Sociology has a rich and diverse heritage and continues to be a powerful analytic tool as we struggle to understand the complexities of daily life. The Sociology Department at Wake Forest is in many respects representative of that diversity, both in the faculty that we have and in the courses that are taught. Working within the teacher/scholar ideal that is discussed more fully below, we seek to provide students with a range of critical thinking skills, familiarity with quantitative and qualitative research methodologies, and an opportunity to study topical areas in depth. We hope to stimulate within our students what C. Wright Mills called a ‘sociological imagination’ along with the requisite methodological rigor and theoretical insight that guides the best social science.

Our faculty are researchers whose enquiries encompass key fields within sociology, from studies of social problems such as inequality, family violence and racial disparities to organizational problems involving the business community and regional socio-economic development issues. We have faculty who work on higher education, litigation in the health care industry, labor relations and post-war American religion. And through the work of the Reynolda Gerontology Program that is housed in the Department, our studies of later-life migration patterns continue to be the focus of national attention.

The same faculty is active in professional associations, serving on editorial boards of scholarly journals and several have been the recipients of distinguished awards. Some use their expertise to consult in the local community; others have been active in non-profit organizations. In each case, they are recognized for their unique skill sets and enthusiasm for taking the subject into the public sphere. Two Journals ( Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences and Sociology of Religion) are housed in the Department and edited by Department members; a third (Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management) is co-edited by one of our faculty.

Our courses cover a wide range of areas. We probe in depth social problems, gender issues, crime and deviance, the role of religion in contemporary society, popular culture, sport, and the institutional foundations of capitalist systems to name just a few of our offerings. In each case our aim is to engage students in developing critical thinking skills, expose them to current social science research in such areas, and encourage their ability to conceptualize issues in ways that foster methodological rigor.

A measure of our success in these endeavors can be seen in the honors won by our majors and in the sorts of careers and jobs taken by our graduates. For example, in 2005 Wake Forest’s only Truman Fellowship, a prestigious and competitive national award established by Congress that fully funds five years of graduate study anywhere in any subject, was won by one of our students. In recent years our majors upon graduation have pursued legal careers; become social workers and community activists; worked for national consulting companies; taught underprivileged children; worked in the financial community as analysts and bankers, pursued doctorates in Sociology, higher degrees in business, counseling, criminal justice, health care administration and medicine; and directed non-profit organizations. This is just a snapshot of the varied career paths that our majors have taken and is indicative of the broad applicability of the discipline to occupational choices.

Inevitably it is impossible to summarize all of the pertinent aspects of the Department in such a brief introduction, Therefore we encourage you to contact faculty individually or our administrative assistant, Mrs. Joan Habib [habibjm@wfu.edu or 336.758.5495] if you have further questions.