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Home : About Us

About Us

Chris Uggen, Department Chair

Chair's Message

On July 1, I turned the page on my three-year term as chair – and opened a new page to a second term. These years were marked by real action and high-impact research and teaching in Minnesota sociology. We’ve built a shared vision, crafted a plan to realize it, and taken steps to successfully execute this plan. We’ve gone from bidding for major journals to actually publishing them from Minnesota, building contexts.org into one of the top sociology destinations on the web. We’ve gone from committing to principles of excellence and diversity to actively recruiting the very best faculty and students to our community. And, through the generous support of a remarkable donor, we’ve established the first endowed chair in the Department’s 107 years.

But this is no time for hubris or complacency. While Minnesota sociology is clearly moving from good to great, we have not yet attained the critical mass that will sustain our excellence over the next decade, much less the next 107 years. Moreover, the Great Recession is forcing hard choices upon universities and funders, as well as our communities, students, and families. Yet these economic challenges also imbue our work with even greater meaning and purpose -- we aren’t just pushing paper these days -- and the stakes are high for sociology and for our department.

And while we are accomplishing much collectively, we remain a community of amazing individual scholars, producing big books, important articles, and major grants. The breadth and vitality of our intellectual community is enacted each Tuesday at 4 in our lively department workshop and celebrated each spring in our Sociological Research Institute. This year, we’re delighted to welcome another terrific scholar to our faculty, Assistant Professor Gabrielle Ferrales of Northwestern, who will make bold contributions to our historic strengths in the sociology of law and criminology. Our graduate program is also flourishing, with students garnering prestigious awards and fellowships to support their research and job placements in top sociology departments throughout the world.

In short, I share the conclusions of the external review committee that recently evaluated our department: Minnesota has become a “top-tier department with a fine record of research productivity, a vibrant intellectual community, and an impressive record of service … well-positioned to become one of the leading departments in the nation.” We are also a community of scholars endeavoring to conduct research that matters. We are engaged in teaching at a great public university, engaged in the communities around us, and, first and foremost, engaged in conducting first-rate sociological research.