Tag Archives: college & university

Arguments against Georgetown sociology course on Jay-Z

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In a story that continues to have legs, here is the summary of some arguments against the sociology class about Jay-Z at Georgetown:

While the chairman of Georgetown’s sociology department defends the class, outraged students like junior Stephen Wu have called it “poppycock” and said serious scholars should be delving into Homer not Shawn Carter (Jay-Z’s real name).

“The great bard inclines toward the divine; he brings to light much of the character of human nature and puts man in communion with higher things,” Wu sniffed in the Georgetown campus newspaper, The Hoya. “Rap music frolics in the gutter, resplendent in vulgarity and the most crass of man’s wants.”

Other critics contend Dyson is giving a pass to a rapper who made his bones with raunchy lyrics that ripped women as greedy gold diggers in songs like “Big Pimpin’.”

The two arguments are these:

1. Whether colleges should be teaching about the best of Western Civilization, a constant argument on college campuses. Can any “popular” topics be taught about on campus? Can there be room in a curriculum for both the “great books” and modern topics? This is a broader issue about what belongs in a college curriculum.

2. The content of Jay-Z’s lyrics which can be crude. Should these lyrics simply be condemned and never discussed or could classes like these try to provide some context and explanation?

Another matter in this article: the professor of the class, Michael Eric Dyson, is described first as a “TV pundit.” It does appear Dyson is often in the media but he also has a doctorate so he is not simply another commentator. I don’t know Dyson’s work at all but does calling him a “TV pundit” also denigrate the subject of the class?

I wonder if underlying these arguments is also the idea that this class sounds preposterous compared to a perceived need for American students to pursue STEM degrees.

Adding sociology to the MCAT

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I’ve wondered recently about sociology in grade schools and here is news that sociology has been added to the MCAT, the entrance exam for medical schools:

The 2015 change marks the fifth major alteration of the MCAT since it was introduced in the 1920s.

The new MCAT will include the addition of an entirely new section titled “Psychological, Social and Biological Foundations of Behavior,” as well as a more intense examination of the biomedical sciences, such as genetics and biochemistry…

Koetje said the addition of psychology and sociology to the test was necessary because of the advances made in health care as well as the sociocultural changes within the health care system.

“Patients are more complex today, and medical schools have to ensure that these students will be capable of treating the whole person and everything that comes with that,” Koetje said.

As the article hints at, will more schools now have pre-med students take courses in sociology and psychology in order to prepare? In response to this question (part of a larger set of FAQs about the change), here is what the AAMC says:

Examinees who would not otherwise take biochemistry, cellular and molecular biology, introductory psychology, and introductory sociology would need to study the concepts tested. We do not anticipate the need for additional coursework in research methods and statistics.

I wonder exactly what sociological concepts will be included on the test. I assume race, social class, and gender are non-negotiable?

This also gives sociology teachers more room to tell undergraduates in Intro to Sociology classes that sociology is helpful for many fields, including medicine.

Stanford student bristles at question: “What are you going to do with a sociology degree?”

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A Stanford student writes about having to answer a question common to sociology majors:

What annoys me, however, is when people ask “So what are you going to do with a Sociology degree?” Within the phrasing and intonation of this question are often a number of subtle assumptions and judgments. The first is the implication that I’ve chosen a useless degree because it doesn’t give me a clear path or job field to enter after college. The second is the assumption that my undergraduate degree determines my next steps; that because I am getting a B.A. in Sociology, I will pursue work in this field. The ultimate frustration I have with this question, one that often comes out during the course of the conversation, is the need for the person asking me the question to fit my answer and future plans into a discrete career label such as teacher, lawyer or lobbyist. In reality, none of these is true. My degree is not useless. Nor am I required to pursue things related to sociology. In fact, my job will probably not have any sort of neat label at all.

I find these issues crop up when talking to Stanford students as well, and I often feel looked down upon for not having chosen a more pre-professional path. I’ve had numerous conversations with techie students in which it is clear that they look down upon fuzzy majors. The culture among Stanford students lauds techie degrees as practical, which ends up framing fuzzy majors as useless. Although it is true that a Stanford engineering degree offers higher salaries and a guaranteed job right out of Stanford, a liberal arts degree is not a death knell. Liberal arts degrees have tremendous value even though they don’t shepherd the student into an obvious career trajectory and throw money at them.

My degree opens up a world of possibilities to me. Although the skills I’ve gained are less quantifiable than those from techie majors, my time at Stanford has vastly improved my writing, my critical thinking skills, my research skills and my ability to put together a coherent and convincing argument. All of these are qualities that employers look for and make me a valuable commodity on the job market. Every company that employs those high-paid CS majors also needs people to do marketing, HR, management and public relations. Any and all of these options are available to me with my liberal arts degree from Stanford.

People forget that many Americans have jobs have little to nothing to do with their undergraduate department, so it’s of little concern to me that my job be related to sociology. Some of my relatives get this and some don’t, but as our conversations continue they struggle to find a job label for the future me; do I want to be a consultant? A social worker? I should be a teacher! It’s like they’re grasping at straws for a name that they know and understand, failing to realize that jobs don’t always fall into these labels. Like most adults, I will probably have a job that has a title that you’ve never heard of and that doesn’t fall cleanly into any category. What’s important to me is that I find a job that accomplishes something that I believe is a valuable use of my time; the end goal is what’s important, not the name.

Some of this argument sounds very common to the perspective of millennials  such as a career needs to be “a valuable use of my time.” But she is also making a common defense of the liberal arts and the need for these skills in the workplace.

I don’t know that I would tell students that they could do anything “with my liberal arts degree from Stanford” (is the Stanford part here much more important than the liberal arts component?) or that it should be “of little concern to me that my job be related to sociology.” I think there is plenty to sell about sociology which she hints at: a way of looking at the world that is difficult to find in other majors. The broad overview and theoretical approach sociology offers that gets at the complex patterns present in society through a set of data collection and analysis skills is very valuable. Of course, this can be packaged and used in a number of different fields but sociology is simply not just a “fuzzy major” or just another major option. In a globalized society marked by increasing levels of complexity and dynamic change, we need more sociology majors.

Measuring faculty productivity in sociology

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A sociologist and associate dean at the University of Texas-Austin has recently put together a report on faculty productivity at his school that was undertaken to counter criticism that some faculty at the school didn’t do enough research to justify the money paid by taxpayers to support the school. The report cautions against using the same measures of productivity across disciplines:

While Musick said there was value in using the available numbers on research support, he stressed the importance of recognizing that this is valid only for some disciplines. (And one of his recommendations going forward is that the university develop better measures for research productivity of faculty members who work in disciplines without significant sources of outside funding.)

His own field of sociology is a perfect illustration of the limits of using outside funding as a measure of faculty research productivity, Musick said. Sociologists have some government support for which they can apply, but not nearly as much as do those in the physical or biological sciences, he noted. Even within fields, one’s success at obtaining funds may be based on area of expertise, not productivity. Musick said that as a medical sociologist, he has been able to win National Institutes of Health grants that some of his colleagues in sociology — people with good research agendas — could not seek.

He also said it was important to reject the idea that universities should be based only upon those fields that can attract the most outside support — even if you have a goal of producing more scientists. Musick cited as examples STEM-oriented universities such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the California Institute of Technology — both of which invest significant funds in humanities and social science programs. “They recognize that universities are ecosystems,” he said. “They recognize that to produce the best scientists, they need the humanities and social sciences and the fine arts.”

It would also be helpful to keep in mind that there is even disagreement within sociology about faculty productivity. (I assume these discussions might also take place within other disciplines.) I’ve seen some heated discussion between faculty of different subfields of sociology where productivity is measured in very different ways. A book might be considered a massive achievement in one subfield while multiple journal articles are the norm in another. Plus, you could get into the quality of such publications which can also be difficult to assess. Impact factor seems to be the favored way to do this today but that has some issues and applies only to journal articles. Additionally, we could ask what the benchmark for overall productivity is: should UT-Austin match other R1 public schools and/or places like Harvard and Princeton?

Does the availability of outside funding help explain why medical sociology is a growing subfield?

Earnings of sociology majors on list of “Best College Majors for a Career”

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The Wall Street Journal has an interactive feature where you can see income by college major according to 2010 Census figures. Here is how sociology fared: out of 173 majors (some of which I did not know existed), it was 19th in popularity, had a 7.0% unemployment rate, and median earnings were $45,000 with a 25th percentile of $33k and 75th percentile of $67k.

For median income, sociology is at roughly the 30th percentile.

In popularity, sociology ranked ahead of journalism, mathematics, architecture, chemistry, and music (among others). Top 10 in popularity: Business Management and Administration, General Business, Accounting, Nursing, Psychology, Marketing, Communications, Elementary Education, General Education, and Computer Science.

Are these figures better or worse than people would have expected for sociology?

Of course, we could also discuss if earnings are the only or best way to evaluate college majors. Other possible outcomes to consider: return for one’s money, value to society, specializing vs. having a broader focus.

How do the numbers on this list fit with the recent New York Times article that said American college students study STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) in such low numbers because they find them too difficult?

The civil rights argument against NCAA Division I football and men’s basketball

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The cover story of the latest Atlantic, “The Shame of College Sports,” is provocative and fascinating. The article is mainly about a series of court cases involving the civil rights of “student-athletes” and procuring a share of the NCAA’s football and men’s basketball profits for these “student-athletes.” After reading the full argument, it is difficult to feel much goodwill toward the NCAA.

The norms of college protests in court

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Arguments in a California courtroom revolve around this question: what are the norms governing college protests?

Sociologist Steven Clayman took the stand on Thursday, the final day of testimony. He is an expert in “speaker-audience interaction,” and has written a scholarly article titled, “Booing: The Anatomy of a Disaffiliative Response,” which examines environments such as presidential debates, TV talk shows and British Parliament. He believes audience participation cannot be prevented because members of the crowd are “free agents,” able to express approval or disapproval of what a speaker is saying.

Having watched a video of the Irvine 11 incident, Clayman affirmed that the audience response seemed to be a “normal and unavoidable” part of Ambassador Michael Oren’sspeech.

Lead prosecutor Dan Wagner then fired, “It’s unavoidable that 10 people would stand up with planned statements that have nothing to do with what the speaker is saying? . . . Are you saying that the only way to prevent [protests] is to put a straitjacket and muzzle on them?” The questions were stricken by the judge.
Ten UC Irvine and UC Riverside students have been charged with misdemeanor conspiracy to commit a crime and misdemeanor disruption of a meeting. To be convicted of the latter, one must commit an act that violates the “implicit customs” or “explicit rules” for the event. The defense team claims the defendants did neither, arguing that they were merely following the norms and customs of protests on college campuses.

So what exactly is “normal” college protest behavior? A number of colleges have faced these questions in recent years as protests have moved from just being outside the event to occurring during the event. Think the “Don’t Tase Me Bro” incident of 2007. Or witness the various pie-throwing attempts involving politicians. I wonder if this trial is then less about whether such actions are harmful but rather how these norms have changed over the decades and whether there is widely understood agreement about these changes.

Of course, this particular trial in California involves a number of contentious political and social issues.

I wonder if this case, and other similar ones, will lead to more schools creating more explicit rules about what is allowed and not allowed in on-campus protests and to make this information widely known.

Sociologist uses Twitter for class but are the students learning more?

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Stories like this are not uncommon: professors utilizing technology to engage their students (and here is another one about clicker use).

Wendy Welch is incorporating the use of the social networking site Twitter into her cultural geography class this semester. The adjunct instructor said she decided to use the social networking site in her class after having problems with students using their phones in class for less-than-appropriate purposes.“If you can’t beat them, get ahead of them,” Welch said. “That’s the way the world works now.”…

Each student was assigned a country in Africa and asked to tweet facts about their country, such as languages and population, using designated hash tags, or categories. That way, each student only has to research one country but has access to all the information they may need from other students.

Welch also plans to have students use their mobile devices or laptops to research information during class sessions, she said…

She said she hopes to “get students to understand and participate in their own education.”

Perhaps this does increase the engagement level of the students. All professors want their students to be engaged and we don’t want to be seen as being behind the times. But, I think there is often something missing from discussions about student engagement and the use of technology in the classroom: does this actually lead to higher levels of student learning or student outcomes?

I suspect professors will always try to keep up with technology as it changes and each of these changes will be accompanied by hand-wringing. However, we need to be able to distinguish between engaging students with technology versus helping them learn. Take this Twitter example from class: do students do better on tests? Do they retain the knowledge better? Can they apply their knowledge from this particular class to other settings, particularly if the technology is not present? Does technology itself help students think more deeply about the big questions of our world?

If technology alone becomes the answer in the classroom, we will be in trouble.

[CollegeNameHere].com coming to a browser near you

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Even though colleges have their own Internet domain, .edu, some colleges are thinking about branching out into .com addresses:

Some observers worry, though, that an influx of new names might dilute the power of “.edu,” which has been the online way to say “a legitimately accredited institution of higher education in the United States.”

Weber State University is among those that have already started branching out, with “getintoweber.com” as an online destination. It is “a vanity URL we pursued to dovetail with our ‘Get Into Weber’ marketing campaign that started in 2007,” says John L. Kowaleski, director of media relations. “We wanted something catchy and easy to remember, since the intended audience for “getintoweber.com” was prospective students.”

Why not simply add a “getintoweber.edu” address to the existing “weber.edu“? Because “.edu” is restricted by the “one per institution” rule that has been in effect since 2001, says Gregory A. Jackson, a vice president of Educause, the higher-education-technology group that administers the “.edu” domain. “The U.S. Commerce Department, which gave us the contract to administer the domain, views ‘.edu’ as something that identifies an institution, not multiple names that mean the same institution,” he says…

Asking the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers for a domain of one’s own—”.weberstate” or “.trinity,” for instance—would avoid some of those problems. But that’s an expensive route to go. A college has to pay Icann $185,000 to become the administrator of a domain, and then $25,000 each year to maintain it. And the college has to adhere to strict rules about who gets the domain and who doesn’t, which could cause other problems. “What if you say that alumni can have ‘.dartmouth’ in order to strengthen connection to the school?” Mr. Jackson says. “And then an alumnus involved in some shady dealings uses that address? You can’t ban them. Icann won’t let you pick who you like and who you don’t.”

If the .com addresses are just for marketing purposes, why haven’t more colleges gone this route already? It isn’t very hard to set up a targeted site and then link through to the college’s main page.

It sounds like some of the issue is the meaning or symbolism behind the .edu domain. If prospective students and parents are searching for schools, they know the .edu domain is pretty safe. The .com realm is more open and there could be some confusion about who put the site together. Particularly for less comfortable web users, going to a .edu could be a safer and trustworthy proposition.

Of course, the rules about the use of .edu sites hints at bigger problems across the internet: a need for more domains to provide more online pages.

(With all of this talk, shouldn’t some enterprising people buy up a bunch of the possible .com sites? For example, wheatoncollege.com is available but wheaton.com is not. )

94% of American parents expect their kid to go to college

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Looking at the article “Is a college education worth the price?“, I was pointed to Pew survey data released in May 2011 about what Americans think about college. Among the findings:

Nearly every parent surveyed (94%) says they expect their child to attend college, but even as college enrollments have reached record levels, most young adults in this country still do not attend a four-year college. The main barrier is financial. Among adults ages 18 to 34 who are not in school and do not have a bachelor’s degree, two-thirds say a major reason for not continuing their education is the need to support a family. Also, 57% say they would prefer to work and make money; and 48% say they can’t afford to go to college.

These are pretty high aspirations that cut across income levels and backgrounds. Pew suggests the primary barrier to reaching these expectations is money: the need to support oneself and a family gets in the way.

But I wonder if there is another barrier that is partly due to finances and partly due to other factors: it can be difficult to translate aspirations into outcomes. In today’s world and particularly in America where parents have always desired great things for their children (I remember this coming out distinctly in the original Middletown study), what parent wouldn’t say that their kid will attend college? If one comes from a privileged background, a child can see how this path will logically play out: you go through the stages of school and naturally you will move from high school to college (with finances somehow being taken care of and parents socking away money for over a decade in a college fund). But, in lesser circumstances, where is this easy path? It may be doable but there are a lot of obstacles standing in the way.

This reminds me of Annette Lareau’s Unequal Childhoods. While I can’t remember whether she specifically talks about college aspirations, the class-based styles of parenting she outlines could lead to different outcomes in achieving these parental aspirations.