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Professor Daniel Faber, Director of the Northeastern Environmental Justice Research Collaborative, was interviewed Wednesday, March 4th on the radio program, What's Left, on WMBR (88.1 FM) around his new book, Capitalizing on Environmental Injustice: The Polluter-Industrial Complex in the Age of Globalization (Rowman & Littlefield, 2008). Dr. Faber's interview included an assessment of President Barack Obama's environmental policies and appointees, and the prospects for a Green New Deal in the United States.

All members of the academic community at Northeastern will be pleased to hear the following piece of good news.

Our distinguished colleague, Dr. Jack Levin, has just learned that he is the recipient of the American Sociological Association's 2009 Award for his many contributions to Public Awareness of Sociology. This award, bestowed by the 15,000 member ASA, will be given to Jack at the plenary award ceremony to be held in San Francisco in August.

I know you will share my enthusiasm at this much-deserved honor. Jack is among the very few scholars who can engage highly visible public issues in ways that manage to maintain the highest commitment to academically rigorous research.

Congratulations to Jack!

Associate Professor Matthew O. Hunt is co-author of "Who is Headed South? U.S. Migration Trends in Black and White, 1970-2000," published in the September 2008 issue of Social Forces.

With Fulbright, professor to teach, research in Serbia

Professor Thomas H. Koenig, Chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, will spend the fall semester at the University of Belgrade School of Law, where he will teach, lecture and conduct research on Serbia's progress in bringing its legal regime into conformity with the requirements of the European Union.

Northeastern University has become the newest member of the Greater Boston Anthropology Consortium. This regional collection of anthropology departments promotes inter-school scholarly opportunities, including a lecture series, student conference and public anthropology symposium. For more information visit the Consortium website: http://www.brandeis.edu/departments/anthro/gbac/index.html.

Assistant Professor Heather Hindman has been invited to participate in George Mason's annual Cultural Studies conference which this year is entitled "Hotspots: Key Issues in Contemporary Globalization." She will be addressing issues of gender and employment in a globalizing world. For more information, see http://culturalstudies.gmu.edu/text/hotspots.pdf.

Professor Thomas Koenig, Chair of the Department Sociology and Anthropology was the lead speaker at a Weidener Law School conference in February that explored his theory of "Crimtorts." Crimtorts are punishments for misbehavior that falls on the borderline between criminal law and tort law such as lawsuits against Blackwater for the killing of Iraqi civilians and punishment for companies that endanger U.S. consumers by importing and selling dangerously defective Chinese products. His analysis will be published in an upcoming symposium issue of the Weidener Law Journal.

Associate Professor Wilfred Holton authored a front page article in Footnotes' January 2008 edition on the class and ethnic dynamics underlying the filling of Boston's Back Bay in the nineteenth century. Footnotes is the American Sociological Association's newspaper that is sent to over 10,000 members of that organization.

Associate Professor Kathrina Zippel was awarded a European Union-United States Atlantis Grant Program award from the US Department of Education and the European Commission (with Myra Marx Ferree of the University of Wisconsin) to advance transatlantic applied research on gender equity.

Associate Professor Matthew Hunt recently published four articles in leading social science journals including African-American, Hispanic, and White Beliefs about Black/White Inequality, 1977-2004 in American Sociological Review, the most prestigious Sociological journal.

Associate Professor Matthew O. Hunt, is co-author of "Perceived Racial Discrimination and Risk of Uterine Leiomyomata," published in the November 2007 issue of EPIDEMIOLOGY.

Assistant Professor Heather Hindman, was just appointed to the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of Popular Culture. Go to http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0022-3840 for more information.

Associate Professor Kathrin Zippel's book, The Politics of Sexual Harassment: A Comparative Study of the United States, the European Union, and Germany, published by Cambridge University Press is the co-winner of the Victoria Schuck Award of the American Political Science Association for the best book published the previous year on women and politics. For more information go to http://www.northeastern.edu/nupr/news/0907/ZippelBookAward.html.

Report of the Law and Society Conference Held in Berlin, Germany

President Joseph Aoun recently expressed his desire for the Northeastern University community “to broaden our cross-cultural education and expand our global initiatives.” In precisely this vein, several NU scholars—professors, alums, students—have been engaging in this work, both in their own research and with their students, for quite some time. Mentioned below, all from interdisciplinary fields, they traveled abroad in July to represent Northeastern at this year’s annual International Conference on Law and Society in the 21st Century: Joint Annual Meetings of LSA and the Research Committee on Sociology of Law, held at the prestigious Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany. Aligned with the academic pursuits of all, the focus of this year’s conference was “Transformations, Resistances, and Futures.”

Located in the former East Berlin and founded in 1810, Humboldt is Berlin’s oldest university and was attended such by famous thinkers as Karl Marx, Albert Einstein, Max Planck and W. E. B. Du Bois. It was on this campus on May 10, 1933 that Adolf Hitler ordered the burning of some 20,000 books banned by the Nazi regime.

Laurel Leff, Associate Professor in the School of Journalism and author of Buried by The Times: The Holocaust and America’s Most Important Newspaper, Cambridge University Press, 2006, came with her husband to visit Berlin and attend diverse sessions during the four-day conference. Professor Thomas Koenig, Chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, presented a paper entitled, “ ‘Hate Torts’ to Fight ‘Hate Crimes’: Punishing the Organizational Roots of Evil.” His paper has been accepted for publication by the journal American Behavioral Scientist. Associate Professor Kathrin Zippel, in an “Author Meets Reader” session, held a discussion of her book, The Politics of Sexual Harassment: A Comparative Study of the United States, the European Union, and Germany, published by Cambridge University Press, 2005. After returning from Berlin, the American Political Science Association made her the 2007 recipient of the Victoria Schuck Award, given annually for the best book published on women and politics. Professor Zippel will be on leave during this academic year 2007/2008 as a Visiting Scholar at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University. Associate Professor of Political Science, Michael Tolley, who is president of the Research Committee on Comparative Judicial Studies, an affiliate of the International Political Science Association, was asked to organize two panels for the Berlin meeting of the Law and Society Association: “Rights, Remedies, and Justice in National and International Courts” and “Comparative Perspectives on Legal Mobilization.” He served as chair and discussant of the latter. Professor of Law and Society at Ramapo College, Jillian Weiss ( 2005), presented on “Relations between Transgender Non-Discrimination Law and Corporate Policies;” Professor P. Tim Howard (2006) discussed the relationship between cause lawyers and social change in “Framing Florida Tobacco Liability Litigation;” Bridgette Baldwin and her husband, Davarian Baldwin, spoke on “Cultural Pluralism Revisited: The Case for the Criminal Defendant;” and Christina Braidotti presented her research on a social movement within the Jewish Community of Argentina in a paper entitled “What Price Justice? Grassroots Confronts the Institutions.”

Since 2000, Law and Society has incorporated collaborative research networks (CRNs) to facilitate international research collaboration on such topics as African law and society, international human rights, teaching in Law and Society, labor rights, new direction in inequality and legal consciousness, and many more.

This conference was reported to have the largest number of attendees ever. Next year’s conference will be held in Montreal, Quebec, on May 29-June 1 at the Hilton Bonaventure and the Marriott Chateau Champlain with the Canadian Law and Society Association. For more information, consult the Law and Society web site at: http://www.lawandsociety.org.

Matthew O. Hunt, Associate Professor of Sociology, is lead author of "Neighborhood Racial Composition and Perceptions of Racial Discrimination: Evidence from the Black Women's Health Study," published in the September 2007 issue of Social Psychology Quarterly. For more information, see: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/asoca/spq/latest.

Assistant professor Silvia Domínguez has just been awarded a NIH Health Disparities Research Loan Repayment Program Award to support her research into health issues impacting Boston’s immigrant community.

Silvia's proposal included two primary studies focused on understanding how domestic and neighborhood based violence influence the mental health and economic self-sufficiency of low-income immigrant and minority families. One study stems from her participation as an ethnographer with the Three City Study of Moving to Opportunity where she is looking at “The Role of Mental Health in the MTO Population.” This study looks at women and families who were moved from distressed neighborhoods to less poverty areas and considers the role that mental health has on their outcomes. Silvia is writing a policy brief in conjunction with the Urban Institute which will be released in September just in time for the return of legislators. Silvia will follow the policy brief with an article.

The other study stems from Silvia's participation as an ethnographer with the Welfare, Children and Families-Three City Study. In her dissertation based on that research, Silvia found that domestic violence impacts families for several generations. Silvia and Diane Purvin (Wellesley College) are now working on a review article on poverty and domestic violence. Their goal is to have the urban poverty literature include violence as one of its factors. Silvia received a RSDF grant that has allowed her to hire Amy Lubitow, a sociology graduate student, as a Research Assistant on this project.

Matthew O. Hunt, Associate Professor of Sociology, published an article titled African American, Hispanic, and White Beliefs about Black/White Inequality, 1977-2004 in the June 2007 issue of the American Sociological Review. Go to http://www2.asanet.org/journals/asr/june07abs.html.

Kathrin Zippel's book, The Politics of Sexual Harassment: A Comparative Study of the United States, the European Union, and Germany, published by Cambridge University Press is the co-winner of the Victoria Schuck Award of the American Political Science Association for the best book published the previous year on women and politics.

Barry Bluestone, dean of the School of Social Science, Urban Affairs and Public Policy, spoke with the Boston Herald for a March 14 story on Massachusetts house prices. He blamed "onerous local building rules" for the lack of affordable family homes.

Heather Hindman, assistant professor of sociology and anthropology, was interviewed by India New England for a March story on immigrant families of many generations sharing housing. "Such families are on the rise in the United States in the South Asian community." she said. "Family traditions, individual family needs and economic status come into play."

Jack Levin, Brudnick Distinguished Professor of sociology and anthropology, was interviewed by Cosmopolitan magazine for an April story on women facing violent situations. "More women are taking important positions in society as physicians, lawyers and executives, and men can feel disadvantaged by that," he said.

Northeastern University honored Faculty and Staff who published works in 2006. The Department of Sociology and Anthropology had the following professors publish works.

The are:

"Black immigrants are coming here and starting off in a relatively good position, and over time, their children and grandchildren are experiencing a downward trajectory in terms of where they live," Friedman said. "This has implications for their health, wealth and general well-being." In her new book The Housing Divide, How Generations of Immigrants Fare in New York's Housing Market, released December 1, Friedman and coauthor Emily Rosenbaum paint a picture far different than the turn-of-the-century model of Euopean immigration successes.

On November 9-10, 2006, Dr. Jack Levin was the keynote speaker at a conference that was held in Vienna, Austria. He spoke on Hate Crimes: Myths and Realities. Sixty-five countries were represented at this conference.

Report by Professor Faber part of Deval Patrick's Environmental Platform

This November, Democratic Party candidate Deval Patrick was elected Governor of Massachusetts. A series of recommendtions contained in the report, Unequal Exposure to Ecological Hazards 2005: Environmental Injustices in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts by Profesor Daniel Faber of Northeastern University, served as an important component of Patrick's environmental platform (especially on pp. 29-30). Patrick's environmental platform can be viewed at the following web site: http://www.devalpatrick.com/resources/pdf/Moving%20MA%2020Forward,%20Environment.pdf.

Partial funding for the report was provided by the Dean's Office in the College of Arts and Sciences.

On Wednesday, November 8, 2006, in Room 90 Snell Library from 12:00 noon-1:30 p.m., James Alan Fox and Jack Levin will be lecturing on their book Extreme Killing. It examines multiple homicide including both mass and serial murder. Arrive early, seating is limited.

On Thursday, September 28, 2006, in the Boston Globe, The Center for Urban and Regional Policy Director Barry Bluestone was quoted in an atricle on the Cost of Living a Crucial Issue. Bluestone has spent years tracking the migration of families out of Massachusetts. It has become a topic in the governor's race. Deval L. Patrick chose the occasion of the release of a study on affordable housing, coauthored by Bluestone, to discuss his thoughts on housing policy and job creation.

Associate Professor of Sociology Matthew O. Hunt organized a paper session title "Self- and Group-Perception in Socio-cultural Context" for the 101st annual meeting of the American Sociological Association. Hunt also Chaired the session, which took place on August 13, 2006 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Associate Professor of Sociology Matthew O. Hunt published an article (with William Falk and Larry Hunt) titled "Hurricane Katrina and New Orleanians' Sense of Place: Return and Reconstitution or 'Gone with the Wind'?" in the March issue of Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race (Cambridge University Press).

joel&danny

A Hearty congratulations goes out to Daniel Faber, who yesterday received the "Champion of Justice Award" for his "ongoing commitment to exposing and eliminating environmental injustice in the Commonwealth and dedication to protecting all of our health from toxic chemicals." The award was granted by the Alliance for a Healthy Tomorrow (AHT), a coalition of over 160 organizations representing health professionals, scientists, environmental advocates, and labor unions working to implement a precautionary and preventive approach to environmental policy in Massachusetts. Member Organizations in the AHT include the Environmental League of Massachusetts, the AFL-CIO, MASSPIRG, the Massachusetts Breast Cancer Coalition, Massachusetts Parent Teacher Association, the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts, Clean Water Action, Massachusetts Public Health Association, and Learning Disabilities World Wide.

Pictured with Professor Faber is Joel Tickner, Director of the Lowell Center for Sustainable Development at the University of Massachusetts

Associate Professor Michael Handel published an article, The Effect of Participative Work Systems on Employee Earnings in Worker Participation: Practices and Possibilities, Vicki Smith (ed.), in the series Resaerch in Sociology of Work, Volume 16. (Oxford: JAI/Elsevier Press, March 27, 2006.)

Professor and Chair Thomas Koenig co-authored Harmonizing Internet Law: Lessons from Europe, in the May issue of the Journal of Internet Law (vol. 9 #11, 3-10).

Matthew O. Hunt, Associate Professor of Sociology, co-organized two panel sessions (with Professor Marylee Taylor of Penn State University) for the 2006 meeting of the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) in May. The first was titled, Drawing Causal Inferences about Racial Attitudes from Survey Data. The second was titled, Racial Identities and Attitudes, Core Values, and Cultural Conflict. Hunt also served as Presider for the second of these panel sessions.

Professor Daniel Faber was a guest speaker at the Environmental Protection Agency-New England, and spoke to over 200 staff and management (including head EPA-NE director) on the Current Contradictions of Environmental Policy and Ecological Injustices in Massachusetts. Professor Faber appeared at the EPA on Thursday, May 11, 2006. This was Dr. Faber's second invitation to speak before the entire staff of EPA-New England. In 2002 he received a "certificate of appreciation" for his research on environmental injustices in the Bay State. Professor Faber's report Unequal Exposure to Ecological Hazards is the foundation for environmental justice legislation that is currently under consideration by the Massachusetts Legislature.

Metro scoured Boston's colleges for their coolest courses

An article in today's Boston Metro on Boston's colleges coolest courses mentioned Northeastern's College of Arts and Sciences course in Sociology of Hip-Hop: Politics, Identity and Youth Culture in the Late Twentieth Century. This courses examines the beginnings of hip-hop, the global development of a billion-dollar industry, and its manifestations in music, art, fashion and language. It explores the social and political implications of hip-hop culture and its emergence in New York City in the 1970s.

Center for Urban and Regional Policy

The Center for Urban and Regional Policy (CURP) has now seen state legislation-drafted by a team including Director Barry Bluestone with the intent of easing the Commonwealth's housing crisis-signed into law in November for the second time in as many years. Following upon last year's passage of Chapter 40R (the Smart Growth Zoning and Housing Production Act), the recently passed Chapter 40S will now enable communities to utilize Smart Growth Zoning Districts without incurring additional education costs. The legislation is an amendment to Massachusetts' Chapter 70 education aid law, and will ensure that Smart Growth Zoning will leave no community behind. It can be thought of as a supplemental "school cost insurance" that only kicks in when needed.

Unequal Exposure to Ecological Hazards 2005: Environmental Injustices inthe Commonwealth of Massachusetts

A new report, "Unequal Exposure to Ecological Hazards 2005: Environmental Injustices in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts," authored by Associate Professor Daniel Faber and Associate Professor of Sociology Eric J. Krieg, Johnson State College reveals that profound environmental injustices exist in the Bay State. Environmentally hazardous waste sites and polluting industrial facilities are disproportionately located in communites of color and lower-income communities. The report is the first to provide a method for ranking the environmental burden of communities in the state utilizing data from the 2000 U.S. Census, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the Massachusetts Protection in the fall months of 2004. Dr. Faber and Dr. Krieg conducted their research under the auspices of the Philanthropy and Environmental Justice Research Project at Northeastern University.

Please read the following report on Unequal Exposure to Ecological Hazards, the Executive Summary and the Rankings by Towns, articles, articles, articles prepared by the Environmental Justice Research Project.
Northeastern University
Dr. Daniel R. Faber, Project Director, Northeastern University and Dr. Eric J. Krieg, Project Associate, Johnson State College, Johnson, VT

On April 10, 2006, Professor Daniel Faber of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology received the Friend of the Earth and Champion of Environmental Justice Award from Salem State College and HealthLink for his "path-breaking leadership and work in Environmental Justice in Massachusetts and beyond."

Professor Faber was also the keynote speaker for the New England Sociological Associaton (NESA) conference on Crises and Community: Natural Disaster and Human Response, that was held on Saturday, April 22 at Northeastern University. Dr. Faber's address focused on the sociological causes and consequences of the Hurrican Katrina disaster in New Orleans, and the social forces leading to the rapid growth in the number of natural disasters and environmental refugees around the world.

On Thursday, April 27, Professor Faber was a featured speaker at the Northeastern University Law School, along with Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner, on a public forum devoted to Biodefense Safety in Boston: The Lessons Learned from Hurrican Katrina and the Environmental Justice Movement.

Stearns Trustee Professor of Political Economy and Director of CURP Barry Bluestone spoke at an Emerson College forum on November 1st, addressing issues of race, poverty and leadership in America that arose from the nation's response to Hurricane Katrina. The event was sponsored by Emerson's College's Department of Organizational and Political Communication (OPC) and the Citywide Dialogues on Boston's Ethnic & Racial Diversity. On November 2nd, Bluestone served as one of the keynote speakers at the John LaWare Economic Forum at the Boston Federal Reserve Bank. He discussed the state of Massachusetts' economy and the challenges posed by its high cost of living and slow job recovery. On November 14th, Bluestone was a keynote speaker at the Realty Guild's 2005 Summit, "Thriving in a Changing Marketplace". Bluestone addressed the current state of the Massachusetts housing market and touched upon the issues of housing bubbles and real estate prices. On November 16th, at the annual Build Boston Housing Symposium, Bluestone was part of a panel titled "Sustainability and Affordable Housing-Deconstructing the Myth," that explored sustainable society as the confluence of environmental stewardship, economic viability and social justice. Build Boston is the largest regional tradeshow and convention for the design and construction industry. Over 200 contractors, and all other building industry professionals. On November 22nd, Bluestone was a guest panelist at a Hartford conference on "Connecticut's Housing Crisis: What's The Reasonable Role for Municipalities?" Bluestone discussed the Massachusetts housing experience and its lessons for Connecticut.

Assistant Professor Kathrin Zippel was invited to present two talks at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The first for the Sociology of Gender brown bag held on October 31, The Politics of Sexual Harassment: A Comparative Study of the US, the European Union, and Germany. The second, at Law School Tuesday, November 1 Legal Aspects of Regulating Sexual Harassment: Comparing German, UW and EU Approaches.

Brudnick Center on Conflict and Violence

Jack Levin, Professor of Sociology and Brudnick Professor and Center Director was quoted extensively in the media on a variety of issues this month.

Colloquium

Sponsored by the Brudnick Center on Conflict and Violence.

Inside the Death Chamber: Executions and the Penalty of Death
Kay Gillespie
Weber State University
Ogden, Utah

Tuesday, October 11, 2005
3:15-4:15 p.m.
420 Shillman
Refreshments will be served. For additional information, please contact the Brudnick Center at x4987.

Kay Trimberger, Author

The Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Institute for Urban Health, African American Studies Program, Women's Studies Program, and the Honors Program are sponsoring sociologist and women's studies scholar, Kay Trimberger, author of the just published The New Single Woman (Beacon Press), a book about being older, single, uncoupled and fulfilled, a new identity for women in the twenty-first century.

For additional information, contact Professor of Sociology Winifred Breines at 617.373.3857 or Chrisie Fallon in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology office, 617.373.4940.

Date: Wednesday, October 5, 2005
Time: Noon
Place: 220 Shillman

What's New With Our Faculty

Barry Bluestone, Stearns Trustee Professor, was quoted in a Sept. 8 Boston Globe story that discussed Boston's ranking as the most expensive American city to live, based on "The Housing Report Card" of Boston Foundation and the Citizens' Housing and Planning Association. High housing costs were the biggest factor in the ranking, with Boston followed by Washington, D.C., New York City, San Francisco and Minneapolis. "Dealing with the housing costs is absolutely integral to the economic development strategy of the state," Bluestone said. "It may be, in the long run, the most important thing we can do."

Assistant Professor Samantha Friedman published the co-authored article, Does the Community Reinvestment Act Help Minorities Access Traditionally Inaccessible Neighborhoods? in the May issue of Social Problems 52(2):209-231. Professor Friedman was also awarded a grant from Northeastern University's Research Development Program for $12,000 for the project, "Minority Access to Wealth through Homeowndership: American Dream or Nightmare?"

Associate Professor Matthew Hunt published the co-authored article, Making Good on a Promise: The Impact of Larger Social Structures on Commitments. (with Sheldon Stryker and Richard T. Serpe) in August: Pp. 93-124 in Advances in Group Processes, Volume 22 (Social Identification in Groups), Edited by Edward Lawler and Shane Thye. (Elsevier Publishers). On June 3, he had an invited presentation titled "Neighborhood Racial Composition and Perceptions of Racial Discrimination" at Stanford University's Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity. Professor Hunt organized a session entitled "A Space for 'Place' in Racial Attitudes Research: Exploring Context Effects" at the 2005 meeting of the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) in May. He also presented a co-authored paper entitled "Neighborhood Racial Composition and Perceptions of Racial Discrimination in the Black Women's Health Study" at this same conference.

Assistant Professor Kathrin Zippel was a speaker on a panel on conducting research abroad at the American Sociological Association Meetings held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on August 14, Professor Zippel participated in the New Faculty Panel sponsored by the Office of the Provost on August 31, and discussed conducting interdisciplinary research. This summer, she also served as an expert reviewer for the MacArthur Fellows Program.

Quotable

Barry Bluestone, director of the Center for Urban Regional Policy co-authored a column in the July 16 Boston Globe critiquing the Commonwealth's passage of an incentive program for suburbs that provide affordable housing options. The bill, the Smart Growth Zoning and Housing Protection Act, or Chapter 40R, is trying to prompt municipalities to rezone land near transit stops and town centers. But "the real barrier" for housing supply "is the cost of K-12 schooling for the children who might live in the housing built in these districts," Bluestone co-wrote with Ted Carman of the Concord Square Development Company. "Because the current state-financed program for K-12 schooling (Chapter 70) does not provide additional funding if there are additional kids in these 238 school districts, these communities are reluctant to allow denser, less expensive single-family homes within their jurisdictions."

Profile

"All of a sudden, (gossip) is a topic that's back on people's minds."—Levin

Levin: Water cooler gossip can build team spirit
When he's not commenting on serial crime or the breakdown of civilization in New Orleans, Northeastern's fuzzy haired faculty member has been absorbed in the lighter side of human behavior—gossip.

Despite the negative connotation of the word, a little word-of-mouth can be good, say Jack Levin, the Brudnick Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Anthropology. Long before be became an expert in criminal behavior, Levin penned a book with sociology and anthropology professor Arnold Arluke titled, "Gossip: The Inside Scoop."

This was in 1987. And now Levin is back on the media circuit discussing the topic that once captured his imagination. He appeared on NPR's "Talk of the Nation" on Aug. 25, and was scheduled to tape a segment on "Chronicle." His opinion is also set to run in the October issue of Cosmopolitan.

"All of a sudden, it's a topic that's back on people's minds again," he said. On the plus side, gossip is a universal means of communication that can build community by creating a feeling of inclusion. The information can help groups build consensus and answer questions that traditional means of communication might not address as thoroughly.

"If you're a new employee, for example, you can look at the employee handbook for a lot of information. But if you want to find out how long it really takes to get a promotion or a raise, you get that information through gossip." Levin said. People who shy away from gossip entirely run the risk of being isolated outsiders. But too much can cause a bad-buzz backlash, he noted.

Celebrity gossip showing the most beautiful and wealthy among us living miserable lives somehow makes the less fortunante feel better, and a touch of "dirt" can even make one appear cool to his or her social peers. President Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky actually boosted his appeal with men, Levin said. It was the lying that besmirched his reputation. "There is a reciprocity to gossip, however: you have to be able to receive as much as you dish out."

Presidential Scholar

Presidential Scholar, Elizabeth Ridge, Junior Sociology major urges freshmen to embrace diversity.