Teaching
With fellow winners of the Russell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, Missouri v. UGA, November 2019
Honors/Awards
- University System of Georgia Felton Jenkins, Jr. Hall of Fame Faculty Award, 2025
- Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor of Sociology, 2022- present
- Assistant Director, Lilly Teaching Fellows Program, University of Georgia, 2020-present
- Service Learning Teaching Excellence Award, Office of Service Learning, University of Georgia, 2020
- Richard B. Russell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, University of Georgia, 2019
- Creative Teaching Award, Office of Instruction, University of Georgia, 2019
- Research Mentoring Award, UGA Center for Undergraduate Research Opportunities, 2018
- Outstanding Professor, UGA Student Government Association, 2018
- Sandy Beaver Excellence in Teaching Award, UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, 2017
- Service Learning Fellow, Office of Service Learning, University of Georgia, 2017-18
- Lilly Teaching Fellow, UGA Center for Teaching & Learning, 2014-16
- UGA Student Career Development Recognition, Center for Teaching and Learning (2014-2020)
Current Courses - University of Georgia
Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program (SOCI 4470S - Seminar in Deviance & Social Control)
Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program (SOCI 4470S - Seminar in Deviance & Social Control)
- The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program is an opportunity for a small group of students from UGA and a group of residents from the Athens-Clarke County Jail to exchange ideas and perceptions about crime and justice, the criminal justice system, and imprisonment. It is a chance for all participants to gain a deeper sociological understanding of the criminal justice system by engaging in conversation about theories, academic research, and practical experience.
- This course addresses four deceptively simple questions: 1) What is a juvenile?, 2) What is delinquency?, 3) What causes delinquency?, and 4) What should be done to address delinquency? To answer the first question, we will examine the history of the social construction of age-defined categories like "juvenile" and "adolescence." We will apply the life course perspective and review recent brain science to critically assess these categories. To answer the second question, we will discuss the various ways that delinquency is defined and measured by the criminal legal system and social science. We will examine how trends in delinquency have changed over time and place, and discuss "moral panics" that have emerged periodically over youth crime (e.g., "superpredators"). To address the third question, we will learn how the life course perspective and other sociological theories explain engagement in criminal behavior during the adolescent and young adult years. Finally, to address the fourth question, we will study the history of interventions to address youth crime, including the juvenile court and formal state interventions as well as community-based programs such as diversion, prevention, and restorative justice. Throughout the course, we will discuss how and why certain groups of youth have been excluded from definitions of adolescence and disproportionately impacted by harsh criminal legal sanctions, including Black youth, American Indian youth, Latinx youth, and LGBTQ youth.
- This one-hour course introduces criminal justice majors to criminal justice agencies and occupations as well as current issues facing criminal justice professionals. Students will examine the work, culture, and organizational settings of various criminal justice practitioners, assess ethical issues in criminal justice practice, and learn about new directions in the field. This course will help prepare each student for a career as a criminal justice professional.
- In this course, students will learn about cross-national variation in the definitions, incidence, and prevalence of crime, as well as the influence of culture, structure, and globalization on crime and crime control. Specifically, this course has four objectives. By the end of this course, students will be able to: Explain how the definitions of crime, incidence/prevalence of crime, and crime trends vary cross-nationally; Analyze how cultural and structural forces shape definitions of crime, incidence/prevalence of crime, and crime trends; Evaluate the role of globalization in the commission of and reaction to international crimes (with a focus on human trafficking); Reflect on how our own cultural values and biases shape our understandings of and responses to crime. This course is taught as part of the UGA-University of Liverpool summer study abroad program in criminal justice.
- The purpose of this course is fourfold: 1) to introduce you to the major sociological perspectives on criminal punishment; 2) to help you apply these perspectives to analyze varying forms of criminal punishment, past and present; 3) to familiarize you with the current state and consequences of mass criminalization in the United States; and 4) to engage you in active and collaborative learning through an archival project on the history of criminal punishment in Georgia. The first unit of the course will focus on the major sociological theories that attempt to explain the causes, forms, and functions of criminal punishment. The second unit will cover the current state of mass criminalization in the United States and the effects of current policies and practices on individuals and communities, especially people of color. Class periods during the first two units will include a mix of lectures, discussions, and group work. The third unit of the course will focus on applying the knowledge gained in the first two units through an archival group project at the UGA Special Collections Libraries using materials from the history of criminal punishment in Georgia. The semester will culminate in a public pop-up exhibit event during our final exam period.
- Serial killers. Cold cases. Wrongful convictions. These topics and more animate a thriving (and lucrative) true crime industry in the United States. In some cases, long overdue answers are found. In others, prisoners are set free. But do the countless docuseries and podcasts we consume really tell us the truth about crime and punishment? This course will help students separate fact from fiction when it comes to crime and criminal punishment in the United States. We will explore topics including how media portrayals of crime shape public fears (and our own), how true crime perpetuates myths about crime and punishment, how true crime stories affect victims of crime, how race and gender intersect with true crime, and whether or not true crime narratives contribute to social change. In the end, true crime may tell us more about ourselves (and our society) than it does the truth about crime and punishment.
