Fall 2005 Newsletter

Cooper Street looking east from 4th St. 
late 19th century

In This Issue
(click below)
Open House
Preregistration
Coe Book
CJ Graduates
Meloy Baby Girl
China & Mongolia 
CJ Lecture
Website

 

DEPT. OPEN HOUSE SET FOR NOVEMBER 10th
405-7 Cooper Street
You’re Invited!

Student Pizza and Soda Mid-Day Open House: Noon to 1:30 pm
All student majors and minors in criminal justice, sociology, or anthropology are invited to join us for pizza and soda during the free period. Explore the building and learn about the resources there–including our computer lab and free books in the lounge!There will be displays about the department and the college as well.

Afternoon Open House for Faculty, Staff, Alumni and Graduate Students, 3:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Faculty, Staff, Departmental Alumni and Graduate Students, and other Friends are invited to join us later in the afternoon to celebrate our good fortune and good cheer in our wonderful new building. There will be diverse beverages and hors d’oeuvres. The afternoon open house will be co-sponsored by the Department and by the Center for Children and Childhood Studies on the third floor, with support from the Provost’s Office.. Click here for directions.

November 2002

November 2005

 

Spring 2006 Preregistration News and Advice
Read this before you register!

Preregistration for the Spring 2006 Semester begins November 7th. All students are strongly encouraged to see a departmental advisor in planning their schedule.Sociology majors may see any sociology or anthropology faculty members they choose, or be assigned an advisor by the department secretary, Sherry Pisacano. Criminal Justice uses an advisor pool system; click here for current advising hours. Here are a few Spring 2006 preregistration tips (click here for the combined departmental spring schedule):
The Online Syllabi web page at the departmental web site contains links to more than forty course web sites in the department, and offers a great way to explore course offerings for the upcoming Semester. 
All Sociology and CJ majors should take Methods and Techniques of Social Research (920:301) in the upcoming semester if they have not already taken it.This course is a prerequisite for a number of upper-level courses, and knowledge of MicroCase and the basics of data analysis are increasingly expected in all upper-level courses. Note: the methods course also fulfills the second math requirement in the CCAS curriculum. It is generally a good idea to focus on required courses first, leaving electives until later. 
Keep in mind that Dr. Goertzel’s Communication class (920.341) counts both as a sociology elective and as a “writing intensive” course in the college curriculum.
Students may now use one of several Urban Studies courses as one of the electives in the sociology major. Check the sociology major webpage for details.
Co-sponsored with the Psychology Department, Sociology’s Service Learningcourse on “Bridging the Digital Divide in Camden” returns this spring and combines a Wednesday late afternoon seminar with 5-6 hours of fieldwork at Camden community centers and schools. 
Popular adjunct Erika Stevens, who has moved to St. Louis, is returning to teach her Women and Work winterim course, a sociology elective that also counts for women’s studies. The department is offering six winterim courses in anthropology,criminal justice, and sociology.
Don’t know what to do with your Saturdays? Rutgers-Camden is beginning an experiment with Saturday morning courses, and one of the first ones will be Prof. McCarty’s North American Indians course in the spring (Saturdays 9:00-11:55 am)
For your scheduling convenience, the tentative schedule for Summer 2006 is listed here. Several new courses are planned, including a course on Japanese Media, which will explore cultural globalization by looking at video games, anime, film, and more. Another new course, Social Issues and Social Policy, will be taught by Angela Connor-Morris, a former sociology major at Rutgers-Camden who went on to receive both an MSW and MPA. Several new courses in criminal justice will also be offered in the summer, including Social Justice in Film, Prisoners Rights, Federal Criminal Justice, and others.
Some of your questions about advising may be answered at our department’sSociology Advising Page and our Criminal Justice Advising Page.

Dr. Cati Coe Publishes Book on African Schools

Dr. Coe’s first book, Dilemmas of Culture in African Schools: Youth, Nationalism, and the Transformation of Knowledge, was published by University of Chicago Press earlier this year. Quoting from the publisher’s description: “In working to build a sense of nationhood, Ghana has focused on many social engineering projects, the most meaningful and fascinating of which has been the state’s effort to create a national culture through its schools. As Cati Coe reveals in Dilemmas of Culture in African Schools, this effort has created an unusual paradox: while Ghana encourages its educators to teach about local cultural traditions, those traditions are transformed as they are taught in school classrooms. The state version of culture now taught by educators has become objectified and nationalized–vastly different from local traditions.” Dr. Coe, who is currently on a one-semester research leave, was back in Ghana for the summer, where she is engaged in a new research project on transnational families.

 

CJ Master’s Program Graduates First Class in May 2005

Shown to the left are seven of the eight members of the first graduating class of the Rutgers-Camden Masters in Criminal Justice program at reception following commencement. Click here for further details.

Dr. Michelle Meloy Gives Birth to Daughter Morgan

Our department–which has not seen a new baby member in almost two decades–is thrilled with the birth of Morgan to her mother Michelle Meloy. Morgan was born on July 21, 2005, weighing all of five pounds 6 ounces. But she’s been making up for lost time ever since! Dr. Meloy is enjoying both a research leave and the pleasures of motherhood, and will return to teach a reduced load in the spring. As for the rest of the department: GaGa is the word!

 

Hillary Burgess

First Graduate CJ Colloquium Held

On October 11th, the graduate Criminal Justice program held its first colloquium, co-hosted with the graduate MPA program. Hillary Burgess, who took courses from former Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, delivered a fascinating lecture on the U.S. Supreme Court to a crowd of about 50 students and faculty. Her talk, “Overruled! Judicial Restraint and Judicial Activism in the United States Supreme Court,” traced the use of judicial activism over a series of decisions, arguing that “judicial activism is in the eye of the beholder” because all decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court involve some level of interpretation of the Constitution. After the lecture, the group retired to a reception with Professor Burgess for further discussion. Funding for the event and reception was provided by the Senator Walter Rand Institute for Public Affairs and theForum for Policy Research.