The "Mindset" List

Every year, Beloit publishes a "Mindset List." The ostensible purpose of the list is to make professors aware of the common experiences the incoming class has shared. The real purpose seems to be an annual reminder that I'm getting old while my students stay exactly the same age. (The authors of the list say that's not the point . . . yeah, right!)

The list is published here, and as always, it has a lot of thought-provoking items.

"50. Everyone has always known what the evening news was before the Evening News came on."

-- I remember watching the evening news with my family and being genuinely surprised to hear about what had happened that day. Now, I don't even consider watching any of the networks. By that hour of the day, I've not only heard about the day's events, but also formed an opinion about them. I can't say that the 24-hour news cycle has improved policy-making . . . or even made the public better informed -- death panels, indeed! Maybe we should return to the days of Walter Cronkite.

"56. The status of gays in the military has always been a topic of political debate."

-- Yeah, wow!! This has been such a huge change, and there's more ahead. The fascinating thing to me is how the political differences on the issue of lgbt rights are entirely generational. My most socially conservative students -- who oppose abortion and affirmative action, for example -- simply don't understand the point of allowing discrimination against gays and lesbians. When they take over, all this sturm und drang will just get wiped away.

"28. Bobby Cox has always managed the Atlanta Braves."

-- Okay, I think this has always been true. I'm pretty sure he was the manager when I was 18 years old.

Demystifying the Dissertation - Inside Higher Ed

We're just welcoming our latest cohort of graduate students into the program, which is a very exciting time in the department. Graduate students -- their curiosity, their openness -- are in many ways the life's blood of a sociology department.

We're particularly lucky to have so many students with expansive substantive and methodological interests. And we're proud of their accomplishments -- for example, on display in the Office (Room 57 in CAB), is Keith Guzik's latest book, Arresting Abuse, which examines the way that the criminal justice system's handling of batterers does not effectively change their beliefs about the wrongfulness of their actions, and instead exacerbates their feeling of injustice and inequality. Keith got his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois and now teaches at Bloomfield College in New Jersey.

For those graduate students in between -- working on dissertation proposals and their dissertations -- some great advice from a columnist in Inside Higher Education. Sometimes the enormity of a dissertation can just seem overwhelming, but this columnist is really committed to breaking it down into digestible steps.

Demystifying the Dissertation

It can be done!