Sociology students win awards at 2024 ISA Meeting
Three Cornell College students brought home awards for their research from the Iowa Sociological Association (ISA) annual meeting on Friday, April 26.
The event recognizes the best research papers by undergraduates across the state. Each Cornell student presented a paper they developed during a single sociology course.
Senior Tendall Weigand won the Ward Reynoldson Award for the best Criminal Justice Paper for “The Tools Are Only As Good As The People Using Them: The Power of Meaningful Provider Relationships for Juveniles with ACEs and Trauma History.” She also won this award last year as a junior.
First-year students Payton Anderson and Ana Munn Carstensen tied for the Mary Alice Ericson Award for best first/second-year open topic paper. They produced strong analytic papers in introductory courses such as Sociological Thinking and Media and the Public Mind this year.
“I greatly appreciate having had the opportunity to present at the Iowa Sociological Association Conference this year,” Anderson said. “It was a great way for me to learn and gain experience for future events like these.”
Anderson’s paper was “Gender Representation in The Walking Dead” and Munn Carstensen’s paper was “The Representation of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.”
“Getting to participate in the ISA conference this year was so informative and fun, I really feel like I got to see all the potential jobs I could get in the sociology field,” Munn Carstensen said.
Cornell College Professor of Sociology Tori Barnes-Brus ’97 was especially excited to see first and second-year students attending this year’s meeting.
“Having the experience so early in the undergraduate career can help students build confidence in their sociological perspective and also prepare them to present more advanced research at the ISA, or elsewhere, in their junior and senior years,” Barnes-Brus said. “It also really helps students to see how much they can accomplish in just one block, in comparison to their peers on the semester program.”
This year’s event was held at Marshalltown Community College in Marshalltown, Iowa. Cornell College students have consistently attended the ISA annual meeting for more than fifteen years.
Additional Conference Works:
Oriana McKanan and Laura Sander, “Impact of Maternal Incarceration on Children’s Social Development” (faculty sponsor Tori Barnes-Brus)
Oriana McKanan and Krista Luttkus also participated in a roundtable discussion for their work in progress “Gender Embodiment Project” (faculty sponsor Erin Davis.)
