SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF SOCIAL PROBLEMS - Fall 2019, Issue One DIVISION CHAIR: Ethan J. Evans, CHAIR: (2019-2021), Assistant Professor, Social Work, California State University, Sacramento. Email: ethan.evans@csus.edu. INSIDE THIS ISSUE NOTE FROM THE CHAIR: Report from the annual conference. CALL FOR NOMINATIONS: Co-Chair CHANGES TO THE MISSION STATEMENT DIVISION BOOK REVIEW PROJECT: Call for book recommendations SEARCH FOR CO-CHAIR OF BOOK REVIEW PROJECT NEWSLETTER CONTRIBUTIONS INVITED ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Hello Sociology & Social Welfare Division Members, Wow, what a conference in NYC! The SSSP staff and program committee really worked hard to produce an excellent event. Some highlights: * 1,006 people attended the conference * 121 people attended our 11 sole- and co-sponsored sessions * The critical dialogue co-sponsored with the Crime and Juvenile Delinquency Division titled, The Intersection Between Social Problems and Mass Incarceration, was our best session attended at 22. * 12 members participated in the annual Division business meeting. At business meeting we discussed possible conference sessions for the 2020 conference in San Francisco under the theme, Bringing the Hope Back In: Sociological Imagination and Dreaming Transformation. This is a big opportunity for our Division, as the Sociological Imagination is central to our mission and your interests. I will submit a list of 3 sole-sponsored sessions, and 6 co-sponsored sessions. I hope you'll submit your work and make the trip to San Francisco, California. We also discussed making changes to our Mission Statement, read on below to see how you can get involved. We decided to hold elections for a Division co-Chair. Please check out the 'election' section below to make a nomination, or self-nominate. Further business included approving the annual budget ($600). We will be allocating Division funds to: the student paper competition, the annual conference reception, a student newsletter assistant, and the book review chair. Please note, our division membership is steady, but lower than past years. We fluctuated from 90 in 2017 to 102 in 2018 to 88 in 2019. Please maintain your membership and recruit colleagues to join our division. CALL FOR NOMINATIONS: Co-Chair The nomination period is now open. Our rules require that we have at least 2 nominees in order to have an election. We solicited nominations during the Division meeting. One nomination was made from those in attendance, Arturo Baiocchi from California State University, Sacramento Division of Social Work. Please email me as soon as possible if you would like to nominate a member or self-nominate. Once we have 2 nominees, the national office will notify you about voting. CHANGES TO THE MISSION STATEMENT Our current mission statement says: Our division's mission is to develop and promote an understanding of, and knowledge about, the social institution's structures and processes that create and perpetuate inequality, exclusion and oppression [we] support the dissemination of research and conversations that assist in the creation and development of public policies, affirmative actions and social services through the application of social science knowledge, perspectives, methods and technology. If you have suggestions or recommendations, please email them to me no later than September 30, 2019. It is the duty of the Chair to maintain a current Division mission statement, to review it upon taking the position, and make changes as necessary. I will share any proposed changes with members via email or newsletter before finalizing them. DIVISION BOOK REVIEW PROJECT: Call for book recommendations The Sociology and Social Welfare (S&SW) division for the Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP) releases a newsletter three times annually and a section is dedicated to a review of a book that has been published by an author who is an active member of our division (or review of a book held in high regard by one or more active members of the division). The current lineup for book reviews in the fall and winter editions include: "Exiled in America: Life on the Margins in a Residential Hotel" by Christopher P. Dum (Columbia University Press, 2016) and "Surviving Poverty: Creating Sustainable Ties among the Poor" by Joan Maya Mazelis (NYU, 2017). The S&SW newsletter is seeking one more title to review for the 2019-2020 academic year and this piece will be published in May 2020. Please email your recommendations to book review Chair, Michael Johnston, johnstonmo@wmpenn.edu. SEARCH FOR CO-CHAIR OF BOOK REVIEW PROJECT The book review section of the newsletter is facilitated by two active members of S&SW. The division is conducting a search for an active member of S&SW to serve as co-Chair of the book review section for the division newsletter. This person will work alongside Michael O. Johnston in writing and editing book reviews for publication in the division newsletters. This co-Chair position will require no more than 20 hours annually (and in most years will require fewer hours than this). This position, however, will require ongoing communication with Michael O. Johnston and the person is strongly encouraged to attend the annual SSSP conference. Please direct any questions, and/or inquiries, about serving as Co-Chair of the book review section of the S&SW newsletter to johnstonmo@wmpenn.edu or call at 641.799.1076. DIVISION NEWSLETTER EDITOR Please welcome Monica Linhthasack as our newly appointed newsletter editor. I am a new member of SSSP, and I am excited to be the newly appointed editor for our division. As a graduate student in Sociology at California State University of Sacramento, I see how important it is to get involved in all aspects of academia. My involvement in various clubs, associations, and community-based events has enriched my experience as a student, and has also allowed me to meet a lot of great people along the way. Thank you for being a member, and I truly hope that we can meet at the 2020 Conference, where we each bring our different perspectives and experiences to SSSP. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to email me at mlinhthasack@csus.edu. -M.L. NEWSLETTER CONTRIBUTIONS INVITED We encourage members to submit news such as publications, new appointments, and other professional accomplishments for inclusion in a future newsletter. Suggestions and inquiries about less conventional content are also welcomeÑ consider editorials, book reviews, teaching notes, department/program profiles, calls for contributions to journals and edited books, obituaries... Please direct inquires or submissions to the Division Newsletter Editor, Monica Linhthasack. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Please let me close this newsletter by sharing my excitement for starting this term as Chair of our Division. Also, let us thank William Cabin for his long-time service to the Division and the Society. Another thank you goes out to Robert Leighninger for having led our Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare and to Hector Luis Diaz who has taken the reigns. I highly recommend that you submit your work to this journal for potential publication (See www.scholarworks.wmich.edu/jssw).