Conducting research and teaching in sociology provide a rare opportunity to seek and share knowledge for a better future. I began a sociology PhD because my experiences as a teacher in a rural, under-served public high school so mirrored my own youth in another rural, under-served school halfway across the country that it convinced me we needed to know more about how the social structures of adolescence determine life chances. As a researcher and instructor, I support scholarship and students across racial, ethnic, and geographic backgrounds, gender and sexual identities, socioeconomic statuses, and other lines of difference that reflect voices rarely heard in academia. I am committed to including broader perspectives in my research and to creating a safe environment where all students can discuss the often personal and contentious issues that arise in a sociology classroom.
As an instructor, I take concrete steps to support students. One such step is remaining open to critique, criticism, and suggestion from students and colleagues through a variety of avenues, such as having anonymous student surveys throughout courses, to ensure that I continue to check my own perspectives and pedagogic techniques. I organize instruction around collaboration and discussion to routinely empower student perspectives and knowledge, rather than assuming that I'm the sole source of valued knowledge in the room.
In line with these goals, I plan courses to support a variety of voices in the classroom. I make syllabi that clearly outline expectations of mutual respect and foster supportive classrooms where students can discuss contentious social issues while respecting experiences and voices at risk of marginalization. My syllabi include readings and media representing a range of identities and perspectives. I teach sociological perspectives that provide a scientific lens for examining structures of inequality. I implement classroom structures and activities that organize student participation and collaboration to challenge all students to participate fully. For example, I use group roles, group decision-reporting, and group feedback on participation experiences to help to ensure that certain voices cannot dominate class activities. These organizational structures provide one essential component of maintaining a classroom that supports critical viewpoints and explicit recognition of issues of social well-being.
Beyond classroom practices, I believe teaching sociology itself can support a better future by helping students develop a lens for viewing structural inequalities in society. As an instructor, I strive to guide students in applying this lens to social lines of difference that shape daily life. My goal is to implement courses that address social problems, inequality, and health disparities in ways that link to structures of opportunity and oppression to aid students in carrying a social lens into their future life and careers.
In addition, my research in sociology has provided a powerful opportunity to support the discipline and wider academic realm. Broadly, this has included considering socially salient lines of difference as more theoretically substantive components rather than merely something to control away in a regression to expand the practice of social network analysis and health within the discipline.
In my service to my department and discipline, I've worked to support a variety of voices in the networks and health sub-field by serving on ASA section committees and organizing conference sessions that support many perspectives. On multiple departmental committees, I've supported work toward supporting strong sociology departments by evaluating graduate curriculum and admissions requirements, improving evaluation criteria for undergraduate curricula, and advocating for the creation of new graduate courses that align with a wider array of student needs and goals.