Sociology at Commonwealth University - Bloomsburg, Lock Haven and Mansfield

09/03/2026

The University of Chicago was always ahead... ironically, this time, by rejecting technology.

The University of Chicago has reportedly announced a new policy banning AI, laptops, phones, smartwatches, and recorded lectures in its core undergraduate social science courses, according to a memo obtained by the student newspaper Chicago Maroon. Officials say the policy, set to begin this fall, is designed to help students "read, write, and think without dependence on AI."

According to reports, students will be expected to read assignments on paper and take part in device-free, in-person discussions. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that one professor described his reaction to the memo as "relief and jubilation." The university's law school reportedly introduced a similar device ban earlier this year. Officials say the intent is to reduce classroom distractions and encourage genuine face-to-face engagement among students. 📚 It raises an interesting question about how much technology should shape modern learning. 🤔

Sources: Chicago Maroon, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Forbes, Inside Higher Ed

08/25/2026

An interesting article from Samuel Abrams about teaching sociology.

Ideas like social capital, organizational culture, institutional trust and role conflict all came out of sociology.

08/18/2026

Here is a young Erving Goffman, one of the most influential sociologists of the 20th century... in case you wanted to know.

08/16/2026

Wisdom from sociologist C Wright Mills...

“The more we understand what is happening in the world, the more frustrated we often become, for our knowledge leads to feelings of powerlessness.

We feel that we are living in a world in which the citizen has become a mere spectator or a forced actor, and that our personal experience is politically useless and our political will a minor illusion.

Very often, the fear of total permanent war paralyzes the kind of morally oriented politics, which might engage our interests and our passions.

We sense the cultural mediocrity around us-and in us-and we know that ours is a time when, within and between all the nations of the world, the levels of public sensibilities have sunk below sight; atrocity on a mass scale has become impersonal and official; moral indignation as a public fact has become extinct or made trivial.”

—C. Wright Mills

08/12/2026

The official music video for James Blunt - Someone Singing AlongT...