Dear SOAN students,
I hope that your first week of classes has gone very well and that you are settling into a challenging but rewarding and fun semester of scholarship. If you are studying off-campus this semester, I wish you the best during your time away from Colgate—please send us a postcard! I’m writing with some information to help you make the most of SOAN opportunities and events in the Spring 2015 term. Please read on…
SOAN Faculty
After a fall term with several faculty leaves, we welcome back most of our SOAN professors this semester, although Prof Aveni and Prof Loe are away this term. We also have our visiting faculty, Professor Joe Gibbons and Professor Lavinia Nicolae with us again this semester, and each is offering some great new courses, including offerings in medical anthropology and social deviance that we have not been able to offer for several years.
Some of you may also know that Professor Rhonda Levine is making retirement plans—after 33 years of inspiring Colgate students, this semester will be Prof Levine’s last semester of teaching! I hope you will give Prof Levine your best wishes as she transitions to a new stage of the life course (as sociologists might see it…).
SOAN Jokes
Last semester I wrote about the new look of the SOAN Resource Room, and I hope that you have had a chance to visit and work in the new space. If you’ve walked past the white board, you may have noticed some SOAN-themed jokes that students and faculty posted last semester. The jokes are really bad, and I mean that in the best possible way. Thanks to those who have posted jokes (I know that there is one student in particular that has been responsible for many of them so far), and make sure to stop by to see anything new that pops up.
an example of SOAN humor
SOAN Events – Spring 2015
In the spring term we are continuing our calendar of events on the theme of “Social Movements and Civil Rights,” building on the programming and events of last semester. If the recent national and global examples of social movements didn’t seem real enough to you, last semester’s movements at Colgate brought home to us the importance of understanding social movements as important methods of social change. I hope you will join us for two key lectures sponsored by SOAN this term—the lectures will be held on February 12 and April 8, and you can see more details below. In addition, we are continuing many of the same community-building events that we have offered in past semesters—including happy hours and Cho-Dunkin’ Tuesdays! Please check the weekly news and events emails that we will send throughout the semester for more details about coming events. Here is a list of some of our keys events for the fall term:
Thursday, February 5, 11:30am-12:30pm: Information session for prospective SOAN majors. Alumni 431/432; lunch served.
Tuesday, February 10, 8:15am-noon: Cho-Dunkin’ Tuesday; yogurt and donuts served in the SOAN lounge.
Thursday, February 12, 4:15pm: Roberto Velez lecture: “Of Art and other Visualizations: Examination of Visual Performances in the Vieques Movement.” Persson Auditorium.
Thursday, February 19, 4:30-6:30pm: SOAN Happy Hour and celebration of National Anthropology Day! Donovan’s Pub.
Tuesday, March 10, 8:15am-noon: Cho-Dunkin’ Tuesday; yogurt and donuts served in the SOAN lounge.
Friday, March 27, 5pm: Film: THIS IS SPINAL TAP—special 31st anniversary screening in conjunction with the Friday Night Film series. Golden Auditorium, Little Hall; Pizza.
Wednesday, April 8 4:30pm: Kate Crehan lecture: “Creating Common Sense: A Gramscian Reading of the Tea Party and Occupy.” Persson Auditorium.
Tuesday, April 14, 8:15am-noon: Cho-Dunkin’ Tuesday; yogurt and donuts served in the SOAN lounge.
Thursday, April 16, 4:30-6:30pm: SOAN Happy Hour; Donovan’s Pub.
Tuesday, May 5, 8:15am-noon: Cho-Dunkin’ Tuesday; yogurt and donuts served in the SOAN lounge.
Keeping Up With SOAN News
SOAN implemented a few ways to keep up with SOAN news and events last year that we will continue this term:
(1) Weekly SOAN email updates—please don’t just hit DELETE! These updates are quick and have a lot of good information in them.
(2) The SOAN Blog: http://blogs.colgate.edu/sociology-and-anthropology.
(3) The SOAN Opportunities Tumblr: http://soan-colgate.tumblr.com/.
I wish you all the very best in your courses and other campus activities this semester. Please stop by and say “hi” some time this semester—my office is in Alumni 419.
Sincerely,
Chris Henke
Chair, SOAN Department