Dear Students,
We are thrilled to be looking forward to welcoming you back in person for 2021-2! I can’t tell you how happy the entire faculty is to be expecting to see you all in the classroom again.
A few things have changed – but not dramatically. I will be serving as your new DUS. Many, any thanks to Jonathan Wyrtzen for doing an amazing job the previous two years under very difficult circumstances. And new faculty have joined us! You may have virtually met Daniel Karrell, who has been strengthening our offerings in computational social science, text analysis, and quantitative methods. Daniel has been remote this past year, so we are very happy to welcome him to campus this fall.
Sociology continues to be a, vibrant, and essential major. If you are concerned about the state of the world and want to improve it, sociology is an incredible major for you. Many of the most pressing problems of our time are social coordination problems. Sociology can help to solve those problems! Our majors are interested in inequality, criminal justice, social justice, health, social networks, politics, race and ethnicity, religion, gender and sexuality, global perspectives, and more. We have amazing opportunities to work with faculty as research assistants. We also have one of the most generous prize awards offered to undergraduates in the field and an incredible program through which we are able to offer research support to many students working on their senior essays.
If you are a major, I look forward to meeting you this fall. Before the pandemic we had a thriving undergraduate group. I am particularly interested in reviving this tradition and reconstituting a student advisory committee. If you are interested in becoming a part of this important group, please reach out to me by email or come by office hours.
Finally, a huge congratulations to our amazing class of graduating seniors who thrived even in the toughest of years. We are so very proud of your determination and grit and your tremendous accomplishments!
Professor Erikson
