Around the Block and Around the World

Rose wants Community Studies Center to blossom

August 28, 2007

Susan D. Rose '77, professor of sociology at Dickinson, has an eclectic range of interests, including family and gender issues, education, religion, social policy, domestic violence, religious fundamentalism and stratification.

All will come in handy as she takes on her new role as director of the college's Community Studies Center.

The center, formed a decade ago for the support and broadening of faculty-student fieldwork, adheres to a common-sense credo: To study a community is to be part of it. Working with the college's global education program, the center has a long-range goal of internationalizing its projects as well as continuing its work on issues of domestic diversity and community-based research.

Rose takes over the helm of director from Lonna Malmsheimer, professor emeriti of American studies. Malmsheimer, who served as director from 2001 to 2007, raised the center's profile in its support of student-faculty field research in the social sciences and humanities. The center houses an archival collection of interview transcripts and documentary films and supports a variety of oral-history and fieldwork projects.

Collaborative projects

"I am excited about the possibilities for future programs that will continue to link the global with the local and engage students in collaborative projects with communities both close to campus and across continents," Rose says.

Rose, who received the national Michael Harrington Distinguished Teaching award in 2003 for her teaching portfolio on poverty and inequality, looks forward to developing the college's Mosaic and Crossing Borders programs and sustaining projects that are of mutual benefit and interest to both Dickinson students and the communities with which they are working.

"Students are excited about doing empirical research that makes a difference," Rose said. "Not only do they gain a greater understanding of the challenges and opportunities of U.S. pluralism and acquire excellent research skills in the process, they also work hard on the analysis and then presentation of their data, for they know community members are eager to see what they have done."

Upcoming itinerary

Among the projects in the works:

• Kim Rogers, professor of history, and Jeremy Ball, assistant professor of history, are planning a Crossing Borders program on black liberation movements that will involve study in South Africa next summer and a Mosaic during fall '08 at Dickinson, with fieldwork in the Mississippi Delta.
• Jenn Halpin and Matt Steiman, who oversee Dickinson's new farm, are considering leading an environmental-sociology course with Rose that will take students to Venezuela in January '09 to work on a sustainable, organic farm and conduct comparative research in the mountain village of Monte Carmelo.
• South Asian Mosaic in spring '09 and a third Mexican migration project in fall '09 are under consideration.
• Jim Ellison and Karen Weinstein, assistant professors of anthropology, plan to direct a second Tanzania Field School focused on culture, political economy, health care and nutrition next summer.
• The center will host a visit this year by Jackie Fear-Segal, a professor from the University of East Anglia, who is working on a book about the Carlisle Indian School.
• Indian scholar and filmmaker Somdatta Mandal will be in residency the first week in March giving lectures on Indian women, religion and culture, South Asian diasporic literature and film and remembering 9/11.

Rose has a three-year term as director. During that time she plans to seek funding for projects and to generate ideas for the support of faculty and students engaged in community-based fieldwork.