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Fall Newsletter

December 2014

Sociology Newsletter Fall 2014 - Commencement Edition

1-2 Commencement

3 Letter from the Chair

4 Ph.D. Hoodings

5 Faculty Spotlight: Marcus

Hunter

6 Teaching Assistant Awards

7 True Bruin Open House

8-9 News, Achievements and

Publications

Table of Contents

Saturday, June 14th

Faculty, families, and friends gathered in Wilson Plaza to recognize and

honor the achievements of the Class of 2014. Professor Stefan Timmer-

mans opened the ceremony, followed by the ‘Voices of the Class of 2014’

with speeches from students April Cockcroft, Xavier De Robles, and Ma-

bel Sanchez.

Keynote speaker Susan Kellogg, UCLA Department of Sociology Alumna

and avid UCLA sports fan, imparted some life lessons on the graduates:

“The world is run by those who keep showing up.”

“Don’t be afraid to ask for help, ever.”

“Luck is the intersection of opportunity and perseverance.”

“Set a goal for yourself, only you. And be all in.”

And “It’s never too late.”

Congratulations Class of 2014!

Right: Professor Zsuzsa Berend with the undergraduate departmental honors students. The honors program allows

students the chance to use sociological concepts and methodology to answer their own questions about an aspect of

social life of their choosing. Left: The Class of 2014 enters Wilson Plaza for the Commencement Ceremony.

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Fall Newsletter

December 2014

Commencement

Top —Students wait for the

ceremony to begin. 231 Students

participated in the

commencement.

Left to Right — Voices of the Class

of 2014, Xavier De Robles, April

Cockcroft, and Mabel Sanchez.

Below — Sociology faculty gather

before heading down to Wilson

Plaza.

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Fall Newsletter

December 2014

Dear Friends,

Did you know that the UCLA sociology department has the most sociology graduates on the LinkedIn social networking website? More than 7,500 of our graduates are present. LinkedIn also shows where sociologists find jobs, and basically, we are everywhere: education, sales, community and social services, human resources, media and communication, research, health care, legal, finance, consulting, and entrepreneurship. The largest employers of sociologists are Target, Wells Fargo, IBM, the US Army, and Bank of America. Sociology truly is the master key that opens all doors. Our graduates have rigorous analytical skills and a deep appreciation of human relationships. They have insight in to the human factor that makes organizations, institutions, and nations tick.

To further advance our educational mission of excellence, the Department of Sociology is proud to welcome new faculty member, Professor Marcus Hunter, who joins us after a stint at Yale University. Professor Hunter’s research passion is the life and experiences of urban Black Americans. In his book, Black Citymakers: How the Philadelphia Negro Changed Urban America, he follows in the footsteps of pioneering sociologist W.E.B. Dubois to examine how city life was remade in the seventh ward in Philadelphia. You’ll find a focus on Professor Hunter in this newsletter.

We held a “Sociology and Sports” salon at the waterfront home of sociology alumnus John Sciarra this year. Professor Bill Roy moderated the

conversation between John and Ann Meyers Drysdale about their professional sports career after UCLA, in front of an audience of sociology alumni and friends. The event was a tremendous success: it was well attended and John and Ann explained how sociology and their college experience helped them throughout their careers. Through Sociology’s Partnership UCLA program we continue to engage our alumni on campus in making a direct impact on the lives and future careers of our undergraduates, through mentorship, guest lectures, internships, providing collaborative instruction, and more. My thanks to all our alumni who have been generous with their time by participating in these activities with our students, and to our wonderful Sociology Board of Visitors who have be instrumental in championing Partnership UCLA in the department. We hope to have many more of you involved as we move forward with this program in the New Year.

It is customary to remind you of the opportunity for charitable giving in an end-of-year newsletter but this year I would like to ask you something different. One of our dearest friends and colleagues has been unexpectedly diagnosed with acute leukemia and needs daily platelet and blood donations. The holiday period is always a high demand, low supply time for blood donation. If you can, I would like to ask you to donate blood. If you would like to do this at UCLA, you can set up an appointment at the Gayley Blood donation Center (310-794-7217).

Happy holidays to all. Stay in touch.

Go Bruins,

Stefan Timmermans

Professor and Chair

Letter from the Chair

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Fall Newsletter

December 2014

Erika Arenas was hooded by Professor Robert Mare. Her dissertation title is “The Role of Pref-

erences in Union Formation”. Erika will be a Co-Director and Researcher of the Mexi-can Family Life Survey at Centro de Análisis y Medición del Bienestar AC (CAMBS).

.

Michael Deland w as hooded by Pro-fessor Jack Katz. His disser-tation is “Who’s Got Next?: So-cial Integration at a Public Park

Basketball Court”. He will begin a postdoctoral position at the Urban Ethnography Pro-ject within Yale University’s Department of Sociology.

Kjerstin Gruys was hooded by Profes-sor Abigail Saguy. Her disserta-tion title is “Properly

Attired, Hired, or Fired: Aes-thetic Labor and Social Ine-quality”. Kjerstin will be join-ing Stanford University’s “Thinking Matters” Program as a Postdoctoral Fellow.

Laura Enriquez was hooded by Professor Vilma Ortiz. She has a one year ap-pointment as a UC Chan-

cellor’s postdoctoral scholar at UC Irvine in the Department of Sociology. She will then be an Assistant Professor of Chicano Studies at UCI

Hyeyoung Oh w as hooded by Professor Stefan Tim-mermans. Her disserta-tion title is “Your Money

or Your Life: How Doctors Learn the Business of Health”. Hyeyoung will be an Assistant Professor of Sociology at CUNY-Leyman College.

Zeynep Ozgen was hood-ed by Professor Rogers Brubaker. Her dis-sertation

title is “Schooling, Islamiza-tion, and Religious Mobiliza-tion in Turkey”. Zeynep will be a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Germany.

Thomas Soehl was hooded by Professor Rob Mare. His disserta-

tion title is “Modes of Differ-ence and Connection: Lan-guage, Education and Reli-gion in Migrant Families”. Thomas will be an Assistant Professor of Sociology at McGill University in Motre-al, Quebec.

Caitlin Patler was hood-ed by Pro-fessor Ed Walker. Her dis-sertation title is

“Young and Undocumented: The Impacts of Legal Status on the Incorporation of Immi-grant Young Adults in Califor-nia”. Caitlin will be a Universi-ty of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellow at the De-partment of Criminology, Law and Society, UC Irvine.

Elena Shih was hooded by Professor Gail Kligman. Elena will be a Postdoctor-al Fellow at the Brown University

Watson Institute for Interna-tional Studies, and in Fall 2015 will be an Assistant Professor of Women’s and Gender Stud-ies in the Department of Amer-ican Studies.

Sylvia Zamora was hooded by Professor Vilma Ortiz. She will be a Provost’s Postdoctoral Scholar in

the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago, and then move on to a faculty position as Professor of Sociology.

Gabriel Nelson w as hooded by Professor César Ayala. His disserta-tion is “ The Intersection of Violence and

Land Inequality in Modern Colombia”. He will be moving to New York to work for a poli-cy organization dealing with monitoring Colombia’s dis-placed population.

Ph.D. Recipients Comings & Goings

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Fall Newsletter

December 2014

Marcus Hunter Faculty Spotlight:

We are delighted to welcome our newest

faculty member, Marcus Hunter. Marcus is an

assistant professor in the Department of Sociology,

and a faculty affiliate at the Ralph Bunche Center

for African American Studies. Marcus received his

Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology from Columbia, and

his M.A. and Ph.D. from Northwestern University.

He also received a Graduate Certificate in Urban

Education from The University of Pennsylvania.

Marcus was especially interested in coming to

UCLA because of the great graduate culture within

the department. One of his goals is to encourage

and mentor a new generation of minority scholars

in Sociology.

Marcus became interested in Sociology when

he realized that it was the “best social science.

Some of the most insightful scholarship on black

people is by sociologists,” including W.E.B. Du

Bois, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, William Julius Wilson,

Eli Anderson, Patricia Hill Collins and Mary

Pattillo. It was Dubois’ The Philadelphia Negro, as well as growing up in Philadelphia, that

inspired Marcus’ first book—Black Citymakers: How the Philadelphia Negro Changed Urban

America, which revisits the Black Seventh Ward neighborhood a century after Dubois’ work.

With scholarly interests focused on the histories and realities of urban Black Americans,

Marcus is working on his next book, Chocolate Cities (with sociology professor Zandria

Robinson, University of Memphis). The book will be a study on the lives and experiences in

black cities across the United States, including the Fillmore District in San Francisco, Watts in

Los Angeles, Detroit, and the original “Chocolate City”, Washington D.C., along with many

other cities.

In his spare time, Marcus’ interests include running, and listening to music, including

Bob Marley, Funk and Hip Hop, and considers Ms. Lauren Hill the greatest rapper. He also

enjoys watching television, including “The Walking Dead” and “American Horror Story,” along

with any kind of reality television.

Welcome Marcus!

Ph.D. Recipients

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Fall Newsletter

December 2014

Awards Teaching Assistant

Every year the Department of Sociology and the Sociology Graduate Student Association (SGSA) honor the graduate students who have received consistently high evaluation scores from their students with the Excellence in Teaching Award. This year’s winners were: Matthew Curry, Rebecca Dibennardo, Neil Gong, Ashley Gromis, Susila Gurusami, Nicole Iturriaga, Molly Jacobs, Rahim Kurwa, Erika Lamoureaux, Chase Raymond, Kevin Shih, Isaac Speer, Alexandra Tate, Eli Wilson, Terrell Winder, and Gary Yeritsian.

This year we are proud to present Aaron Crawford the Peter Kollock Graduate Teaching Assistant Award for most outstanding TA. Teaching assistants are nominated by the Sociology Undergraduate Association (SUA), with their teaching evaluation scores and other contributions to teaching considered. Other contributions may include establishing a one-on-one mentoring program matching honors program undergrads with graduate students, and lastly, how much the student had taught during the year. Congratulations Aaron!

Top Right: Aaron Crawford, recipient of the 2014 Peter Kollock Graduate Teaching Assistant Award.

Bottom right: Gary Yeritsian receiving his award from Vice Chair of Graduate Studies, Professor Tanya Stivers. Bottom left: Neil Gong shows

off his award.

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Fall Newsletter

December 2014

The Department held the first annual True Bruin Open

House “Meet and Eat” for incoming freshman and transfer

students, and anyone interested in the Sociology Major.

Department Chair, Stefan Timmermans and Vice Chair of

Undergraduate Studies, Edward Walker, greeted students

and gave a brief overview of the major and the many ways

it can be applied after graduation. Molly Jacobs discussed

the Community Incorporated Internship Course, and

Partnership UCLA talked about the College Fellows

Program. While students snacked and drank coffee, Simbi

Mahlanza, the Undergrad Advisor, outlined the major

requirements, and then the Sociology Undergraduate

Association (SUA) talked about life as Sociology Majors,

as well as all of their upcoming events. The room was

filled, with several students standing in the doorway and

spilling out into the hall.

Welcome to all the new Bruin Sociologists!

Above: All in

attendance received

the UCLA Sociology

t-shirt.

Left: An overflowing

audience listen as

SUA discuss their

organization and

events.

“Meet and Eat” True Bruin Open House:

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Fall Newsletter

December 2014

& Publications News, Achievements

Judith Seltzer has been elected to the prestigious position of President-Elect of the Population Association of America for 2015, with her presidential term starting in 2016

Philip Bonacich received the James Coleman lifetime achievement award from the Mathematical Sociology Section of the American Sociological As-sociation at this year’s annual meeting

Jennie Brand w as select-ed for an Honorable Mention for the William Julius Early Career Award from the Ine-quality, Poverty, and Mobili-ty section of the American Sociological Association.

Vilma Ortiz received

the Distinguished Career

Award from the Latina/

Latino section of the Amer-

ican Sociological Associa-

tion.

Abigail Saguy’ s book What’s Wrong with Fat? Has won an honorable mention from the Associa-tion for Humanist Sociolo-gy Book Award Commit-tee.

Edward Walker’s article “How business funded the anti-soda tax coalition” was published as a series about civic engagement in politics in the Washington Post Online.

Marcus Hunter partici-pated in the Harlem Fair Book Event as a panelist at a discussion of James Baldwin and American Morality. It was televised on CSPAN2 Book TV.

Darnell Hunt w as inter-viewed by NPR about the new television show “Black-ish” on September 23.

Fa

culty

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& Publications

Michael Stambolis-Ruhstorfer co-edited a special forum for the Coun-cil for European Studies review, CritCom, entitled "Over the European Rain-bow: Sexual and Gender Minorities in Europe”

Irene Vega w as aw arded the UC Mexus small grant for her project "Patrolling Territorial Borders, Negotiating Symbolic Boundaries: A Case Study of Mexican American Border Patrol Agents”

News, Achievements

Nahoko Kameo w as the co-winner of the ASA Global and Transnational Sociology Section’s Outstanding Graduate Student Paper Award. Her winning paper is titled “Global Policies and Transnational Repertoires

of Action: Rethinking Local Adoption and Decoupling at the Periphery”

Calvin Ho received a Graduate Research Opportunities Worldwide Fellowship from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Research Council of Norway. He will be working with

scholars of international migration in the Department of Sociology and Human Geography at the University of Oslo

Pamela Prickett had tw o articles published: “Contextualizing From Within: Perceptions of Physical Disorder in a South Central L.A. African American Mosque” published in City & Community and

“Negotiating Gendered Religious Space: The Particularities of Patriarchy in an African American Mosque” in Gender & Society

Joshua Bloom’ book, Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party (co-authored with Waldo Martin) is the winner of the American Book Award. Lina Stepick’ s article

“How do citizens participate in politics between elec-tions” was published as a series about civic engage-ment in politics in the Washington Post Online.

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Fall Newsletter

December 2014

The UCLA Sociology department is training the next generation of sociology teachers and researchers. Our graduate students win professional awards, are published in the leading journals, and obtain jobs in other top sociology departments. The competition for promising graduate students is strong and requires financial resources. You can help! We are pleased to announce the Next Generation of Sociology Leaders Fund to support our talented graduate students. Funds received by the department will go to the direct support of graduate student research through a formal application process based on need and merit. Funds will be used for direct research costs and conference travel support. You CAN make a difference in a student’s life at a critical point in time.

In addition, we have established the Sociology for the 21st Century Fund to support underg ra dua te students in

Sociology. Every dollar received by the department will be used to support undergraduates in their pursuit of a meaningful education in Sociology. One way we are using these funds is to ramp up the undergraduate Honors Program. Individualized attention to undergraduates through the Honors Program allows students to learn research methodology in more depth and to push students beyond the traditional boundaries of learning. These highly motivated students are the ones who will move into leadership positions after their education and you will know you helped provide the stepping stones of their success! There are few funds available to undergraduates for research or conference support so you can make a significant

difference in an individual’s education and life trajectory.

You may also contribute to the Sociology’s Chair’s Discretionary Fund. These funds streng then our ability to attract and retain top faculty and to train the best graduate and undergraduate students. They support a variety of academic endeavors such as our active colloquia series, our faculty student working groups and departmental conferences. We provide research seed funds for promising, high-risk research projects. Annual gifts above $1,000 to the Chair’s Discretionary Fund, in addition to providing vital funds to our department, also qualify the donor for membership into the Chancellor’s Circle, while a gift above $2,500 gives you membership to the Chancellor’s Associates. For additional information and to donate, please visit: www.sociology.ucla.edu/giving, or contact Peter Evans at pevans@support.ucla.edu.

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Thank You.