Welcome to the Department of Sociology
Welcome to the web site of the Department of Sociology at UNL. Located in the rolling hills on the eastern edge of North America's Great Plains, Lincoln, Nebraska is the state capital as well as the home of the University of Nebraska. Our department, nearly as old as the university, celebrated its 100th anniversary in the 1999-2000 academic year. Throughout its history the department has been a leading center of sociology with three of its members having served as presidents of the American Sociological Association and six as presidents of the Midwest Sociological Society. The department of sociology offers B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees. The department has 20 faculty members, about 40 graduate students, and around 200 undergraduate majors. Currently, all of our graduate students are funded through Graduate Teaching, Research Assistantships, or by Scholarships. As a moderately small department, we have chosen to capitalize on our strengths by emphasizing specializations and research in the areas of family, social inequality, and the sociology of health/mental health. Faculty and students in each of these areas, along with other sociological topics, participate in regular department colloquiums to present ongoing research, discuss teaching issues, and listen to invited speakers. Some department faculty hold joint appointments with the Institute for Ethnic Studies and the Survey Research and Methods program. In addition, department faculty have affiliations with the Women’s and Gender Studies and the Environmental Studies programs. The department emphasizes both quality research and teaching. The department has an established tradition of outstanding research and we remain committed to further developing our areas of research strength. The strong record of quality refereed publications and outstanding record of external grant funding in the department priority areas demonstrates our pursuit of excellence in research. We hold the belief that a strong research agenda serves as a critical foundation for excellence in teaching and engagement. There is a long standing emphasis on excellence in education in the department. In 1996 the Department of Sociology was awarded the System-wide University Award for Outstanding Departmental Teaching. Six members of our department have won Distinguished Teaching Awards from the college and Helen Moore has been recognized with the University of Nebraska system’s highest teaching award, the Outstanding Teaching and Instructional Creativity Award. Our department is the only Ph.D.-granting sociology department in Nebraska. The primary focus is preparing the future professoriate, both for research universities and for four-year and other liberal arts colleges and universities. We also provide training for those who wish to enter nonacademic settings, especially applied research in government agencies and private organizations. Slightly over half of our full-time graduate students are funded as Graduate Teaching Assistants with the remainder on Graduate Research Assistantships or Fellowships. The department is also actively engaged in the Preparing Future Faculty program, which provides on-site experience and training to our graduate students who are interested in learning about possible careers in a variety of academic settings. For a more complete picture of the sociology department, you are invited to take a tour of the Department.
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