Sociology students win awards at ISA Meeting
Cornell College students have a long history of earning recognition at the Iowa Sociological Association (ISA) Annual Meeting, taking home more than ten paper awards in the last ten years.
The ISA annual meeting focuses on undergraduate research and recognizes the best conference papers by students across the state in four categories. Cornell College has been consistently attending the meeting for more than a decade, with a much longer history of attendance stretching at least to the 1990s. This year’s event was held on April 26, 2019, at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa.
Four sociology students attended the 2019 annual meeting, Angie Zhao ’20, Zach Shoulders ’20, Brittney Starks ’20, and Allison Krull ’20. Each presented a paper from the sociology course Research Design and Data Analysis. Krull won the Ward Reynolds Award for Best Criminal Justice Paper.
“Attending the conference gave me the opportunity to be a part of the tight-knit community atmosphere of a group of academic people who challenged me to open my mind and think in different ways,” Krull said. “The most important part of the conference to me was being able to showcase how hard I worked on my paper but also to see what everyone else had created and be inspired by all the great projects.”
Starks won the Manford Kuhn Award for Best Junior-Senior Paper. She said she never pictured herself in the role of presenting her work to a crowd filled with professionals in the field, which was nerve-wracking for her.
“However, following the presentation, several professors and students alike complimented me on my poise and articulation within my presentation,” Starks said. “It was wonderful to be praised by such a welcoming professional community as someone who never felt they would fit the mold. To make the experience even more positive, I ended up winning the Manford Kuhn Award for my essay quality. I was very shocked as the two honorable mentions that they announced before me had fantastic topics and presentations. Overall, it was a wonderful opportunity to present something I poured an immense amount of time and energy into and that I am incredibly proud of.”
The papers were as follows:
Krull: “Problem-Solving Courts: An Examination of Program Components and Graduation Outcomes”
Shoulders: “Academic Achievement and Enjoyment: Do parenting practices influence outcomes for students within school?”
Starks: “Child Food Insecurity and School Experience: Assessing the Impact of Child Food Insecurity on Problematic Behaviors and Academic Performance”
Zhao: “Exploring Gender Egalitarian Ideologies’ Impact on the Marital Satisfactions in Chinese Society”
“This conference gives Cornell students confidence to talk about their own work and it allows them to see what their peers are doing at other institutions,” said Cornell College Professor of Sociology Tori Barnes-Brus. “It’s really exciting for them to put their hearts and souls into Cornell’s Research Methods course and to be able to come out of that and see why what we do in 18 days of our One Course At A Time curriculum works.”
Jillian Schulte ’19 was also honored at the event. She entered the Sociologically Imaginative Pictures competition and won first place.
“It was a great way to merge together my love for photography and my social science background,” Schulte said. “I hope that my submission, which depicts a shopping tourist at a holy site in Nepal, brings people to think critically about the global effects of tourism. I hope that more students continue to participate in ISA, not only for their own professional development but for a chance to share both their research and perspective to this greater academic community.”
Past Cornell Iowa Sociological Association Annual Meeting award winners:
Last year, Kendra Aquino ’19 won the 2018 Stephen Wieting Award for Best Paper Integrating Theory and Research for her paper “Adult Children of Alcoholics: Does Adolescent Social Support affect Adult Life Satisfaction?” and Nicola Etter ’19 took 2nd place in the Sociologically Imaginative Pictures competition.
The winner of the 2017 Stephen Wieting Award for Best Paper Integrating Theory and Research was Alex DeSena ’17 for her work, “A Lot of it is Showing That We Walk the Walk: Strategies of Queer Inclusivity in Christian Congregations.”
In 2016, Cornell’s Hayley McKie ’16 earned the Stephen Wieting award for Integrating Theory and Research in her paper, “LGBQ Identity, Authenticity and Heteronormativity.” The W. Ward Reynoldson award for the best paper on criminal justice went to Jessie Freeman ’17, Conor Moore ’18, Jani Mustaffa ’17, and Madison Serrett ’17 for their work, “Mental Health and the Criminal Justice System: A Bipartisan Report by Mental Health America & the Heritage Foundation.”
The winner of the 2015 Mary Alice Ericson Award for the Best Freshman-Sophomore Paper was Alex DeSena ’17 for her paper, “Exploring the Effect of Judeo‐Christian Religions on Heteronormativity and the Relation to Religious Conservatism.”
The winner of the 2014 Manfred Kuhn Award for Best Paper Submitted by a Junior or Senior was Rose Reed-Maxfield ’15 for her work, “Exploring the Impact of Gender on the Economic Well-Being of Single Parents.”
The winner of the 2013 Steve Wieting Award for Best Paper Integrating Theory and Research was Liane Olson ’14 for her work, “Exploring the Relationship between Environmental Concern and Behavior in America.”
The winner of the 2012 Manford Kuhn Award for Best Paper Submitted by a Junior or Senior was Eva Fiske ’12 for her work, “Moody Americans? Public Attitudes toward United States Foreign Policy.”
The winner of the 2011 Steve Wieting Award For Best Paper Integrating Theory and Practice was Orla Heymann ’11 for the work “Reframing Abortion with NARAL Pro-Choice Oregon.”
The winner of the 2009 Manford Kuhn Award for Best Paper Submitted by a Junior or Senior was Chris Davids ’09 for his paper, “Filling the Gap: An Examination of Body Dissatisfaction of Differences of Gay, Bisexual, and Heterosexual Men.”
