Das Sociological Celebrity

lincoln

2007-10-22T16:59:00.001-07:00

not sure if they're still married ( i don't know her marital status), but Alisa Lincoln married a guy in 1993 who is now the MIT Hillel Associate Rabbi!

what?

2007-10-19T09:43:00.000-07:00

here is the breakdown of what kind of "credit" professors get for doing certain items.

BOOKS:
- authored books (monograph) 30 points
- edited books 20 points
- text books 20 points
- co-authored books 20 points
- co-edited books 15 points
- book contracts 4 points

ARTICLES:
- published in refereed journal 12 points
- published in non-refereed journal 6 points
- commissioned reports (with documentation) 3 points
- book reviews 2 points

CHAPTERS/CONFERENCES:
- refereed books, individual chapters 8 points
- non-refereed chapters 6 points
- reports/evaluations 3 points
- conference papers (outside university) 3 points
- awards for publication (book awards, article awards, national, regional) 5 points

GRANTS:
- submitted, external 4 points
- funded external: per course release funded 5 points
- PLUS points for level of annual funding (external funds onl):
- under $50,000 - 6 points
- $50,000 to $100,000 - 10 points
- over $100,000: 12 points
- funded internal (per course release funded) 5 points

SERVICE ACTIVITIES: BOARDS, OFFICES
- president of national organization 10 points
- elected official of national organization 5 points
- president of regional organization 5 points
- elected official of regional organization 3 points
- appointed official of national organization 3 points
- editor of key journal - 15 points
- editor of other journal in field 8 points
- editorial board member - lots of refereeing 5 points
- regular referee for journal (three articles or more per year) 3 points
- sometime reviewer for journal (less than 3 articles per year) 1 point
- invited colloquia (outside university) 3 points
- university-wide awards, distinguished professorship, external awards 6 points

SERVICE: ADMINISTRATION
- chair of departmental committee 8 points
- undergraduate/graduate head advisor 10 points
- in posted advising rotation 3 points per term
- undergraduate/graduate committee member 2 points
- departmental ad hoc committees, member 2 points
- web site maintenance for department 4 points

SERVICE: UNIVERSITY-WIDE

College of Arts and Sciences Committees
- Tenure and Promotion 4 points
- Curriculum 4 points
- Council 2 points
- Search Committees 2 points

- Program Director (per course released)4 points
- for service as director 2 points

Advisory Boards: Women's Studies, Latino Studies, International Studies, Environmental Studies, Jewish Studies, other interdisciplinary 2 points

University Committees:
- Senate 3 points
- Senate Agenda Committee 6 points
- Advisory Committees 2-3 points
- Distinguished Professor Advisor Committee, other Advisory Committees to the President 2 points

TEACHING ACTIVITIES: LOAD
- regular course load (4 points per course)
- with TA above 50 - 1 point
- with no TA above 50 - 2 points
- new course development - 4 points for first term taught
- independent studies, 1 point each
- use of technology in class - 1 point (internet, computer based lab, etc)
- Development of Course Website - 2 points

Course preparations above 3
- 4 different course preps 3 points
- 5 different course preps 5 points
- 6 different course preps 7 points

- Teaching Excellence Awards 6 points
- Honor Student Adjuncts 2 points

Graduate Program
Committee work ( points per student)
- Comprehensive Exam Committee Chair (year of exam) 4 points
- Comprehensive Exam Committee member(year of exam) 2 points
- Dissertation Committee chair (for year PhD completed only) 6 points
- Dissertation Committee member (for year PhD completed only) 2 points

ever wanted to know what year someone is?

2007-10-19T09:37:00.001-07:00

well, then here's the list for you. those who say "gone" after their name have left the program. a little birdie told me that...

2006:
Tammi Arford
Chase Billingham
Trevor Glode
Marilee Jolin (gone)
J. Matthew Judge
Carlos Ponce (gone)
Riva Milloshi
Vicki Schow

2005:
Sean Brown
Amanda Crabb
Jill Eshelman
Andrea Hill
Amy Lubitow
Eric Madfis
Daniela Methe
Lauren Nicoll
Kat Rickenbacker
Leandra Smollin

2004:
Camila Azuero (gone)
Justin Betz
Sarah Cope
Kate Moloney
Li Zhou (gone)
Mathew Taylor
Mark Hengen

2003:
Henrik Lenard
Paul Saucier
Vincent Ferraro
Linda Christen
Sandra Arevelo
Amie Levesque
Nakeisha Cody

2002:
Meghan Finley
Francesca Gilkey
Corina Medley
Ditmar Coffield
Nelly Oliver
Jaronda Miller
Lora Koraoglu

2001:
Patricia Morris
Peter Cassino
Marta Rodriguez
Juliana Leypoldt (gone)

2000:
Tonn Cao
Stanislav Vysotsky
Mark Melnik

2007-03-01T12:27:00.001-08:00

It's Funny Because It's True...

2007-03-01T12:22:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAXN6gTmRN4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVCMz9nugvQ

The Well-Prepared Sociologist's Calendar

2007-02-10T20:40:00.000-08:00

http://www.localendar.com/public/SociologyIsSexy

This can be added to and edited by anybody...same login info as the login info for this blog.

Blind Item

2007-02-10T19:39:00.000-08:00

Which local sociologist was seen rocking out to opening act Dawn Landis at the Somerville Theather?? The academic who will make a much-anticipated radio appearance on Sunday appeared to vehemently enjoy Landis' set, especially the song "Body Guard."

The Best Sociologist In The Universe...

2007-02-10T19:38:00.000-08:00

This guy rocks...because he is a sociologist named HARRY POTTER.

Sociology Cartoons

2007-02-10T18:52:00.000-08:00

Will You Make a Good Research Team?? A Cosmo-Soc Quiz

2007-02-10T18:51:00.000-08:00

you can probably learn much of what you need to know about a potential collaborator by (1) reading something they've written; and, (2) sharing a meal. i'll leave the analysis of written work to your own judgment, but this restaurant behavior quiz might offer some insights into criterion number two. i've written the quiz for male collaborators, but you can change the he to she or s/he as needed.

1. did he treat the server decently? this could be signaling that he treats others with mutual trust and respect. if he sends back written instructions to the chef about the proper preparation of a cheeseburger, in contrast, he might try to micromanage your contributions to the project.

_ rude as hell and a little scary -- like when animals attack: 0 points
_ decently, i guess, i didn't really notice: 1 point
_ very understanding, he must've worked in a restaurant: 2 points

2. did he stick you (or, worse, his students) with the check or stiff the server with a tiny tip? this wouldn't portend generosity in my book. it might also mean that he thinks you owe him something just for hanging out with you. you don't want a collaborator who would minimize your contributions to the project. he should be quick to point out that "my partner really did the heavy lifting here" and, when needed, "I've gotta shoulder the blame for screwing up on that one."

_ he took a call and took off before the check came: 0 points
_ split it down the middle and tipped 20 percent: 1 point
_ he paid this one and i'll get the next one: 2 points
_ i took this one and he'll grab the next one: 2 points
_ he stuck a fork through my hand when i reached for the check: -3 points

3. did he complain about being chronically overworked? if so, it could indicate incompatible work styles and ethic or inadequate time to pick up a new project. choose a collaborator who has shown some positive energy (e.g., by bringing several other projects home) and/or the proper incentive (e.g., job market, tenure) to finish the project.

_ he has not slept since 1979: 0 points [yes, this will knock down my score]
_ he yawned once but apologized for it, blaming travel fatigue: 1 point
_ he seemed really excited about getting going on the project: 2 points

4. did he rain furious anger down upon colleagues, teachers, and students as soon as they were out of earshot? uh-oh. this person may not have the patience or compassion you'll need to get over a rough patch. sometimes life interrupts the most careful plans. you'll feel better working with those willing to forgive your excesses and understand your other (over)commitments.

_ apparently, he has always been surrounded by idiots and cretins: 0 points
_ he really didn't say much about his colleagues or students: 1 point
_ you can see he loves his mentors, colleagues, and students: 2 points

5. did you laugh? you don't have to launch a lifelong friendship, but it is nice to work with people whose company you genuinely enjoy. the best collaborators take the work seriously but are comfortable laughing at themselves. social scientists require ego sufficient to get on with our audacious work, but not so much ego that we can't take a step without tripping over it.

_ he struck me/made me weep/wouldn't let me go to the bathroom: 0 points
_ yeah, i think we could probably work together: 1 point
_ i wanna party with you, cowboy: +/- 2 points (sign is up to you)

__ total points for questions 1 to 5

0 to 3 points: run. he might make you famous, but notorious is far more likely.
4 to 7 points: try email conversation over a few weeks and see how it goes.
8 to 10 points: yeah! like jagger and richards, this could be fun.

Headlines From The World of Sociology

2007-02-10T18:18:00.000-08:00

The KKK is on the rise!
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0209/p02s02-ussc.html

Judges lock up families!
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3015/families_behind_bars/

"Global Warming" is a taboo term at the WH!
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0130-10.htm

Barack Obama is a smoker!
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=2855994&page=1&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

Would You Pledge Your Virginity To Your Father?
http://www.glamour.com/news/articles/2007/01/purityballs07feb?currentPage=1

The Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries: Where did your favorite theorist land??
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=7591

Sociology Jeopardy!!!!

2007-02-10T17:58:00.000-08:00

This is utterly brilliant. Match your sociological knowledge to the daunting Jeopardy Board!

http://www.wadsworthmedia.com/sociology/intro_soc/sociology_game_show/introsoc_home.html

The lies we tell ourselves....

2007-02-10T17:54:00.000-08:00

The Top Ten Lies Told by Graduate Students

10. It doesn't bother me at all that my college roommate is making $80,000 a year on Wall Street.

9. I'd be delighted to proofread your book/chapter/article.

8. My work has a lot of practical importance.

7. I would never date an undergraduate.

6. Your latest article was so inspiring.

5. I turned down a lot of other offers to come here.

4. I just have one more book to read and then I'll start writing.

3. The department is giving me so much support.

2. My job prospects look really good.

1. No really, I'll be out of here in only two more years.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Top Five Lies Told by Teaching Assistants:

5. I'm not going to grant any extensions.

4. Call me any time. I'm always available.

3. It doesn't matter what I think; write what you believe.

2. Think of the midterm as a diagnostic tool.

1. My other section is much better prepared than you guys.

You Might Be A Sociology Grad Student If......

2007-02-10T17:46:00.000-08:00

- You can analyze the social/cultural significance of appliances you cannot operate.

- Your small, shared office is better decorated than your apartment.

- You have ever, as a folklore project, attempted to track the progress of your own joke across the Internet.

- You are startled to meet people who neither need nor want to read.

- You have ever brought a journal article to a bar.

- You rate coffee shops by the availability of outlets for your laptop.

- Everything reminds you of something in sociology (even the fucking Blue Man Group!).

- You have ever discussed academic matters at a sporting event.

- You have ever spent more than $50 on photocopying while researching a single paper.

- You can tell the time of day by looking at the traffic flow at the library.

- You look forward to summers because you're more productive without the distraction of classes.

- You regard caffeine as a vitamin.

- You consider all papers to be works in progress.

- Professors don't really care when you turn in work anymore.

- You find the bibliographies of books more interesting than the actual text.

- You have given up trying to keep your books organized and are now just trying to keep them all in the same general area.

- You have accepted guilt as an inherent feature of relaxation.

- You find yourself explaining to children that you are in "20th grade".

- You start refering to stories like "Snow White et al."

- You frequently wonder how long you can live on ramen without getting scurvy

- You look forward to taking some time off to do laundry

- You wonder if ASA style allows you to cite talking to yourself as "personal communication"

2007-01-23T19:13:00.000-08:00

State of the Union Bingo

2007-01-23T19:10:00.000-08:00

Visit this website: http://www.constitutioncenter.org/PDF/StateoftheUnion_Bingo_2007.pdf

then laugh.

Blind Item

2006-12-23T14:21:00.000-08:00

Which new mother was seen carousing around Boston with a tall, handsome blonde man at various clubs and afterhours bars while her newborn son was left at home with the nanny? The paparazzi were able to snap a photo of the child, reputedly named Anders, while the nanny was out to get a pack of cigarettes. Hopefully the sociologist mother will learn how to cut back on her hours of late night partying now that Anders is in town!

Tastes Like Sociology

2006-12-19T06:57:00.000-08:00

http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Sociology -- for a definition of our field.

SOCIOLOGY:
For sheer lack of intelligibility, sociology is far and away the number one subject. I sat through hundreds of hours of sociology courses, and read gobs of sociology writing, and I never once heard or read a coherent statement. This is because sociologists want to be considered scientists, so they spend most of their time translating simple, obvious observations into scientific-sounding code. If you plan to major in sociology, you'll have to learn to do the same thing. For example, suppose you have observed that children cry when they fall down. You should write:
"Methodological observation of the sociometrical behavior tendencies of prematurated isolates indicates that a casual relationship exists between groundward tropism and lachrimatory, or 'crying,' behavior forms." If you can keep this up for fifty or sixty pages, you will get a large government grant. http://pages.infinit.net/garrick/jokes/truthcollege.html

Most Likely To...

2006-12-18T20:12:00.000-08:00

Be AGIL in Bed!

Enjoy Your Conjugal Visit

Tie You Up Sociologically

Ode to the Hottest Sociologist of All Time...

2006-12-18T20:08:00.000-08:00

Punk Rock before Punk Rock, C. Wright Mills: the ultimate sociology heart throb.

Funny or not? (http://www.miller-co.com/socio/goodsoc.html)

2006-12-17T20:52:00.000-08:00

Goodman's Sociology for Short Attention-Spans

This is a list of sociological thinkers that was created in jest by Mike Goodman (with some input from Tom Conroy and me). Mike has a way of summarizing articles, books and even entire theories into extremely succinct soundbites. So, whether you need to know this stuff for qualifying exams or if you want to sound intelligent at a party, this list should set you straight.

Karl Marx	Life's not fair, let's all share!
Emile Durkheim	You get the ankles, I'll get the wrists.
Max Weber	All work and no play...
Georg Simmel	I feel like I am ze Country Mouse in ze Zitty, Ja?
Jurgen Habermas	Why can't we all just get along?
Talcott Parsons	I have a diagram that explains EVERYTHING!
Pierre Bourdieu	Kids, stay in school.
Michel Foucault	Er... donnez-moi le gagball.
Erving Goffman	Where's that #$@%!! waiter?
Jean Baudrillard	Real=fake; life=Disneyland
Robert Merton	Sometimes things happen for bad reasons and sometimes we can't see the reasons right away.
Herbert Blumer	It's all in your mind.
Louis Althusser	It's not in your mind.
C. Levi-Strauss	Myths are cool.
Amitai Etzioni	C'mon people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together, we've got to love one another right now.
Clifford Geertz	Ooh, look, a cock fight! How Shakespearean!
Randall Collins	(sung) Let me entertain you...
Rational Choice Theory	Choose, or lose.
British Cultural Studies	It's not so bad to spend time in front of the telly.

If you have any comments, complaints or additions for the list, just let Mike know.

DISCLAIMER: We take NO responsibility for the following:

Failed exams as a result of your referring solely to this list for a study guide.

Rejected papers as a result of quoting these gems in an attempt to "set up a theoretical framework."

Boos and hisses at the ASA meeting for using these gems in your presentations.

When sociology parties go bad....

2006-12-16T17:46:00.000-08:00

Can anyone guess which sociologist this is? HINT: she has a not-so-secret crush on Theda (wonder what her "MANfriend" has to say about that??)

Britney watch out, there is a sociologist on the town who is about three spiked hot chocolates away from stealing your thunder!

She claims to be a homosexual...

2006-12-16T15:38:00.000-08:00

But the evidence says otherwise!!!! C'mon, we all KNOW you're straight!!!

and one more thing...

2006-12-16T13:17:00.000-08:00

Oh yes, a crossword.

2006-12-16T13:07:00.000-08:00

Some links that amuse me....

2006-12-16T10:57:00.000-08:00

http://socioeconomicsohwhatalaugh.ytmnd.com/

http://heynicepants.ytmnd.com/

http://chomskybob.ytmnd.com/

don't forget to turn your sound on!

Reading Sociology

2006-12-15T20:50:00.001-08:00

TA Dental Plan!!!!

2006-12-15T20:49:00.000-08:00

"Nothing Better Than a Murder"

2006-12-15T17:55:00.000-08:00

A warning to all of you: excessive sociological thinking leads to murder and insanity. Think about this next time you are in your office for more than an hour!

On November 16, 1980, Louis Althusser strangled his wife to death. This had been preceded by a period of intense mental instability. The exact circumstances are debated, with some claiming it was deliberate, others accidental. Althusser himself claimed not to have a clear memory of the event. Since he was alone with his wife when she died, it is difficult to come to firm conclusions. Althusser was diagnosed as suffering from diminished responsibility, and he was not tried, but instead committed to the Sainte-Anne psychiatric hospital. Althusser remained in hospital until 1983. Upon release, he moved to Northern Paris and lived reclusively, seeing few people and no longer working, except for producing his autobiography. He died of a heart attack on October 22, 1990 at the age of 72.

New lady for CB?

2006-12-15T17:49:00.000-08:00

Which first year has been spending an alarming amount of time with a new-found theorist? He'd been spotted carrying her book around campus, even going so far as to dine with it...This Durkheim lover is now moving on to (in his words) "the best book I've ever read." Could this be the beginning of a beautiful theoritcal relationship?

Paving the Road for Grade Inflation

2006-12-15T15:05:00.000-08:00

G-Ritz a Fatty?

2006-12-14T23:56:00.000-08:00

G-Ritz looks so bloated after a long night of drinking at the Hollywood hotspot The Drink with his superhot friends William Julius Wilson and Jimmy Fallon. He has obviously gained lots of weight since his last full feature publication. Ease off the McDonalds G-Ritz!

(Not so) Blind Item:

2006-12-14T11:53:00.000-08:00

Who's been spending far too much time in the beer halls? Word is that this world famous theorist can't even bring home a decent paycheck for his wife, as he spends all of his patron's money on beer and women...Witnesses say Karl often stays out until well past dawn, singing and shouting about how all alcohol should be free...This disturbing behavior is nothing new for the former president of the Trier Tavern Club Drinking Society. The last time he landed in the gutter, his college grades suffered as a result...Grades first, marriage next? A certain Ms. Jenny von Westphalen might want to curb her hubby's "nights out" with the Hegel Crowd.

2006-12-14T11:48:00.000-08:00

Another Boston-area sociologist. Email him at robert_putnam@ksg.harvard.edu. tell him bowling alone is not really very fun.

2006-12-14T11:46:00.000-08:00

Delicious! Email her at skocpol@fas.harvard.edu

What sociologists do

2006-12-14T11:43:00.000-08:00

It's not all revolution and analysis...