Graduate Student News
Graduate Sociology Conference Held at Northeastern
On Sunday, February 8th, almost fifty graduate students from nine different universities gathered in the McLeod Suites in the Curry Student Center for the 2nd Annual Boston Area Sociology Graduate Students Conference. This one-day conference was entirely organized by students in the Graduate Sociology Society (GSS), led by conference co-chairs Christopher Hovey and Brett Nava-Coulter. “Our first conference was held in December of 2007 so graduate students would have a chance to prepare their papers for ASA which was held in Boston that year. People were so grateful to have a chance to meet other sociology students in the area that we had to do it again,” said Lauren Nicoll, president and founder of the GSS. Conference attendees hailed from Northeastern, Brandeis, Boston College, Boston University, UMASS-Boston, University of Connecticut, University of New Hampshire, Harvard and Brown. After a welcome by chair Steve Vallas, students presented papers in roundtables on the environment, social movements and technology; culture, arts and media; gender; violence; and community and social networks. For example, Alissa Cordner from Brown University found that homeschooled students are predicted to have worse socio-emotional health than students taught in public schools. Northeastern participants presented on such varied topics as the environment and plastics policy (Amy Lubitow), same-sex marriage (Kat Rickenbacker), the impact of intimate partner violence on judicial decision making in custody cases (Brandy Hubbard), terrorism (Christopher Hovey), and the intersection of race, class, and gender in mass murderers (Eric Madfis). After a morning of paper presentations, Northeastern graduate students again took on a leadership role and moderated workshops on surviving the job market (Trish Morris), teaching (Eric Madfis), activism (Amy Lubitow), and networking (Lauren Nicoll). However, the conference was truly a group effort with many more graduate students involved with planning, purchasing food, setting up, registration, and running the website. The GSS was happy to offer free registration to participants since the conference was funded by the graduate student activities fee. The club hopes that the incoming as well as current graduate students will get involved to make next year’s conference an even greater success.
Congratulations to Stanislav (Stas) Vysotsky who has accepted a tenure track assistant professorship at Willamette University. Stas is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Sociology and Anthopology.
Please download the following article published by Professor Silvia Dominguez and Amy Lubitow, one of our graduate students in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology.
Sandra Arevalo and Stanislav Vysotsky have won the 2008 Graduate and Professional Student Award in the category of Teaching in the Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences. A ceremony to honor the winners will be held on Monday, March 17, 2008 from 3:00-5:00 p.m. at the Raytheon Amphitheater.
Patricia Morris, a graduate student in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology has been awarded a 2007 Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship. The Charlotte W. Newcombe Foundation and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, which administers this award, named Patricia as one of the 30 Newcombe Fellows for 2007. The Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship awards $19,000 for the term of one academic year of dissertation writing. To put this award in perspective, just 7 percent of this year's applicants were selected as Fellows.