SSSP’s importance as a professional organization lies in its mission to create cutting edge, empirically sound research that contributes to reducing inequality and injustice in the world. As someone who entered the world of academia believing that education and research are the best tools for fostering a more fair, just, and equal world, I’ve found a home in SSSP. As a community of scholars committed to using sociological theory backed by empirical research to find solutions to social problems, SSSP is truly unique.

Dr. Mary Bernstein, University of Connecticut

SSSP is one of my academic homes. I joined SSSP early on as a graduate student, and now as an early career scholar, I am thankful for my decision. Unlike many other academic conferences, SSSP has cultivated a space where scholars can receive feedback in kind and constructive ways. At SSSP I have met and been inspired by Rahsaan Mahadeo, Shirley A. Jackson, Corey Dolgon, Rodney Coates, and so many others.

Outside of the conference, SSSP has supported me in many ways. Through the mentoring program, I met Vilna Bashi who has been invaluable as a guide and mentor. I have participated in op-ed writing workshops, and I am a past recipient of the Racial/Ethnic Minority Graduate Fellowship. So, in no small part, SSSP has been foundational to the formation of my intellect and scholarship, and I plan to always give back!

Korey Tillman, Northeastern University

I won't lie. I own a LOT of shoes. It may have to do with not having a lot of shoes when I was growing up. SSSP is like a comfortable pair of shoes that go with everything you wear! I know when I attend the meetings that I will find old friends and make new ones. I enjoy the support of my colleagues which makes SSSP an organization that gives my conference experience meaning.

SSSP is a place where I feel I can serve on a variety of committees and have run for elected office because it means working with like-minded folks who are doing their part to give back to an organization that has given us so much. I feel comfortable in SSSP which is why I continue to renew my membership each year and why I attend the meetings!"

Shirley A. Jackson, Portland State University

In SSSP, I have been able to work for the past 20 years within a community of people who are committed to social justice. It has been incredibly rewarding to belong to an organization where I’m able to align my personal and political values with my professional life. This is a place where praxis is possible, and I’m honored to serve as SSSP’s Executive Officer. 

Elroi J. Windsor, University of West Georgia

My earliest memory of SSSP is as a graduate student. It was an inviting and exciting place to be. It was 

a place where ideas based on scholarship were at the center of all discussions but most striking was that all the conversations included how to use our findings to make the world better. To this awe-struck graduate student, it was the most exciting thing ever – research findings were going to make the world more just and fairer.  

Fast forward to 2021, after a stint working on Chicago’s west side, North Lawndale to be exact, 20 years as a faculty member, and now as Director of Research for The Latino Policy Forum in Chicago, I find myself not only using research to influence policy, but I am also honored to be the President of the organization that first showed me that research, activism, and change could and should be conjoined.

Noreen M. Sugrue, The Latino Policy Forum and The Council of International Neonatal Nurses

I first came to SSSP in 1997, through the Association for Humanist Sociology [AHS]. AHS was the group Betty and Al Lee built after leaving SSSP for becoming too much like ASA—'enmeshed deeply in the bureaucratic, technocratic, plutocratic, and imperialistic structure of our society.' I felt then as I do now, that SSSP has the potential to be a radical professional base for people engaged in scholar activism. But we must support and challenge each other, work hard and reflect harder together, and stay committed, be vigilant and find joy with one another, if radical social change is our mission and sociology our method. I continue to ask the same question the Lees did back in 1954: can sociology 'be the brash, young, vital, productive, unsettling, even revolutionary pursuit it has been in its most valuable periods?'

Corey Dolgon, Stonehill College

Alexis Anne Bender, Emory University

I first started coming to SSSP as a graduate student in the late 1980s because my mentor, Barbara Katz Rothman, was involved. Over time, it became my favorite sociological home. I found - and still find - the world of mainstream sociology pretty inhospitable and anomic. SSSP was - and is - far more welcoming. In SSSP, I’ve found brilliant comrades who agree that sociologists should work toward social change, and who combine activism with scholarship. I’ve also made wonderful friends, too, through my involvement in the organization. I am proud to have successfully encouraged many graduate students to attend SSSP, and delighted they have made it their sociological home also.”

   
Wendy Simonds, Georgia State University