Graduate Programs

Overview

graduate students

Our department has grown rapidly over the last ten years to include 25 faculty and nearly 35 graduate students. Our Ph.D. program, established as recently as 2009, now has over 20 graduates, many of whom have acquired tenure-track academic positions. Our M.A. program, originally established in the late 1960s, now has over 260 graduates who hold a variety of academic and non-academic jobs. Many of the graduates of our M.A. program have gone on to receive doctoral degrees from various prestigious universities (Rutgers, Emory, Stony Brook, Missouri, Vanderbilt, UIC, Washington State, UConn, SUNY-Albany, among others), and many now hold tenured or tenure-track faculty positions across the country.

Our graduate programs offer our graduate students several distinctive advantages:

  • An award-winning faculty, whose achievements include distinguished university professorships, lifetime achievement awards, best book awards, Fulbright fellowships, and millions of dollars in research grants.

  • Faculty who have served as presidents, chairs, and executive officers of various national and international academic associations, as well as current or recent editors, associate editors, and board members of major journals in sociology.

  • Faculty whose global engagement is manifest through Fulbright fellowships (Norway, Berlin, Ukraine, Belarus) and transnational research collaborations (Brazil, post-Soviet countries).
  • Professional socialization through professional development seminars and the composition of a dossier (including curriculum vitae, course syllabi, conference presentations, and publishable manuscripts), which is used instead of traditional qualifying exams as the basis of evaluation.

  • An award-winning teacher training program, which provides our M.A. and Ph.D. students with the skills and experiences necessary to bolster their applications to Ph.D. programs and academic jobs across the country.
  • An epistemological training that integrates theory and methods into a dynamic, two-semester course (see SYA 7939: Advanced Sociological Theory and Practice in list of course descriptions).

  • Financial support packages for our master's and doctoral students including stipends, tuition waiver, and health insurance.

  • McKnight Fellowship opportunities for African American and Hispanic Ph.D. students among other local and national fellowships.

  • Focus on interdisciplinary research opportunities, public sociology, community engagement, and service learning.

  • Caring, hands-on mentoring, and intensive job market preparation.

Prospective students wishing to learn about our faculty, graduate students, degree programs, and how to apply should browse our website and look through the descriptions of our master's courses and doctoral courses.