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THE BULLETIN

of the North Carolina Sociological Association
Volume 42, Issue 1                          November 2015

THE BULLETIN  is a publication of the North Carolina Sociological Association. The NCSA is open to any person engaged in teaching or research in sociology, or in a field of applied sociology, as well as to any student whose major interest is sociology. Members receive


NORTH CAROLINA SOCIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION

EXECUTIVE COUNCIL
2015-2016


Bill Smith

President: Bill Smith, NC State University, wrs@nscu.edu

Steven Gunkel

President-Elect: Steven Gunkel, Wake Forest University, gunkelse@wfu.edu

Treasurer: Beth Davison, Appalachian State University, davisonb@appstate.edu

Secretary: Sue Pauley, Wingate University, supaul@wingate.edu

Editor of Sociation Today and Webmaster: 
George H. Conklin, NC Central University, Emeritus. gconklin@nccu.edu

EXECUTIVE COUNCIL MEMBERS

Jake Day, UNC - Wilmington, dayj@uncw.edu

Cindy Dollar, UNC - Greensboro, cbdollar@uncg.edu

Kim Ebert, NC State University, kim_ebert@ncsu.edu

Heather Griffiths, Fayetteville State University, hgriffit@uncfsu.edu

Terrell Hayes, Highpoint University, thayes@highpoint.edu

Ken Muir, Appalachian State
University, muirkb@appstate.edu

Hideki Morooka, Fayetteville State
University, hmorooka@uncfsu.edu

Cecile N. Yancu, Winston-Salem State University, yancuc@wssu.edu

Ana Maria Wahl, Wake Forest
University, wahlam@wfu.edu


The new editor of THE BULLETIN   is...


Cameron Lippard

Cameron Lippard, Appalachian State University, lippardcd@appstate.edu.


Keep up with the North Carolina Sociological Association
between newsletters by joining our Facebook page.

We regularly post links to items of interest to North Carolina sociologists, along with updates about the NCSA's events.
     Our page can be found at

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Contact Cameron Lippard for more information (lippardcd@appstate.edu).






2016 ANNUAL NCSA CONFERENCE

"Doing Justice: Community, Social, or Criminal?"

Winston-Salem, NC
February 12, 2016
Wake Forest University Innovation Quarter

by Steve Gunkel, President-Elect

Winston Salem
   
    I am delighted to announce this year’s Annual Conference will be hosted by Wake Forest University at the Innovation Quarter located in downtown Winston-Salem on Friday, February 12th! 


    This year’s meeting is organized around the theme “Doing Justice: Community, Social, or Criminal?” 

    Justice remains both elusive and contentious and this year’s conference provides us with an opportunity to critically examine justice from multiple perspectives and struggles for its realization across economic, political, and health dimensions. 

    This year’s conference offers a blend of both invited and open panels exploring the multifaceted nature of justice: mass incarceration and reentry programs; political activism and mobilization; wrongful conviction and the plight of exonerees; and enforcement and detention practices tied to immigration.  We provide more detail (below) on these and several other panels we hope you will attend.  We also look forward to receiving your original papers in the areas noted and we hope that you will encourage your undergraduate students to take part in what promises to be an exciting facet of this year’s conference – student poster sessions!   


Call for NCSA 2016 Conference Participation

    Struggles for justice have captivated public attention as these have unfolded at the international and national level as well as here in North Carolina.  From the migration crisis to the “Black Lives Matter” movement to the “Moral Mondays” marches – justice (or its denial) has galvanized these struggles. 

    The theme for this year’s conference will promote a critical and wide-ranging examination of these struggles as we pose the question - “Doing Justice: Community, Social, or Criminal?” As we come together for our annual conference, four sessions will focus on this common theme: first, the ways in which mass incarceration and the re-entry process for prisoners have undermined justice; second, the political context shaping perceptions of poverty and extremism; racial and social class disparities in physical and mental health; and wrongful conviction and the plight of exonerees.  Within two of these four sessions, we have a handful of slots remaining -- please submit original papers (following the guidelines listed below) addressing wrongful conviction to Dr. Steve Gunkel, Wake Forest University (gunkelse@wfu.edu) and politics to Dr. Ana-María González Wahl, Wake Forest University (wahlam@wfu.edu).

     The notion of justice can be explored from so many vantage points and can cover a multitude of contexts; we look forward to receiving original work for several additional sessions:

Immigration: Enforcement and detention practices, provision of educational opportunities, economic realities, and the criminalization of immigration all point to the justice issues related to this year’s conference theme.  We look forward to submissions related to these and other facets of immigration in North Carolina and beyond.  Please submit papers related to immigration to Dr. Kim Ebert, North Carolina State University (kim_ebert@ncsu.edu).

Policing and Justice: Community-Oriented Policing Strategies (COPS), the purported “Ferguson Effect”, stop-and-frisk policies, and the broad array of factors influencing police-citizen contact point to a heightened sense of awareness and questioning of policing.  We look forward to submissions related to the police, policing, and public perceptions of policing in North Carolina and national context.  Please submit policing-related papers to Dr. Ken Bechtel, Wake Forest University (c/o Ms. Erica Talley: talleyel@wfu.edu).

Social Justice: Issues such as the “school-to-prison pipeline”, food insecurity and food deserts (with some of the worst instances here in the Triad and across the state), and growing polarization within the state highlight real barriers to the realization of social justice.  We would like to solicit work that addresses insurgency and identity; countermovement dynamics and their impact; and polarization in political, racial, and economic realms. Please submit social justice-related papers to Dr. Tangela Towns, Winston-Salem State University (townsta@wssu.edu). 

Improving Teaching and Scholarship: New for this year’s conference!  In what ways can we improve our teaching and research efforts in sociology?  To what extent do our research projects inform our teaching efforts?  What teaching strategies have proven to be particularly successful in building the “sociological imagination” of our students? This panel is not confined solely to teaching strategies focused on justice and we encourage the submission of original papers exploring pedagogy and sociology to Dr. Saylor Breckenridge, Wake Forest University (breckers@wfu.edu).  

New This Year – Undergraduate Student Poster Sessions! This year’s conference will feature the work of our promising undergraduates in the form of multiple poster sessions.  Students that are working on projects related to the pursuit of justice (community, social, or criminal) are invited to present their original work in an informal poster session in which they will address questions about their sociological research.  Faculty are especially encouraged to facilitate this opportunity for their students.  Poster presentation submissions should include the name(s) and affiliation (and contact information for authors) as well as a title and brief abstract of the work to be presented. Posters should display data, policy analysis, or theoretical work in a visually appealing format that will encourage interaction with poster session attendees. Display easels will be provided on-site.  Please direct all poster session-related inquiries to Dr. Ana-María González Wahl, Wake Forest University (wahlam@wfu.edu).

Also New This Year – Special Panel for Winners of Himes Student Paper Awards!  This year’s conference will feature a panel dedicated solely to the presentation of papers that have garnered the prestigious Himes Award named for NCSA’s founding President Joseph S. Himes.  The winning undergraduate and graduate students will provide a presentation of their exemplary scholarship in a panel session.

Submission Guidelines

    To be considered for a place on the program, individuals should use the following guidelines:

--Undergraduate and graduate students, professors, and professional community members using sociological theory and research methods are encouraged to submit items for consideration. Graduate students are highly encouraged to submit!

--Submissions for any session listed above should include:

o   The title of the paper, report, or presentation
o   Names and affiliations and contact information for all authors
o   An extended abstract.

     --Extended abstracts should be approximately 450-550 words and must include the following sections: objectives and theoretical framework, methods and data sources, and findings.

    All submissions must be sent to the session organizer. If you don't know where your paper may fit, please contact Dr. Steve Gunkel (gunkelse@wfu.edu).


     Those coming in for an overnight stay are recommended to contact the Brookstown Inn located at 200 Brookstown Ave. (336-725-1120; website: http://www.brookstowninn.com/). The hotel is approximately one mile from the Innovation Quarter. We recommend parking in the public (w/ fee) parking deck for Innovation Quarter (located at 4th and Church Street) which is a five-minute walk from IQ.

    Additional information for the Brookstown Inn will be posted in the near future (with promo codes and additional contact information).


Call for Submissions
2015 Himes Outstanding Student
Sociology Paper Awards


    The North Carolina Sociological Association seeks papers that represent excellence in sociological analysis from both undergraduate and graduate students.

     NCSA membership fees and NCSA conference fees are deferred for all awardees who attend the NCSA conference.  Students who apply for the award should be prepared to attend the annual meeting and present their work as part of the special Himes Award Winner Session on Friday, February 12, 2016.

     Eligibility requirements: Any current student enrolled in a community college, four-year college, or university in North Carolina may submit a paper for consideration. Students who graduated in Spring or Summer 2015 are eligible to submit a paper for the 2015 awards. Please note that: (1) Co-authored papers written by graduate students are eligible for the graduate paper award and co-authored papers written by undergraduates are eligible for the undergraduate award. Cash awards will be evenly split among authors of award winning papers. (2) Coauthored papers between students and faculty and between graduate students and undergraduate students are ineligible. (3) The same individual may be eligible to win the undergraduate award once and the graduate award once.

     Award:  This competition comes with a monetary award ($150 for the winning undergraduate papers, $250 for the top graduate paper), and a certificate of recognition from the association. Three awards are available: one for graduate students, and one each for undergraduates at four-year institutions, and two-year institutions. Award winners are recognized at the NCSA annual meeting and their papers are published on the official NCSA website. Faculty mentors are also recognized at the annual meeting, and department chairs and college deans are forwarded award information for contract and promotion purposes.

Judgment criteria include:
-- accurate, focused, and thorough review of the pertinent sociological literature
-- use of method related to topic
-- appropriate use of evidence in drawing conclusions
-- ability to use theoretical analysis and interpretation
-- insight and creativity
-- writing skill, clarity, and coherence and proper use of citations and documentation

     Submission guidelines: Please email as a Word or PDF file attachment a blind copy of the paper and a separate cover letter describing the student's year in school, institutional affiliation, & faculty mentor information to: Dr. Heather Griffiths (hgriffit@uncfsu.edu). The deadline for submission is December 10, 2015. If you have any questions, please contact Dr. Heather Griffiths by e-mail.


Sociation Today Offers Articles on a Variety of Issues

The Spring/Summer 2015 issue of Sociation Today  features articles on a comparisons of metropolitan areas in the North and South to discuss the black-white wealth gap. Another article focuses on family and gender-role attitudes to understand normative drinking rates. Focusing on Kannapolis, North Carolina, one article discusses what happens to displaced workers from a recent industry shut down. The last two articles focus on music as torture and the funding schemes of the tea party.

Articles are now being accepted for the Fall/Winter 2016 issue. Please consider sending your work into Sociation Today. Articles may be submitted at any time to the webmaster, George Conklin (gconklin@nccu.edu.

A cumulative, searchable index of SOCIATION TODAY is available from the Directory of Open Access Journals.




VOLUNTEERS NEEDED!

Interested in getting involved with NCSA? The Executive Council is looking for volunteers to serve as an Executive Council member or the Newsletter editor for the association immediately. If you are interested, then please contact Steven Gunkel at gunkelse@wfu.edu or 336-758-5466.

After-Action Report: 2015 Annual Conference

Last year's annual conference organized and hosted by Dr. Bill Smith at NC State University was a great success! Over 75 people attended a number of key sessions on community building issues in and around North Carolina. Some sessions examined issues communities face as immigration populations have increased in the area. Another session focused on urban development and how zoning, mortgage approvals, and gentrification have impacted communities. Other sessions included examining rural communities, the growth of the LGBTQA communities, and a session on health and environments. Finally, Dr. Beth Davison showcased her document on the Cone textile industry in North Carolina.

A number of excellent undergraduate and graduate student papers were considered for the Himes Student Paper Awards. However, after much deliberation, the following papers were 2015 recepients of the Himes Awards:
Graduate Paper Award: Daniel J. Ness and Dr. Wei Zhao. "“Institutions and Social Inequality: A Market Based Approach."

Undergraduate Paper Award: Kaitlin Stober and Dr. Alexis Franzese. "The Role of Developmental Disability in Family Completion."

Congrats to these recipients!

Himes Award Winners from 2015!

himes award