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CONTACT:
Albert J. Bergesen
Professor and Head
Department of Sociology
Social Science Building
CAMPUS
621-3303 albert@email.arizona.edu
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This proposal recommends combining research centers and programs, outreach workshops, different types of degree offerings, with the Department of Sociology to create the School of Sociology.
In today’s competitive environment it is clear that academic units need to increase their outreach activities, sources of non-state funding, majors that meet student demand and state employment needs, and at the same time preserve their strong research mission. The broader bandwidth of the School of Sociology allows this to happen. The national and international reputation of Sociology at the University of Arizona must be preserved while at the same time a wider organizational format must be created to facilitate the growth in new majors, degrees, outreach, and expanded searches for donors, grants and other non-state funding.
In short: remaining a single, traditionally-structured Department is too narrow a bandwidth for an academic unit that offers: 1) three different types of degrees: a B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. in Sociology; a Bachelor of General Studies (B.G.S.)
Concentration in Sports and Society; and is proposing a new BS major in Care, Health and Society (along with a proposed
M.S. degree and graduate and undergraduate certificates), an M.A. in Social Statistics, and a 5-year B.A. to M.A. degree in Social Statistics; 2) an annual outreach workshop for the public, faculty, graduate students from across the country and abroad on statistics and methods of social research that is taught by faculty from different universities and units within
UA; 3) the Center for Applied Sociology that conducts contract research for businesses in Arizona; and, 4) has very bright prospects for new research and outreach programs and centers in Housing and the Home, Care, Health, and Society, and
Sports and Society.
PROPOSAL COMMITTEE
The Sociology Faculty served as a committee of the whole, voting unanimously to reconstitute as the School of
Sociology.
ACADEMIC UNITS, DEGREES, RESEARCH CENTERS AND OUTREACH PROGRAMS BEING
REORGANIZED
~Department of Sociology (College of Social and Behavioral Sciences)
~Center for Applied Sociology (College of Social and Behavioral Sciences)
~Arizona Winter Methods Workshop (College of Social and Behavioral Sciences)
~B.A, M.A. & Ph.D., Sociology Department (College of Social and Behavioral Sciences).
~Bachelor of General Studies (B.G.S.) Concentration in Sports and Society (College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences)
PROPOSED NEW ACADEMIC PROGRAMS AND CENTERS—ALL IN THE SCHOOL OF SOCIOLOGY
~B.S., Care, Health and Society
~M.A., Care, Health and Society
~Certificates (graduate and undergraduate), Care, Health and Society
~M.A. in Social Statistics
~5-Year B.A to M.A in Social Statistics
~Research/Outreach Program in Sports and Society
~Research/Outreach Program in Care, Health, and Society
THE SCHOOL WILL BE COMPRISED OF THE FOLLOWING UNITS:

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1) THE ACADEMIC PROGRAM
1.1.
Sociology Faculty . Sociology has been practiced at the University of Arizona since the turn of the twentieth century.
Originally part of the Business School, Sociology became a department in 1943 and first awarded a Ph.D. in 1972. By 1982 the Department was ranked #9 out of 92 programs in the United States. In the 2010 NRC-R rankings the Department was ranked #6 among all public institutions and is the 3 rd highest of all ranked departments at the University of Arizona. The
Department offers a B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. in sociology, and over the years Ph.D. students have been directly placed as tenure track assistant professors at Stanford, Duke, Cornell, University of Peking, University of California Davis,
University of California Santa Barbara, University of Washington, Indiana University, and other division one research universities. Sociology thus possesses a world-class faculty that trains and places its Ph.D. students in major universities, and continues to obtain NSF grants and other external funding on multiple research projects along with delivering a first class undergraduate degree in sociology.
1.2.
Academic Degree Programs . The School of Sociology will continue to offer the B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. in sociology. It will also continue to offer a Sports and Society Concentration within the new Bachelor of General Studies
(B.G.S.). At present the BGS is only offered by the College of Letters Arts and Sciences (CLAS). Schools and
Departments may be able to offer the B.G.S. in the near future, at which time the Sport and Society BGS will be offered by the School of Sociology. The School also plans to offer a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in Care, Health, and Society
(CHS) which is suited for students interested in nursing, teaching, social work, ministry, counseling, and other helping and service professions. This degree program is presently going through the academic review process with the support of
Vice Provost Gail Burd and Senior Associate for Academic Affairs, Patti King. The School also plans to offer a B.S, and both graduate and undergraduate certificates in this new major.
2) SOCIAL RESEARCH CENTERS, Programs, AND COMMUNITY OUTREACH .
2.1. The Center for Applied Sociology . This Center engages in contract social research for various Arizona businesses, non-profits, and public interest groups. Examples include a study done of homeless day workers in Tucson for the
Primavera Foundation (2000); surveys of 30 Tucson city contractors and 60 business concerning the operation of the city’s Living Wage Ordinance for the Arizona Interfaith Network (2002); research on employment outcomes and wages for JobPath, a Tucson job training program (2003); demographic analysis of owners and renters facing renovation costs to their condominiums for a Tucson Homeowner’s Association (2003); a cost analysis of chronic homelessness in Tucson funded by the Department of Economic Security (2007), and evaluation of health and safety within low income neighborhoods services for the Drachman Institute funded by an HUD grant(2006-2008). SOS will rename the present
Center for Applied Sociology to the Center for Social Research to better reflect an expanded set of contract research the
School will seek out. In this regard, Sociology’s 2011 Academic Program Review (APR) expressed an interest in the establishment of a Survey Research Center, which would be located within the larger Center for Social Research
2.2. Arizona Methods Workshops.
These UA outreach workshops, developed and primarily led by Sociology faculty, provide short-course instruction on new developments in research design, advanced statistics, and qualitative techniques.
This year the topics covered included Networks, Multi-level Modeling, Qualitative Categorical Analysis, Matching and
Causal Inference, Discrimination Assessment, and Survey Design. These workshops meet for 9 hours over the course of two to three days in January. In their second year of operation (2012) they financially brought in 30% more than the previous year. As a marker of their high quality and success attendance was quite broad. This year the well-represented universities included UC Berkeley, UW Madison, Texas A&M, UConn, Oregon, Georgia Tech, Rutgers CUNY, UC
Davis, Minnesota, Kansas, Notre Dame, NC State, California Polytechnic, and ASU. The feedback was very positive:
“This workshop was taught in a very accessible manner and had a good balance of breadth and depth”; ”This workshop was extremely well run and was just what I hoped for”; I am more confident that I can actually implement these techniques on my own”. In future years the number of workshops, and topics will expand and we will aim to bring in instructors from other UA schools and colleges as well as other universities.
Within the expanded format of The School of Sociology, there are plans to model these workshops on the University of
Michigan’s very prestigious ICPSR Summer Program in Quantitative Methods of Social Research. Professor Erin Leahey
(Sociology) has served as the Program Director for the Workshops and will continue to do so within SOS.

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2.3. A Program in Sports and Society is being established for the School of Sociology. Financial support for initial staff positions has already been provided J.P. Jones, Dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. Greg Byrne,
Director of Athletics at UA, has also spoken directly to the Head of Sociology about his commitment to finding a donor to help further underwrite operational and staffing expenses. Finally, Ginny Healy, a Senior Development officer of the UA
Foundation, has identified a potential major donor with possible naming implications for the Program. The Program will build on current faculty interests and those of new researchers to tackle the myriad social issues involved in sports and society, both domestically and internationally. We also expect a synergistic relationship between the research, outreach, and distinguished faculty who affiliate with research program and the B.G.S. Concentration in Sports and Society. The linking of distinguished faculty and research/outreach programs to emerging curriculum initiatives will be one of the hallmarks of School. This program also will offer research opportunities for both undergraduate and graduate students.
Professor Jeff Sallaz (Sociology) will serve as the Director for this new research and outreach program.
2.4. A Program in Care, Health, and Society will conduct research, provide training programs, and develop policy proposals designed to benefit today’s helping professionals. For example, it will study the special social and emotional demands of their work, the changing needs of their client populations, and the resources and services needed to address those needs. It will also offer workshops on facilitating collaboration between the various helping occupations and meeting the ethical challenges posed by advances in science and technology. And it will offer evidence-based solutions to such pressing problems as the dwindling supply and wages of care workers in the region. Professor Don Grant, who will be heading up the Care, Health, and Society (CHS) program, has also been in discussions with the SBS Dean’s office and the Outreach College about offering courses, certificates, and terminal M.A. degrees at the Downtown UA Campus facility and in the new UA facility in Chandler. This Center also will offer research opportunities for both undergraduate and graduate students in the School. SBS Dean J.P.Jones and Associate Dean Vincent Del Casino, along with Vice
Provost Gail Burd and Senior Associate for Academic Affairs, Patti King, support the new B.S. in Care, Health, and
Society. Ginny Healy and other members of the SBS Development Office have been working with Professor Grant to identify donors to help fund this new Center
REASONS FOR THIS REORGANIZATION
Self Sufficiency.
With the plans underway to move the University further and further off State dollars, it is vital that highly ranked academic units find ways to, at one and the same time, retain their academic integrity and national/international ranking while at the same time find new ways to be self-supporting. The School of Sociology provides just such a combination of high quality scholarship and education along with outreach, applied research, and fund raising opportunities, under a single roof.
Meeting Student Demand. With tuition rising and student loans an increasing burden for students and families, there is a growing demand for educational experiences that meet student needs for majors related to future employment. When asked what they want to do after college many students say they want to “help people” or explore opportunities in the sports industry, such as media, hospitality, leisure and travel, legal, and the worlds of high school and college athletics.
The School’s new graduate and undergraduate degree offerings, affiliated internship and outreach programs, work toward meeting this growing student demand for new job related majors.
Easing University Retention Problems.
The UA faces a major retention problem, and the School will provide new majors and programs reflecting student interests and the growing demand for majors linked to future employment. The
B.G.S. degree with a Sports and Society Concentration was designed specifically to help keep students, who might not otherwise find a major they find interesting, drop out of college.
Serving the State of Arizona. With a growing and aging population, along with rural areas in need of social services, the
State of Arizona needs college graduates trained in issues of care, health, and society as feeders for nursing, social work, teaching, and other care work professions. The School’s new degrees, research, and outreach efforts in these areas will directly help meet the State’s needs for more care workers.
Finally, it should be noted that with the elimination of ASU’s Sociology Department the School of Sociology will be the only academic unit dedicated to sociology between Arizona’s two major research universities.

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STRUCTURE OF THE SCHOOL OF SOCIOLOGY
The Director of the School of Sociology will come from the Department of Sociology and therefore will be a faculty member of the School (see attached diagram). The appointment will be made by the Dean of Social and Behavioral
Sciences and will follow all the normal procedures and regulations for the appointment of Heads and Directors within
SBS and the University of Arizona. The voting members of the School of Sociology will be comprised of tenured and tenure track faculty, who will elect Chairs and committee members to the School’s Executive, Recruitment, Graduate, and
Undergraduate Studies Committees, and the Intellectual Events, Human Subjects, and Computer Affairs Officers, along with a faculty advisor for the Sociology Club. The School of Sociology may also contain Multi-Year lecturers, Professors of Practice, and other possible non-tenure track research and instructor positions. The Director will oversee the Staff and
Business Center and appoint Directors for Graduate and Undergraduate Studies, Research Centers and programs, outreach, and fundraising activities.

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