Being merciless with insistence on the quality of writing while communicating that you care is also vital.

Positive experiences improve confidence and give a sense of belonging. Mentors can provide buffers to micro aggressions and perceptions of URM students as undeserving of “special” consideration:
• Provide practical skills for writing, analysis, grant-writing and collaboration techniques.
• Provide dominant cultural capital including: how to act and how not to act; what to expect; formal and informal rules of the academy and how to negotiate comments of racism, elitism, sexism and ethnocentrism.
• Reveal the supports, processes and dominant culture “inside scoop” that leads to success in the academy.
• Respect and support for diversity of thought and scholarship. The values and perspectives of new members of the academy must be incorporated.

SREM reported grad student advice to programs:
• Listen to minority student voices – groups should meet with faculty to convey feelings
• Peer mentoring – other students providing social support
• Funding Support – systematic support for students with fellowships and research
• Better communication among various departmental constituents
• Faculty should publish with their students
• Adjusting and accounting for socioeconomic /cultural backgrounds
• More support for peer networks
• Inadequate race scholarship, need more courses on race theory
• Have a graduate student annual conference in which graduate students present their work.

While the graduate student survey addresses URM specific issues, most of the mentoring suggestions apply to all graduate students. I am heartened by the Sociology department’s dedication to furthering the scholarship and well being of its graduate students and look forward to collaborating with all of you to ensure our quality of life here at UT Austin remains superb.

UT Austin SOC