23 Fordham College Sociology Students inducted into Sociology Honors Society Alpha Kappa Delta

Twenty-three Fordham College Sociology students received their Alpha Kappa Delta certificates today, and were inducted as lifetime members of the Sociology honors society. Alpha Kappa Delta seeks to acknowledge and promote excellence in scholarship in the study of sociology, the research of social problems, and such other social and intellectual activities as will lead to improvement in the human condition. Students with GPAs of 3.25 or higher are eligible for membership. Congratulations to our new Alpha Kappa Delta members!

For more information on Fordham's Alpha Kappa Delta chapter, contact Professor Doyle McCarthy at mccarthy [at] fordham [dot] edu.

HuffPo Features Sociologist Jeanne Flavin on Tennessee's Pregnancy Criminalization Law

Sociology Professor Jeanne Flavin is featured this month in the Hufffington Post (4/21/2014) commenting on Tennessee's Pregnancy Criminalization Law that would allow prosecutors to charge women with criminal assault for giving birth to babies with health problems or for losing pregnancies. The proposed law specifically targets the vulnerable population of women suffering from opiate addiction. Flavin's post, written at the Easter holiday, meditates on the meaning of mercy in this context and urges all people of conscience to oppose legislation that criminalizes pregnancy.

Chris Rhomberg's "The Broken Table" Wins ASA and Industrial Relations Book Awards

Chris Rhomberg’s book, The Broken Table: The Detroit Newspaper Strike and the State of American Labor (Russell Sage Foundation, 2012) received the 2013 Distinguished Scholarly Monograph Award from the American Sociological Association's section on Labor and Labor Movements, and it was named as one of the “Noteworthy Books in Industrial Relations and Labor Economics” for 2012 by the Industrial Relations Section at Princeton University.

Sociology Professor Matthew Weinshenker Provides Expertise to Fordham Business Magazine

Sociology and Women's Studies faculty member Matthew Weinshenker was quoted in "The Balancing Act," on pp. 22-23 of the Fall 2013 issue of Fordham Business magazine.  The article discusses how the problem of balancing work and family is a challenge for men as well as women in the 21st century United States.

Sociology Professor Christine Fountain Receives Major Grant from the NIMH to Study Autism and Assisted Reproductive Technology

Sociology professor Christine M. Fountain received a major grant ($66,635) from the National Institute of Mental Health to conduct research on "Assisted Reproductive Technologies and Increased Autism Risk.” Dr. Fountain is collaborating with researchers at The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Columbia University in this research. Congratulations to Professor Fountain and her colleagues!

Fordham Professor Chris Rhomberg Argues for the Importance of Strikes

Professor Chris Rhomberg

Last month Sociology Professor Chris Rhomberg was featured on CNN Opinion and on NPR’s Talk of the Nation with host Neal Conan arguing that America would be better off with more strikes. With Chicago public school teachers walking out of their classrooms and machinists at Caterpillar Inc. concluding their three-year strike with a settlement contract that concedes to the majority of the demands of the company one must ask—what has happened to the power of striking? Chris Rhomberg asserts that conservative federal court and NLRB decisions have contributed to the decline of striking.  Rhomberg notes that the number of strikes in America has dramatically decreased since the 1970’s and as a result the decline of unionization has contributed to the rise of economic inequality.

Professor E. Doyle McCarthy Presents at the Eastern Sociological Association on the Mediatization of Suffering

Professor E. Doyle McCarthy

Professor E. Doyle McCarthy is working with a group of scholars and sociologists of emotions studying the meaning of the many "mediatized" images of suffering. She is presenting a paper on this topic at the Eastern Sociological Association Annual Meeting in March. McCarthy's co-author is Dr. Stephanie Laudone, who received her Ph.D. in Sociology from Fordham in 2012 with a  dissertation entitled "Identity Work on Facebook."