The Department Leaders’ Toolbox is a collection of resources from ASA and other relevant sources to support department success.
Fostering Healthy and Vibrant Departments
Strategies for Effective Recruitment of Majors (2021)
Developed by the National Humanities Alliance, this document offers guidance on how to attract and retain majors. For an overview with a brief overview of this initiative, click here.
ASA Resources and Initiatives for Department Chairs (2016)
This is a primer from the 2016 Department Leaders Preconference.
Family Friendly Departmental Practices (December 2015)
In this webinar recording, Jennifer Glass, a leader in the field of work and gender issues, shares her advice and insights on facilitating a family friendly sociology department. She addresses how she created a departmental environment where those with dependent care responsibilities had their care work honored without burdening their colleagues or generating perceptions of unfairness.
Best Practice Suggestions for Preventing Harassment and Other Abuses of Power in Your Department (December 2018)
Developed by the ASA Working Group on Harassment, this document is meant to serve as a guide to help department leaders strategize about how they can best prevent and respond to harassment in their departments. The proposed practices can create limits to the use of power in department structures and may reduce some of the problems that emerge in contexts with asymmetrical relationships.
Stopping Harassment: A Resource for Department Chairs (2018)
Developed by the ASA Working Group on Harassment, this resource for chairs includes information on how to respond to and prevent harassment in departments. It also includes links to several other resources, including ASA’s Anti-Harassment Policy and training resources designed for academic contexts. You can also view a recording from a 2019 webinar on this topic.
When Sociology is on the Chopping Block (2018)
Our current higher education environment is one in which threats to degree programs come in myriad forms and from unexpected sources. This document provides strategies for departments threatened with closure, with special attention to the institutional context.
Keeping Small Departments Afloat on the Roiling Academic High Seas (2018)
Edward L. Kain developed this handout for the 2018 Chairs Preconference to help chairs navigate the unique challenges and opportunities of leading a small department.
What is Your Responsibility as a Bystander to a Colleague Having Problems? (2018)
Advice from the Chronicle of Higher Education on how to intervene when you observe a colleague’s problematic behavior.
Searching for Excellence & Diversity: A Guide for Search Committees (2012)
These guidelines from the Women in Science & Engineering Leadership Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison cover all stages of the hiring process.
Curriculum, Assessment, and Program Review
Workload Considerations in Program Review (2021)
This brief based on NSF-funded research provides background information and strategies on how to approach workload as an area of program review.
Best Practices for Virtual Program Review
ASA’s Program Reviewers and Consultants (PRC) offer guidance on how to set up a virtual program review.
Settler Colonialism and Confronting the Canon
Two webinar recordings provide information on creating more inclusive curriculum at the undergraduate and graduate level, and the page also includes lists of resources gathered from webinar panelists and attendees.
The Sociology Major in the Changing Landscape of Higher Education: Curriculum, Careers, and Online Learning (2017)
This booklet provides ASA’s most recent recommendations for sociology at the BA level. Bound copies are available for purchase in the ASA Store.
Handout: The Sociology Major in the Changing Landscape of Higher Education
This brief document shows how to map The Sociology Major in the Changing Landscape of Higher Education onto program characteristics, course offerings and student learning outcomes.
Curriculum Mapping Toolkit for Sociology
This ASA/NSF funded project provides detailed guidance/resources to assess the undergraduate major with respect to the recommendations of the American Sociological Association and the Sociological Literacy Framework. It includes useful tools that help departments prepare for and perform program reviews.
Creating an Effective Assessment Plan for the Sociology Major (2005)
This document provides concise, clear advice on assessment, plus a large number of examples of assessment plans from sociology programs around the country. Also available as a booklet.
Sociology Assessment Resources
This listing of sociology program assessments incudes examples from institutions across the country.
Preparing for Program Review: Making the Process More Manageable and Useful
ASA Program Reviewers and Consultants Mary Scheuer Senter and Lissa Yogan gave this presentation in spring 2018, including step-by-step guidance and links to resources.
Preparing for Program Review
Read this article by sociologist and ASA program reviewer and consultant Susan J. Ferguson in The Department Chair, fall 2013.
Making the Most of Program Review
A three-part series by Karlyn Crowley on Inside Higher Ed that advises department chairs about how to approach program reviews.
Best Practices in Academic Program Review
This report from Hanover Research includes case studies of approaches to the review process.
National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment
This website provides resources for planning and implementing campus assessment processes and activities.
Thinking about the Master’s Degree in Sociology (2009)
The ASA Task Force on the Master’s Degree created this document for to sociology departments starting or reviewing an applied, professional, or other terminal master’s program.
Sociology and General Education (2007)
The ASA Task Force on Sociology and General Education developed 6 recommendations for how sociology can continue to impact general education learning requirements, as well as how to use general education learning requirements to further develop majors.
ACRL Information Literacy Standards for Anthropology and Sociology Students
This site provides clear goals and measurable outcomes for promoting information literacy through curriculum.
Multidisciplinary Departments
Chairing the Multidisciplinary Department (2018)
Edward L. Kain developed this handout for the 2018 Chairs Preconference to share resources and strategies for chairing a multidisciplinary department.
Report of the ASA Task Force on Sociology and Criminology Programs (2010)
The Task Force report discusses various structural arrangements between sociology, criminology and criminal justice in academia, examines potential benefits and challenges of arrangement types, and includes recommendations to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of these arrangements.
Models and Best Practices for Joint Sociology-Anthropology Departments (2006)
This document, created by ASA, explores the range of organizational structures in joint sociology-anthropology departments, challenges and opportunities, and suggestions for management.
Personnel
Counting Invisible Workload: A Resource for Faculty from Underserved Communities (2021)
Created by ASA’s Department of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, this document provides guidance for faculty and departments on how to recognize and count the extra service that faculty of color often perform.
ASA Statement on Student Evaluations of Teaching (2019)
This Council-approved statement was endorsed by 17 other scholarly societies. It offers alternatives to traditional student evaluations of teaching, which have been demonstrated to be weakly related to teaching effectiveness and to be biased against women and people of color. The statement identifies ways to use student feedback appropriately as one part of holistic assessment of teaching effectiveness.
Report of the Task Force on Contingent Faculty (2019)
The Task Force report offers empirical evidence on working conditions and challenges for contingent faculty sociologists in the U.S., with recommendations for departments that were endorsed by ASA Council.
What Counts? Evaluating Public Communication in Tenure and Promotion (2016)
This document provides guidance for evaluating sociologists’ contributions to social media and public sociology in merit, promotion, and tenure.
Motivations to be Chair of a Graduate Department of Sociology (2011)
This essay outlines the important role of Department Chair and why faculty members decide to serve as chair.
Hiring Department Faculty (2006)
This document provides straightforward advice on managing this complicated task.
Supporting Students
DHS STEM designated degree program list (2022)
The Department of Homeland Security recently added several new STEM degree programs to those that allow international students to remain in the U.S. up to three years after graduation. The category “Social Sciences, Research Methodology, and Quantitative Methods” specifically includes programs that teach students “case study methods, historical research, participant observation, questionnaire design, sampling theory, and statistical methods.” ASA student members raised the issue of inequities caused by the exclusion of sociology from STEM in DHS’s previous list, and ASA subsequently submitted a formal request for reclassification. Sociology students can now request updated I-20 forms from their institutions.
Sociology Club Guide: Ideas for Generating Student Involvement in Departments of Sociology (2010)
ASA designed this guide to help departments strengthen the professional socialization of their students, starting with student handbooks, clubs, and special activities.
Single Mothers in Community Colleges Tookit
This website provides tools–relevant for all types of institutions–for supporting pregnant and parenting students.
Alpha Kappa Delta (AKD)
The International Sociology Honor Society provides professional development opportunities and awards for outstanding students. Membership is open to undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty members from active chapters who meet AKD’s minimum standards.
Alpha Delta
The sociology honor society for two-year colleges supports and recognizes outstanding sociology students. Want to start a chapter at your college? Learn more about membership.
Supporting Success for Students with Disabilities
There are two resources to help institutions create an inclusive culture, one addressed to faculty and one to higher education leaders. They were developed by American Association of University Administrators, National Center for Learning Disabilities, and American Council on Education.
Department Funding Opportunities
Sorokin Lecture Grants
Apply for funds to bring an ASA award winner to your campus for a special lecture.
Howery Teaching Enhancement Fund Grants
Departments can apply for funding to support projects that advance the scholarship of teaching and learning in sociology.
Library Tools
Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education: Sociology (incorporates the Sociological Literacy Framework; 2022)
Level 1 ACRL Assessment Tools for Sociology Collections and Services in Academic Libraries (2010) For institutions that offer only courses in sociology and not a minor or major.
Level 2 ACRL Assessment Tools for Sociology Collections and Services in Academic Libraries (2010) For institutions that offer an undergraduate minor or major in sociology.
Level 3 ACRL Assessment Tools for Sociology Collections and Services in Academic Libraries (2010) For Institutions that offer graduate level (MA or PhD) instruction in sociology.
Level 4 ACRL Assessment Tools for Sociology Collections and Services in Academic Libraries (2010) For Institutions where the library defines itself as maintaining a comprehensive collection in sociology.
