Fall 2007 Newsletter

In This Issue

(click below)
Microcase 
Preregistration
BBC Cruise
NSF Grant
NPR Aging Class 
Prof. McCarty
Student Photos
Free Books 
D.C. Class Trip
CJ at ACCC
Teaching Award
Dept. Website

Dept. Celebrates Ten Years of MicroCase Use

Our department adopted MicroCase as its standard statistical software in 1998. The decision was linked to a belief that the department’s curriculum needed to be moved in a more “skills-based” direction to ensure that sociology and criminal justice majors graduated with marketable strengths. This academic year constitutes the tenth year of employing MicroCase across the curriculum in both disciplines.

The situation before 1998 was much different. As Professor Ted Goertzel notes: “When I began teaching Methods of Research at Rutgers Camden, the computer was in the basement of Armitage Hall.  There was just one for the campus, what we now call a “main-frame” computer.  There was a room full of card punch machines.  We typed lines of code on this machine and they were punched with holes into cards.  We then put a “deck” of these cards in a file drawer and the computer staff ran them through the computer.  After an hour or so, we got a printout of our results.  Usually there were errors and the cards had to be repunched and resubmitted. 

“Now the software is much easier to run thanks to the graphic interface (Windows) and we get our results almost instantly.  Most students install the Microcase software at home and even submit their assignments through the Internet.  We can process much more data and do it more easily.  The students are able to focus on the substance of the assignments instead of spending a lot of time learning how to write computer code.  We also do much more with graphics which makes the findings easier to understand and communicate.”

Equally importantly, statistical data analyis using MicroCase was introduced into a wide range of other courses, so that both sociology and criminal justice majors are exposed to its use and potential repeatedly in the course of their education at Rutgers-Camden. Professor Jon’a Meyer for one uses MicroCase in all her undergraduate courses, including her Theories of Crime and Delinquency course. She notes that: “While some students grumble about the notion of doing statistics in a theories class, others actually welcome the opportunity to deepen their understanding of the course material in an interactive way. Typically, positive comments from students mention how well they were able to learn about the theories by testing tenets and ideas and a few simply like playing with data to explore theoretical ideas on their own. One student, for example, wrote on the anonymous student evaluations of my course, ‘The MicroCase assignments were really interesting and related right back to the course material.’ In all, I’m quite pleased with how MicroCase and SDA have allowed me to improve my students’ learning in an way that also helps them understand and evaluate basic research information.” A majority of the full-time faculty now use MicroCase in one or more courses, including the two major introductory courses, Criminal Justice in America and Introduction to Sociology. Dr. Meyer judges MicroCase to have been “a valuable addition to our departmental pedagogy,” and Dr. Goertzel observes that “Students graduate from our program with skills that can be used immediately on the job or in graduate school.”

Further information, including online tutorials and examples of MicroCase exercises designed by our faculty, may be found at our MicroCase Resources web page.

Spring 2008 Semester Pre-Registration Starts November 4th
Read this before you register!

Pre-Registration for the Spring 2008 Semester begins on November 4th. All students are strongly encouraged to see their departmental advisor in planning their schedule, especially those who expect to graduate in May.

New Major Advising System In Effect: Since January, a new departmental advising system has been in effect. Both Criminal Justice and Sociology majors are now assigned an individual advisor. If you don’t know who your advisor is, check the online list of advising assignments (Excel file). If you don’t find your name there, see department secretary Sherry Pisacano in the departmental office to get one assigned. (Students are temporarily reassigned when their faculty advisor is on sabbatical leave.)

Degree Navigator (click here for student access) remains a great tool, but students combining a major and minor in the department should be sure to consult their advisor–DN sometimes makes mistakes in this case. Be sure that you have the required combined credits.

Preregistration Tips and Reminders:
All Sociology and CJ majors should take Methods and Techniques of Social Research (920:301) as soon as possible. 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.
Dr. Goertzel’s spring 2008 Communication class (920.341) counts both as a sociology elective and as a “writing intensive” course in the college curriculum. 
Selected Urban Studies courses can count as one elective in the sociology major. Check the sociology major webpage for details. 
Many of your questions about advising may be answered by consulting our department’s Sociology Advising Page and our Criminal Justice Advising Page.

New Courses include:

Winterim: Museums and Culture. 070:485. 12/21/07 F, 1/2/08-1/17/08 M,Tu,W,Th 6:00pm-9:40pm. Taught by Patrick McCarty. Click here for detailed description.

Spring Semester: Children and Consumer Culture. 920:346. MW 1:20-2:40. Taught by Prof. Dan Cook, a sociologist who has joined the Department of Childhood Studies. Counts as sociology elective. Click here for detailed description.

Quick Access to Course Information:

15 decks high, Explorer of the Seas towers over Miami’s port

Globalization at sea means a global crew without labor laws or most other regulations

BBC Takes Prof. Wood on Caribbean Cruise to Explore
“The Price of Fun”

Prof. Cati Coe has received a two-year grant from the Cultural Anthropology program at the National Science Foundation (NSF) to support her research on the lives of Ghanaian immigrant families. NSF grants to anthropologists are rare, so this is a special honor. Dr. Coe is particularly interested in how the traditional practice of child fosterage (in which a child is raised by adults other than his or her birth parents) is being used by Ghanaian parents who have traveled to the U.S. to live and work. NSF will be supporting one stage of this longer project, in which Dr. Coe will be doing a household survey in one small town in southern Ghana, to determine how the child-raising practices of transnational migrants differ from urban migrants. If you are interested in knowing more about how immigration impacts family arrangements, you might consider taking Dr. Coe’s anthropology course in the spring on Immigration and Families. Dr. Coe is a member of the Working Group on Childhood and Migration, which is hosting an interdisciplinary Conference on Childhood and Migration in Philadelphia next June.

NPR Reports on Soc. of Aging Course Simulation Exercise

Prof. McCarty Tapped for Anthropology Text Website Creation

Prof. Patrick McCarty, an adjunct faculty member of the department, recently completed work on McGraw-Hill’s Online Learning Center, a website created to assist students and instructors who use McGraw-Hill’s anthropology texts. Professor McCarty worked on websites for two texts: John Relethford’s The Human Species: An Introduction to Biological Anthropology, and Michael Park’s Introducing Anthropology: An Integrated Approach. For the student websites, he revised and updated virtual explorations, exams and quizzes, chapter overviews and outlines, and learning objectives. For the instructor side of the website, he created new PowerPoint presentations for each chapter. McGraw-Hill has cited Professor McCarty’s contribution and Rutgers-Camden is mentioned on the website. The virtual explorations appear in the print edition as well. Feel free to explore these two sites, which include audio and video files as well.

In April 2007, Dr. Hazzard-Donald’s special topics class, The Red and the Black: American Indians and African Americans in the North American Environment, visited the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. Dr. Hazzard-Donald said the opportunity to experience the exhibits on native history, beliefs and contemporary life was a wonderful complement to the course. During the lunch break at the museum’s cafeteria, students selected food from a variety of traditional and updated American Indian cuisine including buffalo cheese burgers, dishes of corn, squash, soups and stews, and even a raw fish selection. Students proclaimed the trip a great success and a great learning experience. Funding from the African American Studies program and the department made this unique and valuable experience possible.