Sociology News is the official newsletter of the WSU Department of Sociology.

Welcome to the Fall 2024 issue of the Sociology News!

In this issue, we introduce a new graduate student editor, Safiya Hafiz. Safiya is completing her master’s degree this semester with a focus on juvenile justice issues. Coincidently, the successful MA defense occurred this morning as I am writing this introduction!  

As the faculty co-editor, I would like to thank Shekinah Hoffman for her dedicated work as the graduate student co-editor on the newsletter last year.  Shekinah worked with the College of Arts and Sciences to seamlessly usher in a new web design for the newsletter. She was an enthusiastic and creative graduate student co-editor. I am confident that great things lie ahead for Shekinah, and I look forward to featuring her in an alumni spotlight article in a future newsletter.

The department experienced a great loss this past June, as Don Dillman passed away. As you almost certainly know, Don spent over 50 years in the department, arriving at the end of the 1960s, where he remained for his entire career. Don was also instrumental in reviving the Sociology News in 2013, where it became the electronic version that you are reading now. I encourage you to revisit the inaugural issue.

It is impossible to encompass Don Dillman’s long career and influence in a single newsletter. Simply put, Don was a survey methods authority with a broad range of interests in other sociological areas. He was also very supportive of untenured faculty members and graduate students. In this issue, we asked three graduate students—two alumni and one current student—to reflect on their memories of Don. We recognize that he had a far-reaching impact on many students, so if you would like to share some memories of Don in a similar way by writing something for a future newsletter, please email me (rotolo@wsu.edu).

The Centennial Celebration that occurred last year continued into this fall. The department welcomed Richard York, a prominent environmental sociologist, back to Pullman. We talked with Richard about his memories of Pullman and graduate school at WSU. Additionally, in this issue we meet Monica Bhatia, the newest faculty member in the department, and Safiya introduces us to the incoming graduate student cohort for this academic year.