Sociology major Elena Clark ’24 was selected as the first place winner in the prestigious Alpha Kappa Delta national undergraduate paper competition for her capstone project titled “‘Freedom of the streets’ or ‘Barriers to success?’ Factors that Predict Attitudes About Homelessness In The United States.” Elena competed against sociology majors from R1s, liberal arts universities, and other schools across the country. Her award comes with a cash prize and travel money to the August 2024 American Sociological Association (ASA) meeting in Montreal, Quebec, where she will participate in the ASA Honors Program, present her paper, and receive her award at the AKD Awards Ceremony. Professor of Sociology Maria Lowe served as Elena’s faculty mentor for this project.

Professor of Sociology Maria Lowe and four sociology seniors attended the Southern Sociological Society annual meeting in New Orleans, LA from April 3-6. Each student also presented their capstone research. Elena Clark ’24 presented her paper titled, “‘Freedom of the streets’ or ‘Barriers to success?’ Factors that Predict Attitudes About Homelessness In The United States.” Liana Collins ’24 presented her paper titled, “Americans’ Attitudes About Second Language Learning in the U.S.” Carson Maxfield ’24 presented his paper titled, “Who is More Likely to Support Conspiracy Theories? Examining the Connections between Education, Gender, and Beliefs in Conspiracy Theory.” Brigit Reese ’24 presented her paper titled, “Hope, Nope, or Cope: Americans’ Perceptions about Climate Change in the 2020s.” In addition, Lowe, Reese, and Maxfield presented the preliminary findings from their faculty-student collaborative project titled, “Racialized Fears in White Spaces: The Frequency with Which Residents Worry About Being Perceived As Suspicious in Their Neighborhood.”

Professor of Sociology Maria Lowe, Luis Romero (2018-19 SU Mellon Teaching Fellow), and Madeline Carrola ’19 published an article titled “‘Racism Masked as Safety Concerns’: The Experiences of Residents of Color With Racialized Coveillance in a Predominantly White Neighborhood” in the journal Sociology of Race and Ethnicity. In their article, the authors coin the term racialized coveillance and discuss ways that residents of color navigate and are negatively impacted by such resident-initiated monitoring practices.

Professor of Sociology Maria Lowe and two sociology students attended the Southern Sociological Society annual meeting in Myrtle Beach, SC. In addition, Angel Ferrales ’25 presented her capstone paper titled, “‘As long as everything is legal and consensual, there’s no problem’: Attitudes that help to predict efforts to ban online subscription sexual content websites,” ThuyMi Phung ’24 presented her capstone paper, “‘There are Always Going to be the Bad People who Access the Guns’: Predictors of Americans’ Perspectives on Gun Violence,” and Maria Lowe and ThuyMi Phung presented their faculty-student collaborative research project titled, “‘Because history has been whitewashed for decades:’ Predictors of Attitudes about Critical Race Theory” Katherine Holcomb ’24 was a co-author on this project.

ThuyMi Phung ’23 received the Southern Sociological Society’s 2023 Howard Odum Award for Best Undergraduate Paper for her capstone paper titled, “‘There are always going to be bad people who access guns’: Predictors of Americans’ Perspectives on Gun Violence.” Maria Lowe Professor of Sociology and Morenz Endowed Professor, supervised ThuyMi’s project during this year’s sociology capstone class.