Dear all,

In light of the recent letter you received from three graduate students who left the
program in 2018, I write to let you know the many steps that the department has
taken in recent years to invite feedback, propose solutions, and address graduate
student concerns—including those related to issues of diversity and inclusion—since I
took over as chair of the department in July 2017.

As you all know, there are multiple ways that graduate students can convey their
concerns –– directly to the chair or DGS, or to any faculty member or graduate
representative who relays it to the chair or DGS, to name a few. When we receive
such a concern, as the following pages show, we work assiduously to address it
together in the spirit of bettering our department.

I also write to recognize, with deep appreciation, the dedication and hard work of my
faculty colleagues, including current and former Directors of Graduate Studies, to
engage in the continuous improvement of the program and whose contributions
include many of the initiatives detailed below. The mischaracterizations of their and
others’ efforts and integrity are both unfounded and unfair.

We have been working very hard to cultivate an inclusive atmosphere for our faculty
and our students and I thank you all for engaging in the necessary self-reflection and
constructive changes needed to ensure that all people feel welcomed and supported,
regardless of identity or background.

Janet Wilmoth, who takes over as Chair on July 1, 2020, and Amy Lutz, who continues
as DGS this coming year, are both deeply committed to continue the work to address
systemic inequalities of different types. This is difficult, though rewarding, work that
requires our ongoing attention, and I am more than confident that our department
will continue to make progress on these issues in the coming years.

Best,

Prema
HIGHLIGHTS OF EFFORTS TO PROMOTE GRADUATE STUDENT SUCCESS AND TO ADDRESS
STUDENT CONCERNS AROUND MARGINALIZATION, RACISM, AND TRAINING

In April 2017, before assuming the position of Chair, I invited graduate students to
share with me their concerns and what they would like to see happen regarding
graduate student programming in the next three years. Later that month, I received a
letter addressed to all Sociology faculty containing non-specific accusations of
inequities within the department related to social identities with a list of suggestions
for program improvements (many of which are addressed below).

Over the following year, Jennifer Karas Montez in her role as Director of Graduate
Studies and I as Chair prioritized an ongoing dialogue with graduate students in a
variety of formats ranging from open meetings for all students, to a meeting for all
international students in the department, and one-on-one meetings. Complaints about
racialization, marginalization, and exclusion (from both students of color and white
students) came up many times throughout the year. Based on these conversations and
the earlier letter, we revamped the graduate program in fundamental ways. This work
continued in the subsequent year.

Acclimating

To address concerns that students from working class and/or minority backgrounds,
many of whom were first-generation college students needed more help acclimating
to graduate school, we instituted several changes under the direction of the DGS,
such as:
 Revamped a semester-long Pro-Seminar to cover multiple areas of professional
development, including sessions on demystifying grad school, time
management, and preparing for research-focused academic careers, teaching-
focused academic careers, and non-academic careers.
 Created new student orientation documents, in collaboration with current
students, including digitized versions, with information on housing,
transportation, and tips on navigating the first year.
 Revived the SGSO, which had become relatively inactive in 2017-2018. Since
then, they have organized a variety of social and academic events, including a
graduate student mini conference.
 We now do not assign first year graduate students to courses with discussion
sections to ease the stress of transitioning to graduate school.
 Funded an annual student-only social outing

Curriculum and Skills Based Training

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  Organized four Methods Workshops during AY 2017-18 to provide additional
methods training and professionalization opportunities. (These have been
scaled back due to lack of attendance.)
 We started offering an Academic Writing course over Maymester to provide
more training in academic skills such as article and grant proposal writing.
 To address the concern about a lack of diversity in our graduate courses, we
started the practice of rotating our graduate seminars at the 800 level, so all
our focal areas are covered on a regular basis.
 After soliciting feedback, graduate students in charge of the Future
Professoriate Program are offering sessions on teaching and various other types
of skill-building, with our faculty providing mentoring at these sessions.
 We redesigned the comprehensive exam process so that students have a
broader understanding of the discipline and be in a stronger position on the job
market. The exam now requires students to pass exams in two topical areas,
one of which must be a focal area of the department.

Advising

 Assigned incoming students to faculty as well as student mentors based on

similar substantive interests.
 Simplified key, text-heavy information in the graduate handbook into easy-to-
understand charts to help graduate students and their advisors with common
questions (e.g., Diagram of Timeline and Grade Requirements, Have I
Completed my Requirements).
 Multiple faculty started holding regular “labs” with grad student advisees, as a
way to build community and provide additional forms of training and support.
Recruitment and Funding

The department began the practice of sending departmental brochures to all McNair
programs in the country as well as Historically Black Colleges and Universities and
Hispanic-serving Institutions that grant Masters degrees in sociology. This helped to
increase the diversity of our pool of applicants (several said that they applied because
they saw the brochure).

In addition, significant attention has been given to increase student funding support:

 Starting from the cohort in the 2019-2020 AY, we transitioned to a guaranteed

five-year funding for our incoming students. This helps us to recruit diverse
students, decrease the time to degree, and increase our degree completion
rates.
 Expanded the number of students on fellowship through a variety of means,
including a three-year REDF fellowship, STEM fellowship, University fellowship,

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 McNair fellowship, Dissertation writing fellowship. Many of these are students
of color or first-generation college students. We also have more Research
Assistant lines to draw on from faculty grants.
 An annual award of $1,000 for best graduate student paper was established in
2018 in memory of Bill Pooler with funds directed to the department from his
family.

Silo-busting

To create an intellectual community in the department (a long-standing demand) and

to facilitate graduate student understanding of faculty research, we initiated a
monthly colloquium series. This has increased conversations among faculty and
students working in different substantive areas. We now have a much better
understanding and appreciation of our work, across many of the traditional
boundaries (e.g. quantitative versus qualitative). This process helped us identify eight
new focal areas, which are now tied to comprehensive exams.

Listening
We continue to include a diverse group of student representatives within department
meetings, the graduate program committee, and hiring committees, and we continue
support the Sociology Graduate Student Association and hold regular meetings
between the DGS and graduate students, all of which provide multiple avenues
through which students provide input to, and share concerns with, the department.

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