A message from Pennsylvania Sociological Society President
Janice Purk
Dear Pennsylvania Sociological Society Members and Guests:
I want to welcome you to the homepage of the Pennsylvania Sociological Society. I am excited to be part of this organization, now in its 62nd year, and to be president of the Association for the 2011-2012 organizational year. The PSS has been serving Pennsylvania sociology faculty, students, researchers, and other professionals for that time and continues to be a place to share ideas, network, and learn from one another. The benefits of the state organization include drawing sociologists together in a common focus and allowing for strong conversation to better the work of sociology, especially within the Commonwealth.
This year the PSS theme is, “Changing Lives: Real potentials of humanity.” We will be examining how sociologists work to facilitate change to better society. Lester Ward, the first president of the ASA, wrote the book Applied Sociology in 1906 as sociologists tried to determine the focus of our discipline. He emphasized the need to have the work of our research serve the community and the world. Today the need is as great as it was more than 100 years ago to have the work of sociology continue to reach out to better the world and those lives in it. I am looking forward to this topic to add to the social activism focus from last year’s conference and to continue those discussions while building new discussions, as well as reviewing the success of the past work of sociology.
This year’s conference will include paper presentations from sociologists and student,s as well as poster sessions from both graduate and undergraduate students. I encourage all of you to attend and participate in the 62nd annual meeting of the PSS coming in fall 2012 at Penn State Schuylkill in Schuylkill Haven, Pennsylvania. The conference will begin on Friday, October 12, 2012 and continue through Saturday, October 13th. In addition to learning from and collaborating with one another, this is also an excellent way to introduce students to the discipline along with professional and research activities of sociologists.
SincerelyJanice Purk