Department Newsletter

About the Department

Mission Statement

The mission of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology is to:

• help students learn, understand, discover, and apply knowledge about sociology & anthropology;
• create and maintain, with our students, a comfortable and challenging teaching-learning community, both inside and outside the classroom, in order to promote student development, shared responsibility for learning, and academic achievement; and
• encourage and reward faculty/staff development in alignment with individual interests and strengths while promoting excellence in teaching, scholarship, and service.

Welcome from the Chair

Welcome to the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at ISU. We invite you to browse our site and learn about the dynamic individuals and programs that define our department. Our faculty members provide both undergraduate and graduate students with a broad array of perspectives on the human condition - ranging from social movements, personal relationships, and the organization of cultures and societies throughout the world, to the archaeology of historic and prehistoric North America. The department is large and diverse enough for you to find what you are interested in, but is small enough that you will never feel like a number.

We share a commitment to providing students with a first-class educational experience. That experience is grounded in challenging courses and extensive opportunities for collaborative learning and out-of-class learning activities. Our faculty members are nationally and internationally known for their research, but they are equally well-known on campus for their quality teaching and student mentoring. This balance of excellence in research and teaching, along with the truly outstanding people who have created it, makes the Department of Sociology and Anthropology a special place.

We invite you to envision where you might fit into our exciting and challenging programs. Please do visit or contact us. We'd be happy to discuss your vision.

Fred H. Smith
Chair, Department of Sociology and Anthropology