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MSSA 2011 Annual Meeting Theme

MSSA Forum: January

Greetings members of the Mid-South Sociological Association. 

  • First – I wanted to remind everyone that the MSSA Executive Committee will be meeting in Little Rock on February 5th.  So, if there is something that you think the committee needs to discuss, please drop a note to MSSA President Roma Hanks at rhanks@usouthal.edu.
  • Second, in case you missed it, MSSA member Dr. David Knottnerus has two new publications:
    • Ulsperger, Jason and J. David Knottnerus.  2011.  Elder Care Catastrophe: Rituals of Abuse in Nursing Homes – and What You can Do About It.  Paradigm Publishers.
    • Knottnerus, J. David.  2011.  Rituals as a Missing Link: Sociology, Structural Ritualization Theory, and Research.  Paradigm Publishers.
  • If you have any publications, awards or events you would like us to announce, please just drop me a note and I’ll include it in the next posting.
  • Finally, below you will find a discussin of the 2011 MSSA Annual Meeting theme provided by President-Elect and Program Chair Dr. Mark Konty.  Please be sure to pay attention to the discussion about how papers are to be submitted for the conference.

2011 MSSA Annual Meeting

October 26-29, 2011 - Doubletree Hotel - Little Rock, AR

Southern Exceptionalism:
The Good, the Bad, and the “Peculiar”

Compare the southern states to any other region in the United States, and by nearly every quantitative and qualitative indicator The South is exceptional – ranking either at the top or the bottom of the comparison.  Some of these are “good”.  Every uniquely American musical form – blues, jazz, bluegrass, country, rock-n-roll – has its roots in The South.  The South is known for its unique cuisines that influence American cooking.  The South is also a very spiritual and patriotic region, reporting the highest rates of religious and military participation.  With the good goes the “bad”.  The South ranks highest in poverty, crime, incarceration, unemployment, and divorce.  Then there is the “peculiar” – that which is or has been unique – beginning with what used to be called The South’s “peculiar institution”: southern slavery.  Sociologists such as Loïc Wacquant and David Garland explore how The South’s institution of slavery spun off further “peculiar institutions” such as Jim Crow, segregation, the urban ghetto, incarceration and modern capital punishment.  With Southern Exceptionalism, how much of what is peculiar to The South explains the good and the bad?

 Keynote: Heidi Beirich, Ph.D.,
Director of Research, Southern Poverty Law Center 

This year, paper submissions should be sent to topic organizers who will collect all the papers submitted on their broad topic area and arrange them into individual sessions. Below is a list of the topics and the topic organizers.  There will also be some Presidential Panels on music and non-profit organizations.  Any suggestions for other panels or topics are welcome.  

If anyone is unsure of where their paper fits, they can contact the topic organizers or contact me, Dr. Mark Konty, at MSSA11@roadrunner.com and we will find a place for it.  

I still need organizers for Inequality/Stratification and for Race/Ethnicity.  So please contact me at MSSA11@roadrunner.com if you are interested in organizing.

Award Winners, Election Results, a Fantastic Conference and Member Kudos

[sorry for the repost. . .caught a typo]

Greetings Members of the Mid-South Sociological Association

The  Baton Rouge conference was a rousing success with intriguing papers, wonderfully interactive sessions, and informative plenary events.  Read Admiral Clara Cobb, of the US Public Health Service, provided a thought provoking talk and Friday’s Distinguished Panel seems to have sparked excitement for community engagement.  We reflected with fondness upon our times with friends and colleagues who are now gone – most recently Drs. Cliff Bryant and Larry Hall – and then savored each others company at our annual banquet.   To all of you who attended, thank you for making it such an exciting affair, and for all those who didn’t make it - trust me when I say that your absence was noted and you were missed. While the minutes of the meetings will be posted to the website soon enough, we thought we should notify everyone of award and election winners, of the dates for the 2011 conference to be held in Little Rock, Arkansas, and of a few kudos to MSSA members.

Award Winners

Stanford Lyman Memorial Scholarship

Racist Medicine and Contested Citizenships: Migration Of Indian Physicians To The United States And The Paradox Of Return

Wasudha Bhatt, University of Texas at Austin

Graduate Paper Award

The Second Shift and the Nonstandard Shift: How Working Nonstandard Hours Affects the Relationship between Divisions of Household Labor and Fairness Perceptions

Katie James, University of Georgia

 Undergraduate Paper Award

Parental Incarceration:  Broader Implications for Children of Offenders Educational Aspirations and Achievements

Devon Tyron Wade, Louisiana Statue University

 

Election Results

  • President Elect: Mark Konty
  • Vice President Elect: Ruth Chananie-Hill
  • Chair of Nominations: Kim Davies
  • Chair of Committee on Professions: David Knottnerus
  • Chair of Committee on Women: Shirley Rainey-Brown.
  • Chair of Committee on Small and Community Colleges: Kathy Smith and Anita Bledsoe-Garner

In order to increase the number of members who vote in the elections (there were only 32 voting members this year) we will now be doing online voting when the time comes.

Between now and then, however, please send your nominations for President-Elect, Vice President, the Chair of the Committee on Minorities, the Chair of the Committee on Membership, and the Chair of the Nomination Committee to Nomination Chair Kim Davies.

 

2011 Annual MSSA Conference

Conference Theme:  Southern Exceptionalism

October 26-29, 2011
Little Rock, Arkansas

Doubletree Hotel
424 West Markham
Little Rock, Arkansas  72201
(501) 372-4371

 

Member Kudos 

Finally, when I post things to the website, I’d love to be able to highlight the many accomplishments of our members.  So, if you, or a member you know, recently published an article or a book, gave a talk, received an award and/or put on a special event, please send the information to me so that I can include it in the Member Kudos.  This month, I found out that our Chair of the Committee on the Profession has been a rather busy and productive scholar lately: 

  • Knottnerus, J. David. Forthcoming. Ritual as a Missing Link: Sociology, Structural Ritualization Theory and Research (November 2010). Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers.
  • Ulsperger, Jason S. and J. David Knottnerus. Forthcoming. Elder Care Catastrophe: Rituals of Abuse in Nursing Homes – and What You Can Do About It. (November 2010). Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers.
  • Varner, Monica K. and J. David Knottnerus. Forthcoming. American Golf and the Development of Civility: Rituals of Etiquette in the World of Golf (August 2010).  Koln, Germany: LAP Lambert Academic Publishing.

 

Well, that’s it for now.  As promised, we are going to do our best not to abuse this newsletter function and will keep the posts down to only about one per month or everyother month depending on what’s going on.  If you want to discuss what’s happening, ask questions or just converse with other MSSA members, don’t forget about the MSSA-L Listserve.

2010 MSSA Conference Final Program

Recently sent out to the membership and posted to the website is the final program for the MSSA.

Sessions/presentations are listed by day, room, and in the index by session.

Per MSSA policy and practice, we cannot guarantee a laptop and projector in every presentation room. We have made every effort to secure presentation equipment from universities in the area of the conference. Three sets have been located so far. These will be available on a first come, first served basis from the registration desk.

We have five concurrent sessions — four paper and one breakout/roundtable. If a laptop and projector are essential to your presentation, you may want to bring your own equipment. Alternatively, you may bring handouts. Each room can accommodate at least 30 participants; the larger rooms hold 50. You are probably safe bringing 25-30 handouts for most sessions.

Looking forward to seeing you in Baton Rouge!

Roma Hanks
2010 Program Chair

Updated MSSA Preliminary Program

Greetings everyone, if you go to the 2010 Conference page on our website, you will find the MSSA 2010 Preliminary Program Update.   Please take some time to re-read through the preliminary program, even if you have already done so, as a few of the times and sessions have changed.  You’ll also find that some very interesting sessions have been added as well as some exciting speakers.

If you have any issues or concerns, please direct them to Dr. Roma Hanks at rhanks@usouthal.edu.

We’ll try to keep you up to date as more about the conference comes up.

Looking forward to seeing everyone there

Timothy B. Gongaware, PhD
Vice- President
Editor, MSSA Forum

MSSA Remembers and Reflects: Drs. Clifton D. Bryant and Larry Hall

MSSA Remembers and Reflects

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born and a time to die; A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; A time to mourn, and a time to dance.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-4

The great book of ages stated it best.
Let us celebrate the life, contributions, talent and time of two late great professors.

Dr. Clifton Dow Bryant was the President of MSSA, 1981-1982. He served the organization well-indeed very well. His contributions to students and colleagues at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and the disciplines literature are legendary.

Dr. Larry Hall, Spring Hill College, made excellent contributions to MSSA as well as students and colleagues for decades. He gave unstintingly of time and talent to the discipline of sociology, making it stronger and relevant to the changing times.

Both scholars/leaders gave yeoman service to MSSA.
It is fitting that we “Remember and Reflect”.

Respectfully,
Ollie Christian, President
MSSA

For more information about Dr. Clifton Dow Bryant, please visit:

The Roanoak Times

Corrected Update: Room Reservation Deadline Extended to Wednesday, September 15, 2010

[The earlier post had the wrong deadline date - completely my error, and I apologize for any confusion]

The Crown Plaza Hotel in Baton Rouge, where we are holding the 36th Annual MSSA Conference, has agreed to extend our deadline for reserving rooms until Wednesday, September 15, 2010.  So, if you haven’t already made reservations, you still have time to get our conference rate.

Reservations can be made by calling 1-(800)678-4065 or by going to http://www.crownplaza.com/execcenterbr .
The Mid-South Group Identification Code is: MSA.

Two quick notes, please make sure that they have marked your reservation with the group code MSA so that we get the credits for the room nights and so that you will avoid being overcharged when you check out.  Also, I was informed (and confirmed) that they do not currently have any rooms available for Saturday night – please take that into account when making plans.

Hotel Room Reservation Deadline is today, 9-13-10

JUST A REMINDER THAT ROOM RESERVATIONS MUST BE MADE BY TODAY SEPTEMBER 13, 2010.

The 36th Annual Meeting of the Mid-South Sociological Association is being held October 13 –16, 2010, at the Crown Plaza Baton Rouge, 4728 Constitution Avenue, Baton Rouge, LA 70808.

Reservations can be made by calling 1-(800)678-4065 or by going to http://www.crownplaza.com/execcenterbr .
The Mid-South Group Identification Code is: MSA.

Due to a number of events going on in Baton Rouge during our conference, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to extend our reserved block of rooms past today.  As of this morning, we have filled 148 room nights (out of the 190 we said we would fill), but they will only hold the remaining rooms in our block until the end of the day today.  So, while they may not be available tomorrow, rooms are still available today at our contracted nightly room rates of:   Standard Occupancy – Single $115.00, Double $115.00, Triple $115.00, Quad $115.00, Plaza Rooms $169.00 for Double beds & King bed plus applicable State and Local taxes.

We expect yet another successful and exciting program of activities in 2010. The theme of this year’s meeting is “Sociological Perspectives: Essential Science to Understand Health and Eliminate Health Disparities,” and as you can see from the preliminary program (available on our website) there will be quite a bit going on.  Some adjustments are currently being made to the program, and we will let you know as soon as an update is released.

Conference Program and a New look for the MSSA Website

Greeting Members of the Mid-South Sociological Association,

First, I am excited to announce that Program Chair Roma Hanks has a preliminary program for the 2010 MSSA Annual Conference that will be held in Baton Rouge.  The program can be found on our website by going to www.midsouthsoc.org.  All questions or concerns should be directed to Dr. Hanks at rhanks@usouthal.edu

In other exciting news, if you go to our website you’re going to notice that we now have a new look and some additional functions.   This could not have been done without the web design expertise of Heather Hopkins who works at Augusta State University in Georgia.  I would encourage all of you to look through the site.  Take some time to see what’s there, and think about what else you would like us to include and how we’ve organized the information.  Send any comments, critiques, corrections and ideas directly to me at gongawar.timo@uwlax.edu

An important new function (one that you are seeing now) are the Announcements that will be emailed directly to you from the website.  Whenever the MSSA has news to report (like this one) we will post them to the website.  The post will then be sent as an email directly to the entire membership – in fact, I will be sending  this message as the first such Announcement to be sent by the website.  Since the emailed announcement will not allow replies, discussions will still occur on this MSSA Listserve.

Finally, please join me in thanking our outgoing Webmaster, Dave Witt, for all of his work on our website.  Through his efforts we were one of the first regional associations to create and maintain a website.  His support for this venture over the years, and as we made the recent changes, is greatly appreciated. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to send me an email.

Take care,
Tim

Timothy B. Gongaware, PhD
Mid-South Sociological Association
Vice President

Reserve your room for the 2010 conference in Baton Rouge

Mid-South Sociological Association
Office of the Secretary-Treasurer
Jamie P. Baird
Morehouse College: Unit #140138 • 830 Westview Drive, SW, Atlanta, GA 30314
Phone: (404)522-2657 • Fax: (404)522-9346 • email: jbaird@morehouse.edu

August 12, 2010

Dear MSSA colleagues:

The 36th Annual Meetings of the Mid-South Sociological Association will be held at the Crown Plaza Baton Rouge, 4728 Constitution Avenue, Baton Rouge, LA 70808. The meeting dates are: October 13 –16, 2010. Our contracted nightly room rates are: Standard Occupancy – Single $115.00, Double $115.00, Triple $115.00, Quad $115.00, Plaza Rooms $169.00 for Double beds & King bed plus applicable State and Local taxes..

ROOM RESERVATIONS MUST BE MADE BY SEPTEMBER 13, 2009.

Reservations can be made by calling 1-(800)678-4065. The Mid-South Group Identification Code is: MSA, or by going to http://www.crownplaza.com/execcenterbr .

We expect yet another successful and exciting program of activities in 2010. The theme of this year’s meeting is “Sociological Perspectives: Essential Science to Understand Health and Eliminate Health Disparities.”

The Chair of Local Arrangements, Dr. Thomas Durant, has some interesting activities planned for participants.

Roma S. Hanks, our Program Chair and President-elect, is in the process of preparing the Annual meeting. A summary program and additional program information will be available on the website soon. Also, the preliminary program and other meeting activities will be on our website, www.midsouthsoc.org. Visit the site regularly for updates.

The success of our meetings depends on attendance and participation of our members. I urge you to attend the meetings and stay at the Crown Plaza Baton Rouge Hotel. Please encourage those who are not current members of the Association, to join MSSA and participate in our activities.

An Annual Meeting Registration/Membership Application Form is on our website, but this does not mean that we have online registration. Please note that all participants must be dues-paid members of the Association and must pre-register for the annual meetings.

Hope you had a wonderful and productive summer.

Look forward to seeing you in Baton Rouge.

Yours sincerely,

Jamie P. Baird
MSSA Secretary-Treasurer

2010 Lyman Book Award nominations needed

The Stanford M. Lyman Distinguished Book Award

It is with great pleasure that we open nominations for the 2010 Stanford M. Lyman Distinguished Book Award.  This award was established in memory of Stan Lyman in order to honor MSSA members whose recently published work makes a significant contribution to the field of sociology.  Please consider nominating one of your colleagues for this prestigious award.  Keep in mind the following:

  • The book must be an original work (and can be sole authored or co-authored)
  • The work must have been published within the last three years (thus a book published between 2007 and 2010 is eligible)
  • Textbooks and edited editions are not eligible
  • The author must be a current member in the Mid-South Sociological Association, and must have been a member for at least three years.

Be sure to include the following in your nomination:

  • The complete citation for the book (author/s, date published, title, publisher)
  • Author/s contact information (email, affiliation, phone number if possible).
  • Publisher contact information (e.g., contact person, phone number, and ISBN)
  • A brief description of the book and why you believe it should be nominated.

Nominations should be sent (via email) to:

Dr. Thomas J. Durant

Louisiana State University

socdua@lsu.edu

or call at: 225-766-8233

The deadline for nominations is June 1, 2010.

Announcements

Contact MSSA

Correspondence can be sent to:

MSSA
Morehouse College: Unit 140138
830 Westview Drive
Atlanta, GA 30314

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