Welcome to Sociology!

We are an intellectually exciting and typically rambunctious community of citizen scholars. Every year around 150 new undergraduate majors and 10 to 15 new PhD students join our ranks. We have added eight faculty members in the last three years and our total faculty size is currently twenty-five.

In addition The Social and Demographic Institute (SADRI) and the Labor Center are both an integral part of the Sociology Department. SADRI supports faculty research and interests, interdisciplinary collaboration and is a central part to the College of Social Behavioral Sciences scholarly endeavors. The Labor Center recently merged with the department bringing faculty, staff as well as two Master programs and a Labor Extension program.

We are a generalist sociology department with a wide variety of research interests. Recent books and articles by faculty members have addressed the creation of global capitalist markets, comparative adolescent sexuality, Viagra, democratization, the revival of the labor movement, workplace discrimination, grammars of death, white collar criminal conspiracies, comparative family policy, comparative racial inequality, the socialization of Chinese adopted children, Latin American social movements, women's workforce and men’s household labor participation, and many other topics.

The graduate program is loosely organized around a series of intellectual clusters that reflect ongoing faculty research interests. These include Culture and Identity; Crime, Law and Deviance; Gender, Sexuality and Family; Politics, Movements and Globalization; Race, Immigration and Citizenship; Social Demography; Social Networks; Work, Organization and Economy.  The undergraduate program is one of the most popular on campus. Both programs are undergoing significant curriculum enhancements this year. The department is at once committed to excellent education, basic research and to be a leader in the project of public sociology.