Accomplishments: Department of Sociology

Andrew Spivak (Sociology) and colleagues published an article, "Self-interest and Public Opinion in Health Policy: Smoking Behavior and Support for Tobacco Control," in Social Theory & Health.
Jennifer Reed and Barb Brents (both Sociology), along with UNLV alumna Crystal Jackson, '03 BA Psychology, '07 MA Sociology, '13 PhD Sociology, published a co-authored book chapter titled "Strange Confluences: Radical Feminism and Evangelical Christianity as Drivers of US Neo-Abolitionism" in Feminism, Prostitution, and the State. Jackson is now a…
Three UNLV graduate students recently received a national Love of Learning Award from The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi. They are among 100 award recipients nationwide. Erick López, a doctoral student in sociology, will use funds from the award to travel to Ann Arbor, Michigan, to attend a research methods training titled "Health…
Forty undergraduates recently were awarded scholarships through the office of undergraduate research's summer undergraduate research funding (OUR SURF) program. These scholarships support undergraduate research, scholarship, entrepreneurial, performance, or visual art projects in the summer months. A total of $39,000 in funding was…
Michael Ian Borer (Sociology) was quoted in a Las Vegas Review-Journal article titled, "Hairstylist Shelley Gregory Brings Rainbow Hair to Las Vegas." 
Takashi Yamashita (Sociology) and co-authors published an article in Gerontology & Geriatrics Education titled, "Impact of Life Stories on College Students’ Positive and Negative Attitudes toward Older Adults."
Sociology professor Ranita Ray was elected as Chair of the Poverty, Class, and Inequality Division of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. She is the author of "The Making of a Teenage Service Class: Poverty and Mobility in an American City" (UC Press). 
Sociology professor Anna C. Smedley-López  was an invited panelist at San Diego State University on a panel titled "Global Social Mobility." The panelists discussed access to higher education, barriers to social mobility, and ways to decolonize our work as academics. Smedley-López was invited to participate on the panel because of…
Christie Batson (Sociology) was selected as the recipient of the 2017 Academic Assessment Award for a Department or Program. This is a first-ever, universitywide award that acknowledges "outstanding work and dedication to academic assessment." 
Takashi Yamashita and Jennifer Keene (both Sociology), and their co-authors, published an article in Journal of Applied Gerontology titled, "Underlying Motivations of Volunteering Across Life Stages: A Study of Volunteers in Nonprofit Organizations in Nevada."
Kate Hausbeck Korgan (Graduate College) recently was named president of the Western Association of Graduate Schools (WAGS). Her position became effective during the 2017 WAGS annual conference, held earlier this month in Seattle. WAGS — comprised of more than 90 institutions in the western United States, Canada, and Mexico — links member…
Michael Ian Borer (Sociology) was quoted in "Escape Rooms Like The Basement Quickly Growing in Las Vegas Popularity" — a Las Vegas Review-Journal article. Among other scholarly contributions, Borer is the author of Faithful to Fenway: Believing in Boston, Baseball, and America’s Most Beloved Ballpark (NYU Press, 2008).