Past Events

Please join us today for panel discussion about the ongoing Trayvon Martin incident and what this tragedy means for educators. Our panel members include Dr. Preston Greene, Stephanie Preston, and Sam Richards. The panel is being held in 236 Chambers today at 12pm.

The Center for Life Course and Longitudinal Studies (C2LS) is initiating a series of “Life Course Workshops” to encourage active discussion of the life course perspective and its potential to illuminate the nature of human lives and processes of individual and social change. Both faculty and students are encouraged to participate. Everyone is welcome!

We hope the “Life Course Workshops” will develop a format that encourages active discussion, in order to talk about things we have read (recent and not so recent), and ways to think about how our research is connected and could be framed/conceptualized and addressed within a life course framework. Initially, we will experiment with a format that fosters these goals, with a structure that will allow Center members to bring their problems and issues to the table for joint consideration.

In order to find the suggested readings for each week for downloading, go to the “Life Course Workshop” tab at the following website:

http://alwin-projects.pop.psu.edu/login_form

Use the login name “guest” and the password “guest” in order to get into the Life Course Workshop folder, and then click on “view files”.

*This workshop is sponsored by Duane Alwin and involves population studies.

The Department of Sociology & Crime, Law and Justice invites you to join us at a reception to celebrate with our graduates on

Saturday, May 4^th, 2013

2:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.

Tent #1 on the Pattee Library Mall

Grassy Area between Sparks and Burrowes Buildings

University Park, PA

Please limit attendance to six guests.

Refreshments will be served.

Please RSVP to sociology@la.psu.edu by Friday, April 19^th.

The lead speaker will be Emilio Parrado, Professor of Sociology at University of Pennsylvania.

Discussants include Katharine Donato, Professor and Chair of Sociology at Vanderbilt Universtiy and Jennifer Van Hook, Professor of Sociology and Director, Population Research Institute at Penn State.

The conference schedule and online registration are now available at

http://www.pop.psu.edu/events/2012/djl/2011-deJong-lecture/view

This conference will attempt to understand the changing nature of community and class in contemporary society and the consequences for comprehending the nature of social obligation.  How are classes and communities linked?  What forms do they take, what are their interests, how do they change?  Fragmentation and re-structuring are important features of the current social landscape. A number of pertinent processes present challenges and new possibilities for understanding community and class: mobility (both geographic and social), new forms of communal organization (both virtual and “real”), the growth and proliferation of economic and other forms of inequality and their impact on already segmented societies.  Especially in the wake of recent social movements – the Tea Party, the “Arab Spring,” the London riots, and “Occupy Wall Street” – it becomes essential to re-explore how class, community, and social obligation are related to one another.

Erik Olin Wright, Vilas Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin, and President of the American Sociological Association, will deliver the keynote address, on "Real Utopias In and Beyond Capitalism."

We invite submissions covering a wide range of topics. See link below for details.

Dr. Michelle Frisco, Associate professor of Sociology and Demography at Penn State University will be presenting a talk Title - TBA. This event is sponsored by the Population Research Institute. All are welcome; lunch will be provided.

Professor Collins is a social theorist whose research and scholarship have examined issues of race, gender, social class, sexuality and/or nation. Her first book, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, published in 1990, with a revised tenth year anniversary edition published in 2000, won the Jessie Bernard Award of the American Sociological Association (ASA) for significant scholarship in gender, and the C. Wright Mills Award of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. Her second book, Race, Class, and Gender: An Anthology, 6th ed. (2007), edited with Margaret Andersen, is widely used in undergraduate classrooms in over 200 colleges and universities. Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism (Routledge, 2004) received ASA’s 2007 Distinguished Publication Award. Her other books include Fighting Words: Black Women and the Search for Justice (University of Minnesota Press, 1998); and From Black Power to Hip Hop: Racism, Nationalism, and Feminism (Temple University Press in press for 2005). She has published many articles in professional journals such as Ethnic and Racial Studies, Signs, Sociological Theory, Social Problems, and Black Scholar, as well as in edited volumes.

This year we're doing something a little different.  Starting at 3pm we're going to be holding a field day full of fun events to compete for prizes!  The Social Event Committee is teaming up with the Community Service Committee to raise some money for the Centre County Women's Resource Center, by holding this field day and asking for donations ($5 suggested) in place of their annual drive.
How it works - teams of 2 will compete in a series of fun events (e.g. three-legged race).  The top three teams will win prizes!

There will also be favors for kids, so bring your children!! Fun for all ages!

After the Field Day we'll eat some BBQ and enjoy additional activities. Games such as wiffle ball, frisbee, cornhole/bags, and boccee ball will also be there as part of the afternoon's festivities!! Come out and play! Feel free to bring games and activities if you'd like.

Please visit the link below to the sign-up sheet for pot-luck food items and to RSVP. The committee will be grilling burgers, hotdogs and veggie burgers and providing sodas/water.  Grilling will begin around 4.

We hope you can join us for this fun event to celebrate the end of the semester!

Have you ever had a student who was disruptive? Demanding? Dishonest? Even dangerous?

At a loss for how to handle these students?

If so, come join April's session of the teaching forum to learn about strategies for addressing problem students.

The goal of the teaching Forum is to share ideas about teaching with an eye toward increasing the overall quality of teaching in the department.

All are invited! Snacks will be provided.

Successful Penn State Sociology & Crime, Law and Justice alumni will be traveling back to Happy Valley to offer advice on a multitude of career paths and to answer any questions that students may have. This is an excellent opportunity for students to network with alumni and gain valuable insights about career options.  Career fields that will be represented may include state and local law enforcement, the federal government, the legal system, security and investigations, and social and human services.

"Metropolitan Conditions, Neighborhood Diversity, and Inter-Neighborhood Migration"

Kyle Crowder, Professor
Department of Sociology
University of Washington

Co-sponsored by The Population Research Institute (PRI)

"What’s Marriage Got to Do with It? Males’ Intimate Relationships and Involvement in Crime"

Julie Horney
Professor of Crime, Law and Justice
Penn State University

The CLJ Honors Colloquium Features:

The Sociology Honors Colloquium Features:

Professor Richard Felson, Ph.D.

Department of Sociology and Crime, Law and Justice

“All Violence is Local”

Dr. Felson will discuss the importance of situational factors in explaining violent crime, and in understanding the effects of larger social forces.

Monday, April 1

406 Oswald

Noon–1:00p.m.

This lecture is co-sponsored by The Justice Center for Research and the Crime, Law & Justice Program of the Department of Sociology & Crime, Law and Justice.

Dr. Greg Eghihian will be speaking on Monday, March 18th in Oswald 406 from noon - 1 pm. His talk is titled  " Confinement and the Making of a Criminal Prodrome: The Story of Psychopathy in Germany".

While the term "psychopath" tends to conjure up, for many, lurid images of remorseless serial killers, specialists in clinical, legal, and research settings have found the designation useful as part of standardized risk assessment. But from where does the concept of psychopathy come? This talk examines the history of psychopathy in the country that first coined the term, developed the concept, and debated its treatment: Germany.  The history of psychopathy in Germany reveals how the "confinement repertoire" of a society can shape the perception of public dangers and define new categories of deviants.

Greg Eghigian is Associate Professor of Modern History at Penn State University and specializes in the history of deviance, crime, and madness in the modern western world. He is the author of numerous works, including more recently “Deinstitutionalizing the History of Contemporary Psychiatry" (2011) and From Madness to Mental Health:  Psychiatric Disorder and its Treatment in Western Civilization (Rutgers University Press, 2010).  He is presently finishing a book entitled The Corrigible and the Incorrigible: Science, Medicine, and the Convict in 20th Century Germany .

We hope you can join us. 

The Department of Sociology & Crime, Law and Justice invites families and supporters of Sociology and Crime, Law and Justice majors to celebrate at a reception on the Front Porch of Oswald Tower.

Refreshments will be served.

Reception will take place rain or shine.

Advances in research on families will rely on innovations in design, measurement, data collection and data analysis that allow researchers to capture the multi-level complexities of family systems. Methods for studying families are often drawn from research focused on individuals. A theme throughout the symposium will be whether and to what extent the same kinds of methods can be applied across levels of analysis—from the individual, to the dyad, to larger family groups. In considering this issue, speakers will address the question of whether new and/or alternative approaches are needed to address the complexities of family phenomena.

The symposium will focus on four methodological issues: strategies for quantitative analysis of family development and change, approaches to analyzing families as systems, approaches to measuring family dynamics, and new directions in the implementation and evaluation of family-focused social policies and preventive interventions.

A complete program and online registration are now available at

http://www.pop.psu.edu/events/national-symposium-on-family-issues

The Population Research Institute along with The Department of Sociology Brown Bag Speaker Series

Featuring:

Dr. Molly Martin

Associate Professor of Sociology and Demography

Penn State

Tuesday, March 26th, 2013

Noon-1:00

302 Pond Lab