Classes Taught

IST 531 Human Information Behavior

This course is concerned with the human context within which information and information technology (I/T) exists. It examines the interaction between the human (or groups of humans) and I/T, and research issues that arise from this interaction. The course introduces the student to relevant theories and theoretical frameworks that are used to enable better understanding of this interaction between humans and I/T. There are three objectives of this course. The first objective is to develop a better theoretical understanding of the human context within which information and information technology exists. This is achieved through critical thinking and discussion of assigned course readings. The second objective is to develop skill in designing and executing research projects that explore the human context of I/T. This is achieved through the research paper. The third objective is to develop skills in the presentation of research results. This is achieved through the oral seminar presentations, the written research paper, and the presentation of the research paper in class.

IST 301 Information in Organizations

This course seeks to develop students who have tools to observe, analyze and evaluate organizations; who can act within organizations to formulate, identify, and solve problems of information transmission, storage and applications; who are prepared to enter workplace organizations knowing the vocabulary, the questions to ask, the sources to search and the methods of analysis to manage organizational change. The successful IST 301 student will be able to do the following; describe and classify the structure of an organization, determine the function of the various parts of an organization. Illustrate the flows of power, lines of control and patterns of decision-making within an organization, predict the relationship between an organization?s characteristics and its? design, use and implementation of Information technology, illustrate the flow and process of information within an organization, and evaluate existing models, methods and theories of organizations as applied to actual organizations.

LIR 414 Labor And Industrial Relations Theory

During this course, students will investigate theories drawn from a variety of disciplines (sociology, political science, economics, public administration, business administration, etc.) to explain organizational processes with a focus on understanding organizational change. This course will also consider the implications of organization theory for our understanding of social processes generally. We constantly work in and with organizations. Be it as part of a work organization, political organization, or educational organization, we constantly confront the dynamics and pathologies of human organizing.

LIR 512 Research Methods, Labor And Industrial Relations

This class is designed to give handson experience in a variety of research methods. Each student is expected to participate in exercises involving different research methods and build on work done in previous sessions. In order to develop good research habits, each student will maintain a detailed log of all activities performed to complete assignments. All assignments are due at the beginning of the class sessions specified. Each week will count as 1/15th of the total grade for the course, including preparation, participation, logging, and completion of assignments.

STS 100 Science and Technology Studies, Ascent of Humanity

This course takes a look at a number of human intellectual and material developments that demonstrate our attempts to understand nature and shape our environment. On one hand we are interested in the sorts of connections we as discoverers have made in the world; on the other, we have also shaped the world to our own ends, and the more major consequences of that are crucial to our understanding of where we go from here.

Sociology 471 Contemporary Social Theory

This course will familiarize you with the major schools of thought in contemporary sociological theory: functionalism, symbolic interactionism, neo-Marxism, and French structuralism/post-structuralism. The course will help you understand the basic assumptions of each theory and the ways they complement or contradict one another.

Sociology 371 Classical Social Theory

This is an undergraduate course in classical sociological theory, with particular emphasis on Marx, Durkheim and Weber. Several minor classical theorists will also be covered.

Sociology 331 Collective Behavior

The study of riots, disturbances, social movements and other forms of contentious collective behavior. Strategies of conflict and conflict resolution are considered. Sociology 331: Collective Behavior and Social Movements This class will focus on the study of collective activity in response to social stresses and social behavior in the forms of panics, crazes, hostile outbursts, and social movements.

Sociology 313 Social Control

The study of informal and formal social control strategies for guiding and monitoring individual behavior and social interaction.? Discussion of key social control agents and institutions, including the family, schools, peers, media, religion and the criminal justice system. It will examine what is meant by social control and how it is practiced and provide a critical comparison of competing theoretical perspectives on deviance and social control, among them, labeling, conflict and control theory. It will review mechanisms of social control of crime and deviance, including formal systems of sanctioning (e.g., criminal justice system) and informal systems (e.g., socialization).

Sociology 312 Criminological Theory; Causes of Crime and Delinquency

A survey of criminological theories exploring why some people are more likely to engage in crime than others and why crime rates vary over time and space and across social groups. Attendant policy issues will also be discussed. This course will familiarize students with the problems of defining crime, consider the extent and nature of crime, and evaluate the major contemporary theories of crime.

Sociology 213 Deviance

Survey of major forms of norm-violating behavior in American society, such as drug and alcohol abuse, mental illness, criminal behavior and sexual deviance. Discussion of sociological explanations of the causes of, and attempts to address, these behaviors.

Sociology 315 Political Sociology

Political sociology is concerned with relations between state and society. Political sociology directs attention toward the social circumstances of politics, how politics is both shaped by and shapes other events in societies. Instead of treating the political arena and its actors as independent from other happenings in a society, political sociology treats that arena as intimately related to all social institutions (adapted from Orum, 1983 in Nash, 2000) Central to the study of Political Sociology are the questions; what is power, who has power, and why?

Sociology 101 Introduction to Sociology

The basic perspectives of sociology include its main frameworks for functionalism, conflict, and symbolic interaction. Substantive areas covered in the course are culture, socialization, social structure, sex roles, bureaucracies, deviant behavior, race relations, social stratification, group dynamics, and social change. This course is a prerequisite for more advanced courses in sociology.

EDL 200 A Global Perspective on Schooling

This exploratory course will introduce students to the role of schools in society through a comprehensive review of culture and traditions. Emphasis will be placed on social issues and trends that impact schooling and the implications and future direction of education. This course takes a historical and comparative perspective on schooling as a social institution. It examines major issues in schooling including the role of schools in cultural transmission, socialization, and social selection. We will examine schooling systems in the industrialized world, the developing world and within North America including different cultural, ethnic, racial and class groups.