We celebrated their accomplishments at the BA Thesis Symposium on Thursday, May 24th. Students presented their own, original research, which covered a wide range of topics: from organizational strategies in intentional communities to negotiations in small claims courts to public housing’s transformation of Caracas, Venezuela. The quality was simply outstanding. After hearing short presentations by seven students, faculty member Forrest Stuart announced the winners of our annual BA thesis award. Diego Cardenas won the top award for his thesis Rethinking the Digital Hood: Social Media, Disadvantaged Youth, and Networked Privacy Management. Honorable Mentions were awarded to Natalie Pasquinelli for ‘I would say yes even though I wasn’t in to it…but that was just my fault’: Unwanted Sex in the Age of Affirmative Consent and Emily Rao for Just Like Grandma Used to Make and More: Markets of Authenticity in Ethnic Restaurants. We concluded the event with a festive reception, catered by Big Star Tacos. Thank you to everyone who helped make this event a huge success – BA thesis preceptors and faculty advisors, in particular. We are so proud of the achievements of our 4th years and we wish them all the best in their future endeavors.
Sociology, Class of 2018:
Melissa Bischoff, Adding Mental Health into the Equation: Social Support, Mental Health and Health
Hanna Breslau, Media, Memory, and Protest in Postwar Japan: How Collective Memory of the 1960 Security Treaty Protests Shapes Japanese National Identity
Abigail Brockman, Building Power in the Movement for Black Lives: Recognizing the Impacts of Embedded Utopian Movements Today
Sofia Butnaru, “A New Caracas within Caracas”: Reconfiguring Boundaries with La Gran Mision Vivienda Venezuela
Diego Cardenas, Rethinking the Digital Hood: Disadvantaged Youth, Social Media, and Networked Privacy Management
Louis Clark, Moral Panics on Medium: How Elsagate Confusion Fostered A Public Arena for Social Problem Competition
Darien Dey, Licks Does Bun’ and Cool
Hanna T. Gregor, The Prospective City & The Projected Resistant: Resistance to Chicago’s Obama Presidential Center through Mobilization of Future Oriented Identities
Mojolaoluwa Idowu, American Citizens: The Politics of Graffiti and Space in Chicago
Kathleen Kristensen, The Hard Work of Playing Hard: Risk Neutralization by Recreational Drug Users
Jessica Law, Negotiating Racialized “Illegality”: Undocumented Asian Americans And New Belongings
Jacob McCarthy, Yelling To Listen And Other Paradoxes Of American Pro Se Small Claims Court
Gloria Morelos-Roth, La Senora Y La Domestica Understanding Interactions Between Latina Domestic Workers and White Mothers in the Labour Market
Natalie Pasquinelli, ‘I would say yes even though I wasn’t in to it…but that was just my fault’: Unwanted Sex in the Age of Affirmative Consent
Camille Plunkett, Research Chemical Subreddit: An Exploration of a Virtual Scene
Connor Plunkett, Two Paths to Utopia: Organizational Strategies in 70’s Urban Communes and the Viability of Alternative Social Orders
Emily Rao, Just Like Grandma Used to Make and More: Markets of Authenticity in Ethnic Restaurants
Franklin Rodriguez, The Potential of the Doctor-Patient Relationship: A Sociological Analysis of Health and Stress
Ashley Soong, From ‘Frat Row’ to Wall Street: An analysis of the ‘cultural matching’ hiring and rushing practices within the fraternity-to-pipeline
Zoey Twyford, Categorizing Care: The Victimization and Medicalization of Sexually Exploited Youth in Minnesota
Shubha Vedula, Constructing A Cultural Icon in the Age of Digital Media
Ching Hang Joey Wong, Parental Conditional Regard: A Culture-Specific Risk Factor for Chinese Students
Allison Yu, Just the Unlucky Scapegoats? How Fraternity Brothers Mange Stigma