Student Awards and Honors - College of Arts and Sciences

Department ofSociology

SCU Awards

The Sociology Department awards several distinct honors to its majors in recognition of their scholarship and service. Sociology juniors and seniors with strong academic records are invited to join the academic honor society, Alpha Kappa Delta. Seniors are eligible for four different awards: the Witold Krassowski Sociology Award for a research paper; the Sociology Alumni Award For Excellence in Community-Based Work; the Sociology Academic Excellence Award; and the Creative Expression in Sociology Award. The Sociology Department encourages student self-nominations.

Witold Krassowski Sociology Award

In honor of Witold Krassowski, the founder of the Sociology Department at SCU, this prize is awarded by the Sociology faculty for an exemplary senior research paper in Sociology.

Sociology Alumni Award For Excellence in Community-Based Research

Established by our Sociology alumni, this prize is given annually by the faculty of the Department of Sociology to a graduating senior for excellence in applying sociological knowledge and action while a student at SCU to positively impact the community on or off campus.

Sociology Academic Excellence Award

This award recognizes academic excellence and is granted to the graduating senior(s) with the highest Sociology GPA. The recipient is determined by the faculty of the Department of Sociology.

Creative Expression in Sociology Award

This award recognizes creative or innovative student work in Sociology other than traditional research papers. Formats may include but are not limited to podcasts, spoken word poems, documentaries, visual ethnographies, visual art pieces, performance art or other innovative projects in the discipline. The award, determined by the Sociology faculty, will go to the most creative or innovative Sociology project that also demonstrates the sociological imagination.

Honors

Alpha Kappa Delta (AKD)

Becoming a member of the honor society brings you many benefits and the prestige of being a part of a selective group of very accomplished inductees and alumni. You might read more on the AKD website. Every year, the department hosts a special induction ceremony to honor new student members.

Alpha Kappa Delta, the national sociology honor society, was founded at the University of Southern California in 1920. The Santa Clara University chapter, Alpha Mu, was founded in 2000. The society’s primary goal is to encourage excellence in social research for the purpose of service. To be invited to join, a student must be a sociology major of junior or senior standing, have an overall grade point average of at least 3.3, and 3.0 in the major, have completed at least four sociology courses, and have successfully completed at least one of the sociology upper-division major requirements.

“My sociology classes at Santa Clara empowered me, for the first time, to articulate the experiences I've had around equity. Now that I'm a teacher, I think back to everything I've learned around the criminal justice system, globalization, race, and inequality to help guide my goals and the vision for my classroom. My sociology professors prepared me to do the deep, critical thinking I need.”

—Perla Luna (winner of Sociology Academic Excellence Award)

“By combining environmental studies with sociology, I am equipped to understand the relationships between people, institutions, and natural systems, and am prepared with the qualitative and quantitative research methods needed to successfully analyze the interacting factors and take action. This knowledge, combined with the skills learned from SCU on coalescing community to work for change, aligns me to explore how cities may best create and implement equitable solutions for climate change.”