Sociology at UNC Wilmington Goes Public

by Kyle Anthony Murphy, ASA Academic and Professional Affairs Program

The Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington (UNC) has established itself as a pioneer by integrating public sociology into their curriculum. Throughout the development of their new bachelor’s and master’s degree programs, they have found welcoming publics with positive support from students, faculty, community leaders, and administrators.

The undergraduate program in public sociology was created from a waning applied sociology program and was formally offered to students beginning in the spring of 2006. Simultaneously, UNCWilmington began developing a master’s degree program in public sociology with its first cohort of 11 students this fall. According to the department’s website, both programs aim to take sociology beyond the boundaries of the university and provide students with opportunities to gain experience applying sociological concepts to social issues. The programs have attracted a variety of students who are generally motivated to create positive social change outside the academy. Some undergraduates have gone on to be hired by the organizations they partnered with, while others have continued into the master’s program at Wilmington or pursued graduate work elsewhere.

UNC is a supportive home for these new programs. According to Chair Kimberly Cook, part of Wilmington’s mission is to foster student and faculty engagement in their local and regional community, and thus the university has encouraged the department’s efforts to build programs that are based on involvement with the community. Cook emphasizes that in addition to a supportive institution, a key ingredient in the success of their programs is the broad support and participation from department faculty. There is unanimous support for innovation in how the department approaches sociological research, teaching, and service. Their pioneering spirit means that most faculty members have enthusiastically contributed to the curricula.

Undergraduates in the Public Eye

Undergraduate sociology majors have the option to pursue a general sociology track or a public sociology track. The creator and coordinator of the public sociology program, Leslie Hossfeld, explained that students typically begin the public sociology track in their sophomore or junior year. As the advisor to all undergraduate public sociology students, she immediately begins helping them tailor their course selection to their interests and goals. The old applied program had three rigid concentrations, but Hossfeld said, “We found [it] awkward and difficult to offer courses on a regular basis to meet graduation requirements.” Students now develop individualized concentrations like inequality, health and aging, family, or globalization. While students pursue their concentrations, they must also complete six required courses worth 21 credit hours. Introduction, research methods, data analysis, and theory are standard, but the public sociology seminar (fall semester) and practicum (spring semester) are unique requirements. Hossfeld says she “designed this model so that [they could] have a sustained project over two semesters allowing students to develop a [literature] review, research protocol, and research proposal for the community organization [they] will be working with in the spring practicum course.”

In the seminar, relationships developed with community partners help make the practicum an experience that is beneficial for not only the students, but also the organizations and community members who are involved. This year, the public sociology students are working with the Southeastern North Carolina Food Systems Project, which is a county-based, regional food system that serves limited resource farmers and consumers. The public sociology students are charged with conducting a food assessment that, among other things, will identify the extent to which healthy, local, affordable food is available to different communities in their area. At the close of the spring semester, the department sponsors a poster session breakfast during which students, faculty, community partners, and university administrators gather to talk about their findings and the results of the students’ community engagement.

A New Kind of Graduate

Concurrent to the public sociology undergraduate program launch, development of the master’s program was underway. Hossfeld explains that the department’s goal was to be able to simultaneously prepare students who wished to seek employment after graduation and those who hoped to eventually receive a PhD in sociology. The master’s program in criminology and public sociology was created in part thanks to funding from the Council of Graduate Schools and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

When asked about the impetus for the program’s structure, Hossfeld references the work of ASA’s Research Department in the brief Beyond the Ivory Tower: Professionalism, Skills Match, and Job Satisfaction in Sociology. In line with its findings, the public sociology program provides students with the skills that nonacademic sociologists said they needed, but were lacking from their graduate training. Thus, the program provides a course focused on doing evaluation research, training in writing for a non-academic audience, interdisciplinary collaboration opportunities, grant-writing workshops, and extended discussion of the differences between academic culture and the cultures of community and not-for-profit organizations. Cook and Hossfeld state that a primary goal is to produce employable individuals with rigorous academic training and real-world experience applying sociological methods and theory to contemporary social problems.