ECU Department of Sociology

09/03/2026

How cool is this? ECU profiled our chair, Dr. Cindy Anderson! Read all about her here:

Dr. Cindy Anderson connects the seemingly unconnected patterns in society as a researcher, professor and chair of ECU’s Department of Sociology.

09/02/2026

Kudos to Dr. Melinda Kane and her co-authors, Leya Essex (who earned her MA from ECU Sociology) and Michelle Voyles (who earned her bachelor’s from ECU Sociology! Their chapter in this new beautiful book, published with UNC Press, is titled, “Seeking ‘Dignity’: State Variations in Catholic LGBTQ+ Organizational Activism, 1973-2009.”

This fascinating chapter examines Dignity USA, which formed in 1969 as a space where LGBTQ+ Catholics could be both Catholic & q***r, and as an activist organization working to create change within the larger Church.

In this chapter, Kane, Essex and Voyles document the number of Dignity chapters across the US from 1973 to 2009. They use social movement theory to investigate the association of Dignity chapters with variations in Catholic & LGBTQ+ community resources, the cultural context, and the larger political & legal climate. Check out the results!

09/01/2026

Introducing a new weekly feature from ECU Sociology: Tues-data. Each week, we’ll share a quick look at a sociological pattern we created using publicly available data. Creating and interpreting visualizations is one of the skills sociology students learn: finding credible data, identifying meaningful patterns, and communicating those patterns to a broad audience.

For our first visualization, we look at how much time Americans spend alone across age groups. Time alone isn’t the same thing as loneliness, but it tells us something important about how everyday social life differs across groups.

Visualization created by ECU Sociology. Data source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, American Time Use Survey, 2025

08/28/2026

On this splendid Friday at the end of week 2 of fall 2026, enjoy this adorable picture of Ashleigh Howard in kindergarten at Rodgers Elementary School in Bear Grass, NC. She said this gorgeous head of hair got chopped off during “the bowl cut years.” 😂 that era hit so many of us.

08/27/2026

This little guy pictured here graduating from kindergarten is Mr. Jermaine McNair. He went to Hayestown Avenue Elementary School in Danbury, Connecticut. As he says, “I was serious about education, even then!” Love it!

08/26/2026

Good morning! Today we flash back only a few years to the day when Mr. Ken Foerman was working on his Master of Arts in Sociology at ECU. Here he was accepting his induction into sociology’s honor society, Alpha Kappa Delta, or AKD. He had to accept virtually because it was the pandemic. What a time!

08/25/2026

Today we bring you a middle school photo of Dr. Kirk Miller: he thinks this was either 6th or 7th grade at Walker Middle School in Charlottesville, Va. Sometimes those golden years run together 💙

08/24/2026

Happy Monday of week two (already!?!) of Fall 2026 in ECU’s Department of Sociology. To help kick off the week, here’s Dr. Kristen Myers in 1st grade at Pearsontown Elementary School in Durham, NC. Groovy, baby.

08/22/2026

Next up in our way-back-to-school series is none other than our Department Chair: Dr. Cindy Anderson! Here she was a 3rd grader at Forest Hill Elementary School in Morganton, NC. School was only a two block walk from home 🏠 ❤️. Adorable.

08/21/2026

Dr. Susan Pearce was beaming for the camera on picture day in second grade at Raines Elementary School in Jackson, Mississippi. She was radiant in this outfit that her great aunt brought her from Mexico. We can feel the joy.