Welcome to Your Home for Critical Humanist, Activist Scholarship

Abstract

As a young 20-something, I never dreamt I would be a “sociologist,” however sociologist might be defined in academia. Yet by the age of 26, I found myself in a PhD program and dedicated to graduate studies and, at the same time, involved with several social justice movements. I worked with undergraduates, other graduate students, and community members on a range of campaigns and programming such as demanding more transparency on issues of sexual assault on campus, fighting Virginia’s state constitutional marriage amendment that said marriage was “only a union between one man and one woman,”, organizing a course dedicated to queer theory and requesting more resources for the LGBTQ center, creating a non-profit to help community college students transfer to a 4-year college, and initiating the campaign to create an Ella Baker Day. Needless to say, faculty knew that I was involved in many other activities that they considered “outside” of sociology. Thus, I was told in various ways by various people that I had to forgo the activism and “be more serious” with my graduate studies, even though my grades were stellar, and I reached every department benchmark. As I neared graduation, I learned that I loved to teach and that students responded positively to my teaching, so I applied for professor positions. But when the reality of the academic job market started settling in, one professor told me that I should give up on the goal of being a professor as I was too much of an activist and would never fit in. While I think this professor meant this advice as a “harsh truth” that she felt compelled to say, it made no sense to me. How was it that a discipline that I saw as designed to study social problems and provide for pathways of change would not welcome someone who also considered herself an activist?