WSU Sociology Symposium
9th Annual Shocker Sociology Symposium
Join us on Friday, April 11, 2025 as we bring back our annual Sociology SymposiumLocation: Woolsey Hall, room 322
Starting in 2013, the Sociology Department has teamed up with our student organizations, Alpha Kappa Delta and the Shocker Sociology Club, to sponsor a symposium to celebrate Sociology and to showcase the variety of sociological scholarship and class projects happening here at Wichita State. Since the pandemic, however, we haven't been able to offer the symposium opportunity until now thanks to Ms. Jodie Simon, our undergraduate coordinator, and Dr. Twyla Hill, our AKD advisor, who are organizing the 2025 event.
This semi-formal, academic conference-style event provides students taking sociology coursework, with an opportunity to develop their presentation skills in a supportive environment, for those engaged in sociological pursuits to network with faculty and peers, and to explore the ways sociology is practiced through research, applied projects, and experiential learning. This year鈥檚 event will also serve as a preparatory opportunity for students interested in attending the AKD Virtual Symposium.
The 2025 symposium agenda is being drafted and will be posted here soon.
Tentative Schedule
- 9:00 - 9:15 am: Morning Mingle with light refreshments
- 9:15 - 10:15 am: Session 1 - Popular Culture, Symbolism, & Society
- Focus: Sociological insights into the meaning-making power of media, entertainment, and digital subcultures.
- 10:30 - 11:30 am: Session 2 - Institutions, Inequality, & Public Health
- Focus: Structural forces shaping inequality in health, employment, and access to opportunity.
- 11:45 am - 12:45 pm: Internships, Career Pathways, & Applied Sociology Panel
- Focus: Alumni share experiences with real-world sociology 鈥� from community partnerships to early career pathways.
- 12:45 - 1:40 pm: Lunch break
- 1:45 - 2:30 pm: Session 3: Learning Sociology - Student Perspectives & Practice
- Focus: What sociology looks like in the classroom and on campus鈥攕tudent reflections on learning, leadership, and growth.
- 2:45 - 3:45 pm: Session 4: Gender, Bodies, & Digital Culture
- Focus: Gendered expectations, body politics, and identity formation in the age of social media and digital aesthetics.
- 3:45 - 4:00 pm: Closing Remarks & Listening Session
- Focus: Brief wrap-up, information about AKD's virtual Symposium, & opportunity to share feedback.
How to Submit to Future symposiums:
The call for presentations for 2025 have closed, but if you are interested in presenting in a future symposium, when the call for presentations open you will need to submit a 200-300 word summary of your presentation topic. Your summary, or abstract, will need to include your topic and/or research questions, the method or experience (e.g. library research, service-learning reflection, survey research, interviews or observations, internship experience, class experiment, etc), and a brief preview of any findings, main themes, or insights gained from your project or sociological experience.
Possible Presentation Topics: Our symposium highlights all kinds of sociologically relevant research and applied experiences utilizing a range of different methods. For example, students might share experiences completing a service-learning project or engaging in a co-op or internship in our community, findings from a class project, a paper developed using library research, or a research project from any Sociology course or McNair program.
At previous symposiums, students and faculty have presented on a number of different topics. These presentations range from norm violations completed for Intro to Sociology (SOC 111), a content analysis projects and video projects created for Media and Society (SOC 399), an exploration of gentrification patterns utilizing Census data developed in Urban Sociology (SOC 534), a panel on experiences conducting survey research in a course on Measurement and Analysis (SOC 512), and an application of sociological theory to the work of the Kansas Food Bank completed as a service-learning component of a Sociological Theory course. [Note: you can review programs from past symposiums for further examples of presentations. Just scroll further down this page.]
Presentation Options: Students can present individually or in a group in a variety of formats.
- Paper Presentations 鈥� Share findings from research projects, literature reviews, or course papers.
- Project Showcases 鈥� Present an individual or group project completed for a sociology course.
- Panel Discussions 鈥� Collaborate with classmates to discuss and reflect on a shared classroom assignment, learning activity, or sociological concept.
- Experiential Learning Reflections 鈥� Talk about your experiences with hands-on classroom experiments, internships, or service-learning.
Past Symposium Programs:
