Spring 2001 Newsletter

Department of Sociology, Anthropology & Criminal Justice

SPRING 2001 NEWSLETTER

 

 

This is the second online issue of the department’s biannual newsletter, put out to coincide with pre-registration period.  We hope you will find it accessible and useful, and welcome comments and suggestions.  –Professor Robert Wood, Chair (on leave) and Professor Ted Goertzel, Acting Chair

 

Preregistration for Fall 2001 Begins April 2

  • Students are reminded that early pre-registration for fall semester courses not only saves you money but also ensures that the courses will run and that there will be a place for you.
  • The department strongly recommends consulting with your departmental advisor before or during the pre-registration period.
  • Sociology majors should keep in mind that Sociological Theory is offered only in the fall semester and is required for graduation.
  • It is department policy that both Sociology and Criminal Justice majors should take Methods and Techniques of Social Research (920:301) as early as possible in their academic career, and that transfer students should take the course in their first semester at Camden. If you are a major and have not taken this course, you should definitely take it in the fall. It is a prerequisite for other upper-level courses, and the knowledge of MicroCase gained in the course is required in both Sociological Theory and Theories of Crime and Delinquency, as well as other courses.
  • Dr. Hazzard-Donald will be on research leave for the 2001-2002 academic year.
  • For students just starting out as freshmen, Dr. Goertzel will be offering Cyberspace and Society as part of the college’s new freshman seminar program.

 

 

Department Continues to Register Growth,
Gains Visting Lecturer

 

 

The latest figures show that majors in both criminal justice and sociology continue to grow. Early spring data indicate 144 criminal justice majors, up from 127, and 94 sociology majors, up from 87. For the 2001-2002 academic year, the department will be joined by Sheryl Van Horne, a Ph.D. candidate at the School of Criminal Justice at Newark. For the fall semester, Ms. Van Horne will be teaching courses on Criminal Justice Planning, Domestic Violence, and Popular Culture and Crime. The department is looking to make two new tenure-track appointments in the 2001-2002 academic year, and is working on the creation of a master’s program in criminal justice. The department is also working closely with the newly-restructured Teacher Certification Program, and will begin offering Sociology of Education for TCP students on a regular basis in the fall.

New Offerings in Summer Session

The department is offering three courses in anthropology, four in criminal justice, and four in sociology over the course of the three summer sessions.

  • In Anthropology, the required course for the sociology major, Psychological Anthropology, is being offered for the first time. Another first-time offering is a special topics course on Museums and Culture. Dr. Ina Fandrich returns with her popular Gods, Cults and Ritual course.
  • In criminal justice, several courses not generally offered during the regular semester will be available: Dr. Meyer’s Technology and Criminal Justice; Lloyd Dumont’s Organized Crime course; Annette Holba’s Sex Crimes Unit course, first offered to a full house over winterim session; and a course on crime mapping (using GIS software, widely used by criminal justice agencies) offered at the Blackwood campus of Camden Community College by Prof. Gene Evans.
  • In Sociology, Social Problems will be offered by Pat Ojea, two sessions of Sociology of the Family by Kathleen Asbury, and Social Change in the Global Economy by Dr. Wood. (Note: the current catalog lists the wrong course description for Dr. Wood’s course; the correct one may be accessed, along with times and sessions for all summer courses, at the online Summer Session Course Listing.)


New Service Learning Course Puts Students in Camden

As part of a new Service Learning course, offered jointly with the Psychology Department, students this semester have been engaging in service work at community centers and schools in the city, with a focus on “Bridging the Digital Divide in Camden.”  The course, led by Anne Harkins, Technology Coordinator at the Molina School, has met weekly as a seminar, with each student performing approximately five hours of service work in the community as well.

 

Join the Third Annual Poster Session on Friday, April 27
Free Lunch and Good Company

 

 

All students are invited to present a research project in poster form for the Third Annual Undergraduate Research Poster Session on Friday, April 27th, 12:00-2:00 in the Multi-Purpose Room in the Campus Center. And all students (presenting or not) are invited to inspect the poster presentations, discuss the findings with presenters, and to partake in the free lunch. The annual event is co-sponsored with the Department of Psychology. Last year’s Poster Session attracted over 100 presenters and guests; photos from the event may be seen at https://sociology.camden.rutgers.edu/posteralbum/photoalbum.htm

Note: If you intend to make a poster presentation, please email the title of your presentation to Professor Goertzel so that you will be listed in the program.

 

Fourteen Students Attend Eastern Sociological Society in Philadelphia; Faculty Discuss Teaching, Research

Fourteen Rutgers-Camden students travelled across the river to attend the meetings of the Eastern Sociological Society in Philadelphia in early March. Their registrations were paid for by a grant from Dean Marsh’s office. As Chair of theESS Computer Committee, Dr. Wood organized and oversaw five sessions, which included two presentations showcasing the department’s use of instructional technology. Dr. Goertzel demonstrated “Using Digital Assignments and Internet Grading Tools,” and Dr. Wood traced the evolution of the department’s program in a presentation entitled “From Web-Enhanced Courses to the Web-Enhanced Curriculum.” Dr. Wood also co-presented, with his wife Monika, a paper based on preliminary research from his research leave, “Globalization and European Farming: Agritourism and the WTO.” Note: Shown at left are two Rutgers-Camden sociology students, Agatha Curran and Bruce Carroll, along with Dr. Wood, presenting their research at the 1998 ESS meetings.

 

Web-Enhanced Curriculum Draws Students, New Resource 
for Using Library Resources Online

Students are encouraged to check out the latest addition to the department’s Web-Enhanced Curriculum Homepage: the Library Resources Online page. From this page students can easily access relevant bibliographical data bases and browse online versions of major journals in sociology, anthropology and criminal justice. There’s no alternative to using the library, but the good news is that so many good library sources are now available online. We have designed this page to make it maximally easy and convenient to do this.

The depeartment’s website is organized around a Departmental Homepage and a Web-Enhanced Curriculum Homepage. Accessible from these pages are such resources as faculty profiles, over 30 online course syllabi, advising FAQs, instructions on how to subscribe to the departmental e-mailing list, plagiarism and citation guidelines, MicroCase resources, Virtual Tours, student research opportunities, recommended websites, and more. The department’s homepage address is https://sociology.camden.rutgers.edu/.  Students are strongly encouraged to familiarize themselves with the policies and resources at this site.

In a survey of Dr. Wood’s Sociological Theory class in the fall, 81% of students reported making use of the department website, 26% regularly. The department was gratified by a number of the student comments, including the following: “As a Sociology major, I have used the computer much more often than in my previous major. I feel that learning how to utilize technology is immeasurably important as we enter into the 21st century. Rutgers-Camden has a great model in the Sociology dept; hopefully, such technological enthusiasm will soon pervade other departments!”

 

New Children’s Center On the Move

The newly-created Center for Children and Childhood Studies, directed by Anthropology Professor Myra Bluebond-Langner, has been having a busy first year. A seminar series by Faculty Associates has included presentations by Drs. Sheila Cosminsky, Drew Humphries, and Jane Siegel; Dr. Meyer is scheduled for May. A new undergraduate program in Childhood Studies has been approved and will be offering its first foundations course, Introduction to Childhood Studies (50:163:101) in the fall. Former Camden Sociology major and MSW Angela Connor has been hired by the Center to run the Camden Campaign for Children’s Literacy; student volunteers are welcome. Information on the campaign and on the Center’s other activities is available at the Center’s website. The Center is temporarily housed in the Campus Center.

 

 

 

 

Faculty Research Notes

Professor Myra Bluebond-Langner’s co-edited book, The Psychosocial Aspects of Cystic Fibrosis (co-published by Arnold Publishing Co. in the UK & Oxford University Press in New York), was published earlier this year. Professor Bluebond-Langner’s work on children was recently highlighted in a feature article in the Chronicle of Higher Education entitled “Seeing Children and Hearing Them, Too: Anthropologists now realize that transmitting values is a two-way street.”
Drawing on her research on Navajo restorative justice institutions (see the fall 2000 newsletter for more details), Dr. Jon’a Meyer has presented papers this year at the National Association of Native American Studies and at the Academy of Criminal Justice. Her SPSS exercises testing different criminological theories recently appeared in a Pine Forge Press edited book on Juvenile Delinquency. 
Dr. Jane Siegel gave an invited lecture on “Restorative Justice: An Emerging Alternative to Retribution” at the Woodrow Wilson School of Princeton University in November. She presented papers on sexual and female victimization at the American Society of Criminology and the National Institute of Justice’s Research Conference on Violence Against Women and Family Violence, and recently published a paper on aggressive behavior of women who were sexually abused as children in the journal, Violence and Victims.
Dr. Drew Humphries is beginning a pilot study of Camden’s Drug Court this April; she is also setting up base line data for Project Sunrise, a Collingswood project designed to reduce drug use among youth. Dr. Humphries has also received funding to bring elementary school teachers from Collingswood, Swedesboro, and Camden to campus for a day during the summer to discuss the effects of domestic violence and caregiver addiction on children. 
Dr. Sheila Cosminsky has begun a research project with Diane Markowitz on nutrition, health, and health care among children of migrant workers in New Jersey. Dr. Katrina Hazzard-Donald will be writing her book on African American spiritual and health practices known as hoodoo during a research leave in the 2001-2002 academic year. She recently met with archaeologists who have unearthed hoodoo remains at former slave plantations in Virginia.
As noted above, Drs. Goertzel and Wood (both Robert and Monika) gave presentations at the Eastern Sociological Society meetings in early March. Professor Wood and his wife will be in Europe for the month of April doing research on how controversies over farm tourism and agriculture illuminate some of the fundamental issues involved in globalization.


MicroCase Tutors Needed for Fall Semester

Dr. Wood is looking for student assistants to provide MicroCase tutoring to students in the Introduction to Sociology and Sociological Theory courses, grading of exercises, and updating of the MicroCase Resources page of the department’s web-enhanced curriculum. Interested students (who should have completed Dr. Goertzel’s Methods and Techniques of Social Research course) should contact Dr. Wood during March or May (he will be away in Europe during April). Up to three credits of independent study may be earned. Drs. Meyer and Goertzel are also looking for tutors/graders.

 

Subscribe to the Department’s E-List!

All students are strongly encouraged to subscribe to the Department’s E-Mailing List. By subscribing to this list, students will receive timely information about pre-registration, developments in the department, recommended lectures and events, etc. All majors and minors in sociology, anthropology and criminal justice are strongly encouraged to subscribe. Just go to https://sociology.camden.rutgers.edu/curriculum/list.htm and follow the simple instructions.
March 22, 2001