Background
- Professor of Sociology and American Studies
- Special Assistant to the Provost
- Liaison to the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools
- Academic Director of Students for Medical Outreach and Sustainability (SOMOS, Paraiso, Dominican Republic) and Medical Aid Nicaragua: Outreach Scholarship (MANOS) .
Education
B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. in Sociology
Research
My current teaching and research interests focus on community, the ways in which people live and work together to solve collective problems. This interest has emerged over a career of interests in crime, regulatory arrangements and theory, and a deep distrust of hierarchical and coercive strategies of "helping" and "managing" in human affairs. My work in the Dominican Republic and in Nicaragua represents a shift from issues of security and social control to those of health and well-being. I see the two as inherently related and believe that effective communities must find ways to solve these and other persistent and thorny problems. Students have taught me much over the years -- not the least, the need to continue to learn and to press forward to create and use knowledge. Students are responsible directly for my current work in community health and for my involvement in the two most exciting projects (SOMOS and SHC) of my now lengthy career.