Center for the Study of Social Movements

and Social Change

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In recent years, the Department of Sociology has developed a critical mass of scholars who specialize in the study of social movements, protest and other kinds of collective behavior, and social change.  These scholars all have strong research programs that are focused in complementary ways on the study of social movements.  These faculty and related graduate students organized and supported a variety of academic activities related to the study of social movements and then formally organized to create a center in support of their activities. The aims of the center are generally to draw more attention to the strong research on social movements being conducted at Notre Dame, to help recruit strong graduate students who share our interests, and to help forge interdisciplinary connections among scholars of social movements and social change. 

Faculty Affiliates

The inaugural group of faculty supporting the center were all in the Department of Sociology, but the group hopes to soon add other faculty affiliates. The four originators of the center were:

Daniel J. Myers

Professor and Chair of Sociology

Rory McVeigh

Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of Graduate Studies

Jackie Smith

Associate Professor of Sociology and the Kroc Institute

Erika Summers-Effler

Assistant Professor of Sociology

Activities

The Center will coordinate intellectual activities related to social movements and social change at the University of Notre Dame for faculty, graduate students and Undergraduate students.  It will provide an umbrella for the following activities and coordinate the implementation of each in conjunction with other units to provide a more coherent program of academic activity. 

(1) Interdisciplinary, international conferences on social movements topics (two have occurred in past years, one is in planning stages for Fall 2006; another for 2007).

(2) Faculty/graduate student study group that meets weekly to discuss research in progress (now in its 5th year of operation).

(3) Lectures from outside scholars.

(4) An undergraduate research group (now in its 8th year of operation).

(5) Editorial activities including the editorship of Mobilization, the leading social movements journal and edited volumes derived from our conferences and other activities. 

(6) Research programs headed by four faculty affiliates which have produced highly visible book and article contributions published with our strongest presses and in our most prestigious journals which use a diverse array of methodological and theoretical approaches;

(7) Grants from the National Science Foundation and others. 

(8) Coordination of curricular offerings and cross-listings related to social movements and social change.

Benefits

Although many activities of the center could be and have been conducted successfully in an ad hoc and uncoordinated fashion, the center will improve our growing reputation in social movement studies and give it more gravity.  This provides a series of benefits to our academic community including:

(1) a clearinghouse for information about scholarly activities related to social movements at the University of Notre Dame;

(2) a more concrete and sustained body to support conference activities and other kinds of outreach to the community of social movement scholars;

(3) assisting with the recruitment of graduate students who are interested in social movements and related topics;

(4) creating an administrative unit whose image would enhance our opportunities to land training and research grants;

(5) developing interdisciplinary connections and collaborative with scholars of social movements at Notre Dame in other disciplines;

(6) allowing better coordination of all of the above mentioned activities plus provide a catalyst for new initiatives--such as the development of an interdisciplinary minor; an expansion of our undergraduate research program; and coordination of curricular offerings across departments.