About Trenton

My name is Trenton Ellis and I am a sociologist and educator living in the rural Black Hills of South Dakota.  I spent most of my youth in Illinois, where I completed undergraduate and graduate (masters) studies in sociology.  As a first generation college student from a blue-collar family, I honestly never felt quite at place on a university campus.  But stubborn questions about society and social problems and a whole lot of support from great faculty and classmates carried me through my higher education.  After finishing graduate studies at Western Illinois University, I moved to South Dakota to pursue my PhD in the Department of Sociology and Rural Studies at South Dakota State University.  Today I serve as an associate professor of human services and sociology at Black Hills State University.  Broadly, my mission is to communicate and apply the perspectives and practices of sociology for their scientific and practical applications.  As a perspective, sociology encourages us to consider social reality and its consequences, including collective problems faced by societies, communities, and individuals.  As a practice, sociology uses unique methods of inquiry to better understand society and to aide in developing potential avenues for navigating collective challenges.  

Sociology is my disciplinary "first love," but I enjoy learning from a range of fields about a variety of issues.  I love learning about rural communities, social mobility, higher education, economics, food and agriculture, pedagogy, social psychology, social work, and generally how groups of people work together to identify and address social problems.  "Reality is interdisciplinary" is one of my mottos, so I welcome any suggested books, podcasts, papers, etc.!