Fall
2014 – Semester in Review – Dustin Kidd
Research
I began work on a new book project entitled Social Media Freaks, under preparation
for Westview Press. I completed two chapters of the book—a history of social
media and an analysis of the relationship between sexuality and social media.
I published a review of the book Comic Book Crime: Truth, Justice, and the American Way by Nickie
Phillips and Staci Strobl in the journal Men
& Masculinities.
I was invited to undertake two encyclopedia entries related
to my field. The Cambridge Handbook of
Sociology invited me to write the entry for “Popular Culture.” At my
request, two of my graduate students were added as co-authors: Jennifer Kim and
Amanda Turner. The entry is due March 1, 2015. The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies
invited me to complete the entry for “Women as Producers of Culture.” This is
due on March 23, 2015.
I spent much of the semester promoting my last book,
including a lecture at Philadelphia Magazine’s ThinkFest; guest lectures via
Skype with classes at the University of Michigan, Pennsylvania State University
and Chestnut Hill College; and interviews with The List (Australian radio program), and the International Business Times. I actively engaged and grew my
audience using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Academia.edu, Pinterest, Spotify,
Last.fm, Goodreads, Google +, Prezi, and SlideShare.
I attended the American Sociological Association 2014
meetings in San Francisco, as well as the Media Sociology pre-conference. At
the ASA meetings, I presented the paper “Popular Culture and Inequality.” At
the pre-conference, I presented a workshop called “Social Media for Social
Research.”
Teaching
I taught two classes this past semester: Sociology of
Popular Culture and Development of Sociological Thought.
Sociology of Popular Culture is a large lecture class. I had
95 students and worked with one TA (Amanda Turner). The evaluations for this
course were very good and I received a 4.9 out of 5 on the item “the instructor
taught this course well.”
Development of Sociological Thought is a small
writing-intensive seminar. I had 19 students. The evaluations for this course were
very good and I received a 4.7 out of 5 on the item “the instructor taught this
course well.”
I supervised one independent study in the summer of 2014,
for a graduate student named Ryan Murphy. Ryan is a part time student and the
independent study allowed him speed up his studies so that he could complete
preliminary exams in the spring of 2015.
I supervised one independent study in the fall of 2014, for
an undergraduate named Nicholena Honors. Nicholena completed readings in the
Sociology of Culture and the Sociology of Music. She wrote a significant
research paper on the impact of digitization on the music industry.
I attended three training programs related to teaching:
·
WebEx: Getting Started with Online Presentation
and Collaboration, Temple Instructional Support Center, September 2014
·
Using Wikipedia Writing Assignments in Graduate
and Undergraduate Courses, American Sociological Association Academic and Professional
Affairs Webinar Series, December 2014.
·
Digital Learning, Temple College of Liberal
Arts, December 2014.
Service
SERVICE TO TEMPLE
UNIVERSITY
Center for the Humanities at Temple (CHAT) Advisory Board.
The CHAT board met once during the Fall of 2014, and I was present at the meeting.
We discussed long term funding concerns and the organization of the
fellowships, as well as possible programming for undergraduates.
Honors Program, Truman Fellowship Selection Committee. I
spent three hours on the afternoon of December 9th interviewing
potential candidates for the Truman Fellowship and reviewing the candidates
with the other committee members.
SERVICE TO THE COLLEGE
OF LIBERAL ARTS
CLA Graduate Committee Chair. This was my second year on the
CLA graduate committee and my first year as chair. Me met three times during
the semester (9/2, 10/8, and 11/10). We reviewed 35 proposals across the course
of the semester. As chair, I followed up with each proposer to let them know
the outcome of the review and how to proceed further. I coordinated the first
ever (in recent memory) meeting of graduate directors in CLA. I also had 2
additional meetings with faculty members related to issues tied to my work as
chair, and multiple meetings and phone calls with the Assistant Dean of
Graduate Affairs.
CLA Open House Speaker. I was one of two faculty speakers at
the CLA Open House event on Saturday November 8th. I delivered a
talk about Temple alumnus Robert Merton and how his theories can be applied to
contemporary popular culture.
SERVICE TO THE DEPARTMENT
OF SOCIOLOGY
Director of Graduate Studies. This is the role that occupied
the most time and activities for me this semester. My activities in this role included:
·
Planning and running new graduate student
orientation.
·
Holding one meeting with all of the students in
the graduate program, to discuss how the program was going and how we can
improve.
·
Soliciting and supporting nominations for the
Dissertation Completion Grant for Spring 2015. Two students were awarded the
grant: Jessica Brathwaite and Christina Stewart.
·
Responding to inquiries about the MA and PhD
programs (several per week).
·
Updating and posting the Graduate Handbook for
the year.
·
Devising and implementing a new system for
handling all program applications online and through email.
·
Updating and posting the graduate program pages
on the department website.
·
Updating and posting the Sociology MA and PhD
pages for the Temple Graduate Bulletin.
·
Advising the first year students.
·
Convening and chairing two meetings of the
5-member graduate committee for the Department of Sociology.
o The
committee passed a proposal to change the MA application deadline from March 15
to March, effective immediately, and to change the PhD application deadline
from January 15 to December 1, effective next academic year (Fall 2015).
o The
committee began a review of graduate syllabi, looking to assess the level of
training for empirical research.
·
Drafting and submitting a proposal to
restructure the PhD program by changing the credits for two core courses (statistics
and data analysis) from3 credits to 4.
·
Drafting and submitting a proposal to
restructure the MA program by reducing the number of theory requirements and
electives, and by increasing he credits for two core courses (statistics and
data analysis) from3 credits to 4.
·
Attending two meetings of the Collegial Assembly
to speak on behalf of proposed changes to the graduate programs in sociology
that were being voted on at those meetings.
·
Drafting (but not yet submitting) a proposal to
create a new sub-program within the MA that would allow MA students to receive
GIS certification as part of their degree.
·
Creating and maintaining the graduate calendar
for the year, and publishing it through the online department calendar.
·
Soliciting and reviewing Preliminary Exam
Application forms to determine the necessary composition of preliminary exam
committees.
·
Working with the Department Chair to determine
the composition of the preliminary exam committees.
·
Working with Preliminary Exam Committee Chairs
to solicit and finalize reading lists and distribute them to students.
·
Working with the Admissions Chair to plan for
2015 admissions, including planning for university fellowship and other
deadlines.
·
Working with the Department Chair to schedule
graduate course offerings for Fall 2015 and Spring 2016. For this, I maintain a
spreadsheet of course offerings and desired course rotations that is updated
each semester.
·
Working with the Department Chair to determine
TA and adjunct assignments for funded graduate students.
·
Working with the graduate coordinator to
maintain the Student Status Sheet, which tracks graduate student GPAs,
advisors, and progress through the program.
·
Reviewing and signing off on all dissertation
defenses, proposal defenses, advisor changes, requests for independent studies,
requests for outside courses, request for extra employment, etc.
Executive Committee. As Director of Graduate Studies, I am
also a de facto member of the
department’s executive committee. The executive committee met 3 times this
semester (10/1, 11/5, and 12/10) to review sabbatical applications, tenure-line
faculty merit nominations, and teaching-instructional faculty merit
nominations, respectively.
Approved some spending decisions via email discussion.
Idea Incubator (ad hoc funding) Committee. This committee
has been charged with finding new ways to increase the financial support for
the Department of Sociology. We met 4 times this semester (9/3, 10/1, 10/22, and
11/12). We discussed enrollments, summer session, grants, fundraising from
alumnae, and workshops. My specific focus was on fundraising from alumnae and I
investigated and proposed a fundraising plan that will be implemented in Fall
2015.
Reappointment Committee Chair for Tom Waidzunas. I chaired
Professor Waidzunas’s reappointment committee. The committee was tasked with
reviewing his research, teaching, and service. I authored the portion of the
report that focused on research and I edited the entire report. I presented the
report to the faculty promotions committee (all tenured faculty). He was
swiftly reappointed.
Web and Social Media Service. Although we do not have
officially defined roles for maintaining our website or social media, I played
a significant role in these areas for the department. I worked with a colleague
and an administrative coordinator to update the website and then to migrate the
website to a new server (while also preparing to shift from a Contribute
administered site to a Wordpress administered site). I launched the department LinkedIn
account, which now has about 400 connections. I took over the Twitter account
for the department, which has grown from 20 followers to 200.
Advising. I serve as dissertation chair to Jennifer Kim, who
is nearing completion of her dissertation on racial discourse in sketch comedy.
I serve as advisor (and anticipated chair) to two students who are preparing
dissertation proposals. Amanda Turner is studying gender and video games and AJ
Young is studying organizations and politics focusing on the Philadelphia Trans
Health Conference. I serve as advisor to two students who are preparing for
preliminary exams in the area of gender: Colin Hammar and Ryan Murphy. Finally,
I served as advisor to all seven first year graduate students, as part of my
role as graduate director.
SERVICE TO THE
DISCIPLINE
I was a book manuscript reviewer for Routledge and for Rowman & Littlefield and an article
reviewer for Sociological Forum and Sexuality & Culture.
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