Statement on Service
Due to my strong commitment to teaching and learning, the largest portion of my service to the department and university has been centered specifically on curriculum development, program assessment, and student initiatives such as recruitment events. My lighter service load earlier in my time at NSU is reflective of the “minimum of service expectations” required of novice faculty according to the standards document and, when I began to transition into an “experienced assistant professor,” I worked to raise my service commitments to both the university and the profession.

In the following statement I will address what my service obligations have been during my time in rank to the department, to the university, and to the profession. I will also discuss my plans for the future with regards to what I have already accomplished.

Service to the Department and University:
During my first year at NSU (2015-2016), I engaged in service not typically asked of a novice faculty member by assisting Dr. Courtney Waid-Lindberg in her completion of the self-study for our seven-year program review [BOR Sociology Program Review Documents]. While I would not recommend this type of service activity for a first-year faculty member in the future, I did find the experience invaluable in obtaining institutional knowledge about the program which is largely unavailable to new faculty.

I also took a leadership position in the change of the Sociology program’s curriculum to better align our requirements with Sociology programs across the nations. Our proposed included the introduction of courses brand new to the curriculum (i.e., Human Sexuality, Popular Culture and Society, Sport and Society) and courses that had previously been taught as special topics (i.e., Victimology, Community Corrections, Medical Sociology) [2015 New Sociology Course Proposals Compilation]. This re-design also affected our core curriculum as we wanted to encourage students to take our theory course (Socio-Cultural Theory) earlier as a 200-level course and included the creation of a new program Capstone course which I taught for the first time in Spring 2019. Our curricular proposal in 2015 was ultimately successful and our new curriculum began in Fall 2017 with a successful implementation. This was, again, a project I would not expect a new faculty member to undertake but involvement assisted me in thinking about scaffolding learning, curricular design, and ways to emphasize goals or outcomes in courses I teach to provide a more rigorous degree which strongly prepares our students for careers in Criminal Justice and Human Services. The Sociology curriculum was further redesigned in 2018 following the creation of a new Criminal Justice major to eliminate the human services and criminal justice specializations within the major, introduce a new shared data analysis/research design course [CJUS 380] and a shared social science Capstone [CJUS/SOC 485]. With this redesign, our human services course (SOC 270, SOC 315, and SOC 320) and a 1-credit hour experiential course (internship or traveling classroom) were moved into the core classes required for all Sociology majors to take and our electives were reorganized into three curricular “buckets” of “stratification and inequality,” “social institutions,” and “sociology electives.” The experiential requirement was added to increase student practice skills, networking opportunities, and increase their attractiveness on the job market. As I detailed in my teaching statement, I have also worked within my classes to teach and reinforce skills that are high demand in Sociology-related fields to complement these curricular changes. The Sociology degree also underwent minor curricular changes in spring 2020 to include new Native and Indigenous Studies and Behavioral Forensic Sciences courses.

In addition to the revisions to the Sociology curriculum, I have been a part of the creation of a new Social Work Minor at NSU that was approved in 2019. The Social Work minor was designed to compliment the Sociology major while giving the students a curriculum and experience tailed to the competencies required by the Council of Social Work Education to prepare them for jobs and/or further graduate study in social work. I was also asked to participate by Dr Erin Fouberg and Ms. Lara Nelson in assisting with the preparation and completion of documentation revising the American Indian Studies minor in Fall 2019. These revisions included revising and renaming the minor to Native and Indigenous Studies, the creation of several new courses, and the creation of a new system course prefix: INDG for the minor. These curricular changes to the minor were approved in January 2020.

In addition to taking leadership in curricular efforts for Sociology, I have participated in three hiring committees for the History and Social Sciences department during my time in rank. The first committee convened in AY2016-2017 to replace Mr. Daryl Kosiak after his retirement. This committee resulted in the successful hire of Mr. Brian Bengs into the Sociology program. The second search committee began in Fall 2017 to to fill Dr. Teresa Stalling’s faculty line after her retirement at the end of the Fall 2018 semester. This first search ultimately failed but the committee was reconvened in AY18-19 and resulted in the successful hire of Dr. Pamela Monaghan-Geerneart. The third committee, for Criminal Justice, commenced in AY19-20 and, while logistically challenging due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Spring 2020, concluded with the successful hire of Dr. Christopher Near. The previous dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Dr. Joshua Hagen, used to say that search committees are one of the most important things faculty can engage in and I took those words to heart. I treated all of three searches as a way to shape the department and program’s future; I approached each task looking for someone who provided the right “fit” for each program as it currently was but also would provide new avenues for growth. For example, Dr. Pamela Monaghan-Geerneart provides valuable expertise in Native and Indigenous Studies and also in Medical Sociology, which supports and provides connections with our Biology programs.

Alongside those periodic obligations, I undertook the long-term assignment as the Sociology program’s Marketing Director beginning Fall 2015. I began by completing a basic marketing plan, as requested by Dean Mendez, that I used to guide my efforts. I participated in minor re-writes of the Sociology materials used in Northern Bound Days and other recruitment efforts. Finally, I have created and maintained a Facebook page for the Sociology department that allows me to share campus events, highlight sociological news articles from national and local organizations, and feature student and faculty achievements. Given that recruitment is one of the top priorities of the university, these simple marketing efforts help to increase our departmental profile. I plan to continue the Facebook page as way of keeping contact and providing information to the community about Sociology. If possible, I would also like to see significant changes to the program’s website, many of which are highlighted within the marketing plan. I am hopeful that, even with the standardization applied to the university’s webpage, working with our new Director of Communications and Marketing, Justin Fraase, and the Information Technology department will allow for better optimization of our web presence.

My final ongoing departmental service commitment is as Sociology’s Assessment Coordinator. In this role, I am responsible for the systematic collection of information about student learning in the Sociology program. To that end, in Fall 2017 I reworked our entire assessment plan to create better alignment between our assessment measures and what we are actually teaching. This includes a new internally generated written exit exam to measure summative learning; this is a tool that was adapted from one provided in Teaching Sociology as a more robust written measure compared to standardized exams. This exit exam was offered for the first time in Fall 2017. We are also asking our students to complete a portfolio that will provide a more holistic summative measure in our new Capstone course (first offered in Spring 2019). Other formative measures will be implemented within various points along the required degree pathways to help us detect issues and problems with the program rather than relying solely on a summative assessment. A copy of the assessment plan and assessment rubrics are available. The Sociology assessment plan and rubrics were revised in AY2019-2020 to incorporate new Board Of Regents (BOR) guidelines regarding cross-curricular skills that must be included. My annual assessments for AY 2016-2017, AY 2017-2018, and AY 2018-2019 are available to view. The assessment report for AY 2018-2019 was reviewed by a member of the campus assessment committee, Dr. Shalini Mathew, and was highlighted as having “commendable data collection stategies” and a “rigorous assessment process” in the 2018-2019 Review of Annual Assessment Reports for Academic Programs. Doing this work, as I detailed in my teaching statement, has both made me a better teacher but also allowed me to make other connections regarding assessment in the broader discipline.

I have also increased my college- and university-wide service during my time in rank. I participated as a member of the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) Internship Committee in 2018-2019 to better understand how internships are perceived by our students and the ways we can both encourage more students to take part in internships and make the experiences even more valuable.

I was also a member of the CAS Teaching Subcomittee in 2018-2019 and 2019-2020. This subcommittee was initially started as part of the CAS Strategic Doing efforts and designed “to promote practical solutions to common teaching problems.” The committee surveyed CAS faculty regarding their teaching needs and began planning for a discussion serious around different topics. For our first topic, academic rigor and high expectations, I provided a Rigor and Teaching Expectations Synthesis and Best Practices document for the committee’s use after consulting with Ms. Danette Long. The committee worked together to put together a presentation to spark discussion for CAS faculty which we premiered on November 11, 2019. We also began planning a presentation on classroom engagement and discussion, for Spring 2020, but were unable to finish and present our work due to the COVID-19 outbreak. I also participated in a summer 2020 CAS COVID-19 preparation group. When Strategic Doing began at the university level, I volunteered to be part of the Teaching Pillar Team.

In terms of university-wide service, I was a member of the Center for Teaching and Learning (CETL) Director hiring committee where we searched for an internal candidates for the position and resulted in the successful hiring of Dr. Ben Harley. I was asked to serve on this hiring committee due to my previous work as part of the Center for Teaching and Learning Taskforce during Spring 2019. Our job was to assess the desirability and viability of creating a CETL on NSU’s campus. The Taskforce surveyed other CETLs at peer institutions to gauge the resources and investment provided by other universities. I was in charge of surveying faculty on campus and analyzing those data for the final report [Cover Letter Center for Teaching and Learning, Proposal Center for Teaching and Learning, Director Rationale and Posting]. I am also serving a one-year term (2020-2021) on the CETL advisory committee.

I have also participated in the campus Diversity Action Committee (DAC) since its inception in 2018. DAC, which is dedicated to increasing diversity and cultural awareness — of all types of minority groups (racial/ethnic, sexual and gender minorities, disabilities, etc.) on campus, has sponsored many different events over the past three years, from bringing in guest speakers, the True Black History Museum, “chat and chew” events on different topics for students and community members, Noon Forum talks and topics, and assisted with the organization of posters and exhibits for different awareness events around campus (e.g., Women’s History Month, Native American History Month, etc.). Through my participation in DAC, I was able to attend a “train the trainer” event for LGBTQ ally training. Following that, Dr. Karyl Meister, Dr. Courtney Waid-Lindberg, and myself have providing campus ally trainings during In-Service in both 2019 and 2020 [Ally Training In Service 2020 PowerPoint]. Dr. Meister and I have also guest lectured on the topic in Dr. Kristi Bockornoy and Dr. Amber Henderson’s Diversity in Management (BADM 462) course in February 2020 [Ally Training SOB PowerPoint]. All three of us remain open to providing the trainings to departments or classes.

In 2018, I chaired a CAS facilities committee to discuss how the facilities in Mewaldt-Jensen (MJ) might be used following the move of the science faculty and facilities to the Jewett Regional Science Education Center. The committee was tasked with surveying CAS faculty to discover how they would like to see MJ developed in the future. We took the data we collected to produce a list of recommendations in November 2018. Due to my work as chair of this committee, I was asked to serve on the university-wide Space Planning Committee starting in Fall 2020.

I am currently serving as the CAS representative on the Academic Technology Advisory Committee (ATAC). ATAC is an “University Standing Committee with the responsibility of receiving, developing and submitting recommendations regarding the teaching, learning, and scholarly uses of technology to the NET Services Coordinator’s Council. It serves as an advisory committee and reports to the Chief Information Technology Officer.” My three-year term began in Fall 2018 and will end in Spring 2021.

My extensive work with Sociology’s assessment has also led to other service opportunities. In January 2019, I was asked to serve as part of the BOR’s new Social Science discipline council prior to the general education assessment of general education goal three (Social Sciences/Diversity). The group was group was initially tasked with revising goal three’s student learning outcomes and devising assessment rubrics for the new and revised outcomes we designed. I also served as part of the BOR’s Goal Three Assessment Summit in summer 2019. I was also appointed as a member of the university’s Assessment Committee beginning in Fall 2019.  Finally, my work as Assessment Coordinator for the program and my active participation in the “Teaching With A Sociological Lens” Facebook group has allowed me to create a small but growing cohort of fellow assessment officers from various institutions. We have been sharing resources, assessment plans, and ideas regularly since November 2017. This allows us to align our assessment practices easily and assist those stepping into the job without much (if any) experience at program assessment; ultimately this will make all of our degree programs stronger.

Due to my work with curriculum development and assessment, I was asked to co-chair Criterion 3 Teaching and Learning: Quality, Resources, and Support for our Higher Learning Commission four-year assurance argument. We began in March 2020 and by August 31, 2020, our team had created a fairly complete rough draft of our argument. I was also voted in as the CAS representative for a three-year term to the university Academic Affairs committee in Fall 2020.

I have also contributed to smaller scale events such as serving on a panelist on an Undergraduate Research Panel during In-Service Week in 2016, participation as a faculty panelist for students interested in graduate school in both 2016 and 2017, judging the Undergraduate Research, Scholarship and Creativity Forum in 2017, participating in a debrief for first-year faculty during in service in 2018, or providing peer reviews and classroom observations to other faculty. These events are detailed specifically in my annual performance evaluations (APEs) for each year. I was asked by the students of the NSU Lions Club to serve as their academic advisor from 2015-2017 which allowed me to build connections with the Aberdeen community. I also have served as a member of Honors thesis and graduate committees and have written several letters of recommendations for scholarships, job opportunities, and graduate school applications for students. Finally, I also contribute to ongoing recruitment efforts by attending – when it does not conflict with my course schedule – Northern Bound Days and meeting with prospective students individually, even during weekends.

Service to the Discipline:
My service to the discipline, compared to my service obligations at NSU, has been relatively light and focused on two pivotal organizations: the Great Plains Sociological Association (GPSA) and the Midwest Sociological Society (MSS). I joined GPSA in 2016 after starting at NSU. GPSA, which serves sociological programs predominantly in North and South Dakota and Nebraska, is a small but excellent choice for building a local network. My work with GPSA has strengthened my ties with other sociology departments with the SD BOR system and encourages frequent collaboration across the state. In contrast to my more recent participation in GPSA, I have been a member of MSS since 2005 and have participated in their annual conference almost every year since. MSS is the largest regional sociological association in the United States and includes an extensive “at large” membership of sociologists from outside just the Midwest. MSS has always proven to be an excellent place to network and engage with interesting scholarship.

I have served as a peer reviewer for journals within the discipline and am currently serving as the Book Review Editor for the Great Plains Sociologist, a peer-reviewed regional journal that is the official publication of the GPSA. I have also become an active member in GPSA, serving on their Audit and Ethics Committee as well as their New Media Coordinator. Along with 2018-2019 GPSA President, Dr. Courtney Waid-Lindberg, I assisted in planning and hosting the 2018 GPSA conference at NSU. I also served as the program chair for the conference and was responsible for soliciting conference submissions and organizing the conference program. I was awarded the 2018 GPSA Service Award in 2018 and am currently president-elect of GPSA [term 2021-2022].

With my service to MSS, I have participated in several invited panels, such as the panel “So I’m an academic, Huh?!”: Demystifying the experience” March 2018. In 2019, I was appointed to a three-year term to MSS Women In the Profession Committee (WIP). WIP was created “toward the end of producing equality of opportunity for women, shall keep under constant review the position of women in the profession, gather information on such issues, and, when it deems appropriate, recommend action to the MSS board and the membership. In addition to their bylaws-mandated tasks, the MSS Women in the Profession Committee also administers the Jane Addams Award” (MSS Committees 2017). I also have volunteered as a session organizer (VSO) for the MSS annual meeting. VSOs are responsible for peer review of sessions; we curate and organizing sessions within our stated areas of expertise. I have organized sessions on technology, social media, media, and popular culture for MSS in 2018, 2019, and 2020. I also volunteered to act as a judge for the “3-Minute Thesis” contest in 2020 and have participated in a MSS Mentorship Program in 2019 to provide advice, guidance, and help to graduate students prior to and during the annual meeting.

Overall, I see service as a valuable part of my academic responsibilities and a key component to faculty governance. I have tried to arrange my department and university service into my own areas of expertise (e.g., ATAC), or in areas that complement my teaching (e.g., assessment, curricular activities). My service to the discipline has been devoted to developing networks (i.e., GPSA) and working to retain and mentor new sociologists into the discipline (i.e., MSS). In my opinion, service is an opportunity to build relationships and partnerships; it should be treated as a collaborative activity that allows faculty and staff to shape the future of their programs, departments, universities, and fields. I strongly believe that I have shown my willingness to engage in service activities at all levels from that growth mindset. I believe that my active involvement in service and the strategic way I have gone about choosing service opportunities has provided ample opportunities to learn and develop professionally, share knowledge and collaborate, and build networks within the university, community, and discipline. I look forward to continuing to develop my efforts in service and remaining active in these opportunities for development and institutional change.