“Loren is an incredible, passionate, and well-articulated instructor. His ability to communicate key concepts, relay the importance of understanding structures and processes of poverty, and promote students’ use of effective academic communication has helped prepare me for my future in academia, professional pursuits, and life. Loren, you da best, dawg.” (Spring 2025 C&E Sociology 578: Poverty and Place)
“Loren Peabody is genuinely one of the best professors I've had. He is so passionate and informed about the subject material, I feel like he actually cared about whether I retained the knowledge and did well. He focused much more on the quality of the classwork than just throwing random assignments at us, and the structure allowed me to actually enjoy the course and learn. I had zero knowledge of the material going in and I still enjoyed the class materials and found most information interesting. He is a phenomenal instructor.” (Spring 2022 C&E Sociology 540: Sociology of International Development, Environment, and Sustainability)
“I absolutely love Loren, he has so much passion for this course and is an amazing lecturer. I was able to engage with this course at a much deeper level than my other sociology courses because of his passion.” (Spring 2025 C&E Sociology 578: Poverty and Place)
“Loren is an amazing instructor and a very kind person. If anyone deserves a job in the UW-Madison Sociology department, it is Loren Peabody. He is a passionate teacher who connects well with all his students and is always willing to consider others’ opinions and ideas.” (Spring 2025 C&E Sociology 578: Poverty and Place)
“I enjoyed the contents of this course and the passion the professor brought to the course. The professor explained assignments thoroughly and organized the semester wonderfully and made himself available for students to succeed in the class. There was a lot of information to cover in the course and I hope in the future that certain topics can be prioritized. He did create a safe and encouraging space for students to follow their interests and voice their opinions.” (Spring 2025 C&E Sociology 578: Poverty and Place)
“I switched into this class specifically because I wanted to take another class with Loren. Loren is such an engaging lecturer who genuinely cares about the care and wellbeing of the students he teaches. The topic of poverty was incredibly interesting, and I am grateful I found my way into this class. I wish I was not graduating so I could take a class with Loren again.” (Spring 2024 C&E Sociology 578: Poverty and Place)
“Overall, Loren was an amazing professor. He was extremely accommodating and clearly cared for his students and their wellbeing as well as grades. This was my second time having him teach me a class and I can say his lecturing skills have excelled within the last 4 years.” (Spring 2024 C&E Sociology 578: Poverty and Place)
“This course is excellent. It’s extremely relevant to real life and everyone should take it (or at least do a few of the readings). Loren is a great instructor, his communication is great, he's extremely kind, and very knowledgeable about the subjects covered in this course.” (Spring 2024 C&E Sociology 578: Poverty and Place)
“This is my second time taking a class taught by Loren and he's just so amazing. He knows his materials very well and he makes difficult concepts easy to understand. He's also really understanding and accommodating. Loren truly cares about us as students and he's super open to any feedback. I hope he get to teach more classes in the future.” (Spring 2024 C&E Sociology 578: Poverty and Place)
“There was a very logical progression to the material that made the class as a whole more interesting to learn. There are several topics studied in this course that I found extremely interesting but when they build on each other it made me appreciate the class and the material that much more.” (Fall 2022 Sociology 181: The Sociological Enterprise Honors Introductory Seminar)
“Loren was a wonderful, responsive, and empathetic lecturer. His flexibility and understanding made class manageable! He has done a great job of creating an engaging class with informative readings and lectures. The readings were interesting and not too dense. His lectures were palatable and fun to attend. Overall, this class was fantastic. I think that things could have been slightly more organized but then considering that this is the first time he has taught this class, I think he went above and beyond what one could expect. Thanks for a great semester!!” (Spring 2024 C&E Sociology 578: Poverty and Place)
“Loren was an excellent teacher. It’s clear he genuinely cares about the subject he’s teaching and wants to facilitate the best possible learning experience for his students. The readings for this class raised some really interesting questions and the discussions were always engaging. I highly recommend this class to anyone interested in studying poverty.” (Spring 2025 C&E Sociology 578: Poverty and Place)
“Had a lot of great feedback and opened up to good discussions in class, he is also able to answer complicated questions and uses research to back it up, overall a great lecturer in a challenging class.” (Spring 2025 C&E Sociology 578: Poverty and Place)
“Very interesting topic, understanding teacher who is great at getting class participation.” (Spring 2024 C&E Sociology 578: Poverty and Place)
“Soc 248 has been one of my favorite classes so far, Prof Peabody was always available and welcoming with his teaching style. Throughout the course of the class, the quizzes and semester paper have been manageable and have felt like an accurate way to test what we have been learning in the class. Prof Peabody presents information clearly and in an engaging way, allowing students to ask questions when needed. I appreciated Prof Peabody's flexibility and professionalism during this course.” (Fall 2023 C&E Sociology 248: Environment, Natural Resources, and Society)
“I had a great time learning from Professor Peabody. he was very engaging in his teaching and seemed very interested. Readings were very interesting and tied into what was taught in class. Sometimes volume was a little much, but always less than an hour of reading. I think that the quizzes were fairly graded, but some of the wording left answers ambiguous. Working on the final paper, he was very attentive to answering questions and improving understanding of what papers were saying. I would definitely take a course taught by him again.” (Fall 2023 C&E Sociology 248: Environment, Natural Resources, and Society)
“This was by far the most valuable course I took this semester. I learned a ton from the readings and I thought the in class discussions were engaging and helpful. I appreciate your perspectives in approaching the material, this class was a very safe environment full of very smart people. Thank you so much!” (Spring 2024 C&E Sociology 578: Poverty and Place)
“The Professor is extremely welcoming and generous.” (Spring 2022 C&E Sociology 540: Sociology of International Development, Environment, and Sustainability)
“Professor Peabody created a great class environment where I personally felt very welcomed and comfortable participating. Overall, I very much enjoyed the course and would recommend it to anyone.” (Spring 2022 Sociology 181: The Sociological Enterprise Honors Introductory Seminar)
“The professor was incredibly intelligent and honestly while the stuff we were learning was very new material to me and was a bit hard, he made it incredibly engaging in just the way he presented the information. His teaching style is incredibly effective, and it is very evident that the professor cares about teaching and wants us to learn in the best way possible. I learned an incredible amount of information through this class, much more than I have in other classes. I also truly appreciated how accommodating the professor was and cared about the students well-being, it truly helped me do the best I possibly could in the class.” (Spring 2022 C&E Sociology 540: Sociology of International Development, Environment, and Sustainability)
“Loren is super approachable and knowledgeable about the subject. The readings he assigned were very interesting, though hefty at times. He gave us a lot of freedom with our research and I feel like he really helped me write something I'm proud of. He clearly communicated expectations for the exams. He did a really great job balancing our class, his dissertation, and having a new baby. He never let us fall through the cracks and was always an email away.” (Spring 2024 C&E Sociology 578: Poverty and Place)
“This was a great course, not too stressful and I learned a lot! The lectures were also super interesting! Having the final paper split up into multiple due dates (thesis, intro, meetings, etc.) was really helpful.” (Fall 2023 C&E Sociology 248: Environment, Natural Resources, and Society)
“Great course and professor. Really wants everyone to learn, and is very helpful for people that aren't in this major.” (Spring 2022 C&E Sociology 540: Sociology of International Development, Environment, and Sustainability)
“I really enjoyed the final paper and the opportunity it provided to work towards a consistent goal.” (Spring 2022 C&E Sociology 540: Sociology of International Development, Environment, and Sustainability)
“The professor was very engaged with students, and wanted to do everything he could to ensure student success. I think that the assigned material and individuals meetings with the professor helped my learning the most.” (Fall 2022 Sociology 181: The Sociological Enterprise Honors Introductory Seminar)
“This course allowed students to explore their independent ideas on common topics covered in class through the essay assignments. It fostered critical thinking skills as well as forced students to consider multiple perspectives of many sociological topics. The Analytical papers were great ways for students to dive deep into readings.” (Fall 2022 Sociology 181: The Sociological Enterprise Honors Introductory Seminar)
“He was so helpful and always put the learning of students first. He made himself available whenever for extra office hours and put in so much effort to make sure each student was learning and was not left behind. He is probably my favorite professor that I have had in my 3 years of being here. The assignments had meaning and he was making sure that students had the flexibility with deadlines due to illness, personal issues, or just being overwhelmed with the amount of assignments in other classes. I cannot speak higher of him and I will value the way that he taught me. I hope to take another class with him before I graduate!” (Spring 2022 C&E Sociology 540: Sociology of International Development, Environment, and Sustainability)
“As someone who doesn't know much about economics or development, I learned a great deal from this class. The material was presented in a digestible way, and you don't need to be an economics major to understand what's going on. The only thing I would change is to maybe lessen some of the readings in the beginning half of the course to match the second half. Loren was a great instructor this course. He provided incredibly helpful feedback on assignments and seemed to genuinely care about the success of every individual student, and took time to get to know them as well.” (Spring 2022 C&E Sociology 540: Sociology of International Development, Environment, and Sustainability)
“Great course! Very engaging discussions and wonderful perspectives. He was very supportive and encouraged students to present their research at the undergraduate symposium!” (Spring 2025 C&E Sociology 578: Poverty and Place)