Graduate student receives outstanding student paper award
Jeremy Uecker receives McNamara award from ASR
Sociology graduate student Jeremy Uecker was awarded the 2008 Robert J. McNamara Student Paper Award from the Association for the Sociology of Religion (ASR) for his paper, "Religious and Spiritual Responses to 9/11: Evidence from the Add Health Sample." He will present the paper at the ASR meeting in July, and it is forthcoming in a special issue of Sociological Spectrum on the sociology of religion.

Assistant Professor to join investigation in virtual communities
Dr Simone Browne joins Humanities, Art, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory this fall
Dr Simone Browne has recently joined HASTAC (the Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory), a group of MacArthur-funded scholars working on issues related to virtual communities and harnessing communication technologies for classroom use.

She will be working with other scholars in piloting a class activity exploring issues of race, gender, and presentation of self in the virtual world in fall, 2008.

Undergraduates awarded prestigious Hibbs Scholarship
Kelly Burns, Deva Cats-Baril and Lisa Newhouse received Hibbs Scholarship for 2008-9
Sociology undergraduates Kelly Burns, Deva Cats-Baril and Lisa Newhouse have each been awarded a Hibbs Scholarship in the amount of $1,000 for the 2008-2009 academic year. The Dr Bailey R Collins/Ellene Collins Ward/Mary Sue Collins Hibbs Scholarship Fund was created through a bequest from the estate of Mrs Hibbs in memory of her brother, her sister and herself. Because of Mrs Hibbs' generosity, the scholarship was able to be established in several undergraduate departments in the College of Liberal Arts.

Professor Marc Musick's new book out
Volunteers: A Social Profile
Making use of a broad range of survey information to offer a detailed portrait of the volunteer in America, Volunteers: A Social Profile, co-authored by Marc Musick and John Wilson (Duke University), provides an important resource for everyone who works with volunteers or is interested in their role in contemporary society. Musick and Wilson address issues of volunteer motivation by focusing on individuals' subjective states, their available resources, and the influence of gender and race.

"A much needed book for both scholars and practitioners. It covers a wide range of topics dealing with volunteering...A major contribution." --Virginia Hodgkinson, Center for Voluntary Organizations and Service

Professors Muller and Umberson invited to join the Sociological Research Association
Chandra Muller and Debra Umberson new members of prestigious organization
Dr Chandra Muller and Dr Debra Umberson have recently been invited to join the Sociological Research Association (SRA). Founded in 1936, the SRA's mission is to recognize and promote excellence in sociological research. Currently, its membership numbers about 425 (some of whom are emeriti). Invitations to membership are extended to a limited number of sociologists each year, based on their long-term careers of distinguished research.

Sociology Graduate Coordinator receives UT Outstanding Graduate Coordinator Award
Evelyn Porter awarded Outstanding Graduate Coordinator for 2008
Sociology Graduate Coordinator, Evelyn Porter, has received the 2008 Outstanding Graduate Coordinator Award, sponsored by the Office of Graduate Studies. Congratulations!

With age comes a sense of peace and calm, Population Research Center study shows
Professors Ross and Mirowsky publish findings Social Science and Medicine
Aging brings a sense of peace and calm, according to a new study from the Population Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin. Starting at about age 60, participants reported more feelings of ease and contentment than their younger counterparts.

Catherine Ross and John Mirowsky, professors of sociology, have published the findings in "Age and the Balance of Emotions" in the May 19 issue of Social Science and Medicine. The research was funded in part by the National Institute on Aging.

The findings reveal aging is associated with more positive than negative emotions, and more passive than active emotions, Ross said.

Previous research on emotions associated with aging focused on negative emotions, such as depression. However, a second dimension underlying emotions is an active versus passive dimension, which is less studied, but may be important in explaining how emotions shift as people age, according to the researchers.

"The passive/positive combination reveals that contentment, calm and ease are some of the most common emotions people feel as they age," Ross said. "Emotions that are both active and negative, such as anxiety and anger, are especially unlikely among the elderly."

The study examined 1,450 responses to the 1996 U.S. General Social Survey conducted by the National Opinion Research Center, which included English-speaking people aged 18 and older. The gender distribution of the sample was 56 percent female and 44 percent male, and the racial distribution was 81 percent white, 14 percent African American and 5 percent other races.

Participants responded to statements such as "On how many days in the past seven days have you...felt that you couldn't shake the blues, felt sad, felt lonely, felt anxious and tense, felt worried, felt so restless that you couldn't sit long in a chair, felt angry at someone, felt mad at someone, felt outraged at something somebody had done, felt calm, felt at ease, felt contented, felt happy, felt overjoyed by something, felt excited about or interested in something, felt proud, felt embarrassed, felt ashamed."

The researchers then grouped the emotions in four categories: active, passive, positive and negative.

Secondary findings reveal women had more negative than positive emotions, and more passive than active emotions than men. Also, participants with higher income and education levels had significantly more positive emotions than those with lower income and education levels.