Katrina Uhly, 2012 Council for European Studies Fellow
Third-year sociology Ph.D. student Katrina Uhly has been named a 2012 Council for European Studies Fellow. This fellowship, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, includes a stipend of $4,000 to conduct pre-dissertation fieldwork in Europe, as well as travel support for attending and presenting at the 2014 CES International Conference for Europeanists in Washington, D.C. Katrina’s work focuses on the internationalization of higher education, and she will conduct her research in France, looking at the internationalization of one of the pre-eminent grandes écoles, l’Ecole polytechnique (l’X). Through her case study, she hopes to illuminate how particular higher education institutions grapple with the tensions of neoliberal globalization and examine how their internationalization strategies implicate them in reconstituting power relations in terms of class, gender, ethnicity, and national origin, both within and beyond France.
Katrina received her A.B. in English literature and Spanish from Elmira College in 2004 and her M.A. in Educational Leadership: Leadership, Policy, and Politics from Teachers College, Columbia University in 2005. As an undergraduate, she studied abroad at La Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Prior to entering the sociology program at Northeastern, she served as a budget/research assistant in the Dean’s Office at Teachers College, and she was a research fellow in the University of Minnesota’s College of Education & Human Development.
Congratulations
Wallis Adams, MPH, an incoming student in the sociology graduate program will be presenting a poster at an upcoming conference with the American Public Health Association.
Title:Intimate Partner violence, social support, and exposure to community level crime
Abstract: Background: Intimate partner violence [IPV] continues to be a pressing public health concern in virtually all communities in this country, and college students are at especially high risk. While IPV is normally addressed through an interpersonal framework, the purpose of this study is to gain a further understanding of the interplay between IPV and its social and community level context within a college population. Methods: This research analyzed findings from a cross-sectional study of a large, multicultural state university population. Bivariate and multivariate analyzes were conducted on survey responses from undergraduate and graduate students under age 30 (n=932). Results: 14.5% of those surveyed reported experiencing a verbally and/or physically abusive relationship within the past six months. Chi square analyzes revealed a significant relationship between experience of IPV and neighborhood crime (p<.01). IPV victims had lower scores on a social support scale than those who had not recently experienced abuse (p<.01). According to logistic regression analyzes, those experiencing IPV were 2.4 times more likely to have a friend or family member recently injured or killed. Conclusions: For these college students, intimate partner violence is not an isolated problem unrelated to social connections and community characteristics.
While social support can be a protective factor for intimate partner violence, violence within victims’ immediate social network is also common. In order to adequately address this public health concern, it is important to further clarify the relationship between community level and interpersonal level crime.
Graduate Student Awards
Ditmar Coffield Wins AAUW Fellowship C. Ditmar Coffield, a candidate for the Ph.D. in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, has been awarded an American Dissertation Fellowship for 2010-2011 by the American Association of University Women (AAUW). The AAUW American Dissertation Fellowship provides a $20,000 stipend to support women scholars while they are completing the writing of their doctoral dissertations. The oldest and largest of the AAUW’s fellowship and grant programs, the American Fellowships program also provides postdoctoral fellowships and publication grants on a highly competitive basis. (In a typical year, only 6 per cent of applications receive support.)
Ditmar studies the non-traditional educational trajectories of women who are educationally disadvantaged. Her dissertation research focuses on women who are students in adult education and literacy programs. Through an analysis of their educational life histories, Ditmar uses feminist standpoint methodologies to investigate what she argues is the nexus of their non-traditional educational trajectories: the relationships among their educational aspirations and expectations, their persistence in adult education and literacy programs, and their transition to community college. Ditmar’s dissertation committee members are Dr. Gordana Rabrenovic (Chair), Dr. Debra Renee Kaufman, and Dr. Michael J. Handel. Her outside reader is Dr. Lorna Rivera (UMass, Boston).
Before coming to Northeastern to pursue the Ph.D. in sociology, Ditmar earned a BA in sociology and women’s studies from Indiana University and an MA in women’s studies from The Ohio State University, where she taught women’s studies courses and served as a research assistant. After earning the MA, Ditmar taught developmental writing courses to underprepared college students for two years. In addition to teaching a variety of courses at Northeastern, Ditmar has also taught in several adult education and literacy programs in Boston where she is now concluding the data collection phase of her dissertation research in the neighborhoods of Roxbury and South Boston.
Ditmar’s career goal is to secure a tenure-track position in the public university with a joint appointment in sociology and women’s studies. She intends to continue her research on women’s non-traditional educational trajectories and to continue focusing her work as a teacher and mentor on meeting the academic, intellectual, and advising needs of women who are educationally disadvantaged, academically underprepared, and/or professionally underemployed.
Graduate Student Activities and Accomplishments
Amy Lubitow (now completing her dissertation on political mobilization and environmental regulation) has just accepted a tenure-track position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Portland State University. This is a strong, research-intensive department which has environmental sociology at the center of its concerns.
Sarah Cope Nicksa (also completing her dissertation, on bystander responses to violence) has accepted a tenure-track position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminology at Widener University in Philadelphia. Widener has been named a “great college to work for” by the Chronicle of Higher Education, and the #5 school in the country for students interested in community and national service.
Justin Betz, a PhD candidate in our department, has been awarded a HUD Dissertation Fellowship for Academic Year 2011-2012. A nationally competitive award, this fellowship provides a full year’s worth of funding for Justin, enabling his to complete his analysis of racial and ethnic disparities in the distribution of federal housing vouchers in American cities.
Vincent Ferraro, a PhD candidate in our department, has been awarded a Dissertation Completion Fellowship, issued by the Northeastern Provost’s Office, for Spring 2011. Vincent will use this award to complete his dissertation on the link between immigration and rates of crime in U.S. urban area.
Indigo Berthea, a PhD student, presented a paper at the American Anthropological Association conference on November 18, 2010 in New Orleans. The topic of her paper was “She Wore Many Hats: Zora Neale Hurston and the Making of Black, Feminist, and Diasporic Anthropology.” The abstract for the paper can be found Hurston Dunham and the Future of Anthropology.pdf. (link to pdf)
Betul Balkan, a PhD student, was invited to present a paper at the Islam and Secularism in Contemporary Turkey workshop that was organized by Mediterranean Studies Forum at Stanford University on November 15-16. The title of her paper was “Tension Between Secularism and Islam in Turkey: The Attitudes of Turkish Immigrants in Houston.” Balkan’s paper was about religious practices and the political opinions of Muslim Turks living in the Houston metropolitan area.
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Graduate News
Katrina Uhly, 2012 Council for European Studies Fellow
Third-year sociology Ph.D. student Katrina Uhly has been named a 2012 Council for European Studies Fellow. This fellowship, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, includes a stipend of $4,000 to conduct pre-dissertation fieldwork in Europe, as well as travel support for attending and presenting at the 2014 CES International Conference for Europeanists in Washington, D.C. Katrina’s work focuses on the internationalization of higher education, and she will conduct her research in France, looking at the internationalization of one of the pre-eminent grandes écoles, l’Ecole polytechnique (l’X). Through her case study, she hopes to illuminate how particular higher education institutions grapple with the tensions of neoliberal globalization and examine how their internationalization strategies implicate them in reconstituting power relations in terms of class, gender, ethnicity, and national origin, both within and beyond France.
Katrina received her A.B. in English literature and Spanish from Elmira College in 2004 and her M.A. in Educational Leadership: Leadership, Policy, and Politics from Teachers College, Columbia University in 2005. As an undergraduate, she studied abroad at La Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Prior to entering the sociology program at Northeastern, she served as a budget/research assistant in the Dean’s Office at Teachers College, and she was a research fellow in the University of Minnesota’s College of Education & Human Development.
Congratulations
Wallis Adams, MPH, an incoming student in the sociology graduate program will be presenting a poster at an upcoming conference with the American Public Health Association.
Title: Intimate Partner violence, social support, and exposure to community level crime
Abstract: Background: Intimate partner violence [IPV] continues to be a pressing public health concern in virtually all communities in this country, and college students are at especially high risk. While IPV is normally addressed through an interpersonal framework, the purpose of this study is to gain a further understanding of the interplay between IPV and its social and community level context within a college population. Methods: This research analyzed findings from a cross-sectional study of a large, multicultural state university population. Bivariate and multivariate analyzes were conducted on survey responses from undergraduate and graduate students under age 30 (n=932). Results: 14.5% of those surveyed reported experiencing a verbally and/or physically abusive relationship within the past six months. Chi square analyzes revealed a significant relationship between experience of IPV and neighborhood crime (p<.01). IPV victims had lower scores on a social support scale than those who had not recently experienced abuse (p<.01). According to logistic regression analyzes, those experiencing IPV were 2.4 times more likely to have a friend or family member recently injured or killed. Conclusions: For these college students, intimate partner violence is not an isolated problem unrelated to social connections and community characteristics.
While social support can be a protective factor for intimate partner violence, violence within victims’ immediate social network is also common. In order to adequately address this public health concern, it is important to further clarify the relationship between community level and interpersonal level crime.
Graduate Student Awards
Ditmar Coffield Wins AAUW Fellowship
C. Ditmar Coffield, a candidate for the Ph.D. in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, has been awarded an American Dissertation Fellowship for 2010-2011 by the American Association of University Women (AAUW). The AAUW American Dissertation Fellowship provides a $20,000 stipend to support women scholars while they are completing the writing of their doctoral dissertations. The oldest and largest of the AAUW’s fellowship and grant programs, the American Fellowships program also provides postdoctoral fellowships and publication grants on a highly competitive basis. (In a typical year, only 6 per cent of applications receive support.)
Ditmar studies the non-traditional educational trajectories of women who are educationally disadvantaged. Her dissertation research focuses on women who are students in adult education and literacy programs. Through an analysis of their educational life histories, Ditmar uses feminist standpoint methodologies to investigate what she argues is the nexus of their non-traditional educational trajectories: the relationships among their educational aspirations and expectations, their persistence in adult education and literacy programs, and their transition to community college. Ditmar’s dissertation committee members are Dr. Gordana Rabrenovic (Chair), Dr. Debra Renee Kaufman, and Dr. Michael J. Handel. Her outside reader is Dr. Lorna Rivera (UMass, Boston).
Before coming to Northeastern to pursue the Ph.D. in sociology, Ditmar earned a BA in sociology and women’s studies from Indiana University and an MA in women’s studies from The Ohio State University, where she taught women’s studies courses and served as a research assistant. After earning the MA, Ditmar taught developmental writing courses to underprepared college students for two years. In addition to teaching a variety of courses at Northeastern, Ditmar has also taught in several adult education and literacy programs in Boston where she is now concluding the data collection phase of her dissertation research in the neighborhoods of Roxbury and South Boston.
Ditmar’s career goal is to secure a tenure-track position in the public university with a joint appointment in sociology and women’s studies. She intends to continue her research on women’s non-traditional educational trajectories and to continue focusing her work as a teacher and mentor on meeting the academic, intellectual, and advising needs of women who are educationally disadvantaged, academically underprepared, and/or professionally underemployed.
Graduate Student Activities and Accomplishments
Amy Lubitow (now completing her dissertation on political mobilization and environmental regulation) has just accepted a tenure-track position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Portland State University. This is a strong, research-intensive department which has environmental sociology at the center of its concerns.
Sarah Cope Nicksa (also completing her dissertation, on bystander responses to violence) has accepted a tenure-track position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminology at Widener University in Philadelphia. Widener has been named a “great college to work for” by the Chronicle of Higher Education, and the #5 school in the country for students interested in community and national service.
Justin Betz, a PhD candidate in our department, has been awarded a HUD Dissertation Fellowship for Academic Year 2011-2012. A nationally competitive award, this fellowship provides a full year’s worth of funding for Justin, enabling his to complete his analysis of racial and ethnic disparities in the distribution of federal housing vouchers in American cities.
Vincent Ferraro, a PhD candidate in our department, has been awarded a Dissertation Completion Fellowship, issued by the Northeastern Provost’s Office, for Spring 2011. Vincent will use this award to complete his dissertation on the link between immigration and rates of crime in U.S. urban area.
Indigo Berthea, a PhD student, presented a paper at the American Anthropological Association conference on November 18, 2010 in New Orleans. The topic of her paper was “She Wore Many Hats: Zora Neale Hurston and the Making of Black, Feminist, and Diasporic Anthropology.” The abstract for the paper can be found Hurston Dunham and the Future of Anthropology.pdf. (link to pdf)
Betul Balkan, a PhD student, was invited to present a paper at the Islam and Secularism in Contemporary Turkey workshop that was organized by Mediterranean Studies Forum at Stanford University on November 15-16. The title of her paper was “Tension Between Secularism and Islam in Turkey: The Attitudes of Turkish Immigrants in Houston.” Balkan’s paper was about religious practices and the political opinions of Muslim Turks living in the Houston metropolitan area.