ASA Section on Teaching & Learning: Homepage

"If You Teach, You Belong"

Greetings and welcome to the homepage of the American Sociological Association's Section on Teaching and Learning. Our motto is, "if you teach, you belong." The purpose of the ASA Section on Teaching and Learning is to provide a professional outlet for improving the teaching of sociology from the high school through graduate level. It encourages and facilitates innovative and effective pedagogy and research. The Section addresses the common and unique needs of faculty in two-year and four-year colleges and universities, as well as those of high school teachers.

I hope that everyone is having a productive semester/quarter engaging in the intellectual work and activities of teaching and learning in sociology. It was exciting to see so many wonderful colleagues at the annual meeting in Las Vegas in August. Our section is strong and vibrant!

While I have been slow getting going as your chair, there are a number of things I would like to accomplish this year and they are enumerated in my comments in the fall newsletter. If you would like to help out on any of these things, please let me know. Also, please let me know if there are other things not listed on my agenda you would like to see happen. I can be reached at chin@lemoyne.edu.

Welcome to our three new Council members: Krisler Bailey, Rachel Neal and David Purcell. Alison Moss is our new student representative. Our Chair-Elect is Liz Grauerholz. Liz has put together an exciting list of sessions and we hope that you will submit papers and/or attend the meetings. In addition to section sessions, Melinda Messineo is in the early stages of planning the pre-conference teaching workshop, so please stay tuned for details to follow in the spring newsletter.

I want to encourage you to get more involved with the section. Volunteer for one of our committees. See the menu to the left of this letter and click on "committees" to see a list of committee chairs.

Please also renew your membership in ASA and the STLS for 2012 and encourage colleagues and graduate students to join as well.

I look forward to working with you and hope that you will contact me with questions, concerns, and ideas to improve our section.

See you in Denver, August 17-20, 2012. Don't forget: our section day this year is day 1, Thursday, August 17!

Jeffrey Chin, Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology and Carnegie National Scholar
Chair, ASA Section on Teaching and Learning
Secretary-Treasurer, Alpha Kappa Delta, the national honor society for sociology
Le Moyne College
1419 Salt Springs Rd.
Syracuse, NY 13214-1399

Many thanks to Hudson Valley Community College's Graphics Office for designing the Section logo.

Please email feedback and updates to the Section webmaster, Lynn Ritchey.